Village Battlemap WIP
LordEntrails
Traveler
Would appreciate any feedback on this map. It is the village of Telair, which is the first combat location in the adventure I'm creating. I've been struggling with this map and would appreciate feedback. Thanks.
Comments
I'm gathering that the gray line across the middle is either a road or a wall. If it's a wall I'd make sure to have some shadows, and if it's a road, I might add some edge fade to make it worn.
For the brownish "bump" on the right hand side I would increase the scaling of the fill bitmap to remove some of the repetitive pattern. The green of the "grass" is a little too neat. See if you can place some overlays of "dirt" or debris to break the surface a bit.
The huts seem to have a "glow" (sunlight shine) coming from the narrow direction. If you can replicate that "glow" on the wide direction for those huts that are horizontal it would go a long way towards establishing the lighting coming from the same direction.
You also mentioned you planned to have a battle here... Is this battle going to be straight up combat? Or an ambush? If it's an ambush where are your enemies going to hide? More importantly, will there be a y way for your heroes to find cover as they figure out how to fight the enemy?
If you ask yourself these questions, your answers can inspire you to add.character to your map...that makes it more real to your players, and helps them get more Into them characters. And Everyone has more fun.
This is just my opinion, and you can take what you want and throw the rest out... But game maps can do more than just show locations. They can also promote and inspire your story, provide quest possibilities, or even distract your players while the enemies plot behind the scenes. In other words, they can help bring life to your game, and breed excitement for your players
Just my two cents worth.
- Make some place more believable, more consistent, more outstanding
- It can help make the fight more fun, with each round different from the previous one
For instance, it looks like the building are thatched. It can mean someone digging a hole to snipe on the players, or it can mean burning. Or both. What can you do to push your players in that direction? Well, there could just be some outside fire where people are roasting some lamb of some NPC. So they have a source of fire available. It might also be the other way. Will they have to save some children trapped by some fire (maybe the one they started themselves...)? Then you'd better add a source of water. Draw a ladder to give them the idea to climb of a roof. And if they do, give them bonus due to the better shooting position. Have some beasts in a pen so that some players can think of frightening them into trampling the bad guys.
Some players don't need that kind of incentive to think about this kind of stuff, but I've noticed that when you provide a map, especially a battle-map, they tend to use only what is on the map, and that in one way, it can limits their imagination. So you need to use your own to create a rich map and overcome this tendency, by providing them some opportunities to act with cunning and, who knows, panache.
This is a map of a village where the campaign I'm writing (Balance Disturbed, for the DMsG) starts (5E D&D). Here's the DM summary of the village:
'This village is the last settlement along the ancient King’s Road and consists of about two dozen structures and 100 residents (mostly human with a few gnomes, dwarves, and half-elves). Except for the smithy and inn, all of the building are nearly identical in style and build.'
I forget what template I used to start this, but looking at the drawing properties, it is listed as 'CC3 Basic City Digital'. I've tried using the various drawing tools, but they always give me errors. Something I haven't had time to figure out why. Part of why the sheets and layers are messed up.
No effects were applied. This is my first CC3+ map (haven't done anything since CC2) and I didn't have the time to experiment.
The grey line up the middle is a stone road. The brown blob is dirt from carts and travel to the well (which is in the middle of it). IMO it should just be more like tracks and a worn area, but again, limited time and no know-how. I don't know how to add shadows or edge fade, but I'll see what I can find in the documentation and in other threads. Same thing about the grass/dirt patches.
The huts are all from the VCC collection. I didn't add the sunlight glow to them. Instead of rotating them, I can try stretching them, but then the ridge lines might be whacked. Will try.
For the setting/play-ability type comments; all good, thanks. This is a quiet little place on the edge of a peaceful kingdom. The action starts with a midnight raid by goblins. So the players start spread out in the various huts depending upon which campaign specific background they choose. The other huts all start with villagers in them. The goblins far outnumber the villagers, and the objective is to make it alive to the inn, and save some of the villagers if you can.
There's a lot of detail I need to add to the inn, including ladders to get up onto the stables and the gatehouse. I also want to add vegetable gardens and livestock pens around/behind the huts in places too. As this will be published in both pdf and Fantasy Grounds versions, I want to add some fire tokens too, as the goblins will be setting the huts on fire as they proceed into the village.
Lack of time we all understand, it seems none of us have as much as we need or want!
Lack of know how can be fixed, once you find the time
A couple of.quick ways to get the knowledge rolling.
The cd3+ manual...if you use it as a walk through, and apply the lessons to your map... You will learn quite a bit, and there is a set of PDF tutorials here on the site that you can download. They helped me a lot with sheet effects.
Monsen's To.e of Ultimate Mapping has detailed instructions for each program ProFantasy puts out. I haven't checked out his To.e for cd3, but I can't imagine him being g any less thorough than he is for cc3.
Joe Sweeney may have some video tutorials on you tube. He's really good at walking you through the process of making a map, and that way, you can see exactly what he's doing. I should caution you... He uses cc3, and the interface looks slightly different, but all of the tools and buttons are in the same place, so his tutorials can help.
The manuals can be used as a walkthrough also.
And last, in the community support category there is a sticky thread that has links to all kinds of resources. I would check that out if you get stuck.
Hope that helps! If not... Just ask