# Town battle maps?



## Othur the Bellied (May 3, 2009)

I'm starting a campaign with an LCD projected "tabletop," and I'm looking for good battle maps (5-ft squares) of towns.

Any good products out there, please recommend.  Whether it's game tiles or adventures/modules with good battle maps, I want to know about it.  I'm interested in purchasing (or free is good too!) PDFs or other e-book products -- not paper books.  

Thanks so much!


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## Glyfair (May 3, 2009)

The 3.5 Fantastic Locations _City of Peril_ product has some nice city battlemaps.  A visual is here.
Paizo's City Market fits the bill as well.  They also have a couple of locations that can work in a city (a tavern, a keep, a theatre, a cathedral and an arena).

Edit:  Oops, missed that you were looking for only non-print products (the looking for "5 ft squares" threw me for some reason).  Try looking here


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## Betote (May 3, 2009)

I bought *City of Peril* for the maps alone and haven't regretted doing it yet. The town square and narrow streets maps are extremely useful and generic enough to fit almost everywhere; I end up using them in almost every session. The other two are less generic, but they're good use anyway, specially the inn one.


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## Othur the Bellied (May 3, 2009)

Betote said:


> I bought *City of Peril* for the maps alone and haven't regretted doing it yet. The town square and narrow streets maps are extremely useful and generic enough to fit almost everywhere; I end up using them in almost every session. The other two are less generic, but they're good use anyway, specially the inn one.



The City of Peril looks pretty cool, but doesn't it only come with four maps?


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## Riley (May 3, 2009)

The Mad Mapper is your friend:
The Mad Mapper - Town

In particular, make sure you go to page 3, and the end of page 2, of the gallery.


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## Riley (May 3, 2009)

You might also find some of the Dungeon Magazine galleries useful:
Dungeon 161 Galleries
Dungeon 165 Galleries
...and there are others with street scenes, etc.

Oh, and Skeleton Key Games did some street battle maps for Ptolus:
http://www.montecook.com/cgi-bin/page.cgi?Ptolus_Skeletonkey


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## Othur the Bellied (May 3, 2009)

Riley said:


> The Mad Mapper is your friend:
> The Mad Mapper - Town
> 
> In particular, make sure you go to page 3, and the end of page 2, of the gallery.



Wow, some of those maps are amazing!  I have definitely found what I'm looking for -- thank you!

Another question though (and maybe I'll have to ask it elsewhere): What's the best way to go about adding a square grid to these maps?

Thanks again!


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## Mark (May 3, 2009)

Othur the Bellied said:


> Another question though (and maybe I'll have to ask it elsewhere): What's the best way to go about adding a square grid to these maps?
> 
> Thanks again!





What programs do you have available to you? And what programs are you most familiar with?


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## catsclaw227 (May 3, 2009)

You can also check out eAdventure Tiles by skeleton key games.  They have their Adventure Town stuff and you should be able to photoshop together some city streets with that.


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## Othur the Bellied (May 3, 2009)

Mark said:


> What programs do you have available to you? And what programs are you most familiar with?



I have photoshop, which I'm familiar with at a novice level.  I also just got Dundjinni, but have no experience with it yet.


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## Riley (May 3, 2009)

Othur the Bellied said:


> Wow, some of those maps are amazing!  I have definitely found what I'm looking for -- thank you!
> 
> Another question though (and maybe I'll have to ask it elsewhere): What's the best way to go about adding a square grid to these maps?
> 
> Thanks again!




Glad to point you in the right direction, though the real credit for the stuff on that site should go to Tintagel (who hangs around these boards) and Cisticola.

I use Adobe Photoshop to overlay a grid over the image.  (In my case, I just use dots indicating the corners where the gridlines cross).

Maybe you already know this, but when it comes to displaying maps, KQ cartographer Jon Roberts pointed me to a free program called maptool:
:: View topic - KQ9: What an absolutely beautiful map
RPTools - Home

Have fun!


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## Mark (May 3, 2009)

Riley said:


> I use Adobe Photoshop to overlay a grid over the image.  (In my case, I just use dots indicating the corners where the gridlines cross).





Can you describe the process you use in a few easy steps?


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## Othur the Bellied (May 3, 2009)

Mark said:


> Can you describe the process you use in a few easy steps?



 Yeah, that'd be swell!


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## Mercutio01 (May 4, 2009)

Othur the Bellied said:


> I have photoshop, which I'm familiar with at a novice level.  I also just got Dundjinni, but have no experience with it yet.



I just wanted to plug Cisticola's maps as they are among the best I've ever seen made by using Dundjinni.  He does post-production work (shadows, etc) in Photoshop, but Dundjinni is the base product.

You could also look through the Dundjinni forum for maps.


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## Othur the Bellied (May 4, 2009)

Mercutio01 said:


> I just wanted to plug Cisticola's maps as they are among the best I've ever seen made by using Dundjinni...



Yes, I concur!  It did not take very long for me to recognize that all of the best maps were made by this person named *Cisticola*.  I have since been grabbing everything of his (or hers?) that I can get my hands on!


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## Riley (May 4, 2009)

Mark said:


> Can you describe the process you use in a few easy steps?




Well, I actually print out the maps in 8x10 chunks and glue them down to construction paper - I don't have a projector, but I do have a refillable continuous ink supply jury-rigged to my inkjet printer.  Makes great tabletop maps for cheap.  Skipping the more involved process for achieving that...

I created a layer on which I defined a grid of 1", and choose the 'snap to grid' option.  I then chose a pen tool (or some such tool) in a color and a circular brush diameter (100% hardness) which was visible but not too overwhelming for the maps underneath.  I then started to draw a line - but gave it zero length - starting at each of the grid reference points.  Eventually, I had an 8x10 grid of little dots that I now just paste over whatever map I'm printing.

Hope that makes sense.  There's probably an easier way to do it, but I have little photoshop skill.


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## Othur the Bellied (May 4, 2009)

Riley said:


> I use Adobe Photoshop to overlay a grid over the image...



You lost me with the first step! I tried and tried, but I could not find how to "overlay a grid." 

Could you help me out a little bit.........? Thanks!


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## Riley (May 5, 2009)

Othur the Bellied said:


> You lost me with the first step! I tried and tried, but I could not find how to "overlay a grid."
> 
> Could you help me out a little bit.........? Thanks!




Sure.

For an 8x10 grid template:

1)	Open Photoshop
2)	File -> New
a. Width 8 in, Height 10 in, 200 dpi, CMYK, 16 bit, transparent background
b. OK​3)	Edit -> Preferences -> Guide, Grid & Slices
a.	Grid: Lines, every 1 inches, 1 subdivision​4)	View -> Rulers (yes)
5)	View -> Snap (yes)
6)	View -> Snap To -> Grid (yes)
7)	Select Brush Tool
a.	Brush size 20 (or as you prefer)
    b.	Brush hardness 100%
    c.	Brush color black (or as you prefer)​8)	Click once on each of the spots where the grid lines cross
9)	Save this document.
10)	Copy and paste this layer upon a 200 dpi, 8x10 piece of map.

I made these in a few different resolutions and colors, to match whichever map I wanted to impose this grid on.

Hope that helps!


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