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Making DND Maps
As someone who DM's a lot of short, casual sessions with rotating members, I burn through a lot of maps. I'd love to hear some of your recommendations for how you guys either find or create maps that suit your situations.
For me: r/battlemaps has some really high quality stuff and gets me 90% of the time. I usually type in a key word or two (e.g. bridge; throne room) and usually I'll find something that gets close to the mark.
I know that some have been using generative AI to delve into this space as well, so if anyone has any experience there, I'd love to hear it!
Before I started my current multi-year campaign in the Underdark, I went on Patreon and found about a dozen map creators who listed having Underdark maps, threw five bucks at each of them, and collected them all into a big folder.
They are of varying quality and style, but it has allowed me to make up pretty much every situation that I could want in Foundry.
I will say that nobody had a good map for an ever-changing labyrinth with prebuilt walls that shifted as players moved. Also nobody had a good 3D map for a beholder fight in a long vertical shaft. Maybe I am asking too much to use the tool in ways it is explicitly not designed for, though.
Wow the vertical beholder fight sounds like such an interesting challenge environment I dont often see in d&d. Would you be interested in sharing more on that one?
I didn't come up with it. It was stolen directly from Out of the Abyss. The premise is that the party finds themselves in a beholder's lair, which is a long vertical shaft with a bunch of hallways all coming out of it at random heights with rope bridges connecting them. As they fight, the beholder will use eye rays to break the bridges that the players are on, forcing them to get creative with placement and figure out how to get within range.
The fight is not fun for a melee heavy party.
I picked up Dungeon Alchemist on a Steam sale a while back, and I've been very happy with it. It took about a half day learning curve of youtube tutorials, but between the tutorial and assets/maps available in the workshop, I've been able to turn out some great maps for what we needed them for. Bonus points that it can do dynamic lighting and such for Foundry.