[Any] - Good Dungeon-Planner Programs?

[Shadow_Elf]

I was wondering if anyone knew of a good downloadable program or app that works well (regardless of whether its designed for) planning gridded maps. I know the best way is pen & paper maps, but I'm tired of having to constantly redraw similar maps whenever I decided one dimension needs changing.

[Olo Demonsbane]

http://www.bin.sh/gaming/tools/dungeon.cgi

Awesome link.

EDIT: Though not what you are looking for, sorry.

[Dagren]

I'll admit it's far from optimal, but I've actually used spreadsheet programs before. Obviously there are better ones out there, however it works quite well if you want to shift half the dungeon 5 feet to the right, for example. Useless if you want to go beyond a grid.

(Awaits people saying "...what?")

[potatocubed]

I use Dungeon Crafter III (can't remember where I got it from) although it's only good for small maps - I suspect that you can get 'big map' functionality if you pay for it, though.

[Siosilvar]

You could use Photoshop or GIMP (the free, open-source version, almost as good).

[Zaq]

I used to use AutoCAD. ("Used to use" is an interesting linguistic construction. Huh.) If you know what you're doing, it's great, both within grids and breaking free of them. Using different layers is really useful if you get creative with it. You can use it for multi-level altitudes, dealing with what people can and can't see, what's real and what's illusory, and so on. Also, functions like offset and array are phenomenally useful.

The biggest beef I had with it was that AutoCAD doesn't have an option for actually printing the grid. If you actually want an ink-and-paper, dead-tree version to work with, you have to either make your own grid (time-consuming) or printscreen-copy it over to a more traditional image-editing program (clunky and unforgiving.) Still, if you know how to use AutoCAD, I recommend it.

[AgentPaper]

AutoCAD

As someone who knows how to use this program, I'll agree that it would be a perfect fit. Unfortunately, last I checked it costs a few hundred to a few thousand dollars to get. Or is there some lightweight/limited version for less/free? :smallconfused:

[Gralamin]

I was wondering if anyone knew of a good downloadable program or app that works well (regardless of whether its designed for) planning gridded maps. I know the best way is pen & paper maps, but I'm tired of having to constantly redraw similar maps whenever I decided one dimension needs changing.

Maptool, especially with a wide array of resources you can steal from various places on the net. Their gallery is a good resource, as are sprite sites.