Miniatures

[Ardantis]

So, I'm starting an E6 game soon, and I've been debating the use of miniatures and battlegrids in my game.

I've never used them before, but I'm using Gnorman's Class/Archetypes and a lot of them have abilities which seem best expressed using physical models.

Do you use miniatures in your DnD/other RPGs? What advice do you have in using them? How is it different from a game run using pure imagination?

I am confident in my ability to maintain the atmosphere of the game, but I don't know what obvious or not-so-obvious pitfalls I might encounter using miniatures. Does anyone have any advice?

Note: I own a brand-new Pathfinder Elf Mage miniature, but most of my miniatures will probably be old Marvel and DC Heroclix figures, so they might not look entirely "authentic."

[HunterColt22]

Minis can often help, especially in battle context due to cones and AOEs, considering if I have a general idea of where something is going to hit, I am moving the freak away. An example, last night with our session I am a warforged scout, with the rogue class, thus I am the trap finder in the group, I come across a small room, with a long hall way that ends with a giant and ornate chest in it.... Yeah, the doesnt scream freaking trap at all, especially after I got caught by a mimic a room before hand, bloody gooey thing. In either case, I move my mini ten feet back on the board and fire a shot at the chest revealing automated traps.

It essentially helps visualize where you are in relation to other items, and minis can help give a scale for things, and also for those players that may have problems visualizing what their character looks like, a mini can drastically increase that immersion in a game since you can then say, "This is me, this is who I am, what I look like, how I am, How I move where I move, and how fast I move... I am me." Etc.

[Invader]

Personally I love using minis. I like being to look at the board or table or what have you and have definitive distances and obstacles that I can see and I like strategy involved with making the numbers work exactly the way you want in terms of spell size, distance, etc.

That being said, I think using mini's can slow down combat a lot for the exact reason I mentioned above.

I'm also a big fan of using terrain and set pieces to bring a little more life to the battle. I can understand how using minis and grids can kinda be boring if you don't put any time into drawing some stuff out on the grids to give a better picture.

[Ardantis]

Hunter, I love your description of your game last night, and could imagine how the miniature enabled you to make decisions and share them with your party.

Invaderk2, I'm glad you've had some positive experience with minis. As far as terrain goes, I think I'm going to buy a pre-decorated map and just use the features given. This also helps me save time in designing a dungeon.

You said that miniatures can slow down a combat. How does that happen, and how might I avoid it?

[Krazzman]

As being said before it helps utilizing quite a few things.

In our group we rarely use it due to most being descriptive or resolved without real tactics. On certain occurences the battleplan is brought to the table. This is done to better illustrate and to better say how in a high tactical combat things resolve.

Example: our DM build a room with a big about 6x6 m pillar that spits flames in certain directions. Futhermore there are 3 switches and 3 guardians in the "corners" when activated will reveal a fourth door with a switch to disable this trap. Without a battleplan we wouldn't quite know if we could reach the rooms or how the flamepillar would act.

Another thing was in the beginning of that campaign we rushed into a cave with about 20 kobolds in and stone pillars around. Thanks to the battlemap we could use tactical cover and hiding behind stalagmites/tites and such.

If the money for minis and battleplans concerns you:
Print a DinA3 (practically 2 dinA4 pages) page with squares roughly the size of your miniatures bases (a slight bit bigger) and laminate it. You can now mark things and draw stuff on it while still being able to wash it away.
For miniatures either use Old Minis from Warhammer and such or... there was a paperclipmonsterproject somewhere here... It was recommended in a thread where I asked for a cheap solution to minis... not so sure anymore what the topic was called.

Hope this helps.

[HunterColt22]

Hunter, I love your description of your game last night, and could imagine how the miniature enabled you to make decisions and share them with your party.

Invaderk2, I'm glad you've had some positive experience with minis. As far as terrain goes, I think I'm going to buy a pre-decorated map and just use the features given. This also helps me save time in designing a dungeon.

You said that miniatures can slow down a combat. How does that happen, and how might I avoid it?

Generally as Invader mentioned, minis can slow down combat by virtue of what they do, visualize an imaginative space realistically. An example, say you have a wide open room, with two pillars ten feet high, three four foot high, and three six foot high, and then you have enemies position in the room in between each pillar, some are archers, others are spell casters, and one say is a dragon. Now, with minis in place, you have to make sure creatures take up the correct square placement, PCs and NPCS are in the correct positions for bonuses, such as flanking, auras etc. rather than just saying "I get into that position and make sure to stay there for said x factor for y result happening." Being able to hit things correctly without them having concealment.

It also slows down because PCs and you have to move said minis around the board, and how you do it can play a big part in battle. These type of things include, making sure you hit maximum numbers with AOE attacks, height, if someone has the high ground, making sure you can make it a spot due to your movement, ect. While it helps, just be prepared for combat to take longer, as in alot longer, because you now have more to resolve, but you also have more toys to play with as a DM. The pillars I mentioned in the first part, can now hide your enemies if the PCs fail their spot/listen checks and or give them cover from AOEs and shots from an archer. Hope you like numbers, because you got a cornucopia of new ones to futz with. :smalltongue:

[Ardantis]

Thanks for the bargain options, Krazz. I'll have to look into the Sharpie laminated map, that seems wonderfully customizable. I think for now I'll just buy a cheapie map, but provided this works out I would seriously consider it for future games.

Hunter, you've laid out my real concern about these maps- the cost of enhanced visualization is more calculation. Frankly, it's a price I'm willing to pay, but needed to hear from an experienced miniatures player. Thanks again.

[killem2]

Miniatures can be as simple as tokens or as detailed as possible like reaper minis.

They are a great way to do combat, and it is darn near impossible to do with out some sort of 3d representation.

I would suggest picking up the Dungeon games by wizards of the coast or the big board games like Wrath of Ashardalons. This is a great way to get d&d type minis.

[HunterColt22]

Not a problem, and tokens can be very simple, heck they can be small pins on graphing paper if you are really strapped for cash. A question I will ask though is if you have played any grid based RPGs before, such as FF Tactics, Ogre Battle, Luminous Arc, Super Robot Tisen, Fire Emblem, Advance Wars. Etc. That is pretty much what you are going to have for combat now. If you haven't I would suggest looking around and give one of them a spin for a few hours of battles, this way you get to acquaint yourself with how the battles will play out, and how you should begin thinking about them both as a player and DM, while the number crunching for these is automated yours will not be. Again these are just ways to introduce you to it on a slightly easier scale due to the math being done for you.

[Ardantis]

Killem~

Great ideas, I will check out those games as soon as possible.

Hunter~

I have played Advance Wars (super fun!) many years ago, although most of my strategy experience has been real-time (C&C Generals, Commandos 2) or with pausing (Freedom Force). I'm also really into Marvel Avenger's Alliance right now, which plays 3v3 turn-based like Final Fantasy.

I've seen games like Tactics Ogre and FF Tactics, but I have not played a lot of turn-based games with maps. I might have to investigate one or two to brush up.

Thanks.

[gr8artist]

Also, Lego minis are great for making customized figurines. You can mix and match pieces, and Lego is coming out with a lot more weapons/characters now (with Heroica and the collectible minis booster packs). You can find stuff pretty cheap on Ebay, too.
It's a lot of fun, especially after several hours of rolling up a character, checking and double-checking stats, it's a nice relief at the end of a boring process.

[Yoven]

What we use:
We have our grid laying out most of the time, it just serves as a dice-rolling surface and is full of coffe mugs and stuff while we roleplay. i drew the grid on A0 paper and "laminated" it(not hot, just covered it with some sort of foil that is used to cover library-books), cost to make 2-5 Bucks
For miniatures I made wooden Sockets to put pictures in. so i can just print out Monsters and stuff and put them in to show my players whats going on in the Battle.
http://img6.imagebanana.com/img/yn5d802k/thumb/DSC_2106.JPG (http://www.imagebanana.com/view/yn5d802k/DSC_2106.JPG)

Why we use it:
You get a better feel of ranges, espacially when you have a sorcerer fireballing everything, you can easily show him why he is still in the effect radius.
Its hard to keep track of fights with 5 to 20 players + enemies without numbering the mobs and always knowing which one stands close to which player for attacks and ofc the damage my players want to do.


It slows you down because:
Bullrushing and stuff like that and also a lot of AOE casts make players take some time to think of the best place, trying to optimise the outcome.
I force my Casters to just mark the center of their cast and then draw the AOE, so theres some sort of learning curve for each spell untill their placement gets perfect.