Anybody use Dwarven Forge or similar 3d terrain?

[Ozreth]

I always juggle with the idea of dropping some 3-d terrain into my games. A guy at a LGS does some amazing stuff with terrain that he creates himself, although he drops some DF stuff in here and there(check some of it out here).

In the end I like the idea of roughly drawn out maps to leave the imaginative interpretations to the players but I'm itching to try out some 3d stuff.

Dwarven forge is super expensive, almost pointless if you want to map out entire towns or dungeons and crafting my own would take far too long.

So how do you incorporate this stuff into your game? And if you find terrain for cheap, where?

[dsmiles]

Hobby foam and a hot wire gun for outdoors terrain. Makes excellent curvy lines for hills and such. A couple of passes with some spray paint, stick some diorama trees on there, VOILA! Instant forested hills.

[phlidwsn]

If you're willing to spend time instead of money, take a look at the WorldWorks Games TLX terrain. Sets are cheap, then you print however many you need onto cardstock. Cut, edge, glue and done.

[Escheton]

Absolutely beautiful. Too rich for my taste though. Where do you put the munchies?

[Gryndle]

I have played with one group that made extensive use of Dwarven Forge and Heroscape tiles, and it added a lot to the play experience. The Dm of that group did invest a ton of cash into the terrain sets though, and he was very talented at implementing them.

I have recently started using heroscape tiles to build 3d terrains, and it definately has made the combat encounters more dynamic for the players.

I have spent less than $100 on heroscape sets and loose tiles, and have enough tiles to cover a 5'x5' area in a single alyer. My point is, if you are careful and do a little research you can get quite a bit of heroscape tiles for your money.

The pro's for heroscape are; itis relatively cheap by comparisson to Dwarven Forge, and it does outside/wilderness and cavernous terrain very well.

The only downside to Heroscape is that is doesn't do buildings quite as well; at least not without improvisation. And it does take a bit of time and preparation to set up.

My player's seem quite pleased with our switch to the tiles, and I don't see any reason to go back to a dry erase battle-mat.

[Kerrin]

If I recall correctly, HeroScape uses hexagonal tiles (though I may be wrong).

Do you have to do any translation between the D&D expected square tiles or do you just use the hexagonal tiles 1 for 1 as is? Any issues?

[Gryndle]

Yeap, Heroscape is hexagonal.

I just treat 1 hex as 1 square when figuring distances, movement or area effects.

The first session we used the tiles we had it took a second to figure how Blasts (4E) work. Mostly becasue 1 player that has always been a bit slow on the uptake jsut wasn't getting it. After that session it has been smooth sailing though, with no other issues with the hexes.