KotS work in progress

[Waneta]

I'm pecking away at a campaign for Keep on the Shadowfell, and I thought I'd show off a little of what I have so far: http://gallery.rptools.net/v/contrib/Waneta/ (sorry if I shouldn't be using the gallery for non-images, I couldn't find whether or not this is allowed and I don't know of any alternatives). I actually have most of the other maps set up, and all the other monsters more or less, but they're not up to the standard I want to show them.

Credit where it's due, the D&D 4th edition framework is by Veggiesama. The vast majority of the graphics are by torstan, with a few here and there taken from Dundjinni and RPGMapShare. Most of the token graphics are some Fiery Dragon released specifically for KotS.

A disclaimer, I haven't used this at all (nor, in fact have I used Maptool for an actual game) so I have no clue how well this works in practice.

Some things I would like to comment on:

I would love to move the VBL back a square so that the players can see the excellent feathering on the walls, but then I run into a problem with internal walls and secret doors. I would rather the players don't know which walls are internal and which aren't, and I certainly don't want secret doors to be obvious. One possible solution is to create a custom wall graphic, one square long, where its back is sitting on black rather than transparency. It would sit top of the internal wall/secret door on the object layer, and the VBL would be drawn over it as if it were a normal wall. Once the area behind would be revealed, I remove the custom wall object and redraw the VBL to the new wall. The problem with this is I think it would lead to a lot of hassle mid-game, especially if there are a lot of objects around there and I'm having trouble selecting the right one. Perhaps once the VBL is attached to objects something like this could work better.

I couldn't find good graphics for some of the things I want. Some generic storeroom junk would be awesome, a whole tile's worth I could plunk down rather than having to put lots and lots of individual crates, barrels, etc. I couldn't find any upright sarcophogi (is that the plural?) and made do with coffins. I didn't like any of the beds I found (not even yours torstan, sorry! Though I think I did end up using some of yours). I'm looking for some decently constructed straw-filled beds, yet unkempt like an orc slept in it. I'm surprised I found statues I liked though.

I'm undecided as to what to do with the last room. The adventure is a little unclear as to lighting and visibility, but then it was meant to be played on the mat that came with it so they didn't have as many options. Should I VBL the walls inside at all? Should I have VBL, but have the only lighting be the pillars and the players? Do I want the whole thing lit up, in which case I could either put a million lights around to light the place, or tell the GM to switch to day and draw some VBL back down the passage? Choices, choices.

[Full Bleed]

Not sure if this will be of any use to you, but the KotS map were scanned and stitched together here: http://educatedgamer.net/gallery/thumbn ... p?album=43

Good high rez scans for VTT use.

[Stitched]

Wow. These are great. Even better than the PDF that was released, for free, by WotC.

[Brigand]

I might have to steal some of those images for one shot games.

[Waneta]

Silly me, one can attach items to posts. I decided to yoink the junk and sarcophogi from the map. I might see if I can scan in the closer pics from the encounter descriptions to get a higher res picture. It'd be nice if I could keep the shadows and get rid of the triangles, but that's far beyond my abilities.

[Natha]

Excellent !
Love the way your put torstan's walls around the scanned portion of the map.
And the junk will be usefull

[Waneta]

There's actually two more png's of junk, I'll attach them.

I've got the first level of the keep done. This time I decided to try out the scanned version. Construction was a cinch, especially since I didn't have to go searching for any props. Putting down the VBL was trickier because the walls exactly line up with the grid, and this time I had a few secret doors.

[Natha]

I know it's much more work but I personnally prefer the map you made with Torstan's tileset.

And looking at your screenshot ... I just realize that I never thought of drawing the VLB this way : I suppose you made a big full rectangle covering all the map then "punched holes" in it by erasing ?

[Waneta]

Yeah, I just drew one big rectangle and then removed sections. It required a lot of touch up around doors, which using torstan's tiles would make trivial.

I think I prefer torstan's stuff overall too. Using the scanned image is much lower res and a bit too bright for a dungeon imho. But there's a big difference with this level from the second: this one has a lot of unworked caverns, which torstan's tiles don't cover. I've got GE's cavern tiles and those might mesh well with the others.

[Waneta]

I decided to try out my idea for secret passages. In the first pic below you can see a comparison of the player's view (left) and gm's view (right) of the undiscovered secret door. In the second pic it's the same view, except this time the special wall panel is gone and the vbl erased. Pretty easy to do. After those two pics I have the special wall png I made.

Edit: note to self, pictures are shown in the reverse order of when you uploaded them.

[Maccwar]

A cunning solution.

My players get jumpy and want to check for secret doors anywhere they can see the slightest variation in shadow, colour or texture. The funny thing is I don't use them that often anyway so they do a lot of searching of blank walls.

[Blakey]

I just snagged this and had a quick peek. Initial looks are excellent. I'm going to be playing this module when I have finished running SCAP (converted to 4E by myself and using MT of course). My DM has downloaded MT but not used it yet so if he can nick this that will be awesome.

I have a suggestion you might consider. I have started to build tokens with their Handouts containing a screen grab of their entry from the Compendium. I've attached a Vrock token as an example. You have to appreciate it has my campaign properties but you should be able to see the Handout with any campaign by selecting "Show Handout" off the right-click menu. I really, really, really recommend this approach as then you have the stats for each monster easily displayed for the DM on the screen at game time.

Do you think this is something you might consider?

Cheers!
Blakey

[torstan]

Looks great - and a good solution to the secret door issue. I do a similar thing in my maps, but as I have the vbl halfway through the stone parts of the walls rather than behind them, I didn't use a solid black fill behind the wall. I find that using VBL along the walls rather than behind them means that players are a little less sure about whether something is an internal wall or an external wall.

Thanks for the note on the wall shadows by the way, I went back and looked at them, and you're right - they are pretty different. I'll fix that.

I'm very pleasantly surprised with the way the walls match up to the scanned map - that's very cool.

[Waneta]

Yeah, internal walls are the one thing I still have to tackle. The thing is, I prefer my players to be able to see the really cool art behind the first few pixels of the wall. I think it can give a much better feeling of being far below ground. I figure I'll set the VBL further back when there are no internal walls, or if there are they are obvious anyway. I'll set it right on the wall for the entire dungeon if I feel there are internal walls that should not be obvious, especially for secret rooms.

The handout addition to tokens is sort of neat, but they don't really give any information that isn't already on the token. Most of the basic stats are in the popup, and the tooltips for the powers give all the information you need for those. The handout does make it easier to see the entire stat block in one go, but I'm not sure that's worth the not-inconsequential time needed to scan them in and add them to each creature, nor the additional cost in memory for them. The maps can already take up to 300, 400 megs of memory, and I don't know what attaching a picture of this size to every single token would do.

Feel free to add them yourself: I think you should be able to do it by adding the handout to one of the tokens, then saving it and replacing every other token for that creature with the new one.

I've got the floorplan for the first level of the keep done with torstan's and GE's tiles. I've been busy lately so it's been slow going, and I've been having trouble finding stamps for objects that I'm happy with. Some specifics:

• I haven't been able to find a good cave floor texture for the floor in the caverns and excavations.
• I'm not sure how to do the transition between floor and water in the cavern area.
• Any suggestions for how to do the elevations in the excavation? I used the step borders, but I think those alone aren't good enough.
• The cave-in in the NW part of the excavation.

I have about half the other encounters done, but I'd like to make the transition from the background texture to the playmat less jarring. I'll work on those once the first level of the keep is done.

[Blakey]

The handout addition to tokens is sort of neat, but they don't really give any information that isn't already on the token. Most of the basic stats are in the popup, and the tooltips for the powers give all the information you need for those.

I've only had a sneak peak as I'm supposed to be playing this campaign so I don't want to spoil it for myself, but what tooltips on powers are we talking about?

If I mouse over a goblin I get some basic stats. He doesn't seem to have any macros associated with the token itself, so I'm confused.

Can you give me more info on where to find the powers a given goblin has for example? I'm just thinking that if you have come up with a neat way to model 4E attack powers on tokens I want to snag it for my campaign I'm running!!!

Cheers!
Blakey