4th & Dragon : Dungeons and Dragons...and stuff

Can anyone suggest how I can print encounter maps from the dungeon magazine pdf files to scale?

Thanks,

Gabby

I just cut-and-paste them into a graphics program and resize.  Draw a 1” square for reference and resize the map to match.

I use Inkscape, which is free, even though it’s a vector program.  If I want to modify the map (hide secret doors) before I resize, I do that in Gimp (also free, but more complicated).

I draw my own maps in Inkscape as well.  It’s a handy tool to have.

I scan it at 400dpi, or take it off the PDF and convert it to 400dpi, then measure a square in photoshop with the square tool, and then create a new document using the DPI ratio… if the measurement is .25 then i create a document at 100dpi and paste the map over to that, as a rule of thumb each time the measurement drops by .1 the dpi drops by 4, so .24 is 96 dpi, .23 is 92 dpi and so on....

Then you just select the area you want to print out and paste it to the new document, keeping in mind it has to fit on a 8 1/2 x 11 paper… i think it works out to 8 tiles wide and 10 down or so…

This is from Keep on the Shadowfell as an example, fully printable in pieces of 8X11 paper, with the DM markings photoshopped out.

The squares are a perfect inch, compatible with miniatures or my counters that you can find in another post…
(shameless plug...!)

It’s not hard once you figure it out…

Thanks for the replies. They definately got me on the right path.

I am now using GIMP to remove DM markings and cut the maps to 8X11 sections and save each section as a seperate file. Then I open each file in Inkspace set the document size to A4, and then resize the image to fill the page, while keeping aspect ratio. This is really easy, although the width of the squares will be slightly more than 1 inch since an A4 page is 8.27 inches. So, each square is actually 1.03375 wide - that won’t be really noticable.

An A4 paper will hold a map 10 squares down and 8 accross, FYI.

A4 paper is 11.69 inches long so that’s 11 squares down and change

Is it just me, or does “Keep on the Shadowfell” not have all of the maps included?  I thought when I bought the package that I was buying all of the maps, but I guess not.  If they’re not included, how exactly do you guys run the encounters on the non-existent maps?  I’m not a graphic designer, and I don’t have a scanner, so the inability to get a “non-tainted” map--with all of the traps, etc. hidden--is a pain.  I’m new at this DM’ing thing, and while I’ve had a blast running encounters on the included maps, I’m lost as to the best method of handling the maps in the .

Help?

Hey there, welcome to DM’ing…
The maps are all included, the problem is that it’s just a thumbnail version of the map that you can’t use at the table.  You have several options:

1.  Battle Mat with 1"squares, where you would outline the walls of the room with a dryerase marker, and use that as your map… Drawback is that it’s one room at a time, and it takes a little bit of time to draw the maps, play the encounter, and erase and draw the next encounter.

2.  office depot sells easel paper for presentations, 50 sheets for 20 bucks… the advantage is that you can draw the rooms ahead of time in several sheets, and you spend less time at the table setting up the encounters… i like that.  this system is my backup.  The paper has 1” grid, perfect for the DM to draw every single encounter.

3.  I scan the module and print the maps to 1” scale.  if you can, it’s the way to go.

Hope this helps.  See the thread on the tokens for more ideas.

Like ebertran said, check in the battle map and 1” tokens topic.

But if you have some money, since you don’t own a scanner yourself, you could always take it to a store with a big scanner and they could even re-size maps for you.  And a cheaper (and maybe more fun if you like that sort of thing like I do) would be to get some large paper (like the easel pads) and draw it all out yourself.  Third possibility would be to break down and try to hunt down a map program for your computer and make them yourself doing that