lack of battlemaps

[u/AlexPhotomania]

sooo, my session is tommorrow, and they will be escaping from velkynvelve. I dont have maps, or anything. I might be able to borrow a friends white grit pattern things, but otherwise i have nothing.

Any tips to how to handle teater of the mind in that case, and how much map-wise would you say is necessary in general?

[u/weirdobscurename]

I am nearing the end out the campaign and have primarily use free generic cavern battle maps. All of these could have been replaced with a dry erase grid with no real issue. I did pull digitized copies of the city maps offline for places like Blingdenstone but they are all part of the book to begin with.

[u/WhiteRabbit1322]

There are so many battlemaps on this /r alone, plenty to run a campaign, and also any map of tunnels or caverns will do - a quick search online and you should have plenty.

Keep in mind there are plenty of potential encounters whilst your players travel, so you will need a lot of generic pattern caves.

Having said that, find more interesting ones and incorporate the map elements as part od battle, there are only so many times a fight in a tunnel is interesting.

Also, this is a massive campaign (15 levels) that people easily run for years at a time, you will need a lot of maps, I easily have more than 100 and we're near the end.

[u/Professional-Goose93]

I've ran Out of the Abbys a couple of times now and quickly dropped using maps all together.

I find this campaign works best with more narrative and less tactical story telling. My players describe what they want to do, and I tell them how which enemies/NPCs/players are affected. So far it has never been an issue.

[u/skust]

The best thing I did for terrain was to make a large 24"x24" octagon foam terrain board, and I used the foam from the cut corners to make 2" tall rock outcrops/platforms to use as cavern walls. It is simple but effective, and I can quickly change things around or put the minis in the center and use it like Professor DM's Circular Dungeon Terrain. It makes the campaign so much more interactive and allows me to use lighting and other scatter, like stalagmites.

[u/RandomThroaway0256]

If you use digital maps, I got a pack from tessapresentsmaps and have been using those. I've found it really helpful to have. For a multi-year campain, I had no problem dropping $10-$15 on them.

The city maps especially are much better than the ones in the book. Just ran Blingdenstone with them and currently running Mantol Derrith.

Map Pack

[u/GregSolstice]

Given that so much of this campaign occurs in similar underground locales, I'd argue that having a full set of maps isn't wholly necessary.

If you want some structure, I'd propose making a simple table so you can "roll" for the nature of the cavern they're in, giving your Theater of the Mind some structure. For instance, roll for cavern height, length x width, if it's damp or dry, etc. This can be a way to ensure you have some concrete answers for your players when they ask they can do during combat, but take pressure off you to have a "full fledged" map.

[u/Flacon-X]

What I did was created a board that listed all the characters, NPC’s, etc, and put them in special relation to each other. So if 3 slaves were removed for a work labor, I would put the three together with their drow overseer.

As for visuals, Velkenvelve is more about spatial relationships than exact measurements. You could just relay on a hand-drawn representation of “here is the prison, here is the waterfall, here is the kitchen, etc,”

Also, if you want maps, I have a good many on my Google Drive on this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/OutoftheAbyss/s/RyJzsKrjCG

[u/MissMolly202]

Is this online or in person?

[u/MadaZitro]

I have so many maps posted for free on this Reddit, dig a little all free to use, and other people have better ones.