A handy program for graphics and short range mapping

Yup. Also good for working out where and how flying characters are going to fit into combat. I did these up as a quck example for another situation; the mage on the carpet is 50 feet above the dark creature (actually a Grim Reaper) and the character on the flying disk is 30 feet above the drow (more or less).

Tape measure lets you get exact ranges really easily...

The potential applications are almost endless.

Just in case you were wondering how to make the 'lots of layers' of water that I mentioned two posts up; no, you don't have to make each layer individually.

Make one layer, sized to fit the pool. Set it up with the colour or texture of your choice. Hide the edges. Select "View Hidden Geometry" from the View menu. Double-click on the layer and make it into a component.

Now, select the Move/Copy tool (the one that looks like four arrows going in all different directions) and press CTRL; this activates the 'Copy' part of the function. Click on the corner of the water layer and then pull it downward just far enough that the 'direction' line shows blue, so you know you're pulling it straight down. Now let go the mouse and type in the distance you want to move it downward. Suppose we're doing a 6' deep pool, you type in [6'] or [72"]. Hit Enter; it should move downward that far. Now, before you do anything else, type the following (without the square brackets): [72/]. This should result in 72 copies of the original layer appearing stacked beneath the first one. (Yeah, I know, 6 feet and one inch ... be quiet).

Select the whole stack and make that into a component, then place it where you need it. Be sure to turn off viewing of Hidden Geometry afterward, so it looks nice and neat.

At any point after making the layers, you can adjust the opacity of the colour/texture you chose, so the water looks right to you. Also feel free to experiment with the darkness of the colour.

I've edited the Dungeon Maker kit a little, just to fix a few minor problems. It's still downloadable from the same link.

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How to make a grid of 5x5 squares quickly and easily

1: Choose the size of the grid. This is easiest if it's going to be a square. Let's say 100 feet x 100 feet.

2: Make the square.

3: Highlight one side of the square by clicking on it.

4: Select the Move/Copy tool, press CTRL to activate 'Copy', and drag the copy sideways across the square, just far enough that the program gets the idea of your direction, then type in [100']. Hit Enter, then type in [20/] and hit enter again. If you've done it right, there'll be an array of lines right across the square, each 5 feet apart.

5: Triple click the square, then go to the Edit menu and select Copy then Paste. Paste the copy near the original.

6: Select the Rotate tool, place it on the new copy, and rotate it 90 degrees.

7: Select the Move/Copy tool and move the copy so it overlays the original. You now have a 100-ft grid marked out in 5' squares.

Now, for embellishments:

8: Triple-click it and paint it a colour you don't like. Then Edit the paint colour to be totally transparent. Now make it into a component. You can overlay this on any surface; instant combat grid!

9: If you intend to use it as a static combat grid, paint it instead with a tile texture, then Edit the texture so that each tile is 5' across. Then make the texture 50% transparent. Now you can make it into a component, then Lock it (again using the Edit menu) so that you won't mistakenly alter it.

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Such a battlegrid can be used for more than just straight-up combat. For instance, if you have floorplans (best used with floorplans developed for use with d20, set on a 5' basis) you can import them and size them to scale before overlaying the grid on them.

Then, to make it more realistic, you can put up the walls. Draw a line straight up from any corner to the height you want the walls to go to (eight feet is good) and then draw a rectangle from there (starting from the top of the vertical line) along the line of the walls. You'll quickly get the hang of it; it's simple and easy to make a set of rooms and corridors with the battleboard as an anchor.