After having my area affect spells nerfed by my DM, I asked that we use some maps or visual representation to figure out the distances invovled in future games, so a ranger or rogue knows whether he is in charge range, or should bust out a ranged weapon.

It sucked without the maps, because I as a character don't know what weapon to equip, what spell to cast, or even to cast a spell, if I can't see the distances involved, the angles and relation to the other monsters and characters (so as not to hit my fellow adventurers).

Using the maps forced our DM to think about monster placement more carefully, rather than try to hamstring/handicap the adventurers to make a simple goblin smash into something more difficult than it really should be.

I often found that with some DMs who don't want to use the maps or figures, that they had a tendency to try to nerf a mighty Sorcerers area affect spells because he/she was "wasting 5th and 6th level spells on 20 goblins"

Well, Damnit that what area affect spells are for! I can't use an area affect spell without knowing what the area friggin looks like!

But when I play my halfling super rogue, I'm all about the Roleplaying (stealing from NPCs, conning NPCs, etc. etc.) in the local town/inn/Waterdeep. The maps get in the way of Roleplaying and interactions between players, and is more of a distraction in town or out on the trail.

As a rogue I like to wanted to be able to see how I could get my sneak damage from behind/ flat footed and flanking modifiers by knowing how far away the monsters are, and where they are in relation to others and my DM is usually more foregiving with my Rogue character, giving me plenty of Sneak Attack and Flanking opportunities without saying (he's too close to another monster and you will get hit with an attack of opportunity)!


So, I guess the map/no map, figs, no figs argument has pros and cons on both side.

In combat, they are the difference between having a fun night of killing lotso monsters and feeling jipped by not knowing what the combat looks like.

Out of combat, travelling on the road in an ancient forest, sneaking down a dark Waterdeep alley, or in the temple praying to the Gods for help and advice, the maps will be extremely annoying distractions.

How do you think MageKnight 3D Dungeon packs will work instead of the maps for custom campaign settings? The squares look a little smaller, maybe the 3D squares can be split into 4s?

We always played with the 3D MK Dungeons in our 3.5 campaigns

Me personally, I like having an acurate representation of the distances and placements of monsters. It helps me visualize the combat so that I can get a decent idea of how to aim my Sorcerer area spells like Cone of Cold (in 3.5).

Often I would feel cheated by my DM how the monsters are positioned in the room and he would look at me like I'm some kind of idiot for asking, and asks me what I want to do!

Its like he wants me to ask, and then I know somehow he will cheat me on the number of monsters I can hit with an area spell and I have no visual representation to know what type of spell to cast.

For instance, in 3.5, if I knew I could only hit 2 monsters with a Cone of Cold, it might be better to hit them with a Magic Missile or a Prismatic Spray, rather than waste a higher level spell only to have my DM tell me that its area affects were essentially wasted.

Nice review... I will be running the mod shortly after it comes out and it is nice to know what issues I might have. I am tierd of all the pure negativity on the WotC boards and the Enworld boards...

Thanks for the insights! 

Since
I play lots of Mekton, we use a battlemat all the time.  With D&D
moving towards a more mini-centric system, it isn't a problem for me.

Interestingly I haven't see that sort of mentality with all players, some get into things and use the terrain or descriptions to make the game more interesting.  Others though do revert to roll to hit mentality, so I understand what you are talking about.