Room with(out) a View

Last week, we picked out our miniatures for the upcoming Cell encounter inside Tresendar Manor. Now it’s time to build out the gameboard using a variety of DnD scatter terrain elements at our fingertips.

We already featured our two Half-elf sisters, Ebella and Ocheri Splintfig, and these pre-painted WizKids miniatures, which we’re using to represent our poor prisoners. However, any 3DRPG gameboard always has two prep phases, so that means it’s terrain and layout time.

Let’s start with a subtle piece, but one that’s very important to set up the expected “roll for initiative” proclamation. This encounter inside D&D Beyond’s Acquisitions Incorporated free 5e module is really meant for lower-level encounters instead of our current part of six, level five characters (thanks, homebrew content).

So, a single Ghast (AC 13, 36 HP, +3 att/2d8+3) won’t cut it as this undead baddie probably gets one attack in if it’s lucky. Consequently, DM Ben needs to bring in more bad guys once the first monster activates (.

The module map calls for three individual cell areas, and that felt like overkill for us. Instead, we’re dropping the sisters in the far cell and putting our trickery Ghast in the front cell (along with the entry point for his buddies).

You would think our Dungeon Master would already have a couple of sewer/manhole covers sitting around somewhere within our DnD collection, right? Turns out that’s a hard no (despite our search efforts). So, we needed to act fast here and realized that our STL Miniatures Patreon subscription blessed us with their Sewers Workers Set. Huzzah!

DM Ben wants five additional Ghasts to burst through this sewer cover at the start of round 2, so he needed a sneakier access point to the adjoining prison cells. Our female prisoners are too weak to warn the party that the grate is rusted and they’ve heard spooky noises coming from it.

We just 3D-printed this cover in FDM and scaled it to cover a 2×2 d20 space. We love to create subtle depth with our terrain whenever possible, and this piece fit perfectly between our Hirst Arts casted Cracked Floor Tiles.

For the core terrain, DM Ben grabbed an old casted piece that he snagged on eBay many, many years ago. There was this retired police officer who was injured in the line of duty and went on disability. He opened this terrain store on eBay, and DM Ben bought several of his creations for all the obvious reasons.

The back half of the terrain piece is the one DM Ben acquired, while the front half are Hirst Arts pieces he casted and painted over the years. We love this final layout!

We especially like the flow and separation of the prisoner areas here, especially how the bars are portrayed. This particular setup immerses the players around the table, and that’s all we can ever ask for with our gameboards. Make ’em feel like they’re stuck down in this damp, dark, miserable place.

Lastly, DM Ben’s longtime mentor taught him this wire mesh integration trick. You head to your favorite home improvement store and go to the landscape and gardening section. You can pick up a roll of this stuff and then use some snippers to cut out the section you need.

Be careful, though, as this material is sharp, and it’s easy to scrape up your hands or arms. There’s no arguing with the DnD terrain results, though!

Until next time!