The Path Less Traveled

Today, we’re going to talk about a couple of terrain rarities in our beloved Dungeons and Dragons 3D-printing hobby and how we’re solving them to ensure we’re playing the best possible game we can!

DnD Cavern crawls are typically stuffed with all sorts of long and winding passages, filled with the unknown and the promise of unforeseen riches. As a terrain builder, you need to have the right mix of tiles to cover a full-size gaming table. Certainly, you can start small and just do a few hallways and rooms at once, but the fun grows exponentially when you cover your entire game table.

Premade terrain like our beloved Dwarven Forge is the dream and the Mercedes of makers, but it’s not without a high price point. Plus, we’re talking about a lot of pieces to cover a Wyrmwood gaming table, so deeper pockets become a requirement (and that assumes the tiles you want are even in stock).

As 3D-print enthusiasts, you can undoubtedly print your DnD-themed tiles, but it’s still a higher dollar investment and a significant time investment. The solution? Do a mix of both Dwarven Forge and 3D-printed tiles! Allow us to explain.

Our biggest issue with premade or 3D-printed terrain is that the passageways are almost always set at a single d20 square (to hold a single mini). Yes, you can take numerous smaller pieces and form wider hallways, but this dramatically increases the total cost and time of the print project.

And we’re not putting in all this time and expense for our gorgeous miniatures (many of which are also 3D-printed) to lay halfway on their sides on our masterful game board. No, sir!

This spacing conundrum has really been hitting us hard lately. Adding more Dwarven Forge tiles was getting painfully expensive, and alternatively, printing a slew of extra tiles was sucking the life out of us. So, we reached out to Milestone Heroes CEO Andrew on his Discord and explained the challenge of being unable to 3D print a single 2d20-wide cavern hallway piece.

Andrew calmly replies, “No problem – I get it. I’ll have them done for you shortly.” That’s the one-of-a-kind creator Milestone Heroes is. It goes insanely out of its way to release additional pieces (usually called Community Sets) that their creative team just didn’t catch the first time around!

(note: the new, roomier tile above has not been fully painted – it just finished step four in our paint guide but we needed to showcase it).

So, why the need, anyway? DM Ben uses a lot of 2×2 D20 square miniatures and really isn’t a fan of too much single-file fighting. Also, our adventuring party just discovered an entire underground cavern system below the Night Hag’s hideout, and its mysterious pathway is accessible via the basement cellar! This was as good a time as any to do a complete table build!

First, we printed and painted more of the traditional narrow passageways as DM Ben wanted to communicate the breadth of the newly discovered labyrinth of tunnels. The next time combat breaks out within a hallway, we would simply swap a section out with these newer, wider Milestone Heroes tiles.

We’re pretty jazzed to show you the wider cavernous hallway FDM tiles in action, but we thought we would first share the need and the cool helping hand one of the hobby’s best creators extended to its community and biggest fan.

Until next time!