Use Visual Aids Instead of Battle Maps

Battle maps in Dungeons & Dragons

There’s many different approaches to using maps for combat in D&D. Some groups prefer precise battle maps with a 5-foot square grid, while others run combat without any maps, purely in the “theater of the mind.” For me, the best method is a mix of both: an abstract visual aid to help keep everyone on the same page without getting bogged down in the counting of squares and arguing about geometry.

While using visual aids instead of battle maps works well for me, it’s not necessary the best way for every group. You might enjoy the tactical minutiae of a 5-foot grid. Or combat runs smoothly while you describe the situation without any visualization on the table. Whatever works for your group works.

However, I have found most success with the use of abstract visual aids. But what do we actually mean by “abstract visual aids”?

Flexible tools to track positioning and environmental features

Essentially, visual aids help everyone at the table keep track of where the characters and the monsters are, and whether there are any interesting environmental features in the area. That’s it. We don’t use the visual aids to track precise distances or area-of-effect ranges. The most basic function of a visual aid is to show everyone where the characters and the monsters are. That way, the players and the DM know who’s in melee with whom for the purpose of melee attacks and attacks of opportunity. In most combat situations we won’t have to worry about ranged attacks too much because the battlefield will generally be small enough for everyone to hit everyone with ranged attacks.

That’s the minimum a visual aid should accomplish: roughly track the position of combatants.

An easy second function of a visual aid can be to show interesting environmental features. Are there any walls, trees, or buildings that could provide cover? Are there any hazards like raging rivers, steep cliffs or acidic pits? A visual aid shows where these features are, at a glance, to everyone at the table. It does not create an artistic rendition of these features. Again, a visual aid needs to be functional not beautiful.

Different kinds of visual aids

There are a couple of different ways to create abstract visual aids for D&D combat:

Tokens on the table. Simply put some form of token (minis, dice, paper, etc.) for each character and monster (or monster group) on the table. No drawing needed. We’re only tracking positions with this method.
A rough sketch of the battlefield. Quickly sketch the environment where the combat takes place (functional not beautiful) and use some tokens to track positioning. Indicate interesting environmental features which monsters and characters might interact with during the fight.
Combat zones. This idea comes from the RPG Fate. I became aware of it through this article by Mike “SlyFlourish” Shea. Essentially, we write down evocative names for different areas (zones) of the battlefield, like “cathedral roof,” “necrotic tree,” or “acid pools.” We move tokens within these zones to show who’s in melee with whom, and let characters use movement to move from one zone to an adjacent zone. The evocative names reflect environmental features which combatants can interact with.
Printed maps. Of course, we can also use beautiful battle maps as visual aids. A Google image search will bring up many intricate maps we can print. When we use them as visual aids, we don’t worry about exact distances, and again, track only rough positions and distances.

Embrace the freedom of visual aids

At first, it might seem like a loss to not use beautiful battle maps for each combat. But abstract visual aids actually let us and our players get more creative. Instead of spending time calculating distances and geometry, we rely more on imagination and evocative descriptions. All while everyone can clearly see the positioning of combatants and interesting environmental features to interact with.