Beautiful Map, appreciate the alternate format options!

Beautiful Map, appreciate the alternate format options!

Beautiful Map, appreciate the alternate format options!

(Excerpt from sister site RPG.net for the physical product. The digital content is FREE with the physical box!) Full review: https://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/19/19106.phtml

Overview: Loke Battle Mat's "Box of Adventure: 2. Coast of Dread", like Loke's earlier "Box of Adventure: 1. Valley of Peril", consists of twenty-four 11"x17" maps, four 8 1/2'x11" sheets of building and other cutouts, 275+ double-sided tokens, and a magnetic-shut storage box, for your RPG adventures. The larger maps consist of four maps of each of the following: Dread Coast, Ancient Halls, Windward Village, Fetid Swamp, Old Cemetery, and Cave Ruins. Note that many of these maps can be used outside of a maritime environment. The boxed set also has a free digital copy code and 5E 16 page adventure "Curse of the Dread marsh Crew", redeemable at the Loke Battle Mats website. The maps are printed on modular fully-laminated and wipe-clean double-sided maps. Like their previous boxed set, you can combine the maps to form larger ones. Each map has a 1" grid. The tokens and terrain features are printed on the same sheets, so will have to be cut out. You can, of course, use the their maps with any 1" grid map, as well as Loke Battle Mats' reusable static clings from their "Add-On Scenery" line.

Assortment: Fold-out boxed set and spiral-bound (of different sizes) are Loke Battle Mat's map physical formats. Pick whichever you prefer from their catalog. Coast of Dread consists of maritime maps, underground halls, a village, a swamp, a cemetery, and caves. Pretty obviously, if your adventure takes place on land rather than sea, you would want the "Box of Adventure: 1. Valley of Peril" set. A digital copy is included with the physical set, but you can purchase the digital copy directly from DriveThurRPG. Don't forget the other free Loke digital maps and adventures!

Ghost Archipelago: As a sample miniature skirmish game, I looked at Ghost Archipelago, a piratey jungle and island-theme game based on the popular Frostgrave game, to see how compatible Coasts of Dread was for this game. Each two-page spread map is 17" x 11", so you can arrange 2x3 maps to make a suitable nearly 3x3 board. (Ghost of Archipelago can be played on as small as a 2x2 board for two players, and 4x4 or more for more players. Map size is flexible.) Ghost Archipelago's scenarios are pretty flexible when it comes to terrain (mostly, you set up a board then place a terrain or map piece in the middle), so you will be able to play most of the scenarios with the Coasts of Dread set. You'll need additional terrain (eg. cage, standing stones, dinosaur eggs...), but the Coast of Dread comes with a watchtower for the Watchtower scenario, and a ruined temple for the Graveyard scenario. You'll need to visit the local aquarium shop for jungle trees if you want the maps to represent jungles, although the Wilderness Books and free Loke digital maps on DriveThruRPG has jungle maps you could use.

Ghosts of Saltmarsh:

Map Support: As an example RPG setting, I went through the Ghosts of Saltmarsh D&D campaign, to see how well you could use Coasts of Dread with it. The Coast of Dread will work for most locations. The Valley of Peril has forests and land-based monster tokens. The Town and Tavern book and/or "Town Trimmings" reusable static clings will be useful for the town of Saltmarsh and indoor locations and furnishings. Of course, some non-combat locations, like towns and NPC encounters, won't need a map. The Big Book of Battlemats III has additional maps, particularly the vampiric forest, you can optionally use for this campaign. The Wilderness books have forests, islands, caves, tower ruins, swamp, sea, and small islands you may find useful for variety. The Coast of Dread maps and tokens don't exactly replicate those in the campaign book, so expect minor alterations to the adventures, includig proxying tokens or alternate monsters.

Token Support: No RPG token set can be expected to support every planned and especially random encounter, but Coasts of Dread does a pretty good job. Coasts of Dread also has tokens for the maritime Saltmarsh Backgrounds, at least the human ones. You still may need to make the occasional substitution. The Valley of Peril Box of Adventure, suggested for its forests, also has tokens for PCs, NPCs, and monsters, mostly of the generic fantasy variety. Roughly 50 of the tokens — not even counting the cultists and pirates — are suitable for PC's. However, most are human, with maybe one or two tokens for elf, dwarf, and halfling races.

Further Loke Products

If you're looking to expand your maps for Saltmarsh, I would start with Valley of Peril. Valley of Peril has Coasts of Dread's folding map and token format, as well as its digital content that may be used with Coasts of Dread. Valley of Peril has forest, dungeon, and cave maps, as well as a tavern and tokens for land-based monsters, and a digital copy. The Town Trimmings reusable clings will be useful to customize the empty buildings and dungeon rooms. The Wilderness Books of Battle Maps has additional sea, island, forest, and land maps. The Towns & Taverns Books of Battle Maps has more maps for town and city encounters. The Dungeon Books of Battle Mats and Add-On Scenery for RPG Battle Maps: Dungeon Decorations reusable clings may be useful for the additional caves, ruins, including flooded ruins, and tower. Digital versions of these physical accessories and additional digital maps for fantasy and other genres are available on DriveThruRPG.

RPG.net review of the physical box contents : https://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/18/18938.phtml

Overview: Loke Battle Mat's "Adventure Box: Valley of Peril" consists of twenty-four 11"x17" maps, four 8 1/2'x11" maps, 300+ tokens, and a magnetic-shut storage box, for your RPG adventures. The larger maps consist of four maps of each of the following: Forest Road, Dungeon Halls, Lost Caves, Forest Ruins, Old Homestead, and Barren Hills. Three of the smaller maps compose a two-story tavern and a roof. The last small map is a Cave entrance. The box also has 300+ numbered tokens, three sheets of terrain features, and a free digital copy code redeemable at the Loke Battle Mats website. The maps are printed on modular fully-laminated and wipe-clean double-sided maps. Similar to their spiral-bound map books, you can use two or more maps to form a larger rectangular map, longer map, L- or T-sized map, and so on. Each map has a 1" grid. The tokens and terrain features are printed on the same sheets, so will have to be cut out. You can, of course, use the their maps with any 1" grid map, as well as Loke Battle Mats' reusable static clings from their "Add-On Scenery" line.

Assortment: Loke Battle Mats has a good variety of map products, so you should pick the one that suits your adventures and your organizing the best. The Adventure Box primarily focuses on forests, with adjoining hills, a small dungeon, some caverns, a tavern, and a generic homestead. Pretty obviously, if your adventure instead takes place in a multi-level dungeon or several districts of a city, you would want, say, the Loke Battle Mats Book of Dungeons or Book of Town and Taverns.

11"x17" Maps: At 11"x17", the Box map sizes differ from other Loke Battle Mat products. The spiral-bound Book and Battle Map products are one-foot square. The A4-sized Big and A3-sized Giant Books are 12"x9" and 12"x16" respectively. You can combine maps in this set and with other sets to make larger maps.

Separate: One major advantage of individual maps is selecting only the ones you need for the current game session. The 11"x17" maps fold in half, so you can carry these maps along with your GM notes and RPG adventure. The Box's 11"x17" maps fold in the center, meaning that you can stack, say, the four dungeon maps together, give them a fold, and thus more easily organize and store them.

Tokens: The Box comes with 300+ tokens. The tokens are printed on the same laminated paper as the maps, meaning that you can write on them (eg. status effect). You will need to cut out the tokens, and they are not as thick as cardboard ones. Tokens are double-sided, with a different creature on the other side. Tokens are numbered. Myself, I use miniatures, so won't be cutting out the tokens. However, because they are numbered, I can still use the facial illustrations as a GM aid to describe an NPC or monster. Just jot down the number next to the NPC or monster stat block.

Half of the map has a slightly different grid offset, which makes the map not align well on virtual tabletop. If you play on a real tabletop you probably wouldn't even notice, but on a VTT the misaligned grid is extremly noticable. https://imgur.com/a/EeUlOJO

Very nice layout I used for an Expanse RPG. Can be expanded in Inkscape for different hull shapes.

Unfortunately, the "size" of this product is due to it being literally blown out of proportion. Viewing it at a 1:1 ratio shows a terrible and fuzzy image with grossly oversized stars. I am guessing the native resolution of the image is actually around 30% or under what is being delivered. That being said, I can probably use it for a 1'x1' image. I really wish I could add a small part of the image at a 1:1 ratio so that you guys could see it.

A great collection of battlemaps, Character tokens and furinshing tokens for a new group at a reasonable price. As I have a phyiscal copy as well, it is good for a copy for the tokens, (as some are a bit small but good looking) The art is outstanding for all the products!

This book is simply awesome, by far the best book of Random Encounters I own (and I own a lot of them).

Thick and sturdy (340+ pages) and just packed with content. A cool section of 2-page scenarios tuned to 5e, but 95% of the book is system agnostic, and even the 5e bits are written in a way that makes them useful for pretty much anything you play.

The section on DOORS in Dungeons is one of the coolest things I've come across, and adds a nice bit of additional detail to something players encounter all the time but is mostly just breezed past or ignored unless it's a particularly noteworthy door. Now every door can be special!

The book is also chock full of AWESOME ART, much of it beautifully painted, so it is not just a brick of text and tables. This one gets my highest possible recommendation and will serve me well for the rest of my days.

This is a potentially humorous 5e encounter, consisting of two combats, that can be dropped into any urban adventure. The adventure is for up to 4 characters, levels 3-5, but can be modified for lower and slightly higher levels. There's something odd with the plumbing, and is the party greedy, charitable, or foolish enough to explore it? The underground storage area is on the old and decomposed side, so the hook (other than the upcoming 5e adventure by Loke that this preview is from) could that a PC or NPC has bought or inherited an urban building that needs some fixing, and the PCs do a little investigating before the cleanup crew arrives.

The preview is from an adventure included in the Loke Battle Mats "RPG Encounter Toolkit" KS, which also includes fold-out maps, random encounter generators, monster cards, and, of course, Loke's battle mats, which are foldout so you can make not only huge dungeons, but also large areas for miniature skirmish games. If you would like an idea of Loke's random encounter generators and fold-out maps (or want a retail copy now), look for their "Untold Encounters" supplement and "Box of Adventure: Valley of Peril" map set. (The physical Valley of Peril also comes with a digital code for digital content.)

This is a great book of random encounters spread across three different environments. Each chapter lays out what to expect and offers advice on how to blend encounters from different areas together to create something fun and original. There are even adventures included that use the options found in the book. Just know that this book is about random encounters to generate plots and events and does not focus on characters or items except in the most basic way as needed by the event or boon. My only complaint is that the pdf does not have chapters or a linked table of contents in this current version. Hopefully this get updated to make it more user friendly in the future. Highly recommend the book for standard and solo play.

j'ai ce livre en version physique depuis de nombreuse année et j'y ai passé chouette campagne de jdr tant en temps que GM que joueur.

This has been a fabulous VTT resource for my post-post-apocalyptic setting; I especially appreciate the inclusion of "Worn" versions for obvious reasons. Point me to more resources and I'm there!

Really glad this comes with a no grid map option for VTT.