Battle Maps

A battle map is the playing surface. It is a background image, a grid that says how big a square is, and layers of things placed on top: tokens, scenery, walls, lights and your own drawings.

This page covers the map itself. The things you put on it have their own pages:

• Tokens — creatures on the map.
• Line of Sight & Fog — hiding and revealing.
• Drawing, Markers & Effects — annotation and spell areas.

Note

Battle maps need the one-time Battle Map purchase. Without it the map screen and its settings are not available. See Purchases.

Tip

For every option on the map’s settings screen, see Battle Map Settings.

The toolbar

Icon	Tool	What it does
	Pencil	Draw lines and shapes
	Highlighter	Shade an area
	Eraser	Remove a stroke
	Undo	Take back the last drawing
	Move	Pan the map and drag tokens
	Select	Select several objects at once
	Layers	Choose which layer you are working on
	Snap to Grid	Align movement and drawing to the grid
	Fog of War	Reveal and hide parts of the map
	Markers	Add and manage markers
	Settings	The map’s own settings

Several tools have a second set of options. Tap the tool a second time to open them — that is how you change ink colour, switch fog between rectangle and freehand, or turn on restricted movement.

Creating a map

Tap New Map from the game screen menu, or create one inside a campaign or module in the library.

A new map starts empty. Give it a name, then add a background.

Maps live in a campaign or module, like any other content. See Campaigns & Modules.

The background

A map can use an image or a video as its background.

1. Tap .
2. Tap Image and choose Photo Library or Browse Files.
3. Pick your file.

A video background loops, which suits water, fire and weather. Everything else works the same as with an image.

You can also import a map made in another tool. .dd2vtt and .uvtt files bring their own walls, lights and grid, so they arrive ready to play. See Import and Export.

The grid

The grid is what turns a picture into a playing surface. It tells the app how far a square is, which makes movement, distances, light radii and spell areas mean something.

Matching the grid to your image

Most map images already have a grid drawn on them. Your job is to line the app’s grid up with it:

1. Set Grid Size to the size of one square in the image.
2. Use Offset X and Offset Y to slide the grid until the lines match.
3. Use Scale to fine-tune the background if the two never quite agree.

Work on one corner of the map until it lines up, then check the opposite corner. If the far corner drifts, the scale is slightly off, not the offset.

Grid options

Option	What it does
Grid Visible	Show or hide the grid
Grid Size	The size of one grid square
Offset X / Offset Y	Slide the grid to match the image
Grid Type	Square, or hex with flat or pointed tops
Grid Style	Full lines, or short marks at the cell corners
Grid Color and Opacity	How strongly the grid is drawn
Scale and Units	What one cell means — 5 ft by default

Corner marks are worth knowing about: they keep the grid readable without drawing lines all over someone’s artwork.

Scale and Units feed every distance in the app. Set them to match your game — 5 ft, 1.5 m, or whatever your system uses — and movement paths, light radii and area effects follow.

Layers

Everything on a map sits on a layer. Layers decide what is drawn over what, and who can see it. Tap to switch.

Layer	What belongs there
Map	The background image or video
Floor	Walkable ground, used by the walls generator and pathfinding
Object	Scenery and drawings — the default layer
Token	Creature tokens
Light	Light sources
Wall	Walls, doors and obstacles used by line of sight
DM	Your own notes and drawings — never shown to players

The DM layer is the important one. Anything you draw there is yours alone, so it is where the secret door goes, and the arrow reminding you which way the ambush comes from.

Moving around

1. Tap .
2. Drag with one finger to pan. Pinch with two to zoom.

On a trackpad or mouse, scroll to pan or zoom — the two are configured separately in Battle Map Settings.

Double-tap to point at something. Depending on your settings this shows a ripple, moves the players’ camera, or both. The camera actions are how you direct attention: a double tap can pull every player’s view to the thing you are talking about.

Showing the map to players

The map you edit and the map your players see are the same map, drawn differently. Your hidden tokens, DM-layer drawings and notes stay on your side.

Share the map to the player-facing view, then show it either way:

• In the room — AirPlay or HDMI. See The Player Screen.
• Online — the built-in web server. See Remote Play.

Two map settings only affect your screen, not theirs:

• DM Darkness — how dark the areas your players cannot see appear to you. Turn it down when you need to see the whole map while running line of sight.
• DM Marker Style — how markers are drawn on your side.

Weather

A map can carry a weather effect — rain, snow and similar — with an intensity you control. It is drawn over the whole map and is shown to your players too.

Note

Weather effects are part of the Premium subscription.

Saving

Maps save their own state: token positions, fog of war, drawings and markers. Save the map and it comes back exactly as you left it.

That is separate from saving an encounter. An encounter holds combatants; a map holds the board. See Encounters & Combat.

Performance

Large maps on older devices can feel heavy. Three settings help, all in Battle Map Settings:

• Low Power Mode throttles the renderer.
• Only Update on Drop recomputes line of sight once per move instead of continuously.
• Advanced Pathfinding can be turned off if drawn movement paths cost too much.

Where to go next

• Tokens — putting creatures on the map.
• Line of Sight & Fog — the part that takes the most setup.
• Drawing, Markers & Effects — annotating during play.