We've previously featured on Board's Eye View other books of maps in the Loke Battle Mats range, including the Wilderness Book of Battle Mats and the Big Book of Battle Mats. Towns & Taverns is another compilation of wipe-clean heavy-duty card mats for RPG games but this time in designs suited for adventurers' town visits.
Like the Wilderness books, Towns & Taverns comprises two giant 360º ringbound books of mats designed so that the two books can be opened to a double-page spread that lies flat, and the two books can be laid side by side to create a 24 inch by 24 inch playing surface. They can be used by Dungeon Masters (DMs) to depict village streets, shops, warehouses, docks, winding streets and, of course, those eponymous taverns. The maps are all laid out in a 1 inch grid to assist in movement/distance calculations and they're designed to fold back as well as laying flat - so if space is tight you can play on just a single page (a little over 12 inch square).
The Loke Battle Mats make an ideal playing surface for Dungeons & Dragons and other RPG adventure games but once you've equipped yourself with a set of Battle Mats for all occasions and scenarios, and you've painted all your fantasy minis, what's next for adding flavour and immersion to your RPG games? That's where Tabletop Tycoon's PolyHero Dice come in. Roll aside all those boring conventional polyhedral dice, the PolyHero Dice are all shaped as equipment and accoutrements that match the class of each of the adventurers in your party!
Shown here on Board's Eye View, are the dice sets for the Cleric, Warrior, Wizard and Rogue, plus a set of 5d4 Cleric hand grenades and a 'Burglar's Bundle' toolkit of rope (d4), grappling hook (d3) and skeleton key (d2). For each class, the dice are shaped as appropriate objects, so among the dice in the Cleric's set are a chalice (d12) and a mace (d6), while the Wizard's set includes inter alia a scroll (d8) and a potion bottle (d10). The Warrior set includes a sword (d6) and dagger (d4), tho' we were less convinced by the d20 in this particular set as it has spiky protuberances that make it difficult to properly roll. Our favourite tho' is the set of Rogue's dice, which include an arrow (d6), pouches (d10) and barrels (d20).
We haven't done a scientific test to confirm that all the dice are precisely weighted but we haven't yet spotted any obvious distortion of results attributable to any of the dice's unusual shapes. Just be warned that some of the dice need to be tossed rather than rolled, and for some you'll need to decide in advance how you'll interpret the result. It's not an issue for most of the PolyHero Dice but there are a few (for example, the Cleric's d4 hammer) that have two numbers visible on the same side, so there's a slight risk of ambiguity if you're not careful to observe the tilt of the die. Nevertheless, playing D&D with these shaped PolyHero Dice adds greatly to the fun of the game and players' immersion, especially when the die you roll to determine the number of hits exactly corresponds to the weapon your character is wielding.