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Modular 3D Dungeon Building on a Bards Budget

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The Skald –

Having seen photo's of loads of stunning 3D dungeons on here and elsewhere on the interweb, it's one of my burning ambitions to have something similar. There's info on various different products and DIY techniques scattered all over the forum, but I thought it might be of some use to gather the "juicy bits" into a single, easy to find titled thread, as well as post my own humble efforts as I go along with my quest

I've specified "modular" in the title, just because that's my own preference - individual corridor / room / cavern etc sections that can be laid out AHQ fashion, as opposed to "fixed" dungeons like this ~

So, to kick off, and since it's all Mortis's fault I'll use the Mage Knight dungeon as exhibit A, in what I call the 'Plastic' dungeons

Not quite what I have in mind, but the lightweight, detailed plastic parts and the ease of use would have swayed me to using this as my dungeon of choice. Unfortunately it's no longer produced and secondhand sets are as rare as Cockatrice guano and go for the equivalent of a princesses ransom online (Amazon have some pre-owned listed at £265 as I type!)
Sadly then, a non-starter until after the Lottery win

Moving on to exhibit B (at which point I'll drop the naff 'exhibit' malarky) and a visually similar product that Mortis has already reviewed in-depth elsewhere, the "Bendy" dungeon.
I couldn't find this on the web at first, then came up with what's either the same product 're-branded' or something very similar ~

"Dungeonworks" uses plastic wall sections with tiny magnets in their bases to fix them to a gridded metal floor. The shape of the wall base does mean it could be used free standing (but prone to being knocked over), but as Mortis pointed out in his obsevation, the walls are a bit low compared to 28mm figures so don't quite give the same 'feel' as Mage Knight in play.
The sections are shorter too, so you need more of 'em to make up corridor lengths / room sides (not to mention the possible problem of accurately aligning with existing floor tile 'grids') and anyway - they're also OOP with pre-loved examples fetching silly money (though I'm currently bidding on a set - I'll let you know how I get on at auction end dear reader)

So, since I can't find any other 'plastic' sets, and having decided on flexibilty as a major factor, my next consideration are the card dungeons.
Now I'm going to keep this bit as brief as possible for now (but may well revisit it later), simply because I currently have a crap printer!

but I can only speak highly of the 3D Dungeon Blocks offered by our very own Mr Billiam Babble fom what I've seen on the web

and there's a very neat "wall" option too which works great with his superb floor tiles ~

Value for money-wise, I also think the Fat Dragon 'E-Z Dungeon' looks worth a punt ~

There's some very flashy looking products from the likes of 'Terra Clips' ~

and 'Battle Systems' ~

but they're pretty expensive compared to my budget and not quite "modular" enough for my taste.

I'll be moving on to the plaster / resin options in the next post and then some DIY solutions, but I'll close for now with a plea.........
Does anyone have a set of the "Prince August Dungeon Builder" (give your horrors a home) moulds they'd be prepared to sell me pretty please?
(or even a good quality casting from each of the moulds??

)

All images snaffled from the web and used without permissions etc etc.
TTFN and comments more than welcome!

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The Skald

Re: Modular 3D Dungeon Building on a Bards Budget

Oops, the "couple of days" statement was obviously a curse

Not had time to really get my teeth into much modelling at all, so this is still a work-in-progress but in the meantime -
I managed to win this on evilbay

When men meet foes in fight, better is stout heart than sharp sword.

Marchomer

Re: Modular 3D Dungeon Building on a Bards Budget

In reply to this post by The Skald

Off Topic:

In this topic I see all type of dungeon tiles and options available searching in the google pictures, all except the coolest one!

Dungeon in plywood

OTPS.
Hi guys! It's been a while since I came here last time! But there's a reason! I'm working on the biggest project I've ever made! The Great Winged Space Marine Rhin... no it's not true... I'm only a lazy bastard

+ Other planes lie beyond the reach Of normal sense and common roads But they are no less real Than what we see or touch or feel. +

The Skald

Re: Modular 3D Dungeon Building on a Bards Budget

This post was updated on .

Marchomer wrote

In this topic I see all type of dungeon tiles and options available searching in the google pictures, all except the coolest one!

Dungeon in plywood

Glad you posted , I was getting really lonely on here (I think everybody has buggered off and just post on farsebook now

)
Laser cut terrain is really taking off, and I'll definitely be looking into it ta!

When men meet foes in fight, better is stout heart than sharp sword.

The Skald

Re: Modular 3D Dungeon Building on a Bards Budget

Time for an update

Things have been a little slow with the project, mainly while I thought about which direction I wanted to take it. In the end I've decided on a "hybrid approach", which roughly translates to "the bits I like from all the options"

Thanks to a deal struck with Mortis of this parish, I ended up with a couple of Mage Knight dungeon wall sections I was happy to experiment with. I invested 99p in 100 round Neodymium magnets, 3mm x 1mm in size, and after cutting off the remaining pegs from the wall sections I drilled out 3mm holes in the bases, then stuck the magnets in place.

After leaving them for the glue to fully set overnight, it was time for a test run on the Dungeonworks flooring

Success! - so time for a "compatability check" with the Dungeonworks walls

I'm not intending to randomly mix-and-match the sections, they'll be used to represent different areas of the dungeon but I reckon they'll join together well enough.
Do they "stick" to the floor?

Oh yeah!

When men meet foes in fight, better is stout heart than sharp sword.

The Skald

Re: Modular 3D Dungeon Building on a Bards Budget

I've created a "prototype" floor (from an old computer side panel!) and wanted to test it out - it was about time our intepid heroes had another outing anyway, so, armed with some random dungeon generation mechanics here's some photo's from the session

Not far into the dungeon complex ~

and once through the door - they meet reinforcements!

After making their way further into the labyrinth ~

The ogre's room turned out to be a dead-end, but after some back tracking ~

According to the old song, "There may be trouble ahead"

and sure enough there's carnage in the corridor!

The party discover a gargoyle statue in an otherwise empty room ~

is it a trap? a puzzle?

When men meet foes in fight, better is stout heart than sharp sword.

MortiS-the-Lost

Re: Modular 3D Dungeon Building on a Bards Budget

In reply to this post by The Skald

Looking great there dude

Having the ability to mix and match MK3DD walls with your Dungeon Works walls does open up some interesting possibilities - as well as the obvious application of using different walls for different areas built by different races, you can use different style walls to represent where something has been 'bricked up' and the Heroes might break down the wall (of course anything someone has gone to the trouble of sealing up like that in a dungeon is bound to be trouble).

Another use could be extremely obvious secret doors - yes that does sound a little silly on the face of it, but consider this; while the 'secret door' might be obvious, how it's opened might not be so. Imagine a puzzle room encounter where the Heroes know there's a 'secret door' to open but have very little in the way of clues on how to open it, stick some odd features in the room - statues, unlit torch sconces, ect - doing something with one (or maybe more if you're feeling mean) of these objects opens the secret door.

Talking of torch sconces, the little holes in the DW walls give you the perfect opportunity to create some removable wall mounted features - just find yourself some plastic rod (or maybe cocktail sticks if they are the right size) and glue short length to the back of some spare shields, banners or weapons, torches, ect.
For more posh dungeons you might have paintings on the walls or decorative statues - you could use spare monster heads to make gargoyle faces that might form parts of puzzles and traps (shooting flames or crossbow bolts, or acting as switches) - you could even fit levers or blade traps to the walls in this way.

-----------------------------------
~The ravings of a single mad Goblin is bad enough, but such a power-hungry, malice-filled creature as Mortis can never hope to be understood~

The Skald

Re: Modular 3D Dungeon Building on a Bards Budget

In reply to this post by The Skald

Belated reply (almost a year!

), but thanks for the ideas and they'll definitely get used - as are the pieces I'm glad to say, which is of course a "positive" thing to say after such a long time since my last post

I'm still on the lookout for the perfect flooring to use, but I'm pretty sure I can get a suitable sized magnetic dry-wipe board and cover it with printed A4 self adhesive sheets - I'll let you know how I get on.........

In the meantime, here's some interesting stuff I found on evilbay (prices vary so shop around) :~

It cuts very easily and pieces bond together really well with industrial superglue to produce things like this :~

which, after a quick coat of paint looks like this in use (along with MK Dungeon doors) :~

and alongside MK Dungeon walls / Dungeonworks floor :~

Here's an "overview" of that last scene so you can see it from a players perspective :~

At the moment I've gone back to my old style of play, where I place portions of the dungeon on the table as they come into view, then take up (and re-use) sections as the party moves through. So, once it's out of the range of torchlight or dark-vision of the party, the players can no longer see it....... and have to map

When men meet foes in fight, better is stout heart than sharp sword.

DM Stevro

Re: Modular 3D Dungeon Building on a Bards Budget

In reply to this post by The Skald

Here is another option!

https://dungeon-builder-studios.myshopify.com/

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