D and D maps (Make them online)

[Morgul]

I have not gotten D and D insider yet.

Is there a way to create maps and print them off online.  (Maybe even with terrain, etc.) ?

Whats the easiest way to go about doing this?

[TiLT]

There are two good map editing tools I know of, with slightly different purposes. Neither is exactly easy to use though, so be prepared for a little learning curve. Both cost money.

Dundjinni lets you create some rather gorgeous battle maps, but isn't well suited to stuff like campaign maps. It's cheaper than the alternative below. I haven't used Dundjinni in a few years.

Campaign Cartographer is probably your best bet if you take your map making seriously (I do). It's a pretty daunting tool to learn to use initially, but it's actually a lot easier than it looks. CC is well suited for anything from world maps to dungeon maps. It can also create battle maps that are almost as good looking as Dundjinni's. I use this application for my mapping needs. Here's an example of a map I made for my current D&D-campaign, entirely in CC3 after about 6-8 hours of work.

[Morgul]

How hard is it to print off the maps to use on the tabletop with each one?  (To scale of course.)

Is it built in or do you have to convert into pages as a PDF or something to print them out?

With CC, do you have to buy the packs (dungeons, tombs, etc) in order to be able to make dungeons and such with terrain features?

[TiLT]

Printing to scale shouldn't be a problem with either app, and if it was it wouldn't be a problem to do it right even with something as simple as MS Paint. It's the least of your worries.

You CAN create dungeons with regular CC3, but it's not recommended. You can get Dungeon Designer 3 for that, which requires the core CC3 package. Honestly, I don't think this is a great idea at this point. I'd recommend using Dungeon Tiles to build your battle maps. It's easier, it's more fun, and it gets better results for less money than you'd spend on the software.

On the other hand, if you want to build great overland maps, world maps, city maps and so on, you can't really beat Campaign Cartographer and its addons.

[Morgul]

Gotcha, but keeping this for future reference.