Multi-Layer Maps & Line of Sight

This was talked about in one of my roleplaying groups a while ago when we ran into a very awkward issue with the "line of sight". The map in question featured a village with a ground level and several buildings with rooftops that were very much traversible. In order to account for the LOS and the fact that tall buildings would realistically obstruct your view, lines were drawn across these rooftops to block the view of characters on the ground. Now, when characters wanted to climb these rooftops, we ran into a teeny tiny issue... Seeing as the LOS "walls" also obstruct player token movement and can't, by design, be seen through... The emulation of LOS from a rooftop was impossible to achieve on a normal map without adjusting the LOS for every player present by being forced to remove said wall or have the GM manually move the player token back and forth over the LOS wall in order to allow them to remain aware of the going-ons throughout the map. Ultimately, having to create a separate map for the rooftops would be counter-intuitive since the player on the rooftop wouldn't be able to take advantage of their new vantage point and wouldn't be able to see what was going on around the rest of the map anymore (not to mention problems with the initiative counter for combat encounters). So, here's the suggestion... Is it possible to add a separate set of layers (or more) to one map that has its own set of LOS blocks (or an absence thereof, entirely) to which a player can be moved where they can still see what is going on in the base map? Only all tokens on the base map will appear slightly transparent from the "upper layer", and vice versa, which gives further indication of token location and positioning for games that rely especially on token placement. This would not only help with the LOS issue for more complex maps, as I'm sure it has a more versatile usage if you get creative (such as ethereal and/or invisible player characters, off the top of my head). Thoughts?

Hi there ! Map layers are a really interesting idea. Since there are several premium sets that have multiple grounds (underground, ground floor, 1st floor, roof layer), it could be usefull to set these layers so that we don't have to make multiple pages for a zone.

I 100% support multi-layered mapping, however it needs done.  The biggest reason I have is the "swapping of map sheets" for players - players don't always stay together 100%, especially in a fight.  So if one goes "up" or "down" a layer - not just into another room, this causes problems, I can't show them what they see - without everyone seeing.  This prevents strategic play on the vertical scale, and forces only horizontal play - which really puts a strain on immersion. Even if a simple map is a lighthouse - it would have the base floor, at least 1 middle ground floor of stairs going up the tower - and the top floor, where the massive beacon is.  Having to set up 3 maps, or use 3 sections on the same map doesn't really help immersive feel.  I know on actual table top we'd have to just use the latter (3 sections drawn on a map to indicate floors) - but were on a Graphic Computing machine, thus our options are expanded greatly.

I have a similar situation and am not sure how to get around it. When an underground map slopes up and down in such a way that a passage can go over or under a previously traversed passage it seems I would have to create three levels (different maps) and switch between them.  Not only would the mechanics of this slow the game down, it could give away what is actually happening.  Is is there any clever way to deal with this?

Jim said: I have a similar situation and am not sure how to get around it. When an underground map slopes up and down in such a way that a passage can go over or under a previously traversed passage it seems I would have to create three levels (different maps) and switch between them.  Not only would the mechanics of this slow the game down, it could give away what is actually happening.  Is is there any clever way to deal with this? If you were to use the z-plane of the layers you could move the lower level to the front when the players get to that level. However there is no way to combine this effect with DL.

Make it happen. Like, just fill this page to the prim with comments. 

Couldnt they just add extra layers in so you could move a player to a different layer for different floor heights? (2 layers per floor height Map and token *3 with dynamic lighting)

Kissker said: I 100% support multi-layered mapping, however it needs done.  The biggest reason I have is the "swapping of map sheets" for players - players don't always stay together 100%, especially in a fight.  So if one goes "up" or "down" a layer - not just into another room, this causes problems, I can't show them what they see - without everyone seeing.  This prevents strategic play on the vertical scale, and forces only horizontal play - which really puts a strain on immersion. Even if a simple map is a lighthouse - it would have the base floor, at least 1 middle ground floor of stairs going up the tower - and the top floor, where the massive beacon is.  Having to set up 3 maps, or use 3 sections on the same map doesn't really help immersive feel.  I know on actual table top we'd have to just use the latter (3 sections drawn on a map to indicate floors) - but were on a Graphic Computing machine, thus our options are expanded greatly. You can drag a player's name badge onto a different page to switch them while leaving the rest of the party on the current page. When I have a tower, I put all layers within one map and drag the token between levels for the players.

Why can't I vote more than once? even though I'm just a Plus subscriber, I'd be totally fine if this was done as a pro feature and I'd get pro just to have this feature (of couse, I'd rather it goes to plus and pro, but still).

A system like this, or some variation on it, might be useful for combat between flying characters. or in  a chase in zero gee. Some variation on the ruler that solves hypotenuses between characters at different levels of the z-axis. Or has someone already wrote a script for this?

it would possibly help, if we were able to group items, Dynamic lighting markers, or even terrain groupings to be able to send an entire group to the GM layer and back without leaving 30 items behind.

I’m a fan of this idea.  Ideally the gm could view all layers at once or select specific levels or groups.   That way you only look at what you need. The number and naming of layers could be part of the map set up. Say ground level, second level, rooftops...

I just found this and it is an amazing idea. Perhaps the GM sees all the floors as 'normal' beside each other, but the player only sees one at a time, and when they are 'changing floors' however if the DM drags the piece or a macro for moving a piece when it arrives at a location like the top of stairs (is that a thing?) then their view is simply swapped, rather than a need to drag the camera around in some fog of war to find where their piece went.

Just reached a point where I'm struggling with this. Made a tower map with an area out the front. I created another map with the second floor of the tower  and the same outside area. Some PCs moved to the second level and some stayed outside the tower, a battle began - boom, game session in chaos. Player's initiative tracker not carrying over as I switched pages, enemy tokens not consistent across the pages... session nearly got derailed. I would love the ability to have a single map with layers you could cycle through.  Seems like a hugely valuable feature. Surely players being on different levels is a fairly common thing. 

Unless each level is absolutely huge, I put them all on the same map with dynamic lighting lines separating different floor maps from each other.

would be great to create a line of sight tool with various altitude markers with different colors, and a matching vision for tokens. The rooftop issue up there is one im struggling with right now.

+1

I'd like multi-layer maps for the purposes of adding weather effect gifs. Rain, snow, sandstorms etc.

+1 this would change the way my group plays for the better

Please do this. Yes, you can drag players to different maps, but there's a whole lot of screwing around moving monster and PC tokens on multiple maps unless there is a way to sync their movement and damage, etc over multiple maps??

I havent ever asked for anything... but Roll20 please make multi-layer maps. It would help everyone out and give you good PR.

+1

+2!

+3

+1 to the idea of a Z-axis layering.  Doing any kind of elevation combat on a single layer is hard (I've had ambushers on rooftops, for example).  But please support more than "ground/elevated".  I had one fight with three levels (ground, balcony, catwalk) and I could easily see having more in a complex street scene.

+1

+1 Please make this happen

+1 Do this it will benefit a lot of game masters

Absolutely agree on this idea! It wiuld also be helpful if players had a square they could move their token onto to switch from one layer to another on their own, and also see creatures on the layer beneath them (i.e. elf ranger goes up the stairs to the balcony, he can still see the bard on the ground floor)

This gets my vote, it would help make encounters more interesting.