Comparing FIVE D&D Battle Map Making Programs | Which is the easiest? 

Thank you for such kind words! Glad to hear you enjoyed Dungeon Alchemist 🙂

Thank you for taking the time to review our tool! Terrain brushes are on the list of to-dos. One thing I wanted to clarify is that only the tile assets are stored in your local cache. Your maps are saved to a database - if you clear your cache you won't lose your maps. You will just have a slower load in time while the tool re-fetches all of the assets.

Quick bit about dungeon draft, if you turn off the snap option you can put the lights on the walls. That was a big thing for me when I first got it but once I figured out the snap feature it made it a lot easier

To level the playing field, I think you should make the same map with the different tools.

Two other things to keep in mind about Dungeon Alchemist: First is that this is still in early access and will continue to get the Kickstarter stretch goals such as a magic themed one and two related to water. The second thing is that they have a stream on Twitch every Saturday where if they get 50 viewers they have a giveaway for a free copy of the software.

I use Dungeon Draft for my maps regularly. I was running a game where my players did something I didn't expect and combat was coming. We took a 5 minute break, during which I made the whole map, and imported it into Roll20. They never knew I wasn't prepared for this. The more you use it, the easier it gets (and it's pretty dang easy to start). It's a *great* tool. I also was a Kickstarter supporter for Dungeon Alchemist, and Wim De Hert has been absolutely wonderful about communication from the start in 2021. I don't use those maps, but I do play it like it was a video game and get ideas from it. hah!

Inkarnate allows toggling whether you want to keep an item selected after placing it, or not. It's a checkbox in the object menu. If you constantly adjust after placement, you want to keep it selected to save that click. In your case you would want to disable automatic selection to prevent preparing e.g. rotation of the next placement affecting the previous one.

Love the self talk when you show yourself designing. I would like a map making video with random requirements

As soon as I saw the mustache, I knew this channel is trustworthy.

The biggest advantage with Inkarnate is the ability to make world maps easily. Dungeon Draft has been my go-to dungeon making software, but Inkarnate is what I use when making overworld maps.

Dungeon Scrawl is also fantastic for making old style dungeon maps, and it has an excellent free version

I feel like I am only writing this content so you can get an engagement boost, but I feel like its worth it. Your content is engaging, and informative without being pointlessly long. The editing makes it feel like a channel with 100x the subscriber count. Keep up the good work.

I've been using Dungeon Alchemist for a while and it's by far my favorite tool. Extremely fast for excellent results. It gets silly with object placement at times, but moving things around is a synch.

5:55 - this is the life of every dungeon master whenever you are building something.

I’ve been using Dungeondraft to make my own maps because most map artists seem to prioritize aesthetic design over tactical game design with multiple approaches to an objective that each have their pros and cons… In other words, I’d rather have a Counterstrike map than a pretty picture.

So glad to see DungeonDraft and Dungeon Alchemist on this list. I was becomming a little worried dungeon alchemist wasn't on your radar. I have used it for maps and to make beautiful splash pages for my online groups I think the only thing faster and i would have liked to see it in your review is Donjon's random dungeon generator... I have had a lot of wacky fun with that one. Also, first time viewer and new subscriber keep it up.

I've been wanting a tool to speed up custom maps. This is exactly what I needed to see! I loved the challenges you set yourself as a way of comparing programs. thanks!!

This is an excellent review and examination, incredibly helpful, thank you so much!

Inkarnate is king. I pay the yearly $25 fee and it's worth every penny. FYI, not only can you rotate an asset before you place it; you can also change the size, and different versions of the asset, by holding, Ctrl, Shift, or Alt, respectively while scrolling your mouse wheel.

Excellent video, man! Thank you for the work here.

Been using Dungeon Alchemist for the better part of a year now, and I’ve been super impressed at how much the devs have kept improving it and adding content over time. Add to that the ability to import HeroForge figures for players, NPCs and monsters (plus the upcoming 3D import) and it’s become my tool of choice for both dungeon design AND a virtual tabletop for online games (streamed over Discord). I have a lot of fun space-building in DA.

I'd been looking for a video that compares DungeonDraft, DungeonFog, and Dungeon Alchemist for a couple weeks now since I'm deciding on which one I want to use to create battlemaps for my own campaign. So glad your video came out at the perfect time for me, what a coincidence!

I started out using Inkarnate and still use it for world and region maps, but all of my battle maps are now made in Dungeon Alchemist. They also have a whole workshop on Steam where people upload amazing maps already built. You can save them and then edit them in DA to make them just like you want. My players were going to compete in a tournament and I found an amazing stadium map someone had already built. Talk about saving time. I changed a few of the items littering the stadium floor, and it was done. I exported it for use in Roll 20 and it worked perfectly. Nice comparison of the various tools.

I helped Kickstart dungeon alchemist and it was well worth it I use the maps printing one off for players to visualize (for example a heist) and one for me with hidden objects around the area. All I do is create the dm version and then take away what I want seen

Inkarnate has an option for placement stamps. the three arrows at the bottom will allow you to adjust a lot of stamps. But you are right. The wall placement is better off If you do it differently like Foreground Background. add and remove. but this is natural for surface users to not find these settings.

Excellent video!! Thanks for all the info!

Thanks for sharing this. It will help in my future campaigns.

this is the EXACT topic / video that i needed, after desperate googling and wondering wether or not i should give X or Y program a shot

Great video! I've been looking at some of the map makers and currently use Inkarnate, but now I kind of want to try Dungeon Alchemist.

Great video! It was informative and entertaining.

Yes DungeonDraft! That's a great tool. I'll have to check out Dungeon Alchemist though. Shout out to DungeonDraft's sister program, Wonder Draft. If you want a great tool to generate world maps, in many different styles, take a look at that.

Way to get on the map! This video was great and it really helped me get in the right direction for creating my own campaign. I have something started on World Anvil that I've been neglecting for YEARS and would love to hear about more tools to help me flesh out the world I'm making.

I really appreciate the time you took to create this video highlighting the pro's and con's of each. It will make my decision of which one to use a lot quicker, easier, and cheaper. I also feel the time length of the video was just perfect -- the right amount of time to feature the programs without being needlessly excessive.

Very interesting video, thank you!!

Thank you!! "Dungeondraft" will definitely serve well for maps with specific details If "Dungeon Alchemist" could make maps in "2D style" it would be the best option for sure, but the fact that it is 3D rendering ends up limiting some things, as it will hardly be possible to take advantage of maps found on the internet alongside

You hella helped. It will be my first time DM-ing. Ty so much

on inkarnate, to spin the thing youre hovering and not the thing you last placed, simply right click

Great Video! Gonna check out Dungeon Draft for sure

I have been using Dungeon Alchemist for several months now and agree 100% with your review. For my games, I have found a simple way to export the maps as very large PNG files I push into Owlbear Rodeo... AFTER I put them through a neat series of filters (on Befunky but could be many of the filter apps) to give my maps a more hand-drawn look to them. And, I feel really good about how they look. I also will use the cinematic camera view to get great shots to use as splash pages for encounters. And, with both the greenscreen objects they let you add and the announcement that they'll be letting us import models, I THINK we'll finally be able to import 3rd party assets.

Bro your videos are amazing, you should have much more subscribers. Keep up the great work, love your videos❤

Honestly amazing video thank you

you literally saved my adventure, thanks for the review

Scattering random variations is also possible with Dungeondraft.

Thanks for bringing some very cool tools to my attention in a consice way.

Amazing video, great signal to noise ratio!

That video is so useful I've been struggling with Photoshop by myself xD thank you !!

Another super video!! very informative, sick editing, on point and fun to watch!! 9/10 (I missed the usual joke of multi-version of yourself playing some ttrpg at the start xD)

Would love to see a similar video about 3d mapmakers like talespire

I'm surprised you didn't try out talespire. I absolutely love making maps in there.

i am a new dm, and making maps is one of my favourite things. i use inkarnate and it honestly just makes me so happy, especially once i got to grips with it. I also like incarnate as its not too pricey, and it has options for other styles of maps

What a wonderful video. Thanks very much.

I was in on the Dungeon Alchemist since the Kickstarter stage. I'm happy I backed it. At release it was pretty limited as far as item choices go, but still amazing in its capabilities and function. They continue to add more content as time passes, so it's continuously more robust. It's extremely useful now and I look forward to future updates.

In inkarnate, if you press "escape" after placing an object, you will deselect it, letting you rotate other objects before you place them.

inkarnate has a learning curve and you can definitely make a pond and much more. i would give it a second chanche and some more time to learn, it's my favourite tool and i have used every other software you used.

Wow. I haven't looked into battle map software since Dundjinni from way back. Once I learned how to make maps using GIMP, I figured that I wouldn't need one. This video has given me reason to reconsider. Thank you.

I bought Dungeon Draft after finding the free stuff to be very thin / not versatile enough, and not wanting to deal with a subscription for something I'll probably use one a month or so. Yeah, it has a slight learning curve, but it's easy to pick up and add packs to on the cheap!

Thank you so much for this video. I kicked Dungeon Alchemist years ago and totally forgot I even owned it. This video reminded me I had it and playing with it now is all kinds of fun. Here's to hoping it makes my game better.

inkarnate has a really step learning curve, but the quality of maps you can make after you learn how to use it are insane. Like the rotating objects afternoon placement, you have to hold control to disable that. Inkarnate is more for people who want to spend hours making maps, not just quick stuff. Although I can make a high quality battle map in like 30 minutes, but I have been using it for a few months now

I LOVE Dungeon Alchemist, especially since both of my groups are playing on Roll20. My players are doing something unexpected and I need a generic battlemap ASAP? No problem, takes atound 10 Minutes from opening DA to having the map ready on R20. I have enough time to prepare a map? Great, I can make really beautiful maps from scratch or take something from the Workshop (and change stuff if necessary). It is easy to use, fast if you need it to be and I love how it looks. I always recommend it if someone asks me for a good tool.

In Inkarnate, if you hit escape, you deselect the last piece and can rotate the brush tool freely. Love the tool and hope they have more assets and asset packs coming!

Thanks, your video convinced me to get DungeonDraft. Dungeon Alchemist also looks great, but I think the former better suits my needs as we play almost exclusively in person.

Ooo. Thanks for doing this! I always just googled maps for myself but the biggest struggle is not making\fonding them. It's getting it to the players. We play in person and I've yet to find a reliable, fast, non invasive (aka taking time to draw in sesh) - way to get to scale maps in front of my players. For me I have this big beautiful colored map, but all they get is two lines on a grid "this is a hallway". Would love to see more videos on this. 0.o

Another fantastic video

I just got Dungeon Alchemist and absolutely love it!

Love the video! TNKS!!! :D

Great video as always, man! On Inkarnate, I had the same problem on spinning objects, but I found that clicking on the right button after placing the object allows you to spin/resize/reshape/recolor at will without affecting the last one. Still, I agree that making gridded maps is harder than the others. It excels more at world maps, and freeform battlemaps. For these, I really enjoy the practicity of Dungeon Scrawl. I usually use it as a guide for mini modular placement (we usually play local), and it helps a lot.

i personally love to take advantage of multiple! For instance i might have a large battlefield surrounding a fort, start it in inkarnate and finish it in owlbear rodeo (which is also what i use to host the maps for discord DnD sessions)

Thanks for the content.

Great video and that mustache goes hard lol

I've been using Inkarnate, it's well worth it. I've made dozens of maps now with it - I've been printing battle maps out to cover the whole table, and the regional world maps are just what the players want to feel like they are exploring and accomplishing. A nice trick is to use the layers to hide things on the maps until you are ready to update them. I've made 4 battle maps larger than 2'x3' now, and it really adds a lot to the game. It would be nice to have a little more adaptability to the textures, but it does what it does very well.

I am using dungeon draft a lot and I'm pretty excited about it. I like that it also allows you to make maps for non-medieval settings like call of Cthulhu if you have the right asset pack.

From where I stand, all of those seem to shine when you have someone who knows how to battlemap a bit better than I do. After trying a lot of them, I went for Talespire and I'm happy. Yes, it takes a while to do maps with it, but it's definitively for dummies. And it has a lot of interesting tools. Its been a while since I last tried it, but it was already great. Not to mention that there's already a legion of mapmakers doing WONDERS with it and the fact that you can easily save those maps as text.

As someone who backed dungeon alchemist on kickstarter, I can say, it is very helpfull, but has a learning curve. I always love seeing the updates come in from the devs

Not that fussed about dnd. Subbed purely because that moustache is fantastic sir 👏👏

I've been using inkarnate for a while now and i think it excels at world maps. I'll have to try some of these other options for battle maps too!

Every time you say the word "wall", I look at the album on the shelf behind you. You have excellent taste in music, good Sir.

I kickstarted DungeonAlchemist back when they first started. Love it.

Thanks for the video. I'm not particularly creative visually and I'm looking for a map-making tool. I was already familiar with some of these products but it was good to see someone mess around with them while having similar goals to me (to get a decent-looking map out quickly).

I've had dungeon alchemist on my wishlist for a long time. This video makes me gonna buy it:)

Thanks for the video. I personnaly use Inkarnate and Dungeon Draft. The first one is when I have a lot of time and want a detailed map with a specific atmosphere. The other one allows me to work really faster so when I need several maps or a really big one. I also started to use Dungeon Alchemist but the 3D style doesn't really match with the 2 others. Maybe for a new campaign.

Great Video! I've used all of them and agree with your choices. Dungeon Draft is definitely my current favorite. A word of caution: If you choose to use "cloth" to create roof tiles....save often.

I use Dungeon Draft. And it was an easy decision for me: I don't like subscription services so I haven't even looked at Inkarnate and other subscription based map makers. But I didn't know Dungeon Alchemist and will check it out now. Thanks for the tip!

A note on 4:11 The feature also exists in Dungeondraft in a way. If you have assets of multiple different variations, there is a tool which not only randomly chooses between the ones you select, but can also randomize size and rotation(even within specific ranges you select), but you can do more than just variations of any one item. Sure it does make you reliant on the assets which exist, but the tool itself is there, and is more flexible. For example, i use it to put down a whole bunch of different trees, shrubs, random clutter, and more. And about 7:37 Also a feature Dungeondraft has in a way. Assets can be tagged as colorable, which enables you to freely recolor the parts of them which are colorable. And, you guessed it, the previously mentioned tool can also be used to randomize the colors.

I love Dungeon Alchemist! I was hoping it was going to be on this list. I host my games on Foundry and the export is so easy

I think I saw Dungeon Alchemist at MegaCon. Splendid! I’ll likely get it after I run the starter set with my wifey. Thank you for the video.

Nothing beats the beast that is inkarnate. The sheer quality of maps that's possible is insane.

I need to share this video.

Thank you very much for your video, what pages do you recommend to play role-playing online, I am currently using Level20 but I see that many use Roll20 but it is a bit complicated for me?

Unreal eninge 5 might also be usefull if you are looking for 3d maps. It is free and has a lot of free assets and if you ever played a video game the controls are very easy.

what a lovely face warmer you have, congrats :') one of the lucky ones.

I think the best you can get if money isn't a huge issue is definitely having both Inkarnate and Dungeon Fog. Dungeon Fog for creating quick and relatively simple maps and Inkarnate for big highly detailed maps and especially for making World Maps and City Maps, perfect for long term big world builders.

I love Dungeon Alchemist.. I just wish that they supported Cyberpunk/SciFi/Space.. Me and my players have started playing games other than D&D :( -- But for general TTRPGs with Fantasy settings - you CANNOT go wrong with investing in DA! And the devs and community are very active on their discord channel.

i love that escanor is now interested in tabletop games

if you press the "S" Key you can unsnap from the grid and free place anything including objects and tools

I began with Dungeon Draft, and now I mostly use Dungeon Alchemist. That's mostly due to the aesthetic I'm going for with my current campaign. However with the right Dungeon Draft assets you can load up a Dungeon Alchemist map into dungeon draft and place a plethora of objects that will mostly fit fairly well. I do this mostly for furniture as Dungeon Alchemist has yet to update with the ability to load custom 3d assets. Also if you're just doing a top down view you can use a photo editor to filter the image and change the "art style". Maybe make it sepia and have the objects look like they're hand drawn. Something like that. There's a lot you can do with both Dungeon Alchemist and Dungeon Draft. Oh, and for world maps, Wonder Draft is my go to. It's fantastic! Keep up the amazing videos, you defiantly have a new sub!

I've been using Dungeon Fog for over 2 years now. They have a lot of nice features, but the maps can give computers problems if you use too many textures or a room is too big. If you make a large cave as one room your computer will freak out. Everything has to be made in bite size pieces for it to run smoothly. Also, they quite often have glitches. Textures will change or not load properly. They will randomly delete your player character tokens. Sometimes the floors of maps don't load, so all your players see is a black map with some trees and a river running through it.

Dungeon draft is my go to, but dungeon alchemist seems so cool. Adding asset packs to dungeon draft makes it such a go to tool since you can make it look any way you want and you always own it. I’ve been using it since beta, imagine how much money I’ve save over using a subscription model. Honestly dungeon draft is a tool that the longer you use it the way better your maps look.

This isn't the exact same, but if you use the scatter tool in dungeon draft without having it vary the rotation or scale you can select multiple types of objects to place and it creates something very similar to object variation.

Dungeon Draft does the "unique to inkarnate" random object thing - the Scatter Tool. You can pick a bunch of different versions of, say a bed, set the rotation to a single value (so it isnt randomized) and it will flip to a random object on each click. It isn't "automatic" in the sense of pick a bed and it will iterate through variants of that object - you have to select the variants you want. You also can't rotate with the mouse wheel in that mode which is tedious.

Dungeon draft has a random asset tool, where you can tell it to choose one of a selection of assets you choose.