Market Street, Adept & Expert (Patreon)

Welcome back folks, your alternate map this time is populated with some more props that you might recognize, the stalls from Town Market! I've sized, posed, and shaded them into the map for you, giving the Town Street a more market-y feel and clogging the streets somewhat. This kind of thing can go both ways though, as while the stalls will offer lots of cover to your party and their enemies there will also probably be all kinds of civilians who can and will get in the way of ranged combat. Good luck getting through this one without putting yourselves on the local guards' bad side. 

1. I chose the layout for this one carefully, opting for a somewhat symmetrical design with lots of alleyways that exit back onto the larger roads. I think this will make for interesting combat, perhaps allowing for a strategically-minded player to try to attack their opponents from behind (or giving the DM the opportunity to do the same if they aren't watching their backs). 

Rooftop combat is always a party of city/urban maps that I try not to forget about. I make sure that there are a variety of paths that players can take to get up on the rooftops somewhat easily and jump to other roofs as well as gaps that are a little too wide for a player to feel confident jumping. 

2. You might notice that the cobblestone texture was taken directly from my first urban map, Town Square. You might also notice that there's actually a grid not-so-subtly included in the cobblestones' lines. You might then notice that that grid doesn't line up with the grid I  placed on the map. Yes, this was a big mistake that I noticed way way too late into the game to somewhat easily or painlessly fix. Hopefully it isn't that eye-catching or confusing with the real grid, but to be certain I took some steps to fix it. Oops. 

3. Now, I chose to mix things up a bit this time with the coloring. I decided to cut down on the vibrant rooftop colors and attempt some semi-realistic palettes instead, as well as opting for somewhat more foggy lighting which should give the impression of smog. However, I'm not too sure I like it yet. In a couple days I'll figure out my final feelings on this map, but I suspect I won't be using the foggy effect again. Even so, I do think that the coloring this time is a little more satisfying than my last couple town maps but there's certainly plenty of room for improvement. Either way, I'm looking forward to doing a nice forest-y, vibrant map next week; it's been too long.