best online battlemap program?

[Unbeliever]

Due to a geographic diaspora, a few friends and I are going to start playing online.  I've googled a bit, but I was wondering if anyone had suggestions for a good program to use. 

My ideal would be something extremely simple.  We are going to be pairing it with Skype and rolling things out ourselves, so it doesn't need to do much.  Ideally, it would: 

• create a fairly attractive battlemap
• allow us to import images to create tokens
• allow us to draw or drop in tokens or something to represent spell effects, areas, etc.

Thanks.

[Slaughterhouserock]

MapTool seems to have everything you want.  I've used it before and it was fairly easy to pick up, especially with the video tutorials on the site.

[JohnnyMayHymn]

+1'd for mutual interest, can't remember the name of the one I used, I'll think of it..

Edit: ninja'd, it was maptool

[Kethrian]

My group plays online all the time, and we use Game Table.  the RC9 build is the one we're currently using, and it works very nicely.  Though you will need another program to make your own tokens, the game will autodistribute them to all players logged on when they are placed on the board.  Plus, it has overlays and underlays for things like rocks and trees, spell areas, etc.

[veekie]

MapTool seems to have everything you want.  I've used it before and it was fairly easy to pick up, especially with the video tutorials on the site.

Quite frankly amazing really. Its extremely intuitive to use, and enough people use it to give you advice and help for fancy stuff(mostly extra features you might want to make use of as DM) where needed.

[ariasderros]

Do either or both of those track movement in 3d easily?

[Kremti]

3D?  That might be a bit of problem...

-K

[ariasderros]

I merely meant tracking elevation, so if one person is on a mound, it's obvious. Or maybe a way to alter a marker with how high that person is flying.

[Kethrian]

Well, with Game Table, you could just add an elevation attribute to the tokens that are flying or whatever.  If terrain is supposed to be of a different elevation, you could mark it on the battle map itself.

[Slaughterhouserock]

I merely meant tracking elevation, so if one person is on a mound, it's obvious. Or maybe a way to alter a marker with how high that person is flying.

You can add how high up a person is flying to their token in MapTool, so when you hover over the token with your mouse, you can see it.  You can even make it so only the DM can see it if need be.

[Chrononaut]

Saw this mentioned in a thread in SA.

Never looked back. Maptool IS great (esp. if you can get that PF framework and spell monitor thing working) and that framework is the best thing for d20 on it, but damn if roll20 isn't challenging it for #1. And it's just in beta!

I switched due to huge issues with connectivity in maptool. Everyone can just pick up FF or chrome to use roll20 with ease.

[Kremti]

DOn't have beta access to roll20...nice there's a positive review!

-K

[JohnnyMayHymn]

DOn't have beta access to roll20...nice there's a positive review!

-K

u just make a free account
http://roll20.net/

[Kremti]

Heh, last time I checked it was closed beta!  Time to try it out...

-K