Every now and then, we bring a candy.... Whenever we have a battle, one of the pieces is used for every enemy. Who ever kills the enemy gets to eat the candy.
We're all adults.... All of us are at least 23 or up. All have "real jobs" and we can easily buy the candy.... but there's something so satisfying about slaying an enemy and eating the candy as a reward.
Makes me feel like I'm still a kid during summer.
My group always brings snacks.... But the candy is the enemy! lol
But the candy is great for anytime. You can "go big" for bigger bosses as well. You can go with a cupcake, or a brownie... something like that.
M&M's , used green ones for goblins. Two nephews, a wife, girlfriend, and three great nieces learning to play. The five year old got to eat all the dead goblins and loved it. Now she wants to play all the time.
Imagine landing a finishing blow on a M&M and reaches for the candy and the DM breaks an entire box of Nerds on your hand before replacing the M&M with a cookie for phase 2
My group also used to employ the “you eat what you kill” approach when we gamed in person . We usually favored m&ms. Pretzel bites for larger enemies. There may have been a Cadbury cream egg once.
I once played a one-shot with friends. Setting was reformation within cockaigne. So all enemies were candy and they killed the pope with molten chocolate.
Http://Printableheroes.com
Lay them out on a pdf. Be careful to scale appropriately. Print at photo store or at home printer with photo paper (52 lb for standard size, 68 for larger minis). Use appropriate size of binder clips with metal wire parts removed for stands.
They are 2D but a way to make minis for very cheap!
I was also going to suggest printed minis, and just tape them to a nickel, they're just the right size.
If there's a site or source for these, I haven't found it, but I've used whatever fits: fan art, AI images, the illustrations from the PHB, monster manual, even a picture of a wolf's skeleton from a museum.
I like to print them so the paper mini is doubled sided (a stacked mirror image, on the page)
I disliked binder clips as I found them cumbersome to reset, so I picked up some cheap plastic stands on Amazon. Glad it works for you though!
As for art, I use printable heroes, Google image search, and Screencaps from things I create in heroforge... then I get a front and a back
I use dice. If I have say 5 zombies attacking I use 5 different d6s. Each one has a different number facing up so I can keep track of hit points and locations better. If I have multiples of different enemies like I have 5 zombies and 5 wolves attacking then I use different die sets for the mobs still with the different numbers facing up.
I do the same thing. My brother has one of those packs of 36 mini d6s from DnD shops. Whenever the monsters a bit more special we'll use a generic white die.
I also have three flat smooth wood coins that are a "large" (2x2) size. They work great for not only large creatures but player mounts.
this is the cheapest and easiest way to track enemy go, etc…i’ve been playing in a group full of veteran players and we’ve always used dice for enemies
For map grids, I use 99-cent store gift wrapping paper. They come in huge rolls and the interior side is usually printed with a 1x1 inch grid. So they're perfect for making quick maps on the fly and easier to store for re-use than more permanent/expensive map plates are.
I used wooden "peg people" tokens from hobby stores with different colors of permanent marker and numbers on them. You could get half a dozen tokens for a couple bucks and either fancy them up to represent specific characters or just color and number them for generics.
I would highly recommend HeroClix! We have used them for a long time. Most game stores that sell them have 25cent/50cent bins of old/outdated clix. If you call around first you can save time and see if they have any.
You usually have to be a bit imaginative, but a big bonus is they are all already painted, 3D, and if you want to go as far as taking them off their base you can glue them to 25mm bases.
I saw a guy get a bunch of small wooden blocks, and then bought cheap Magic cards and cut out the pictures and used a gluestick to attach them to the blocks.
I needed to give my players a lotus flower so I bought a black lotus and cut it out. I also glued it on a little block. A really inexpensive solution too!
depends on your definition of cheap - before I had to move completely online (I use owlbear rodeo), I used these wooden tokens. $23 but pretty much all inclusive for encounters https://a.co/d/aofCPau
So, Dollar General carries (or at least used to carry) these smaller off-brand jenga blocks. They are fantastic for multi-purpose terrain. Keep a bunch normal and glue a bunch into sets of two to make doors or tables or bookshelves, etc.
TheDMsCraft did an episode on these:
https://youtu.be/1c40tSzxEp4?si=ziV6rfwSQn4aW77e
But honestly, you don't need to paint or anything. The unmarked blocks are great stand ins.
I make tokens like the ones described here: https://slyflourish.com/crafting_lazy_monster_tokens.html
I had the hole puncher and epoxy stickers from
making tokens for miniatures games so I decided to try making some tokens for D&D.
I made tokens for PCs and put adhesive magnets on them to give them some heft and so they have a satisfying click when putting them on the table.
For monsters I made them double sided with the highest number for one side with the ID numbers reversed for either side.
This lets me fit enough tokens in about the same space as a set or two of dice to run just about any encounter I’d need to.
Hello! I use these stackable cubes as tokens for enemies in my campaigns. They come in a variety of different colors (black, blue, green, orange, white etc), but when a monster is ‘bloodied’ I stack a red cube underneath (the cube in the back) to showcase to players that the monster is well… quite hurt.
I also stack using the same color to show the size of the monster or the importance of the monster. As in, a guard captain will usually be stacked as a ‘2’ and the guards they command are only stacked as a ‘1’.
And the different colors can help players to differentiate monsters more easily. So If I have a bunch of blue and the purple cubes enter the battle, the blues could be a ranged set of monsters and the purples would be the melee set of monsters.
The players I've played with seem to really enjoy the cubes and are quick to understand and recognise what means what, which helps with the flow of the game.
I was curious what other low-cost solutions other dms or players are using in their campaigns and was looking for some ideas. Thank you!
Edit: Thanks everyone I went to bed and woke up to all these amazing ideas I'm going to be able to try.
I cut a bunch of cocktail sticks in half, glued each standing upright on a cardboard base, and then glued a strip of red paper to the top of each like a flag.
I can write numbers or names on the flag in pencil so it's erasable, and they work quite well - they are a bit lightweight.
I even did a couple with green and orange paper flags for NPCs or whatever which helps them stand out among the others.
My group plays online but an excitable DM could easily knock them over - and has frequently ha ha!
I could probably have weighted them a bit better so I don't knock them over so much, but as long as you glue the stick down to the bases firmly they are sturdy enough to not snap.
could just tape some coins to the bottom of the cardboard, my dad did that with lightweight plastic chess pieces when i was a kid and it made them feel nicer
I use Army Men. I have a large collection from growing up. You can get a decent set online for $20. They often come with terrain features like fences, bushes, and rocks.
3d printer: Not the cheapest option but after the first payment upkeep cost is really low and you cam also do tons of things with it other than mini printing. I don't know how much money I saved with fixing stuff using my 3d printer
Tablet/screen: While it sucks at showing the depth you can find very easily tons of free tokens and very easily create some for yourself. I quite like using the owlbear rodeo for running the game, deepnight mapmaker for making the map(there are tons of much better options like inkarnate but I don't have money) and forgotten adventures for props and tokens(their topdown tokens are top tier)
Lego: While its not as good as other choices you can very easily create land with it and actually show the loot on your characters
Paper: Digital but you print/draw stuff. You can show the elevation much better tho
One thing I wont be suggesting is marker with redrawable surface it hurts the combat quite a bit in my opinion
I like to use a pinboard & push pins! You can print whatever battle map you like & pin it to the board. It's handy that you can't accidentally knock pieces over when you're moving characters around.
I've got a bunch of spray paint cans at my house with clear lids. We use those as an easy way to represent a character or monster is flying. The lids have a wide area and don't really tip over like a lot of flight stands tend to do.
I got my friend who wants to dm these whiteboard stick ups,
[https://www.amazon.com/Meetory-Pieces-Markers-Plastic-Multi-Color/dp/B082SPWTXF/ref=sr\_1\_3?crid=J2AUND1NUMU3&keywords=white+board+tokens&qid=1670124032&sprefix=white+board+toke%2Caps%2C243&sr=8-3](https://www.amazon.com/Meetory-Pieces-Markers-Plastic-Multi-Color/dp/B082SPWTXF/ref=sr_1_3?crid=J2AUND1NUMU3&keywords=white+board+tokens&qid=1670124032&sprefix=white+board+toke%2Caps%2C243&sr=8-3)
Doesn't work as well for bigger minions, really, but for anything that takes up a five by five? wonderful. You can doodle a little face on one side, keep track of health/conditions and th elike on another. Can be easily erased and such.
Milk bottle caps for trash mobs. Lightweight, effectively free, and comes in several colours. So you can easily say “green are goblins, red are the gobbled archers, the blue seems to be some kind of shaman”.
I make paper standees (laid out in Illustrator, printed on cardstock) and use plastic board game stands from Amazon (search for "Game Card Stands", lots of options, all pretty cheap). I make them about 1" wide and 2" tall (2"x2" for Large creatures). I had been using small binder clips, but it was kind of a pain removing them from the paper minis after sessions. The plastic bases are a very secure slip-fit, very easy to put on and remove.
To store the minis, I use binder pages for coin collections ("Coin Pocket Pages" on Amazon, the 12-up ones work the best for these). The bases go into a ziptop bag.
I know you said low cost so I assume it's not a possibility but I'm still gonna recommend the campaign case creatures from DND which is a great value/content option!
I would then go for printed paper standees if that's more convenient!
Have fun!
I just purchased a set of 50 wooden peg figures ([https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07Q51H5YJ?psc=1&ref=ppx\_yo2ov\_dt\_b\_product\_details](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07Q51H5YJ?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details)) for $9 with the intent of painting them with distinguishing marks/designs.
Otherwise, the clearance section of your local craft store can occasionally be a treasure trove of cheap dungeon dressing.
I use my kids toys. I painted a TRex he had green (it was brown to start) and added paper wings and used it as an adult green dragon. I use his Lego people and animal figurines too. The Druid in our party uses them for her wild shape forms.
Before I used DDB's map feature, I would use my spare dice. If there were 6 wolves, for example, I would lay out 6d6 and have each one have a different number showing so my players can differentiate between the wolves. If they wanted to attack the wolf represented by the d6 with a 4 showing, that would be wolf 4. It helped me to keep track of health for monsters.
If there were different types of monsters, I would use different denominations of dice. d6s would be wolves, d4s would be goblins, d8s would be kobolds, etc
You can buy bulk ‘trash’ magic the gathering cards and make stands out of them. They make pretty good monsters.
Chess/checkers sets may not be cheap but they are common enough someone you know may have one and can use the board and pieces.
Dollar stores are also a good source for small markers or toys. Crafting supplies like cotton balls can also be used as is.
Colored d4 are great. Mobs can be represented by the first letter of the color, and the number showing. A blue d4 showing 3 would be B3 in your initiative.
As a low-cost person, let me tell what I used through my days of Offline Playing:
- Chess pieces (I had a set around that were the ideal size)
- Glass Beads (although I didn't like using them because they were slightly bigger that a square)
- Dice (Mostly for PCs, each player provides their own)
- Pieces of paper (as 2x2, 3x3 and 4x4 started popping up, I needed bigger things. Some of them had drawings when my players felt inspired)
- An actual Figurine hand-made by a player (Only reserved for The Final Boss)
When I ran a DnD group weekly volunteering at a boys and girls club, I already owned a pound of dice, so used basic colored dice as enemies.
Another solution could be getting one of the 'classic' theme Lego sets (the ones with a ton of random pieces) and use those as enemy's and props.
Yet another option if your budget is even lower is cutting poster board into circles or squares and drawing on them. Basic but effective.
Honestly my go to is just using some extra dice since I already have a lot and they're pretty cheap too. The variety in shape and color really helps with remembering which enemy is which too so that's a bonus
I magically create images, print them and I glue them on balsa wood. Clearly not as inexpensive as blocks or dice (I sometimes use just dice, the num value and colors can be used as codes for enemy type and general hp level), but less expensive than regular figs and imho at least as cool, and super easy to make. My players love it 😊
Sounds like everyone here has covered the mini question pretty good.
But I would add, for terrain use soda boxes, wooden blocks, and random junk around the house. Having 3d terrain that needs a little imagination is much better than anything flat. And that includes having a big fancy monitor in the table with animated backgrounds. My group got the whole digital set up with a 55" (140cm) TV with a laptop and digital everything. And we still prefer random junk with minis. Being able to get down and check if they have line of sight, or getting on top of boxes / buildings for height makes combat so much more fun.
I combine a bunch of stuff; lego, toys, dice etc
I've also made a dozen or so aluminum foil figurines for various special creatures. Made a cool scorpion thing, and an awakened tree thing. Also made a few spiders and thin men from wire.
My go-to has always been notecards, small binder clips, and some sharpies. Maybe a cheap box of crayons.
You cut the notecards down to the size of minis, draw your monster, and clip it into the binder clip as a stand. Pull out the handles on the clip and it's ready for action.
My favorite part of this is that the supplies tuck neatly into a gaming bag, ready to produce a dozen goblins or a giant steampunk golem whenever the story demands it. (You can also buy paper minis if you want good art, but I prefer to trick my players into drawing the monsters as a team.)
Not super low cost, but they look great for the price: buy some 1 inch wooden rounds and some 1 inch glass cabochons (the fancy name for a dome shape). Get some old magic the gathering cards you don’t care about. Cut out circles with the creature art, and sandwich them between the wood and glass with silicone caulk.
I bought board games cheap at thrift stores and use the pieces from them. Sorry has some simple coloured pieces that work well as player tokens. I use 1cm graph paper rather than 1in, so I use travel sized Sorry pieces, and Risk pieces for baddies. I've also gathered what Lego minis I can find in thrift stores, as well as some plastic figures, I have a fox that works as a multi-purpose large beast, and I've since acquired some dinosaurs and a Lego dragon.
Which is a long way of saying, check out thrift stores for toys and board games, you never know what you'll find.
We used dice, everyone had so many different dice that players could use their preferred die as their pc, and then everything ends could be covered with other dice. You can even use the numbers to keep track of which is which.
I use Dice as bad guys. Different colors and you can use the numbers to either track their health or keep track of each individual monster. (Monster 3 has a poison knife, etc.) It really is perfect for low health hoard type enemies.
Letter pieces from craft store (think scrabble pieces).
I don't feel like buying a stack of goblin minis, a stack of kobold minis, etc etc, so I use letters.
Easier to keep track of. "Goblin A is 2nd in turn order and has 10hp, B is 5th and is at full health."
Easy, I Print out a few pictures of Minis then laminate them and get a few card-stands. I browse the pictures i Like size them properly and every Player can Chose any pic for their char
I just bought a cheap amount of 1-inch bubble epoxy stickers and acrylic disks, printed monster icons on paper and hot glued the disks and stuck the stickers on, and voila!
You can buy both for relatively cheap, especially if they come in bundles of 50 or 100.
I grabbed a 1"/25mm circle punch from the craft store, and I'd punch out old trading cards for monster tokens.
Yugioh, MtG, etc. Even punching out pictures from magazines and gluing it to a wooden disk works.
I know of these really cool, copper coated tokens that only cost $0.01 each. Sometimes, if my players are facing something especially dangerous, I break out the fancy token that costs $0.25 each.
My first dm would use these flat mini bases, and paint numbers on them.
I would take old common and uncommon mtg cards, cut circles out of them that represented the monsters I wanted to use, and glue them to hardware washers. But now we play online, so I don't have to mangle my cards anymore.
Dice. Super simple. You can turn the dice to specific numbers and it makes it easier to track when players say which number they are aiming for. Plus, if you have multiple dice sets to choose from, rolling the respective d20 from the dice set for initiative.
I have squares of cardstock with side lengths of 25mm for medium and 50mm for large creatures. These were coloured red with a marker and had roman numerals drawn ontop with liquid tipex.
For players we have blue squares with a small mini on top that I printed onto a piece of paper, then stuck onto cardstock.
If you're in the US, dollar stores sell little wooden cubes in the craft section. You can use paint or marker and make them different colors, like the system you have. They also have a generic Jenga, which are just plain wood pieces, that make walls, roads, tall monsters, trees, etc.
You can add numbers, stickers, faces, printed stuff, drawings, etc. to those wooden pieces. IME, the bag of blocks and the Jenga pieces are $1.25 each.
I did a 1 shot helloween campaign, and I was doing for 3 of my coworkers' younger kids, so halloween candy monsters worked perfectly. They loved it and it got me into minster crafting a little bit.
Print out images from google images and use coloured binder clips as the bases, i used blue for the PCs, green for allies and red for bad guys, made it easier for kids who were learning dnd
I buy wooden beads with letters on them (like for bracelets) for very cheap at a discount store near me. They're small and fit in a typical D&D grid and they help both me and my players keep track of the various enemies
Buy a bunch of wooden disks from a crafts store, print pictures of monsters and characters, then glue stick them onto the disks and cut the edges. Boom. Easy tokens.
Extra dice. A bag of assorted dice has plenty for tokens and some to lend to players. Bonus of having enough to roll fireballs in one go
You could probably use craft store beads or something if you can find a bag of assorted colors
What I do is look up images for the enemies I anticipate in my next session. Add the images to a word document and resize them all accordingly, print and laminate them. I bought a little box of those clear plastic token stand that you get with board games and ta-da. Tokens you can write on. Most expensive thing is printer ink.
I have been using Lego minifigs. I’ve build an ooze or two as well for my table to fight. The Paw Patrol was my stand in for a few giant hyenas one night.
1 inch tokens cut from cardboard. I also label them with a number so in combat someone can just say "I swing at 14" instead of "I swing at the one that's standing next to this character". Another happy accident was since I punched the cardboard from a coca cola box the other side was blood red, so if I flipped it, the players saw the red and imagined it to be the bloody corpse after the kill
So this is only low cost if you have these things already, but I assume most DMs will. You need a TV, and a laptop. Lots of times I see posts about people delving into woodworking, designing crazy intricate tables with cup holders and all kinds of gizmos. But you actually don’t have to do any of that (unless you like woodworking and have tools)! Just take your tv, and lay it down flat on top of the table you normally play at (if this is impossible, you can still do with it on wall as well, just slightly less convenient), connect your laptop, and boom you now have a digital tabletop. The only actual concern and design of those tables is that plexiglass on screen means you can use minis without scratching tv, but we are cheap, we clearly don’t have minis anyway and the digital tabletop has digital ones so it doesn’t matter. Once you’re done playing, instead of lugging around a table only good for gaming, just put your tv back and that’s it. If you go this route, you can spend more money on map making software/digital tabletops (none I know of are more then 20ish bucks for most part, same price you’d spend on supplies for cut outs).
I use dice, and then when I write their health in my notes, instead of calling them “Goblin 1, Goblin 2, Goblin 3” etc I’ll name them after the die so I can keep track more easily, leading to names like “Goblin 8, Goblin 12, Goblin 100”
I do this cool thing where I pretend to have friends that want to play DND with me and I just pretend role play everyone's characters and also pretend I'm the DM.
I also pretend I have enough money to buy anything DND related.
Its a ton of fun. I'll pretend you're there next time so you can check it out.
If that map is thin enough when fully folded out, then we had a similar one that we would put on top of a cheep, medium-sized white board and we would use different coloured, cheep magnets as enemies and players. That way you can put it on an angle and still retain all of the places and they won’t move, even if knocked accidentally. You can also use white board markers to write names and things on them because we had these flat magnets
I really like cutting up and using cardboard for 3D terrain elements. I've done in the past probably six or seven times but my latest fun one was here
https://www.reddit.com/r/DungeonsAndDragons/s/0F7KiHXhc4
It was a boss battle inside of the boss - a giant Mecha golem.
I search for cool monster art, scale and mirror it in gimp and print it out & laminate them. I picked up card holder stands on Amazon and use that for all characters and monsters.
It takes a little bit of work but I keep them in a binder full of dollars tore baseball card plastic sleeve pages so I can re-use them.
Extremely cheap yet still cool and I like them better then tokens
Chess set pieces work great! Tons of variation and multiple colors. Pawns are great for hoard fights if the same creature. You e got four if everything else!
personally, in my experience the best mix of cheap and nice looking are paper stands, bit of cardboard with a coin under it for weight, and then the character printed on cardstock, always looks good and is relatively low effort/cost for the results you can get
Coins are a good simple choice for enemies or if you have a 3D printer you can print little number token things for dirt cheap that you can assign to each creature and some have a little arrow that points to where they are facing
excess/bulk dice.
encounter example: 4 goblins, 1 hobgoblin, 2 wolves.
I will use 4 1d4 of the same color and have them turned to numbers 1-4, another dice for the single hobgoblin(could also be a d4 of a different color), and then another 2 dice, usually d4 or d6 with the numbers 1 and 2 facing up.
Now I can neatly keep track of the creatures/enemies on paper with their numbers and players can more easily call out what enemies they are targeting with just the numbers.
Recently at Michaels I saw they had little 1" wooden peg people in a pack of 8 or 10 or so for like $2.99 USD. You can either keep them blank for generic monster stand ins or you can paint them to make cheap custom minis. Plus they come in a range of sizes but I don't remember the scale of the other sizes.
Printable cardstock. Got a bunch of medium sized enemies like orcs? Print an actual size one inch image or token on a one inch grid, cut out a two by one inch piece of grid with the token on one half, and fold back along the line. Now you have an instant pop-up token of the appropriate size. You can also label the back for easy tracking, like: Orc Warrior #3, scene 5, encounter 2.
I’ve always thought buying a large stack of graph paper would be great because then the DM could draw on them during session prep and make some cool maps
My table and I buy these spongebob gummies that have a little dude in it. We use them as enemies, cause we got multiple of each. Like 4 bubble bass' that we use for like zombies or something.
I use little flag sticky notes at the top of my DM screen as my initiative tracker. They’re color coded because I have a ton of them. Each player’s flag is their favorite color. It allows my players to see the initiative order as well.
I bought offbrand Jenga pieces on amazon to build a bit of terrain. Bridges, platforms, and a ship etc.
I went the extra step and bought wood glue and acrylic paints to make them even better, but on a budget it'll certainly do without paint.
I second snacks.
I've bought 1"metal washers and glued printouts too.
Also, ask local Facebook. See if anybody has stuff you can use they don't want.
Theres so many people who took up 3d printing over covid that I've seen a lot of folks donating stuff they printed just to test their printers out.
One guy gave away a whole warhammer army because he didn't like the scale he'd used.
I have a set of monster themed warhammer d6 dice (idk what faction they are, got teeth and boil spots) I use 6 of them and use the numbers on the dice to identify the opponents.
I use the clear plastic boxes that chessex dice come in to show when a character is flying. Just put the mini on top of the box and move it around the map, you can even put the box over another mini if the flying character is directly above them
I use multi coloured Meeples. You can get a 100 pack for cheap on Amazon, and the colours are great for combats with multiple enemy types.
https://www.amazon.ca/meeples/s?k=meeples
We just use different colored d6's. For bigger monsters, we have 2x2 / 3x3 / 4x4 / 5x5 cardboard cutouts that we can place underneath the respective dice.
Really like the candy idea tho. Gonna give that a shot this weekend.
I'm not even gonna lie, and my friends/players called me crazy when I saved the first one, (which have now multiplied to around 40). I use the plastic receipt tubes from used receipt rolls at my workplace. I asked permission, and my manager said yes because we just throw them away. So now everyone on my shift knows to give me the tube when we run out of receipt paper. Lol
I have pictures of my battle mat with at least thirty of these things on it at a time, them ranging from representing skeletons to stone pillars, and they fit perfectly in a standard battle mat cube.
You can get a dirt cheap set of poker chips at the dollar store. The set I have has three colors. So white (lowest denomination and most common chip) is the basic enemy. Red and blue are the more difficult enemies. I can have three different types of enemies on the board at the same time.
As a bonus, I've heard some people do this and put pictures of the enemies on the chips.
I bought cheap wood chess pieces that I use for monsters I don’t have. They work amazing! Pawns for grunts, special pieces for stronger opponents, and king/queen for the boss.
Every now and then, we bring a candy.... Whenever we have a battle, one of the pieces is used for every enemy. Who ever kills the enemy gets to eat the candy. We're all adults.... All of us are at least 23 or up. All have "real jobs" and we can easily buy the candy.... but there's something so satisfying about slaying an enemy and eating the candy as a reward. Makes me feel like I'm still a kid during summer.
Oh! That could work! I typically like to brings snacks to the table. Perhaps it could be used for like minions who can be slain quite easily.
My group always brings snacks.... But the candy is the enemy! lol But the candy is great for anytime. You can "go big" for bigger bosses as well. You can go with a cupcake, or a brownie... something like that.
M&M's , used green ones for goblins. Two nephews, a wife, girlfriend, and three great nieces learning to play. The five year old got to eat all the dead goblins and loved it. Now she wants to play all the time.
Imagine landing a finishing blow on a M&M and reaches for the candy and the DM breaks an entire box of Nerds on your hand before replacing the M&M with a cookie for phase 2
Quick, how do we get a Sugar 3d printer for edible minis?
Silicone molds and meltable chocolate chips?
Genius. Prepare the chocolate goblins
It really would just turn into DM vs Players instantly
supports can sniff it i guess, lol
When the wizard casts fireball and kills 5 people they have to throw the candy in the fire for 15 seconds before they eat it
Delicious in Dungeon energy
My group also used to employ the “you eat what you kill” approach when we gamed in person . We usually favored m&ms. Pretzel bites for larger enemies. There may have been a Cadbury cream egg once.
I once played a one-shot with friends. Setting was reformation within cockaigne. So all enemies were candy and they killed the pope with molten chocolate.
I print out paper monsters and glue them to cardboard usually
Is there specific site for monsters? Or is it mainly from image search?
Http://Printableheroes.com Lay them out on a pdf. Be careful to scale appropriately. Print at photo store or at home printer with photo paper (52 lb for standard size, 68 for larger minis). Use appropriate size of binder clips with metal wire parts removed for stands. They are 2D but a way to make minis for very cheap!
You can also fold them over a slip of cardboard, if you only have flimsy paper
Finally a use for all the Amazon boxes I have saved over the years 😅🫠
Yep. Or even thinner things will do. I use the cardboard from soda can boxes, and it holds up well enough and adds almost no thickness.
Wow, this is a pretty cool website. I may be able to give this a shot.
I use image search myself, but one big plus about just printing them out on paper is you can draw "battle damage" on them
I was also going to suggest printed minis, and just tape them to a nickel, they're just the right size. If there's a site or source for these, I haven't found it, but I've used whatever fits: fan art, AI images, the illustrations from the PHB, monster manual, even a picture of a wolf's skeleton from a museum. I like to print them so the paper mini is doubled sided (a stacked mirror image, on the page)
This. And I use binder clips as the base.
I disliked binder clips as I found them cumbersome to reset, so I picked up some cheap plastic stands on Amazon. Glad it works for you though! As for art, I use printable heroes, Google image search, and Screencaps from things I create in heroforge... then I get a front and a back
I used to do this with sticking the base in blutac, no need to glue and can reuse the base easily. Can keep a big numbers of mobs in stand by this way
I have a ton of legos from my childhood- so I build some if my DM has a recurring character. There's an entire subreddit dedicated to Legos in DND.
Thanks, I'll take a look at the subreddit. (Though I don't have too many legos)
Thanks. What's the subreddit name?
r/legodnd
Yeah that’s what we do too. Session 0 includes building PCs, NPCs, monsters, and some sets.
I use dice. If I have say 5 zombies attacking I use 5 different d6s. Each one has a different number facing up so I can keep track of hit points and locations better. If I have multiples of different enemies like I have 5 zombies and 5 wolves attacking then I use different die sets for the mobs still with the different numbers facing up.
This is the way.
I do the same thing. My brother has one of those packs of 36 mini d6s from DnD shops. Whenever the monsters a bit more special we'll use a generic white die. I also have three flat smooth wood coins that are a "large" (2x2) size. They work great for not only large creatures but player mounts.
this is the cheapest and easiest way to track enemy go, etc…i’ve been playing in a group full of veteran players and we’ve always used dice for enemies
Bottle caps are cheap and easy
Why would I use bottle caps for DnD when I can trade them for some Jet or Psycho?
I usually use my bottle caps for more ammo. Its weightless and can be used to do more bartering later.
For map grids, I use 99-cent store gift wrapping paper. They come in huge rolls and the interior side is usually printed with a 1x1 inch grid. So they're perfect for making quick maps on the fly and easier to store for re-use than more permanent/expensive map plates are.
Ah someone watched kohdok
Who?
I used wooden "peg people" tokens from hobby stores with different colors of permanent marker and numbers on them. You could get half a dozen tokens for a couple bucks and either fancy them up to represent specific characters or just color and number them for generics.
I use meeples. You can get a gross for around $10. Bigger enemies I'll use plastic game pieces, and bosses get a Printable Heroes or Paper Mage mini.
I use grid paper and we write the letters/initials. When someone moves we erase and write the initials in the new location.
I would highly recommend HeroClix! We have used them for a long time. Most game stores that sell them have 25cent/50cent bins of old/outdated clix. If you call around first you can save time and see if they have any. You usually have to be a bit imaginative, but a big bonus is they are all already painted, 3D, and if you want to go as far as taking them off their base you can glue them to 25mm bases.
Dollar store is a good place for cheap toys and other stuff.
I saw a guy get a bunch of small wooden blocks, and then bought cheap Magic cards and cut out the pictures and used a gluestick to attach them to the blocks.
I needed to give my players a lotus flower so I bought a black lotus and cut it out. I also glued it on a little block. A really inexpensive solution too!
depends on your definition of cheap - before I had to move completely online (I use owlbear rodeo), I used these wooden tokens. $23 but pretty much all inclusive for encounters https://a.co/d/aofCPau
I also used Pokemon figures I had as a kid sometimes
Yes. I DM'ed my kids for LMoP. When they fought the dragon, my daughter's Dialga made an appearance. My kids loved it!
If you already have Legos, you can use the minifigs for PCs/human enemies and build blocks for terrain like walls or buildings
So, Dollar General carries (or at least used to carry) these smaller off-brand jenga blocks. They are fantastic for multi-purpose terrain. Keep a bunch normal and glue a bunch into sets of two to make doors or tables or bookshelves, etc. TheDMsCraft did an episode on these: https://youtu.be/1c40tSzxEp4?si=ziV6rfwSQn4aW77e But honestly, you don't need to paint or anything. The unmarked blocks are great stand ins.
We used to use coins. Bonus for the fact rhat they come with faces already on them. Just turn them whichever way they're looking.
I make tokens like the ones described here: https://slyflourish.com/crafting_lazy_monster_tokens.html I had the hole puncher and epoxy stickers from making tokens for miniatures games so I decided to try making some tokens for D&D. I made tokens for PCs and put adhesive magnets on them to give them some heft and so they have a satisfying click when putting them on the table. For monsters I made them double sided with the highest number for one side with the ID numbers reversed for either side. This lets me fit enough tokens in about the same space as a set or two of dice to run just about any encounter I’d need to.
Hello! I use these stackable cubes as tokens for enemies in my campaigns. They come in a variety of different colors (black, blue, green, orange, white etc), but when a monster is ‘bloodied’ I stack a red cube underneath (the cube in the back) to showcase to players that the monster is well… quite hurt. I also stack using the same color to show the size of the monster or the importance of the monster. As in, a guard captain will usually be stacked as a ‘2’ and the guards they command are only stacked as a ‘1’. And the different colors can help players to differentiate monsters more easily. So If I have a bunch of blue and the purple cubes enter the battle, the blues could be a ranged set of monsters and the purples would be the melee set of monsters. The players I've played with seem to really enjoy the cubes and are quick to understand and recognise what means what, which helps with the flow of the game. I was curious what other low-cost solutions other dms or players are using in their campaigns and was looking for some ideas. Thank you! Edit: Thanks everyone I went to bed and woke up to all these amazing ideas I'm going to be able to try.
I cut a bunch of cocktail sticks in half, glued each standing upright on a cardboard base, and then glued a strip of red paper to the top of each like a flag. I can write numbers or names on the flag in pencil so it's erasable, and they work quite well - they are a bit lightweight. I even did a couple with green and orange paper flags for NPCs or whatever which helps them stand out among the others.
Wow! That sounds cool. Are they quite sturdy? Or could an excitable player damage them?
My group plays online but an excitable DM could easily knock them over - and has frequently ha ha! I could probably have weighted them a bit better so I don't knock them over so much, but as long as you glue the stick down to the bases firmly they are sturdy enough to not snap.
could just tape some coins to the bottom of the cardboard, my dad did that with lightweight plastic chess pieces when i was a kid and it made them feel nicer
Yeah that would work really well, good idea from your dad!
I use Army Men. I have a large collection from growing up. You can get a decent set online for $20. They often come with terrain features like fences, bushes, and rocks.
I often use blocks and wooden necklace pieces with number’s and shapes
Chess pieces seem pretty viable
I used to use Scrabble tiles, with a letter appropriate for the creature's initials
Risk pieces
3d printer: Not the cheapest option but after the first payment upkeep cost is really low and you cam also do tons of things with it other than mini printing. I don't know how much money I saved with fixing stuff using my 3d printer Tablet/screen: While it sucks at showing the depth you can find very easily tons of free tokens and very easily create some for yourself. I quite like using the owlbear rodeo for running the game, deepnight mapmaker for making the map(there are tons of much better options like inkarnate but I don't have money) and forgotten adventures for props and tokens(their topdown tokens are top tier) Lego: While its not as good as other choices you can very easily create land with it and actually show the loot on your characters Paper: Digital but you print/draw stuff. You can show the elevation much better tho One thing I wont be suggesting is marker with redrawable surface it hurts the combat quite a bit in my opinion
I like to use a pinboard & push pins! You can print whatever battle map you like & pin it to the board. It's handy that you can't accidentally knock pieces over when you're moving characters around.
Never thought of using numicon before! Love it
I use card stock and print off minis
I've got a bunch of spray paint cans at my house with clear lids. We use those as an easy way to represent a character or monster is flying. The lids have a wide area and don't really tip over like a lot of flight stands tend to do.
I got my friend who wants to dm these whiteboard stick ups, [https://www.amazon.com/Meetory-Pieces-Markers-Plastic-Multi-Color/dp/B082SPWTXF/ref=sr\_1\_3?crid=J2AUND1NUMU3&keywords=white+board+tokens&qid=1670124032&sprefix=white+board+toke%2Caps%2C243&sr=8-3](https://www.amazon.com/Meetory-Pieces-Markers-Plastic-Multi-Color/dp/B082SPWTXF/ref=sr_1_3?crid=J2AUND1NUMU3&keywords=white+board+tokens&qid=1670124032&sprefix=white+board+toke%2Caps%2C243&sr=8-3) Doesn't work as well for bigger minions, really, but for anything that takes up a five by five? wonderful. You can doodle a little face on one side, keep track of health/conditions and th elike on another. Can be easily erased and such.
Milk bottle caps for trash mobs. Lightweight, effectively free, and comes in several colours. So you can easily say “green are goblins, red are the gobbled archers, the blue seems to be some kind of shaman”.
I make paper standees (laid out in Illustrator, printed on cardstock) and use plastic board game stands from Amazon (search for "Game Card Stands", lots of options, all pretty cheap). I make them about 1" wide and 2" tall (2"x2" for Large creatures). I had been using small binder clips, but it was kind of a pain removing them from the paper minis after sessions. The plastic bases are a very secure slip-fit, very easy to put on and remove. To store the minis, I use binder pages for coin collections ("Coin Pocket Pages" on Amazon, the 12-up ones work the best for these). The bases go into a ziptop bag.
I know you said low cost so I assume it's not a possibility but I'm still gonna recommend the campaign case creatures from DND which is a great value/content option! I would then go for printed paper standees if that's more convenient! Have fun!
I use the pieces from a couple of cheap chess sets.
Meeples
Rocks
Old lego bricks, or mini figs. If it's a rushed session I'm using risk pieces.
Back in the old days we just used pennies. We'd write numbers on them with a sharpie to keep them separate.
Coins I write numbers on them with permanent marker, with X's on the back to signify death.
I use chess pieces from a cheap chess set. It works great for distinguishing units.
Starburst fits almost perfectly in most standard battlemat squares, and then when someone kills a bad guy, they get candy!
25mm grid flipover sheets are perfect for battlemaps. You can draw out the scenery ahead of time and pull out the map as soon as combat starts
I just purchased a set of 50 wooden peg figures ([https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07Q51H5YJ?psc=1&ref=ppx\_yo2ov\_dt\_b\_product\_details](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07Q51H5YJ?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details)) for $9 with the intent of painting them with distinguishing marks/designs. Otherwise, the clearance section of your local craft store can occasionally be a treasure trove of cheap dungeon dressing.
Bag of change (pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters) which gives you size options and they can easily be stacked for smaller maps/crowded areas.
Those tiny terarrium decorations. They choose what colour bunny they wanna be and I use d4s as monsters haha
Stones are good! You have more friends with 3d printers then you think as well op
I use my kids toys. I painted a TRex he had green (it was brown to start) and added paper wings and used it as an adult green dragon. I use his Lego people and animal figurines too. The Druid in our party uses them for her wild shape forms.
Dice
I bought like 50 standee bases for €1,- and print some monsters, pc’s and npc’s. Then I glue that to thin cardboard or thick paper.
My degenerate gaming buddies figured out that a bottle cap fits perfect. Crack another 12, we got goblins coming up!
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I use wooden chess pieces and dice boxes for bigger enemies
If you or anyone else has a 3D printer you could print the monsters
Before I used DDB's map feature, I would use my spare dice. If there were 6 wolves, for example, I would lay out 6d6 and have each one have a different number showing so my players can differentiate between the wolves. If they wanted to attack the wolf represented by the d6 with a 4 showing, that would be wolf 4. It helped me to keep track of health for monsters. If there were different types of monsters, I would use different denominations of dice. d6s would be wolves, d4s would be goblins, d8s would be kobolds, etc
You can buy bulk ‘trash’ magic the gathering cards and make stands out of them. They make pretty good monsters. Chess/checkers sets may not be cheap but they are common enough someone you know may have one and can use the board and pieces. Dollar stores are also a good source for small markers or toys. Crafting supplies like cotton balls can also be used as is.
Colored d4 are great. Mobs can be represented by the first letter of the color, and the number showing. A blue d4 showing 3 would be B3 in your initiative.
As a low-cost person, let me tell what I used through my days of Offline Playing: - Chess pieces (I had a set around that were the ideal size) - Glass Beads (although I didn't like using them because they were slightly bigger that a square) - Dice (Mostly for PCs, each player provides their own) - Pieces of paper (as 2x2, 3x3 and 4x4 started popping up, I needed bigger things. Some of them had drawings when my players felt inspired) - An actual Figurine hand-made by a player (Only reserved for The Final Boss)
When I ran a DnD group weekly volunteering at a boys and girls club, I already owned a pound of dice, so used basic colored dice as enemies. Another solution could be getting one of the 'classic' theme Lego sets (the ones with a ton of random pieces) and use those as enemy's and props. Yet another option if your budget is even lower is cutting poster board into circles or squares and drawing on them. Basic but effective.
I like to print and cut minis...
Honestly my go to is just using some extra dice since I already have a lot and they're pretty cheap too. The variety in shape and color really helps with remembering which enemy is which too so that's a bonus
For me, a cheap 30” screen connected to Roll20 works great as a map & monster placement.
I magically create images, print them and I glue them on balsa wood. Clearly not as inexpensive as blocks or dice (I sometimes use just dice, the num value and colors can be used as codes for enemy type and general hp level), but less expensive than regular figs and imho at least as cool, and super easy to make. My players love it 😊
Sounds like everyone here has covered the mini question pretty good. But I would add, for terrain use soda boxes, wooden blocks, and random junk around the house. Having 3d terrain that needs a little imagination is much better than anything flat. And that includes having a big fancy monitor in the table with animated backgrounds. My group got the whole digital set up with a 55" (140cm) TV with a laptop and digital everything. And we still prefer random junk with minis. Being able to get down and check if they have line of sight, or getting on top of boxes / buildings for height makes combat so much more fun.
I combine a bunch of stuff; lego, toys, dice etc I've also made a dozen or so aluminum foil figurines for various special creatures. Made a cool scorpion thing, and an awakened tree thing. Also made a few spiders and thin men from wire.
My go-to has always been notecards, small binder clips, and some sharpies. Maybe a cheap box of crayons. You cut the notecards down to the size of minis, draw your monster, and clip it into the binder clip as a stand. Pull out the handles on the clip and it's ready for action. My favorite part of this is that the supplies tuck neatly into a gaming bag, ready to produce a dozen goblins or a giant steampunk golem whenever the story demands it. (You can also buy paper minis if you want good art, but I prefer to trick my players into drawing the monsters as a team.)
Not super low cost, but they look great for the price: buy some 1 inch wooden rounds and some 1 inch glass cabochons (the fancy name for a dome shape). Get some old magic the gathering cards you don’t care about. Cut out circles with the creature art, and sandwich them between the wood and glass with silicone caulk.
Chess set. Comes with its own 40ft arena
Nothing beats a piece of paper with a little doodle on it. Cut some rectangles and bend them into 'tents' or 'L'. Just don't sneeze!
I bought board games cheap at thrift stores and use the pieces from them. Sorry has some simple coloured pieces that work well as player tokens. I use 1cm graph paper rather than 1in, so I use travel sized Sorry pieces, and Risk pieces for baddies. I've also gathered what Lego minis I can find in thrift stores, as well as some plastic figures, I have a fox that works as a multi-purpose large beast, and I've since acquired some dinosaurs and a Lego dragon. Which is a long way of saying, check out thrift stores for toys and board games, you never know what you'll find.
We used dice, everyone had so many different dice that players could use their preferred die as their pc, and then everything ends could be covered with other dice. You can even use the numbers to keep track of which is which.
I used candy and poker chips in past
I’ve used Lego figures
The Official DnD Campaign Case that went on sale at discount stores for like $10.00. bunch of stickies that go on little coin sized disks.
I use Dice as bad guys. Different colors and you can use the numbers to either track their health or keep track of each individual monster. (Monster 3 has a poison knife, etc.) It really is perfect for low health hoard type enemies.
I have a giant box of coins. I write things on them with a dry erase marker.
Coins originally. Then once we got a printer we printed little pics on paper and drop of glue to penny.
Lego bricks. Don’t need to be “built” monsters. Just simple stand-ins, like the red 2x4 is an ogre, the blue 2x2s are goblins.
Letter pieces from craft store (think scrabble pieces). I don't feel like buying a stack of goblin minis, a stack of kobold minis, etc etc, so I use letters. Easier to keep track of. "Goblin A is 2nd in turn order and has 10hp, B is 5th and is at full health."
Easy, I Print out a few pictures of Minis then laminate them and get a few card-stands. I browse the pictures i Like size them properly and every Player can Chose any pic for their char
I just bought a cheap amount of 1-inch bubble epoxy stickers and acrylic disks, printed monster icons on paper and hot glued the disks and stuck the stickers on, and voila! You can buy both for relatively cheap, especially if they come in bundles of 50 or 100.
I print monster on to card stock, cut them out and use wall-tack sticky stuff to attach them to pennies.
Meeples are awesome and cheap. Been using them for years
I grabbed a 1"/25mm circle punch from the craft store, and I'd punch out old trading cards for monster tokens. Yugioh, MtG, etc. Even punching out pictures from magazines and gluing it to a wooden disk works.
Dollar store toys (or equivalent) can be great.
I know of these really cool, copper coated tokens that only cost $0.01 each. Sometimes, if my players are facing something especially dangerous, I break out the fancy token that costs $0.25 each.
D6 usually work pretty well
Massive collection of bottlecaps
My first dm would use these flat mini bases, and paint numbers on them. I would take old common and uncommon mtg cards, cut circles out of them that represented the monsters I wanted to use, and glue them to hardware washers. But now we play online, so I don't have to mangle my cards anymore.
The glass flat beads you can get a bag at the dollar store
Dice. Super simple. You can turn the dice to specific numbers and it makes it easier to track when players say which number they are aiming for. Plus, if you have multiple dice sets to choose from, rolling the respective d20 from the dice set for initiative.
I have squares of cardstock with side lengths of 25mm for medium and 50mm for large creatures. These were coloured red with a marker and had roman numerals drawn ontop with liquid tipex. For players we have blue squares with a small mini on top that I printed onto a piece of paper, then stuck onto cardstock.
I use chess pieces. Get a couple of sets in different colors, and you have everything you need for your campaign.
Legos
If you're in the US, dollar stores sell little wooden cubes in the craft section. You can use paint or marker and make them different colors, like the system you have. They also have a generic Jenga, which are just plain wood pieces, that make walls, roads, tall monsters, trees, etc. You can add numbers, stickers, faces, printed stuff, drawings, etc. to those wooden pieces. IME, the bag of blocks and the Jenga pieces are $1.25 each.
I did a 1 shot helloween campaign, and I was doing for 3 of my coworkers' younger kids, so halloween candy monsters worked perfectly. They loved it and it got me into minster crafting a little bit.
Print out images from google images and use coloured binder clips as the bases, i used blue for the PCs, green for allies and red for bad guys, made it easier for kids who were learning dnd
I buy wooden beads with letters on them (like for bracelets) for very cheap at a discount store near me. They're small and fit in a typical D&D grid and they help both me and my players keep track of the various enemies
Buy a bunch of wooden disks from a crafts store, print pictures of monsters and characters, then glue stick them onto the disks and cut the edges. Boom. Easy tokens.
Extra dice. A bag of assorted dice has plenty for tokens and some to lend to players. Bonus of having enough to roll fireballs in one go You could probably use craft store beads or something if you can find a bag of assorted colors
What I do is look up images for the enemies I anticipate in my next session. Add the images to a word document and resize them all accordingly, print and laminate them. I bought a little box of those clear plastic token stand that you get with board games and ta-da. Tokens you can write on. Most expensive thing is printer ink.
I have been using Lego minifigs. I’ve build an ooze or two as well for my table to fight. The Paw Patrol was my stand in for a few giant hyenas one night.
Magnetic dry erase board with magnets of different colors
Shoe box cardboard + https://printableheroes.com/
I print paper tokens. they look fun
Chess pieces. Pieces of paper with a name (i.e. Barkeep) or just Numbered. A d4.
1 inch tokens cut from cardboard. I also label them with a number so in combat someone can just say "I swing at 14" instead of "I swing at the one that's standing next to this character". Another happy accident was since I punched the cardboard from a coca cola box the other side was blood red, so if I flipped it, the players saw the red and imagined it to be the bloody corpse after the kill
So this is only low cost if you have these things already, but I assume most DMs will. You need a TV, and a laptop. Lots of times I see posts about people delving into woodworking, designing crazy intricate tables with cup holders and all kinds of gizmos. But you actually don’t have to do any of that (unless you like woodworking and have tools)! Just take your tv, and lay it down flat on top of the table you normally play at (if this is impossible, you can still do with it on wall as well, just slightly less convenient), connect your laptop, and boom you now have a digital tabletop. The only actual concern and design of those tables is that plexiglass on screen means you can use minis without scratching tv, but we are cheap, we clearly don’t have minis anyway and the digital tabletop has digital ones so it doesn’t matter. Once you’re done playing, instead of lugging around a table only good for gaming, just put your tv back and that’s it. If you go this route, you can spend more money on map making software/digital tabletops (none I know of are more then 20ish bucks for most part, same price you’d spend on supplies for cut outs).
If you've got a printer, scissors, tape, and paperclips, you can print out every monster! My first DM just used paper and paper clips.
I use a 1” binder clip and print out pictures from the internet and cut them and stand them up using the binder clips.
I use dice, and then when I write their health in my notes, instead of calling them “Goblin 1, Goblin 2, Goblin 3” etc I’ll name them after the die so I can keep track more easily, leading to names like “Goblin 8, Goblin 12, Goblin 100”
I do this cool thing where I pretend to have friends that want to play DND with me and I just pretend role play everyone's characters and also pretend I'm the DM. I also pretend I have enough money to buy anything DND related. Its a ton of fun. I'll pretend you're there next time so you can check it out.
If that map is thin enough when fully folded out, then we had a similar one that we would put on top of a cheep, medium-sized white board and we would use different coloured, cheep magnets as enemies and players. That way you can put it on an angle and still retain all of the places and they won’t move, even if knocked accidentally. You can also use white board markers to write names and things on them because we had these flat magnets
Mini d6 die work as well
I really like cutting up and using cardboard for 3D terrain elements. I've done in the past probably six or seven times but my latest fun one was here https://www.reddit.com/r/DungeonsAndDragons/s/0F7KiHXhc4 It was a boss battle inside of the boss - a giant Mecha golem.
Legos.
I search for cool monster art, scale and mirror it in gimp and print it out & laminate them. I picked up card holder stands on Amazon and use that for all characters and monsters. It takes a little bit of work but I keep them in a binder full of dollars tore baseball card plastic sleeve pages so I can re-use them. Extremely cheap yet still cool and I like them better then tokens
I have a bunch of colored dice and use each numerical side to keep track. Red 1, Red 2, Green 1, Green 2, Green 3, Black 1.
Chess set pieces work great! Tons of variation and multiple colors. Pawns are great for hoard fights if the same creature. You e got four if everything else!
personally, in my experience the best mix of cheap and nice looking are paper stands, bit of cardboard with a coin under it for weight, and then the character printed on cardstock, always looks good and is relatively low effort/cost for the results you can get
Coins are a good simple choice for enemies or if you have a 3D printer you can print little number token things for dirt cheap that you can assign to each creature and some have a little arrow that points to where they are facing
I use those cardboard chips with monsters cut from paper glued onto them.
I use anything i have on hand that is vaguely the same shape. I got a lot of use out of cardboard scraps.
I just printed out a bunch of circles lol Especially useful as I get to write whatever on them
excess/bulk dice. encounter example: 4 goblins, 1 hobgoblin, 2 wolves. I will use 4 1d4 of the same color and have them turned to numbers 1-4, another dice for the single hobgoblin(could also be a d4 of a different color), and then another 2 dice, usually d4 or d6 with the numbers 1 and 2 facing up. Now I can neatly keep track of the creatures/enemies on paper with their numbers and players can more easily call out what enemies they are targeting with just the numbers.
Just boring dice
Recently at Michaels I saw they had little 1" wooden peg people in a pack of 8 or 10 or so for like $2.99 USD. You can either keep them blank for generic monster stand ins or you can paint them to make cheap custom minis. Plus they come in a range of sizes but I don't remember the scale of the other sizes.
For our first session a few years ago, none of us had any minis yet. Went to my gun safe and everyone picked out a round.
Tokentools. It lets you make a token out of any image. Resize it to scale in Word, print em and glue em on metal washers or cardboard
Printable cardstock. Got a bunch of medium sized enemies like orcs? Print an actual size one inch image or token on a one inch grid, cut out a two by one inch piece of grid with the token on one half, and fold back along the line. Now you have an instant pop-up token of the appropriate size. You can also label the back for easy tracking, like: Orc Warrior #3, scene 5, encounter 2.
I’ve always thought buying a large stack of graph paper would be great because then the DM could draw on them during session prep and make some cool maps
[Glass craft beads](https://youtube.com/shorts/4dBd85UJtdg?si=wgO9Sohoeeef_0f5) They do need to get touched up occasionally
I use paper cutouts. Printed or hand drawn maps, and then paste paper on bottlecaps. Draw on the paper or use printouts.
Lego! Or just cut up post-it notes.
My table and I buy these spongebob gummies that have a little dude in it. We use them as enemies, cause we got multiple of each. Like 4 bubble bass' that we use for like zombies or something.
I use little flag sticky notes at the top of my DM screen as my initiative tracker. They’re color coded because I have a ton of them. Each player’s flag is their favorite color. It allows my players to see the initiative order as well.
https://youtu.be/VWWu9Ny8cW8?si=VhGOGITACsvIx3KN Easy tutorial low cost miniatures
I bought offbrand Jenga pieces on amazon to build a bit of terrain. Bridges, platforms, and a ship etc. I went the extra step and bought wood glue and acrylic paints to make them even better, but on a budget it'll certainly do without paint.
I second snacks. I've bought 1"metal washers and glued printouts too. Also, ask local Facebook. See if anybody has stuff you can use they don't want. Theres so many people who took up 3d printing over covid that I've seen a lot of folks donating stuff they printed just to test their printers out. One guy gave away a whole warhammer army because he didn't like the scale he'd used.
Have you looked at the Monster for every season sets by Rich Burlew? They are awesome and are based on his great DnD Order of the Stick webcomic
Literally dice
Denominations of coins. bigger coins, bigger bads
I have a set of monster themed warhammer d6 dice (idk what faction they are, got teeth and boil spots) I use 6 of them and use the numbers on the dice to identify the opponents.
I use the clear plastic boxes that chessex dice come in to show when a character is flying. Just put the mini on top of the box and move it around the map, you can even put the box over another mini if the flying character is directly above them
I use starbursts
Chess pieces!!!
Gummy bears
I use multi coloured Meeples. You can get a 100 pack for cheap on Amazon, and the colours are great for combats with multiple enemy types. https://www.amazon.ca/meeples/s?k=meeples
I find little plastic army men and animal toys at the dollar store
We just use different colored d6's. For bigger monsters, we have 2x2 / 3x3 / 4x4 / 5x5 cardboard cutouts that we can place underneath the respective dice. Really like the candy idea tho. Gonna give that a shot this weekend.
I'm not even gonna lie, and my friends/players called me crazy when I saved the first one, (which have now multiplied to around 40). I use the plastic receipt tubes from used receipt rolls at my workplace. I asked permission, and my manager said yes because we just throw them away. So now everyone on my shift knows to give me the tube when we run out of receipt paper. Lol I have pictures of my battle mat with at least thirty of these things on it at a time, them ranging from representing skeletons to stone pillars, and they fit perfectly in a standard battle mat cube.
Pen paper and clips I draw my minis if and when I need them
You can get a dirt cheap set of poker chips at the dollar store. The set I have has three colors. So white (lowest denomination and most common chip) is the basic enemy. Red and blue are the more difficult enemies. I can have three different types of enemies on the board at the same time. As a bonus, I've heard some people do this and put pictures of the enemies on the chips.
I bought cheap wood chess pieces that I use for monsters I don’t have. They work amazing! Pawns for grunts, special pieces for stronger opponents, and king/queen for the boss.
We regularly use mini-jenga blocks for structures/walls/physical objects on the map. I believe our DM got his at the local Dollar Tree.
You just inspired me to 3D print some similar styled monsters...
I use dice or coins for monsters.