Hex maps, battle grids, dungeon plans.
Square grids at one-inch scale for 5e battle maps. Pointy-top hexes for overland wilderness, flat-top for old-school regional play. Triangular grids for hex-divider sub-movement. Dot grids for the back-of-the-envelope dungeon sketch. The mapping toolkit you draw on before the players sit down.
Squares match the module. Hexes match the distance.
The old grid war. Squares give you eight neighbours but lie about diagonal distance — a single step diagonally is √2 squares, not 1. Hexes give you six neighbours and tell the truth about distance everywhere. The right choice depends on your system and your table.
Square — the module standard.
Diagonal: count 1 / 2 / 1 / 2 in 5e for honesty, or "diagonals count as 1" for speed. The eternal table-rule debate.
Hex — uniform distance, six neighbours.
Two hex steps either way. No diagonal fudge. Used by Wargames since Avalon Hill, and most OSR overland systems.
Seven dice. Five grids. Most of fantasy.
A d20 for to-hit, a d12 for greataxe damage, a d10 for percentiles, a d8 for longswords, a d6 for everything, a d4 for daggers and morale, and the percentile d100. The dice change. The maps the dice resolve on change less.
From DM notes to battle map in four moves.
Print stays printable. Tokens stay physical. The grid keeps the encounter honest when the rogue starts arguing about flanking angles.
Sketch the encounter
Rooms, corridors, doors. Where the monsters stand. Where the ambush triggers.
Lay the grid
One inch per five feet, sized so a miniature base sits on each cell. Snap, scale, print to scale. The dungeon now has measurable space.
Print at 1:1
PDF export to A4 or Tabloid. Tile across multiple sheets for big rooms.
Run combat
Tokens or miniatures on the cells. Movement counts in measured inches.
The DM's overlay set.
Hexagonal Grid
Pointy-top + flat-top hex maps. Overland wilderness, OSR regional play.
→Square Grid
5e battle maps at 1″ = 5 ft. The published-module standard.
→Triangular Grid
Hex-divider sub-movement. Skirmish wargames with finer steps.
→Dot Grid
Back-of-the-envelope dungeon sketch without intrusive lines.
→Isometric Grid
3D dungeon cross-sections and bird's-eye structural views.
What GMs actually use it for.
For my Saturday game I print every dungeon room at 1″ = 5 ft on Tabloid. The square grid is what keeps the rogue's flanking arguments honest. Last week one cell decided a save-or-die — the grid is what made it fair.
For overland I run pointy-top hexes at 1″ = 6 miles. Sixty hexes covers a kingdom. Wilderness travel costs become a real strategic choice when the players can count hexes back to the safe town.
My homebrew uses triangular movement on top of the hex — three small steps per hex side. The triangular overlay lets me draft scenarios at the granularity my system needs without breaking the hex aesthetic.
The questions GMs ask.
Square or hex grid for D&D 5e?
D&D 5e officially supports both, with most published modules drawn on 1-inch square grids. Hex grids are the historical alternative, common for older editions (BX, BECMI) and for indie systems like Old-School Essentials. The choice is preference: squares match the published-module convention; hexes give uniform movement distance in all six directions instead of the diagonal-distance fudge squares require.
What scale should I print at?
The standard tabletop scale is 1 inch = 5 feet in D&D and Pathfinder. Print at 1:1 with cell size set to 1 inch — your printed map fits standard miniatures (25-32mm bases) on each cell. For overland hex maps, larger hex sizes are common (1-inch hex = 6 miles in 5e wilderness travel; 1-inch hex = 1 mile in tighter regional play).
Can I print maps larger than a single sheet?
Yes — use any PDF reader's "tile" or "poster" print mode to split a large map across multiple sheets, then tape them together. Grid Maker Pro exports the underlying grid at any pixel size; the tiling happens at the print-driver layer, so a 3×4 grid of A4 sheets gives you a roughly 24″ × 36″ battle mat.
How do I add a grid overlay to a fantasy map I already have?
Load the map image into the tool, then lay a square or hex grid over it and adjust cell size until it lines up. The image never leaves your device, so a commissioned or hand-drawn map stays private. This is a grid overlay, not a map generator or a virtual tabletop — it adds and prints a grid on top of your own art rather than hosting a live VTT session.
Is there free 1-inch grid paper for D&D, or a dot grid for sketching?
Yes. Set the square grid to a 1-inch cell and export it as plain 1-inch grid paper for D&D, or use the dot grid for back-of-the-envelope dungeon sketching where full lines feel too heavy. Both print to scale at 1 inch = 5 feet so a standard miniature base sits cleanly on each cell — the same convention Pathfinder uses.
Print a dungeon. Print a wilderness. Run the session.
Square at one inch equals five feet for the battle. Hex at one inch equals six miles for the journey. Tile across sheets for boss rooms. No upload, no signup, no subscription on the rules-lawyer.
Open the GM's grids →References
- Gygax, Gary & Arneson, Dave. Dungeons & Dragons. TSR (1974). The origin of the tactical square/hex movement grid in tabletop play.
- Grünbaum, Branko & Shephard, G. C. Tilings and Patterns. W. H. Freeman (1987). ISBN 978-0-7167-1193-3. The mathematics of square and hexagonal tilings.
- Coxeter, H. S. M. Introduction to Geometry. Wiley (2nd ed., 1969). ISBN 978-0-471-50458-0. Regular tessellations of the plane.