Measured templates

A template is an area you leave on the map: the 20 ft cone you’re about to breathe, the wall of fire that stays for a round, the aura you want everyone to be able to see the edge of.

It’s one of the few authoring tools players get, because “where exactly does my fireball land” is a player’s question.

Placing one

Pick Measured Template from the toolbar (under More tools), choose a shape and a size, then click the map.

• Circle — a radius from the point you click
• Cone — spreads from the point you click, in the direction you drag
• Line — a length and a width
• Rectangle — a box

Sizes are in feet (or whatever unit your table uses), not pixels. That matters: resize the grid later and your templates stay the right size, because they were never measured in screen pixels to begin with.

The cells actually covered are highlighted, so there’s no argument about whether the corner goblin is in it.

Moving, rotating, removing

Drag a template to move it. Shift + scroll rotates it — snapping to 45° on a square grid and 60° on hex, so it lines up with the grid you’re playing on.

Right-click for the rest: change its size or colour, hide it from players, or delete it.

Note

Rectangles rotate by swapping their extents — a true 90° turn — rather than spinning freely. Cell coverage is axis-aligned, so a freely-rotated rectangle would draw an outline that lies about which cells it affects.

Pinning an area from a card

When a card asks you to aim an area, the targeting panel offers Pin as template. One click leaves that exact area on the map after the card resolves — same shape, same size, same place.

That’s the tidiest way to get a template: aim it once, for the spell, and keep it.

Who can do what

Players may place templates and manage their own. Everyone’s templates are visible to everyone, so a player marking their intended blast is a thing the table can see and discuss.

GMs can manage any template, and can hide one from players — for the area of something the party hasn’t noticed yet.