Advice for making an encounter map

[GerryWright]

I am preparing an encounter for my players that occurs in a large storage barn. It has a second story additional storage area that is a 10 ft wide platform lining the interior walls of the barn, about 10 ft above ground. The central area of the barn is open, so the party will be able to see up onto the platform and fire missiles up onto it, except when they get close enough to it that the floor of the platform blocks line of sight. The platform is reached by a set of stairs. When the party first enters the barn, badniks on the platform begin firing crossbows at them.

There are a couple of ways to approach this, and I wonder which is the best for the Fantasy Grounds environment.

1. Make 2 separate maps for the barn interior and second story, laying them side by side. I am wondering how that would work for combat interactions happening between floors. How would I get a common grid for both maps?

2. Create another layer to overlay the second story on the first. Is there a way to block players from walking on the second level unless they first go up the stairs, and at the same time allow them to walk on the main floor underneath the platform? How would line of sight be handled?

[Jiminimonka]

You are probably better off putting the 2 floors on one image and SHIFT DRAGGING the players to the different floors of the bar when they move between them.

Layers are cool, but if you have some characters on different floors its gets confusing.

[Nylanfs]

Put them side by side on the same image

[Griogre]

1) I'd do one map because its a pain to continually move from one map to another or target across maps.

2) The problem you would have with this approach is what happens when you have party members on both floors at the same time? You won't be able to make either layer work right.

The trick to getting your grid to line up is that you just want the different floors to be an even multiple of squares apart. If you are doing the map yourself you can do that easily. Also you don't have to put them right next to each other you can put some space around the barn then the next floor.

I've attached an old Tomb of Dreams map where the Balcony Level is directly above the ground level and the center dome room is connected like your barn. The downside of this approach is yeah when the player's change levels the GM is going to have to move them.

[LordEntrails]

One map, and I wouldn't mess with layers. In fact for this instance I would probably just use one outline/floorplan and then put an effect on creatures that are on the higher level. Sure you might end up with some tokens being on different floors right above/below each other, but you and your players are all smart enough to work that out as needed.