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Tokens for D&D 4th Edition
Download the latest token template: D&D 4E Token Template File (1.2 MB)
The 4th edition of the Dungeons and Dragons game is great - fast paced, well balanced, and very creative. The various classes and powers all capture the “feel” of the D&D game perfectly. At this point, my friends and I have put dozens of hours and hundreds of dollars into playing D&D 4E, not to mention the time spent prepping for sessions, designing adventures, and building maps.
The only real downside to 4E, if you can call it that, is that the idea of the battle grid has gone from “nice to have” to basically required. The tactical combat simply needs the grid to function, and putting a battle grid onto the table means you’ll need some way to represent the players and the monsters they’ll be facing.
D&D Miniatures are an option; they’re inexpensive, fairly attractive, and available for all of the player classes (except for the new Psionic power source, and a few of the Primal classes, though I’m sure both of those will be remedied eventually), and nearly all of the monsters in the Monster Manual and Monster Manual 2. The problem with the D&D Minis line, specifically with the monsters, is that they’re randomly selected in the boxes. Need a specific monster? Your only real options are to get lucky or to hit up one of the websites that sell singles, like Troll & Toad or Ebay. If you need more than one, well, I hope you enjoy browsing Ebay.
One other option is simply to create your own printable tokens for PCs and monsters. If you’ve got a copy of Illustrator and a few hours on your hands, it’s fairly easy to come up with a decent design, and once you’ve made your tokens, you can print as many as you need.
Since I do have a copy of Illustrator, and I do occasionally have a couple of hours to rub together, I did just that.
I came up with a simple design for the player classes, categorized by power source, and a design for both normal monsters and minions. The tokens are square, designed to fit on the standard 1” grid used by D&D 4E. I tried to pack a lot of information into a small space, and overall, I feel like I was pretty successful.
Player Tokens
On the player tokens, the background color represents the character’s power source: gold for Divine, blue for Arcane, maroon for Martial, and green for Primal. I don’t have token templates for the Psionic power source yet, but the current plan is for Psionic tokens to be purple.
The corners of the player tokens have an icon that again represents the character’s power source: a sun, lightning bolt, shield, and leaf, for Divine, Arcane, Martial, and Primal, respectively.
The inner ring of the token shows the character’s alignment and race. The central area has a periodic table-style abbreviation for the class, as well as the class’s role.
Monster and Minion Tokens
The monster tokens pack a lot of information into a small space — in fact, depending on your DM, the monster tokens might be showing too much information!
The color of the token differentiates between a minion and a normal monster - light gray for the minion, black for a monster. A red inner ring denotes an elite monster. The inner ring also displays the monster’s full name and level. The central area of the token shows a “periodic-table”-style abbreviation for the monster’s name, and the monster’s role in combat.
The great thing about these monster tokens is that they can be printed at various sizes to denote the various size classes:
Status Markers
Along with the player tokens, I also created circle-shaped tokens for 4E’s standard status conditions, bloodied players/monsters, and the various player-inflicted effects: defender marks, Avenger Oaths, Ranger Quarries, etc.
These markers are 1 inch circles. They’re designed to fit neatly into the center area of the player and monster tokens.
The Tokens in Action
Here’s a shot of the tokens in action:
There are more photos of the tokens in my Flickr photostream.
Making the Tokens
Printing the tokens out is a no brainer; if you’ve got something that can open Illustrator files I assume you know how to print things correctly. For ease of use, I recommend printing the tokens out on heavy cardstock, the heaviest your printer can handle. They’ll be stiffer, tougher, and easier to move around the battle grid.
Once you’ve got them on paper, you have a choice — you can cut them out with a craft knife and a ruler, or you can save yourself a lot of trouble and pick up square and circle cutters from Amazon. Make sure you get the right size (the linked cutters are for the 1” square and circle), too small and your tokens will get cropped, too big and they won’t fit on the grid properly.
If you find that simple cardstock isn’t holding up well, or you’d like something with a little more heft, you can glue the cardstock tokens to precision cut laser bases from Litko Aerosystems. These bases are inexpensive (so you don’t have to feel bad about using a lot of them), strong, and pretty thick, for easy handling. For an extra touch of craftsmanship, try gluing a small square (just under 1 inch) of felt to the bottom of the base!
Downloads
D&D 4E Token Template File (1.2 MB)
The token templates are in Adobe Illustrator format. All standard status effects, defender marks, and bloodied tokens are included, as well as templates for player tokens for each power source, and both normal and elite monster and minion templates.
