Having a 3D printer around the house can really change up what you purchase. After all, why buy things when you can fire up your printer and make them instead? This often leads to you making things you would otherwise not have purchased, simply because you can make it. No 3D printer? No buy. Give me some filament? Now we're talking.

Fortunately, there are a few cool D&D accessories you can 3D print, to the point where I don't even think about buying them anymore. So, here are some D&D tools that I own simply because I could make them, and would otherwise not purchase.

3 Creating miniatures for my campaigns

Buying them can rack up costs pretty quickly

Getting a battle prepared for my players has gotten a ton easier with a 3D printer. Need a Beholder? Print it out. Need ten orks? Print them out, too. Keep them around as a library of ne'er-do-wells and pull them out when you need them in a future quest. For every model you print, you reduce the number of models you need to print to get a campaign going; at first, it's a slog, but when you get to the point where you only need to make one or two models and then grab the rest from your collection, things get a lot peachier.

That isn't to say that there aren't fantastic model kits out there that you can purchase. Not only have I deployed Warhammer models as bad guys several times in my DMing career, but I often look at new Fantasy releases with a sparkle in my eye and the idea for a plot emerging, which involves a big fight with it at the end. But man, they're expensive. I'd rather just grab a model online and print it, or even shell out a few bucks to access a Patreon stuffed full with high-quality STLs.

2 Constructing dungeons using modular tiles

No more 2D maps

When it comes to getting the party into a dungeon, nothing beats the humble battlemap. There are plenty of ways you can depict your dungeon, from purchasing a pre-made battlemap mat to drawing it out on some graph paper. But by bar the coolest and most immersive way is by constructing it with a 3D printer.

Of course, it's not a good idea to 3D print the whole dungeon in one go. Instead, you can print out the individual components and create a modular dungeon. That way, when it's time for your heroes to venture forth somewhere else, you can just take the parts you've already made and rearrange them just the way you want it. And, much like the miniatures above, the more you print, the less you have to make later, and the more you can tweak it.

Unfortunately, if you really want to make an impact, you have to paint them. And painting up scores of tiles that look the exact same can get boring. But once you're done, the effect alone is definitely worth it.

1 Printing out awesome dice towers

Store-bought just can't keep up with the 3D printing scene

I really, really love 3D-printed dice towers. They allow for some really ingenious designs that you can't really do with anything else. Given how the dice tower is the biggest and most noticeable thing in your TTRPG repertoire of accessories, getting a really cool one always makes a splash. It doesn't matter if it has a cool mechanism built into it to roll the dice, or it just looks really cool; people are bound to notice.

I have seen some pretty cool dice towers sold, but they tend to be pretty pricey. As such, most of the towers I use these days are 3D printed, especially if I can find a fun way to turn a cool STL file into a tower somehow. You can get really creative with them.

3D printers can make D&D sessions a lot easier

Getting into 3D printing can be daunting, but once you get over the initial hurdle, you can do a lot with it. In fact, you may find that you stop purchasing specific things because you can just print them out at home for a fraction of the price. Hopefully you also see how a 3D printer can help you bring your campaigns to life.