I think one of the starkest illustrations of how incoherent Hasbro's goals for Dungeons & Dragons are is that they made the writers take out all the direct references to dragon-fucking in 5E in a bid to render the IP more advertiser-friendly, but still insisted upon keeping a bunch of stuff whose narrative context strongly implies dragon-fucking front and centre in the brand identity, so now the Player's Handbook has gotta play coy about where dragon-blooded sorcerers come from.

Recently finished commission piece of a lovely wood elf character!

ZAIRA OF THE DAWN

by Thiago Lehmann

A finished commission for a character named Bellamy, from a campaign using the Arcane setting of Zaun/Piltover!

What if you were the cutest little druid/rogue changeling

Viridiene, outfit design sketch

Recent c-work for Ames <з

Thank you for commissioning me!

,.-~’HEY! Important note here!’~-., This is a rehash of the old armor/weapons post I made some time ago. I wanted to add a couple of things and while I was in the document I basically reformatted the whole thing and reworked some of the mechanics, enough so that I felt it needed to be republished. You’ll notice that the armor section specifically has been expanded significantly. NOW, some of these options are noticeably more effective than those found in the core book, I want to point that out up front. THAT SAID, you don’t have to make them available at every shop the players come to. You don’t have to include them as random minion drops. These can be special rewards that you divy out to players as a stop-gap between basic gear and magical gear, or you can force a player to make a long trip to a far away city if they want the opportunity to purchase them. Force them to do a favor for a blacksmith to have the item created. The skys the limit, and these are here as the incredibly heavy, dangerously sharp rain that falls from it. Anyway, I copy/pasted my original post that went over the content with a little tweaking, so if you’ve already ready ready that post feel free to either skim or ignore entirely. Thanks for reading! My main reason for adding the basic weapons and armor that I did is to fill in gaps in the flavor, rules, and uses of the core gear present in the PHB. - The punching dagger and fighting claws allow more dextrous characters to strategize to deal greater damage, which can make gameplay much deeper/more interesting. I feel like the dagger is mechanically fairly pointless when the short sword exists as an easily obtained direct upgrade, so I was looking for a way to draw interest away from the SS as the obvious go-to option for dual wielders. The main redeeming factor of the dagger is it’s ability to be thrown, so I feel like it still retains that niche while other viable options have been made available to make the game more interesting.

- Another thing I thought the game was missing was weapons that would be easily overlooked because they either appear to be mundane items or just don’t look dangerous. To this end, I created the “Unassuming” trait. With spiked gauntlets, an armored character can lose their weapon and still be semi-viable in a fight without taking an entire feat. A war fan can give a well-dressed noble the ability to spring into action at a moments notice, which can be vital to certain character concepts. I also think perhaps the sickle or club could be given this trait, or even a dagger. Definitely something that allows PCs to be creative without giving them a large advantage.

- Perhaps it’s a bit of a hot take, but I don’t think the “Heavy” rule does a good enough job at representing large, difficult-to-wield armaments. Simply saying that small characters can’t use them as effectively doesn’t do much to add to the uniqueness of the item. Keeping this in mind, I created the “Unwieldy” property. It would make sense that larger, more cumbersome weapons would be impossible to make quick, precise attacks with, and I think it is a fair trade off to let a character do more damage in exchange for not letting them make opportunity attacks. Plus, the flavor of an enemy dashing in an out of a character’s range, trying to avoid their heavy damaging blows just seems really cool to me.

- The spiked shield doesn’t really need much explanation; it’s just a stated out version of the spiked shield from the lizardfolk entry in the MM. It already exists in the game, it just doesn’t have it’s own unique stat-bloc. I *did* want to force a character to choose between defense and attack while using since my playtesting shows that with the right combination of feats/features it can quickly get too powerful, but it is definitely a cool, fun concept to let the players experiment with. As for the non-weapon shields, just having the one option in the core book? Really? I think that every player should be able to work over time to upgrade their setup, and that includes defensive characters so I devised some upgrades for the base shield. The steel shield by virtue of its density can reduce incoming damage from attacks that do sneak through your defenses. The kite shield is a well-designed defensive tool that increases your AC beyond what more simple shields offer. And finally, the tower shield. High weight, high AC bonus, just as I feel it should be. It can even be used as cover against missile weapons and the like, something that would open up even greater avenues of strategy for a tank. To balance this goodness out, it makes attacking difficult and hurts the overall damage output of the character using it. I was considering having it lower base walking speed by 5, but I need to see how much of a gimp the attack penalty is before I add any other negatives.

- Another thing I really liked in older editions was exotic weapons. For those new to the idea, exotic weapons are strange and unique combat implements that most people won’t have any idea how to use, like a double-ended sword or a three-section staff. D&D arguably centers around combat, so the fact that there aren’t more ways to make combat unique and interesting baffles me. These weapons have unique combinations of properties, interesting aesthetics, and/or high damage numbers to hopefully make their use enticing to players that want unique and fun ways to dispatch their enemies.

- For armor, I added in a ton of new options. Of specific note are the overcoat, brigandine, and ceremonial plate. The armored overcoat allows the layering of multiple items to increase AC, and I know how much people like the image of a character in a trenchcoat. Brigandine allows a character to add up to +3 dex mod to their AC, up from the +2 all other medium armors offer. I know theres a feat that allows you to do this, but, lets be honest, that feat sucks. This way, a character with an awkward +3 dex mod can actually make use of it. Lastly, the ceremonial plate costs a ton and doesn’t protect nearly as well as some other heavy armor, but it provides a bonus to being a pretty princess, and we all know a paladin who is getting all hot and bothered by this idea somewhere in the world right now.

- The guns are very much a new addition to the setting and are meant more as a plot point or story element than a simple item. You’ll notice that there is no price listed, only a city/town and it’s location. This is because, in Vallonde, these items are incredibly rare, practically priceless, and only available from the individual craftsmen who’ve created the process to manufacture them. Sending a character on a quest to acquire one of these rare, powerful items would not only give a DM something to base a little side mission on, but will also give the player a reason to be really attached to the item. Win/Win in my book.

As an aside, I realize that a lot of what I’m adding does little more than make the game more tedious to play by adding additional dice to roll or just more BS to keep track of in general, but we’ve already got an easy to understand game in base 5e. There isn’t a lot that a player has to do beyond understanding the interaction between numbers. Consequently, this content isn’t for someone who is just starting out or groups that are looking for an easy pick-up-and-play experience. I’m trying to add depth and options for players and DM’s that know the game and want more. 5e has done such a good job at laying an easy to build on foundation, and its elegant simplicity allows for a greater level of complexity in player created content without making gameplay confusing or frustrating.

As always, questions and comments accepted and appreciated. Do you feel like these options are unnecessary, or that they might be overpowered or make other options useless? I’d love to hear your thoughts on it. (Content PDF)

Arctic Monster Expansion

Source: https://goo.gl/mViqTa

Maiden of Light

i am working on NPCs for my homebrew game and i thought y'all might like my fussy nonbinary aarakocra named Mido. they are a tradesmaster for a traveling festival and have no time for silly nonsense or shenanigans

temporarily back on my vampire bullshit

you know who is awesome? Izzymatic-art    Look at this! this is Kalcriea, my Tiefling Sorcerer from D&D! (my first ever character!)

you want awesome art? get izzymatic to handle it! i’m so pumped!

Fantasy RPG Races as Dogs

Human:

Elf:

Dwarf:

Halfling:

Half Orc:

Commission~

when u come up with a tiny change for your story that not only makes the writing flow better but also hammers in the character motivations and story theme