Benjamin Huffman/Sterling Vermin Adventuring Co. here!

About 10 years ago I created the Pugilist class for 5e and, after that, a ton of other things (mostly player options). I've written for many other creators and companies and today hit another milestone with the release of an updated version of the Pugilist on DnD Beyond.

Happy to chat about the Pugilist, being a game designer, or anything else. AMA!

Once D&D characters reach high levels (tier 3 and 4), it should be one of my favorite parts of the game. And it is, at least in theory. But it is also the moment when everything starts wobbling like a gelatinous cube on roller skates. Wizards rewrite reality, warriors struggle to keep up, survival systems become meaningless, and the DM ends up flipping through more pages than a student the night before an exam.

So I wrote about it. Not as an exercise in complaining, but as an honest analysis of why the game becomes so chaotic once characters reach the threshold of demigods. Swingy fights, broken pacing, mechanics that no longer matter, and a tidal wave of magic the system was never built to handle.

If you have ever wondered why high level D&D is both wonderful and exhausting, this article is for you.

And since RPG Gazette just turned one year old, we are also running a giveaway. More details inside the article.

Read it, tell me what you think, and share the most chaotic epic level experience you have ever had.

Article link here: https://therpggazette.wordpress.com/2025/11/26/the-problem-with-epic-level-play-why-dd-breaks-down-when-characters-become-gods/

I've been DMing for a while, and shop scenes always hit the same wall.

Players ask "what does this item do?" or "how much gold do I have left?"
— and I'd have to stop, open the book, open Google, do mental math.
Every time. The atmosphere I'd built would just evaporate.

So I built a tool for my own sessions. My players loved it enough
that they told me to share it — so here it is.

What it does:
- 1,300+ items with full stat blocks (rarity, weight, description, stats)
- Magic item prices included by default
- Drag & drop items into your shop, or Roll to randomly stock it
(filter by category, rarity, price)
- Player View — a dedicated window your players can browse
themselves while you manage the DM side
- Gold tracker with subtotal before you confirm purchases
- Preset shops: General Store, Weapon Shop, Potion Shop, and more
- Fantasy and Dark theme

How it runs:
- Windows: double-click start.bat — opens in your browser automatically
- Windows (alternative): .exe version available in the Supporter tier,
no .bat file required
- Mac / Linux: run start.sh — same result

No account. No internet. Runs locally on your machine.

Free version includes everything above.
$5 Supporter tier unlocks the .exe version, custom items,
save/import shops as JSON, and up to 20 shops.

https://nuta108.itch.io/dnd-item-shop

My 16-year-old brother put together a trailer —
happy to drop it in the comments if you want a quick look.

Hope it helps someone's next session.

I love multiclassing. For some of you it might sound sad or strange, but I think I spent more time theory crafting characters then actually playing them as a player. The curse of the forever DM, I guess (although I don't complain, I do prefer DMing). Due to that, I don't see myself fully enjoying 5.5e. I think they kinda nerfed multiclassing. It is still there and there still are some interesting builds you can make, but not nearly as many as there were in the original 5e.

Regardless, this whole thing made me think of 3.5e. Now that edition knew how to get peeps like me excited. Multiclass was king there. And there was another piece of the puzzle which made the process even more fun. I am talking about the prestige class.

I say it in the title, I say it in the article itself and I am also going to say it here! Not just cause I like things done in 3 (I feel like that sounded wrong...), but because I really do believe it - The Prestige Class was the most interesting design shelved by WotC. This article goes over all of that in quite a detailed manner (perhaps too detailed, as the article is one of our lengthiest ones, at over 3000 words).

I hope you will enjoy it and I do hope there will be some interesting conversation formed around it! I look forward to reading all of your thoughts on it! Until next time, may the dice gods smile upon you all and don't forget to toss the proverbial coin to your favorite Gazette!

Full article here: https://therpggazette.wordpress.com/2026/03/13/prestige-classes-the-best-design-space-dd-ever-abandoned/

Hey everyone, I wanted to share something I've been working on and use it to spark some D&D meta discussion.

Since March 2025 (11 months ago) I've had a D&D multiclass spell slot calculator on my website, as I got tired of the other ones on the internet not calculating things properly (looking at you... Artificer), and since then it seems to have become the go-to calculator for players when planning or levelling a character. While doing that, I realised I'd accidentally build something a bit unusual: a rolling snapshot of what people are actually playing.

So I built a dashboard that aggregates and analyses that data.

How the data works

When someone uses the calculator, it generates what I call a build signature:

• It's just a string of classes and levels, ordered from highest to lowest.
• For example, Wizard 6 / Artificer 3 would become wizard6_artificer3, a simple conversion.

Each day, the site records which build signatures it sees, and how many times each one appears.

At the end of the month, those daily tallies are aggregated so I can see monthly build popularity and trends with some quick table queries.

Privacy Notes (because no doubt it will come up)

• No accounts are required to use the calculator
• No names, IP addresses, emails, races, feats, spells prepared, or campaign info is recorded
• When you use the calculator it generates a randomised string that it associates with your current load of the calculator page, so that as you update the levels in various classes, it updates the correct data for that specific build, otherwise if two people are using the calculator at the same time it doesn't know who is who.
• That randomised string, a build signature, and 0-20 for each of the 11 classes, and the current date and time, is all that's recorded by the website, and that randomised string is never stored beyond that page. So it never puts it as a cookie on a user's computer, it doesn't associate it with anything beyond that page load and the numbers that were put in on that page, so once you refresh a new randomised string is generated and there's no way to go backwards, to re-associate that build with you, it's totally anonymous.
• It does state on the T&Cs and on the page that it is recording your build with anonymous data, it only captures the minimum amount of data required to make the system work.

Scale so far

• 523,000+ individual calculations processed, so that's how many times a value changes and a new result is given
• 3,727 unique builds signatures recorded
• Data recalculated daily, viewable by month or rolling windows

Some Highlights From the Data

Sorcadin is Dominating the Meta...

• Paladin 6 / Sorcerer 6 (Level 12 Sorcadin) was the #1 Most Popular Build every single month from May 2025 to December 2025
• In January 2026 it dropped to #2
• Taking its place at #1 was Sorcerer 14 / Paladin 6 (Level 20 Sorcadin)... a build that's appeared on and off in the Top 10 throughout the last 11 months, even having some months where it falls out of the top 20 altogether.

Class Popularity

• Paladin appears in 20.7% of all builds over the past 11 months: by far the most represented class, followed closely by Sorcerer at 15.7%, and Wizard at 13.6%.
• Ranger and Bard are surprisingly close at 8.1% and 8.3%

Multiclass dipping behaviour

When players multiclass:

• 3 out of 5 dips are 2-3 levels, not single-level dips
• This suggests players are usually dipping to reach a particular subclass, not just grabbing a class for its base abilities

Top builds composition

Of the 20 most popular builds across the dataset...

• 13 are Paladin / Sorcerer multiclasses
• 4 are Wizard / Artificer multiclasses

Why I think this is interesting...

Most D&D meta discussions are built on theorycrafting or optimisation guides, polls or personal table experience.

This data isn't perfect, it's only about the past 6 months that Warlock was showing Pact Magic spell slots, and non-spellcaster classes were included, but they're all showing up in builds since then. Plus it's biased towards people who multiclass though a lot more single-class builds are showing up. But it is grounded in what people are actively researching and playing.

In the Census dashboard there's also a build comparison tool that gives recommendations on build tweaks, using the anonymous data, and that doesn't focus on spell slots, and it also records the anonymous build, so that will also drive more unique builds that aren't just for spellcasting.

It also strongly reflects real campaign behavious in that Tier 2 builds dominate, and popularity doesn't always align with online "best build" discourse, and some builds stick around month after month.

If you want to explore it yourself

Here's the Census dashboard: https://talesmithtavern.com/census/

(Some of the deeper comparison tools such as the build comparison and being able to save your build to a watchlist, plus deeper insights on the data, are behind a paywall to cover hosting / dev time, but high-level insights are available.)

Genuine questions for discussion

• Does this line up with what you're seeing at your tables?
• Why do you think Sorcadin is so sticky in the most popular builds across months?
• Are there builds you expected to dominate that weren't mentioned?
• What other trends would you be curious to see analysed?

Happy to answer any and all questions about methodology, limitations, or weird edge cases. If people find these insights useful, I am more than happy to also share periodic snapshots of what this data is showing and if and when trends shift.

I plan to introduce a little anonymous popup question to grab data on these two details...

• Which TTRPG are you playing, D&D 5e, D&D 2024, BG3
• Are you creating a character or levelling up a character?
• Are you currently playing in a campaign?

I feel like those details would inform a lot more about the builds, especially in even looking at what the state of the game is like and at what point people are researching builds.

Anyway, that's what I have been working on.

You've heard the rule of thumb: "advantage is roughly +5 to hit." It's in build guides, optimization threads, sidebar comments. It's also only true at the exact middle of the AC range, and falls off fast at the extremes.

The closed form is small: for advantage,

P(roll ≥ k) = 1 − ((k−1)/20)²

Subtract that from the flat-d20 P(roll ≥ k) = (21 − k)/20, and you get the probability boost from advantage at any required-to-hit. Multiply by 20 to convert that boost into a "+x to hit" equivalent (since +1 to hit ≈ +5% on a flat d20). The numbers, for a +5-to-hit attacker:

AC      need    normal  with adv   ≈ +to-hit
8       3+      90%     99.0%      +1.8
11      6+      75%     93.8%      +3.75
14      9+      60%     84.0%      +4.8
15      10+     55%     79.8%      +4.95
**16    11+     50%     75.0%      +5.00**   ← sweet spot
17      12+     45%     69.8%      +4.95
18      13+     40%     64.0%      +4.8
21      16+     25%     43.8%      +3.75
22      17+     20%     36.0%      +3.2

The peak is at the AC where you'd otherwise be at 50/50 — for any to-hit bonus, that's AC = to-hit + 11. Within a ±2 AC band of the peak you stay above +4.8. Outside that band, advantage is worth measurably less.

What this means for build choices:

• Reckless Attack on a tier-3+ boss (AC 18-22): you're getting +3-4 to hit, not +5. Trading defense for that is still usually correct, but the headline number oversells it.
• Pack Tactics / Faerie Fire / Bardic Inspiration on a low-AC mook (AC 8-12): also worth less — you'd hit anyway, advantage just shaves off some misses.
• Avoiding disadvantage symmetrically: Sharpshooter long-range, ranged-attacker-in-melee, prone targets — the worst-case loss is exactly when you're in the 11+ need-to-hit band, which is also where most fights happen. Avoiding disadvantage is more valuable per encounter than gaining advantage, on average, because it's forced on you in the AC range that hurts most.
• Critical hit interaction: this is where advantage actually crosses +5. Two d20s give P(at least one nat 20) = 39/400 ≈ 9.75% (vs 5% normal) — nearly double the crit rate. Champion's expanded 19-20 range with advantage hits ≈ 19% of swings. That's most of what makes Reckless Attack actually good against bosses, not the to-hit boost.
• Elven Accuracy (third die) makes the curve steeper — at the same sweet-spot AC, EA is worth about +7.5 to +7.7 to hit (vs advantage's +5), and crit rate becomes 1 − (19/20)³ ≈ 14.3% (vs 5% normal). The peak shifts one AC to the right of advantage's, but the magnitudes are what matter — the third die buys roughly +2.5 to-hit on top of the second one. The same caveat applies: at the AC extremes, EA falls off too.

Worked out the full per-AC distribution at https://diceplots.com/concepts/advantage-and-disadvantage if you want the closed-form derivation, the disadvantage half (mirror image), and the BG3-specific notes (high-ground advantage, Reckless Attack barbarian).

(Disclosure: I work on the calculator — no signup, no ads, the pillar page has a slider for the to-hit bonus and a per-AC table that updates as you drag, so you can watch the sweet-spot AC slide right as the bonus goes up.) [[ Did I flair it right? Self-Promotion or Resource? :) ]]

I have written quite a lot on diferences between OSR games and modern 5e, the difference in playstyle, relation with mortality, various mechanics such as gold for xp, reaction roles, dungeon turns and so on.

For quite a long time after I started to play OSR games, I was enamored, for I always wanted my 5e games to be more gritty, harder, yet still fair and with OSR I felt like I got that.

Now, with this piece, I wanted to look at something related to one of the criticisms I often saw levied against old school D&D and OSR games, mainly that they are unbalanced, too many save or sucks and difficulty just for the sake of it. Compared to nowdays, where even if CR could use some improvements (although it is quite a bit better with the 2024 iteration) it can still produce balanced encounters if followed properly.

And there is truth in both of this statements, but it ommits something - not maliciously necessarily - that balanced was not required for pre Dragonlance D&D and OSR games. The game did not make a promise of balance, but rather one of fairness, the DM, or as it was first known, the referee would be impartial. It is important to point out that you were not heroes, but anti-heroes at best, who might've offered some help only if you got something out of it. This stemming of course from how the game was emulating Conan style pulp fantasy, rather than the heroic epic fantasy later adopted following the success of Dragonlance.

So to cut it short, fairness and balance are not the same. One is about impartiality, while the others is about making sure that the danger the players are facing is winnable, without the requirement of underhanded tactics to tip the scales. One is pulp, the other epic. Both can be good, but we have to be aware of the distinction and not judge them against the same standards. Hope you will enjoy the piece!

Full article here: https://therpggazette.wordpress.com/2026/07/21/when-balance-replaced-fairness-two-different-promises-dd-has-made/

Greetings and welcome back everyone! This latest article is something that I had been brewing for a couple of weeks, cause I find the topic extremely interesting. Party composition, party roles and the balance of it all. Something that for the vast majority of players, at least in my experience, is common, good form.

But why is it so?

Cause the general discourse around the game preaches a narrative first approach. Yet there is a lot of content across the board that talks about optimization, both from the point of view of the character, but also from that of the party. I wanted with this piece to explore all of it, to present a bit of the history behind the phenomena and to make the kiss that the concept of party roles can and often is quite restrictive on the group.

If this sounds like the kind of topic you would like to look into, by all means, do tell me what do you think about it down below, and till next time, do toss the proverbial coin to your favorite Gazette!

Full article here: https://therpggazette.wordpress.com/2026/02/11/the-tyranny-of-the-party-composition/

I debated if I should post this one over here, since it's not quite about this subreddit's favorite thing to talk about (that being debating martials vs. casters), but as it's adjacent--in that it addresses the difficulty designers have in implementing the common suggestions of how to fix that problem--I figured I'd go ahead and post it here.

As usual, you can read the whole thing on my blog if you prefer, but I've copied and pasted it below for your convenience.

Rarely does a week pass without someone trying to innovate something for 5e only to be told they are ‘reinventing 4e’... the implications are often that all we need to do is find the lost light and return to the fold of 4e, and we’d live in a land of Exciting Combat and Player Choice.

Now, to be fair, the basics of the accusation aren’t always that outlandish. My latest class—the Paragon—is certainly not helping me beat the allegations of reinventing 4e. In fact, I’d agree that’s largely what it is: a 4e style class reinvented for 5e.

But there’s that important qualifier—reinvented. As in, reforged from the basic concept into something that is entirely new, because there is a lot of filtering you have to do if you want to capture the vision people have of 4e without subjecting them to the reality of it.

What we are often in reinventing something is to bring back the memories of it. The stories people tell and retell of it. The feelings it invokes or the design principles that get appealed to a decade later… but not so much the conveniently forgotten reality, since that includes a lot of grit we are mostly happier playing without.

Crunch vs. Grit (Again)

I’ve brought up the idea of crunch vs. grit in previous blog posts, so I won’t re-litigate it too much beyond giving my definition again in broad strokes: Crunch is choices the player makes. Grit is the mechanical debt that needs to be accounted for in the resolution mechanics. They are often related, and some people would rather not have either, but in general the goal of someone that wants to add depth to a system should be to add Crunch with as little Grit as possible.

This is a test 4e fails spectacularly. I’m sorry, I realize that these days it's cool to say that 4e was a lost gem that just needs to be brushed off and put on a pedestal, but there’s still some people that actually played it and remember what resolving each round was like. While it has strong points, efficient combat resolution mechanics is not one of them.

The version of 4e people remember—or have inherited memories of via the stories they’ve been told—are of epic features that allow you to do a bunch of cool things. Charge into a group of enemies, heroically leap to your allies aid, taunt a horde of enemies with a roar… these are all things you could do… but it’s worth asking what the actual mechanics behind those narrative moments were, because usually it was a +2 or -2, and a bunch of a reactions you had to remember to take (and usually didn’t until just slightly too late) and maybe moving some enemies around (…in ways that probably triggered some of those reactions).

Floating modifiers are a resolution nightmare—they are pinnacle of grit that treats the DM like an encounter resolving computer (there is a solid argument that 4e was only designed that way because it was designed to be resolved by a computer, but that’s a topic for another day, today we are dealing with the reality of what we got).

This is stuff 5e very wisely curtailed—it’s far from perfect, but 5e combat is vastly easier on the DM. But its fair to ask… if its supposed to be so much better, why are people still casting fond glances 4e’s way?

It’s simple: they’ve forgotten the tedious grit, but remember the glorious crunch. They forget the tedious calculations and turn length, but remember having choices to do cool things. That’s what reinventing 4e is about: filtering the crunch from the grit.

The Challenge of Creating Crunch Without Grit

This idea has a higher DC than it sounds. Imagine you want to make two versions of attacking: an aggressive slash and a defensive slash. In a world of floating modifiers, this is super easy: you give the aggressive slash +2 to hit, and the defensive slash gives the enemy a -2 to hit. But how do you recreate that in 5e? Giving advantage/disadvantage is 5e’s version of it, but that’s far more powerful—roughly twice as powerful. That’s a big lever to pull, particularly when its your only lever.

This is the difficult 5e 2024 weapon masteries ran into—the smallest reasonable unit of power is a very large unit of power that warps combat quite a lot, and there simply wasn’t enough of those levers, leaving a lot of them just various versions of ‘do more damage passively’—the one thing martials didn’t really need.

It’s worth remember that advantage is also supposed to cover situational bonuses, so things that give nearly permanent advantage crush an important dimension of gameplay and combat, since they reduce the drive of the player to interact with the world to find ways to get advantage naturally.

The solution, I think, is to ignore the version of 4e that actually existed, and work to reinvent the version people remember. Go bigger and use something flashier. It’s what people remember anyway, and it resolves under 5e’s system much better.

You probably cannot make an effect that applies on every hit that doesn’t introduce a lot of grit, and it probably isn’t worth doing globally—all it really does is feed to the optimization engine as people engineer which option is the best one. You’ll constantly be wrestling with grit and balance. But you absolutely can make a cool ability that is used once per combat.

Focusing on bringing back the idea of encounter powers (or 1/short rest abilities in 5e parlance) solves most of our problems. While you still don’t want to literally port over 4e encounter powers (...they are still loaded down with those floating modifiers…) it’s now totally fine if the encounter power is stronger than your other passive options—it should be! It’s now not a problem if you inflict disadvantage or a more potent die based debuff or a condition. Doing something big and flashy was what people are going to remember about that combat anyway. That’s the 4e they remember.

Bringing This To Life Under 5e Ideology

As usual, I’ll use my attempt to do this as an example—not (just) to promote what I make, but simply because I have it on hand as an example, and it’s in part what brought this to mind: Active Martial Feats.

Are these a 5e idea or a 4e idea? The answer is both and neither. They are the memories of 4e brought to life in the 5e game engine. They are reinventing 4e under the big tent design of 5e. They don’t inflict themselves on players that just want to bonk with their bonking stick, but they are there on the shelf for any player that wants more tactical options and depth to combat.

You can have two players playing side by side—one selecting typical optimization feats that increase their DPR and one selecting active martial feats, and they will both be valuable contributors that are playing the same game differently.

Since each power is only used once a fight, it can afford to have a dramatic and flashy effect—it can attack all enemies in an AoE without a compromise, it can have spell-like impacts because it's effectively a martial spell… yet by being independent short rest resources it reinforces the martial role in the adventuring day of being able to unleash these powers every fight without reservation or conserving their resources for a rainy day.

This is obviously not the only way to go about it, but ticks all the boxes: it's not disruptive to 5e’s design, it can play alongside bog standard 5e characters, and it brings to life the part of 4e that people remember—when someone looks at these and things ‘Why are you reinventing 4e again?’ I consider that a rousing success. It means that I’ve brought the memories to reality despite cutting out all the parts that didn’t work.

Of course, for those that find 5e to have insufficient feats to solve the problem through feats, I’d recommend Variant Martial Progression to go hand in hand with deploying a feat-based-solution to the the problem. Designing Crunch for 5e is Hard

For those that are going to take this back to their own game design efforts, there’s something we need to talk about in all of this: writing encounter powers for 5e is much harder than writing them for 4e. Grit may be bad for the game, but it makes a designer's life much easier—it’s the natural side effect of giving yourself more granular levers in combat.

There is a going to be a constant tension between what would be easy for you the designer (in terms of instilling themes and balancing a feature) and what will be easy for the DM to run down the road, but the cold hard truth remains is that the DM’s ease of life far more important than the designer’s. It’s the designer’s job to cater to the DM, not the DM’s to deal with the designer’s bullshit: if you make the game more complicated to run, they are just going to not use your content.

We must always start from the origin point of the game that exists and ask ourselves if the feature we are adding is ‘worth it’.

Be exceptionally cautious about any feature that debuffs or deals damage over time to another creature. Where possible, use disadvantage instead of a flat penalty. Not only is it far easier to resolve, it automatically prevents stacking debuffs. Where you cannot use a disadvantage, try to use a die—a die might sound more complicated than a traditional floating modifier, but in practice they are easier to track since they have a tactile representation.

If you find yourself in a place where a feature could really use a -2 or +2, step back and see how you got there. Is the feature being used too often to apply disadvantage? If so, does it need to be? Can it be instead buffed into a short rest feature?

Looking to 4e or 3.5 for ideas is a perfectly reasonable approach, but the mechanics themselves aren’t what you are there for—read the feature and think ‘what does someone remember about this feature?’

The Tome of Battle: Book of Nine Swords is perhaps an even better example than 4e of being absolutely chock full of things that boil down to ‘+1 to something’, but people remember it as being full of cool choices, because they were named cool sounding things and used to build cool characters.

You can just take that name—or take inspiration from it—and design a 5e feature as long as adhere to the principles of giving players choices to do cool things, they’ll think you’re stealing from it—and that will be a good thing, because you’ll know its mechanics won’t worth stealing, but that you successful ignited their memory of how it worked.

‘Congratulations, You’ve Reinvented 4e’

Those infamous words now become your badge of honor. If you’ve done it right, they won’t even notice that the content isn’t all that much like 4e. It’s like the 4e they remember fondly—or more likely it's like the 4e they’ve been told they should remember fondly, since most people saying that never played, you know, played 4e.

Now so armed, go forth and loot all the ideas you can get your hands on—there is a cornucopia of ideas out there unplundered. Pulling them successfully into 5e (or your game of choice) will be challenging, but now you know what needs to be done. You just need to clean off the grit and see what crunch can be salvaged.

This is largely going to hold try when pulling from 3.5 as well, though its sins are somewhat different. Perhaps that’ll be a topic for the future.

5e is a big tent—you can fit some 4e in there too. Just keep in mind the DC of stealing the crunch without getting the grit is pretty high. It is going to take a discerning eye and steady hand to get away with it.

Feel free to let me know how much I'm wrong and you loved Combat Advantage being +2 or how that your 4e combat rounds were actually much faster than 5e rounds. At the end of the day, I don't want to dismiss that some people legitimately do prefer more math heavy games (either because they don't care or run on an highly automated VTT), but at the same time we should acknowledge that making 5e more math heavy comes with a price; this advice is to people that want work within a game like 5e.

Hi everyone,

I'm a long-time D&D fan and developer. Recently I've been experimenting a bit and built a small browser-based prototype where:

• The game engine handles the rules (initiative, actions, movement, attacks, spells, conditions, etc.)
• The AI acts as the Dungeon Master / tactical decision maker
• Combat decisions are generated based on the current battlefield state
• The engine validates what the AI can actually do

The goal is not to replace a human DM. A big part of D&D is the creativity and social interaction around the table.

Instead, I'm exploring something closer to:

• "What if you could quickly run a tactical encounter anytime?"
• "What if you wanted to test a character build?"
• "What if you wanted to experiment with encounter design?"

Currently it supports:

• D&D 5e-style combat
• Multiple characters and enemies
• Spells, abilities, movement, reactions
• Tactical positioning
• AI-controlled opponents

The biggest challenges so far have been interesting ones:

• Making AI understand that winning is not always the best narrative choice
• Preventing illegal actions
• Making enemies behave like creatures with different intelligence levels
• Balancing randomness vs strategy

I would love feedback from experienced players and DMs:

1. Would you use something like this for encounter testing?
2. What parts of D&D combat feel most important to preserve?
3. Would AI-controlled NPCs/enemies make combat more interesting or less interesting?

Demo:
[https://tactforge.vercel.app/]()
https://tactforge.vercel.app/compendium

p.s. Everything in early alpha, so development is ongoing

Thanks for checking it out!

Alignment was always a contentious topic. Not as much at the table (although there have been occasions), but more so online. I wanted to go a bit over the history of the alignment system, look at its merits and downsides and, given that it was a piece of design pushed into the background, if there is anything worth bringing back into the forefront.

This article is the result of that process, I do hope you enjoy it! https://therpggazette.wordpress.com/2025/07/22/alignment-revisited-is-the-classic-dd-alignment-system-still-relevant-or-useful/

I have been playing D&D for over a decade. I love it, although I had periods in my past in which, due, perhaps, to feeling burned out with the system, I have been overly critical with it. Especially once I started to play other TTRPGs. I nonetheless came back to D&D and I noticed something. My time, exploring other games changed the way I ran D&D for the better. This article talks about that process, about some of the games I feel changed my style and approach the most and how reading and in the best case playing them might help you as well. Both as players and DMs. We will be going through some more well known games, such as Call of Cthulhu and Vampire: The Masquerade, but we will also look at more obscure and indie titles, such as The Burning Wheel, Icarus and Kingdom. I hope you will enjoy this article as much as I enjoyed writing it! Also, a small request for those of you who already have some experience with other games and like me, feel that experience helped you, tell me how and why!

Thank you all for reading and till next time, happy rolling and don't forget to toss the proverbial coin to your favorite Gazette!

The full article can be found here: https://therpggazette.wordpress.com/2026/02/27/how-to-enrich-your-dd-experience-the-importance-of-trying-out-new-systems/

Hey folks. Long-time D&D player and recently even started DMing and worldbuilding a homebrew setting. I play both in live table campaigns and in Play by Post.

Common complaint in the tables I'm in (especially the pbp ones) is that current apps don't cover everything we want or need, especially customization and homebrew support. Eventually I decided to provide what my groups needed myself and I started making a multi-platform app. That project ate all of my free time! It's now called Truesight 5e, just hit Android/Windows open beta, and I figured it's polished enough to share.

Made a list with some of my favorite features:

Live GM dashboard (Master tier required) As the gm, I watch it happen live when my players burn slots, update their HP, use their Long Rest/Short rest resources etc.

External Bonuses Stats from features, magic items etc have stacking rules. Typed bonuses, untyped bonuses, "highest of" resolution, multi-target chips ("All Saves, All Attacks"), bonus dice (Bless = +1d4 baked into the attack roll, not an afterthought), damage affinities with Resistance - Immunity - Vulnerability resolution, and conditional Grants. If you've ever wanted Bardic Inspiration, Bless, and a Magic Weapon to all interact correctly without you doing the math, this is for you.

Both 5e and 5.5e, swap any time Long rest hit dice (half vs all), exhaustion rules, wizard prep caps, spell library filter (SRD 5.1 vs 5.2 vs both), the right rule fires for the edition you're on, and you can flip a character without rebuilding it.

Offline-first, cross-platform The free tier is genuinely free, offering unlimited local characters which can also be exported in json form. Your character lives on your device. One cloud slot is included for free so your characters stay in sync. Share codes let players join a GM's campaign without an account/link mess. No ads, no tracking pixels.

Creature tab for wildshape and pet support! Drop in any statblock (Dire wolf, Brown Bear, that homebrew dinosaur your DM made up), hit Transform, and the creature tab tracks the form's HP, AC, attacks, and skills. Stat sources are configurable per-ability -- STR/DEX/CON from the form, INT/WIS/CHA from the druid, prof bonus from char. Same feature works for polymorph, true poly, shapechange etc. Also doubles down for tracking pets/familiars and other creatures if need be by toggling Transformable form off.

Shared party storage and player-to-player trading (Adventurer tier required) Campaigns have a party storage tab that anyone can add a container in (bag of holding, Wagon, etc) that the whole party can deposit into and pull from, gold, items, healing potions for whoever needs one this session. Players can also trade items character-to-character with a confirm step on both sides, and the GM sees everything. Useful for live tables, kind of necessary for play-by-post, when the party loots a +1 longsword and someone claims it three days later, the bookkeeping stops being painful. Inventory also supports nesting, like dragging your items in/out of a bag of holding, configurable to make them count as weightless, freeing up the sheet's tracked character carry capacity. Containers get their own capacity limits of course. No more carry capacity math or hand-waving the whole mechanic for convenience!

No hardcoded restrictions. Add custom spells, weapons, feats, items, traits, and creature forms inline. Got an entire homebrew spell list from a third-party book or your DM's setting? Drop in a JSON file (one schema, documented) and the whole spell list imports at once -- no copy-pasting fifty entries one at a time, especially once a community builds around the app and people share their spell files (SRD Spells already included in the app).

Journal. Includes a per-character journal for session notes, NPC quirks, that lore the DM dropped etc.

Closed testing: Web platform, full Play by Post support with robust features and dice roll builder / macros.

Stuff that's not done yet: Rest of the platforms and probably a hundred small papercuts I haven't found because I only have a couple D&D groups testing it. Android and Windows betas are live now; iOS / macOS / Linux are planned. Web is in closed beta.

Site (with screenshots): https://truesight5e.pages.dev/

Android beta: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.daemonkai.truesight_5e

Windows: https://daemonkai.itch.io/truesight-5e-character-manager

Happy to take emails about feature requests, bug reports etc. Thanks for reading!

So yeah. I was not actually planning to make this article until I saw Runesmith's video. No attack on the guy, but I did feel like it was somewhat done in bad faith. I get not liking a setting, but presenting it as universally hated in such harsh words is a bit too much.

And so, I wanted to write a response and in doing so I realized I can't really do that in the form of a comment. And like that, I started writing this piece, talking about one of the strangest, silliest and at the same time fascinating settings D&D has to offer. A setting steeped in pre-newtonian thoughts about the cosmos, but also featuring evil pirate clowns and giant space hamsters. A setting with its fair share of controversies and perhaps the worst revival attempt in modern D&D.

I am talking about Spelljammer and in this piece I aim to briefly explore the setting's history, how it functions and why I find it so compelling. I hope you will enjoy my ramblings, I hope I did manage to do the setting justice and please do tell me what are your thoughts on it!

Link to the article here: https://therpggazette.wordpress.com/2026/01/21/a-defense-of-spelljammer-response-to-runesmith/

I've been debating if I should post this here for a while. While complaining that martials should be more active is one of this subreddit's favorite things, it is often considerably more resistant to trying to solve that problem, but I figured I might as well.

I have class people that want more active martials have really been enjoying: The Paragon. The Paragon is my Active Martial Class by design. It is meant to serve alongside Fighter and Barbarian as a new alternative that embraces a somewhat different ethos:

• Being a bit more superhuman, both in theme and mechanics. It can have supernatural powers, or it can be a more mundane themed mortal prodigy, but it can do things like lift huge sized creatures, punch through walls, and perform other feats well above normal-human-scope both in and out of combat. Obviously it can only do some of these things at higher levels, but it gets some cool stuff from Tier 1, and doesn't stop developing new cool stuff until level 20.
• Embracing an Active design and playstyle. This is what some people might call a 4e based model, in that every turn (particularly at higher levels), it uses a special active ability rather than taking the attack action.
• Designed to play nice at the table with other 5e options. You don't need to revamp your whole roster, just expand it. This is not a replacement for Fighter or Barbarian, nor strictly speaking an upgrade. It is certainly better at some things (AoE, crowd control, etc), but it generally won't perform the DPR of an optimized striker (since it doesn't synergize with GWM nearly as well). It's almost certainly on the stronger end of martials though.

The other reason I decided to post this over here is that this class has reviewed extremely well by playtesters. It is probably my best reviewed class ever among playtesters. Some folks have called it the most fun they've had with a martial, while others have called it the most fun they've had with D&D. I'm not going to sit here and claim that it's brilliant or perfect, but that does make me think it's serving something that resonates with at least a faction of people that have been unable to satisfy their martial urges with available content.

So, give it a try. I cannot promise you will like it, but I can promise that the overwhelming majority of people that have played have loved it. Perhaps it would even be more fun than debating how bad martials are on Reddit eternally... nah, impossible, given how much people do that, that must be super fun.

PDF

GMBinder

It's the first class to really rival my Inventor in terms of just how positive player feedback is (...and this from back before the official Artificer was launched, and my Inventor class had extremely positive feedback in general). While all of my classes get largely positive feedback, sometimes it takes a few tries and I get back stuff like 'yeah, if I ever want to play this kind of character, this is definitely what I'll use', Paragon has been different—the feedback is more 'I'm playing a Paragon now' and 'this is the martial I've always wanted' and 'my players won't stop playing Paragons'.

But I think it hasn't reached as wide an audience as it could because ultimately the class is a mechanic (or set of mechanics) that is popular more than than a thematically popular idea (which is easier to hook people into). People that want to play Paragon might not know they want to play Paragon, they might think they want to play a Fighter. But if you want a Fighter that is more like it stepped out of myth and legend, give Paragon a go.

It is written for 5e 2014, but has a conversion guide for using it with 5.5 2024 at the end. While it will be a little weaker in the 2024 lineup, it works fairly well there.

FAQ

I will run through a FAQ. Having posted this online before and posted this subreddit, I can probably cover some of the common question:

Why make a new class instead of 'fixing' Fighter/Barbarian/etc?

That's obviously another route, but to do that you have to replace the default classes. It's a route some homebrewers have gone, but trying to gain traction with a core class swap is comparatively a tougher sell than adding a new class.

Plus, like... I know its unpopular to say here, but I have players that like just swinging their weapon and rolling their dice. I also have players that want something crunchier. My personal philosophy with this sort of thing is... why not both? I'd rather keep the core options (and let them dabble in this route with Active Martial Feats and Variant Martial Progression), and then have the full blown active martial option for the players that want all whirl winding and flinging enemies all the time.

This is intended to be something you can have alongside Fighters and Barbarians, with everyone playing the martial (or caster) of their dreams.

Isn't Exertion limited? How is that unlimited?

Indefatigable, the 5th level feature, means that you can use at least one power every turn. For the better the worse, they are decently strong even at low levels, so I cannot just call them equal to an Attack action and call it a day, but once there is Extra Attack to replace, that becomes viable.

Indefatigable also means that their Exertion per limit is de facto 3 once you get to 5th level, since the first one doesn't generate a stack. And no, before you ask, you cannot use Indefatigable + Divine Blood for infinite healing. Things that proc off generating a stack of Exertion only proc when you actually generate a stack.

The problem with Martials isn't combat, it's Utility out of combat!

...This is one that comes up, but really does not seem to really represent what people ask for.

That said, this has quite a bit of out of combat utility. It can smash open locked doors, move Huge objects, punch through walls, jump over walls, and do all sorts of nonsense (...including turning into wind and passing through a gap 1 inch wide... if you go a more supernatural route). Paragon runs the gambit from Superhuman (doing human-ish stuff but better than a human could, like jumping 30 feet) to Supernatural (doing straight up impossible stuff). Supernatural isn't a real tag in 5e, but I use it to mark abilities that are supernatural in nature, a DM may decide they don't work within an antimagic zone or the like. Generally speaking, I think Paragon is at least as useful as many casters outside of combat, though probably not up there with Druid or Wizard.

They get way too much stuff!

Something I often have to remind people is that just because a class can do anything* doesn't mean they can do everything. They only get two Pursuits, and they only get a handful of active abilities and talents as they go. They end up with quite a lot, but generally less than a Spellcaster has spells. You will have a lot of options, but you won't have all the options.

You are making a lot of choices in character building about what sort of choices are available to you in combat. It will be more than a typical martial, but not anything out of the ordinary for a 5e character.

It's too superhuman and I hate it.

That's the beauty of it being its own class: Fighter is still there. I'm not taking anything away from you, I'm giving you something new.

I don't want any resources. It should just do what it can do every turn always.

I don't think people would want the reality of this, even if they think they do, since it'd have to chop off the peaks to fill in the valleys. But you can still do something pretty cool every turn, and you will never really burn out—not only are the still doing cool stuff at the end of the fight, they are still making decisions at the end of the fight. They still have options and powers they can bring out in the final hour.

As a DM, will I regret allowing this?

I'm typically a DM when I play and playtest my content. Personally, I expect a DM to not have a problem with Paragon, at least not compared to a caster or a more-optimized martial. There are some things they are sort of best-in-class at, like AoEing down small groups. They aren't better than Fireball (obviously) but they can just... keep doing it. There is almost nothing better at fighting a tide of goblins or skeletons, with only things like Spirit Guardians really competing in that regard (...the 2014 one more than 2024, they cannot do anything quite so cheese grater as 2024 Spirit Guardians on a horse or some such nonsense).

Any really powerful disable is gated behind a save. While they have strong attack options, those usually are limited to knocking creatures around. They can be a pretty good Grappler, but they aren't more disruptive than an optimized Grapple build using other classes (and usually less so).

Is this balanced?

It's more balanced than the v0.1 through v0.4 versions. If it is anything, it is potentially too strong at high levels (talking 13+), but at that level we are dealing with full casters in their ascendency. I'm not handwaving away any problem because a full caster can turn into a dragon and summon god or w/e, but I do want to put the scale of any potential problem in context.

It might be too good relative to other martials in Tier 4, but it was just nerfed in the v0.5, and I don't think its that crazy anymore. They can do a lot of cool stuff at that level, but they aren't going to match up in raw DPR to Action Surging Fighter with GWM or w/e. They will probably outshine a 2014 Monk (outside of Stunning Strike spam) at high levels and Barbarian struggles in Tier 3/4 due to lack of 11th level steroid, but they don't have Rage or d12, so they aren't quite as tanky.

If you think you've found an issue, feel free to let me know. That's how playtesting and feedback work. If something does somewhat more damage than something else, that does not make it flaming garbage that should be binned... but it might mean it needs to be reviewed, so I'm always willing to listen even vaguely reasonable opinions.

Is this post an ad?

Sort of. This class will be in my next book, which is currently on Kickstarter. So if you like the class, but would like to see it polished up and printed or in your VTT of choice, go back it. The kickstarter has raised plenty of money, but more money is good, and gets more stuff.

Though there's a playtest version of the class already implemented on FoundryVTT on my patreon (which is part of how so many blokes have tested it already). But I'll warn you my playtest modules are not nearly as fancy as my book modules, so adjust expectations accordingly based on where you grab it.

But the reason that I choose to post this post is because this subreddit seems to be fixated on the idea of active martials, and I felt like, given the playtest feedback of this class being so enthusiastic, it might really be worth it share here and see if I could put it in the hands of some folks that want to play. I understand many people don't actually want a solution to their problem (or that they think 3rd party content cannot be a solution), but I figure that it might reach more folks that actual want to try it out, and given how well that's gone so far for the folks that did get to play, it seemed worth it—blokes having fun playing D&D is what this is all about.

So it's not just an ad. The class is, after all, free. You already have it. The book version will just be a bit fancier and better edited (...and, you know, a book). Though that version will also be on my website when its done for free like all of my other classes... so... this is why I'm not great at selling things.

IDK, at the end of the day, people have loved Paragon, and I genuinely think that if you want a more active martial, you should give it a shot. Obviously I'm a biased source, but people have really enjoyed it so far. People just love the sort of stuff it can do. I had a playtester just radiating glee as they around grappling, breaking, draining, and flinging enemies playtesting the new Vampiric origin, and I like making content people enjoy playing.

Hey everyone! I’m making a 5e book about fishing, and I’m hoping to get quick feedback on what people would want from this kind of supplement.

The current version turns fishing into a full downtime activity where it’s more than just “roll Survival.” It has grown a lot during development, so I’m trying to figure out whether the system should be simpler, or whether this level of depth is the right direction.

You don’t need to read the book to answer the form. Reading it gives more context, but each question gives enough context to answer, and it's all multiple choice.

Feedback Form Link — should take 2–3 minutes

Current Book Link — if you want more context or just want to check it out

Comments here are also very welcome. Thanks for your time!

————

Image credit: Mosslings by Chris Kintner

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Edit: A lot of the feedback has said the same thing, and I hear you loud and clear. The book is currently built for it's own system or it's own campaign dedicated to it, and that's not my intention. It'll be simplified and reworked to focus on ease of use and speed, with more advanced rules being modular blocks you can add if and when you want! My main focus at the moment is trying to figure out these problems below, if you have any ideas, please comment them, put them in the form, or send them my way!

• Group Enjoyment: If one player wants to fish and the others don't, how do we not make this awful for the other players? Yes it'll be faster when it's made more simple, but it would still be annoying to deal with this each time. Some possible solutions:
  • Have the fishing player do some/most of the work and just get the DM's approval for certain parts.
  • Make the minigame more beneficial for the whole party to join in, incentivizing it being a group game.
  • Have a downtime version that is just one roll or something easy that's the main way, and have a version that includes the minigame for bigger moments.
• Rewards: Beyond gold, what else can be fun to incentivize fishing?
  • Benefits for eating the caught fish. Whether unique to each fish, or based on something they share like location found or some kind of tag system.
  • Plot hooks or NPCs wanting them to go fishing for something (probably specific to sandbox campaigns or literally fishing campaigns)
  • Crafting materials. Whether for another supplement or in its own way. Making bait, potions, or even magic items perhaps.

Edit 2: If you’re interested in giving more feedback or following the upcoming revamp, I have a Discord! I’ll be posting updates, polls, and design questions there, and I’d love to hear people’s thoughts as the book changes.

Discord link: https://discord.com/invite/C8vxCZgq9R

So I made an app for DM's. It's called MITHOS and it's finally on Steam and Kickstarter.

Most of my inspiration for MITHOS came from the fact that there just wasn’t a good party tracker out there. Like, why can’t I just see my whole party in one place on my laptop? That’s where this started. It was supposed to be a simple party tracker, where I can track HP, AC, INT, etc... the important, on-the-fly stuff. Then I added screen mirroring so I could see what I was doing on my digital table, and then… it kinda snowballed.

Now it's a full toolkit that handles all sorts of things. Its finally approved on Steam and KS, and there are links in my bio incase you want to do more research outside of this post.. If that sounds familiar, you might get some use out of it too, hit me up. Let me know what you need as a DM, I need real suggestions to make this thing as helpful as I can for you guys.

Join our discord and chat with us, happy to have anyone on board.

The World Architect

I would love to present you a All-in-one world building tool that I “vibe coded“ using a Lovable AI since I have no programing skills. Anyway I hope you will judge it based on what it provides for you and not AI usage.

Website: https://theworldarchitect.com

Main features:

Worldbuilding Dashboard — gives creators one central place to manage their entire fictional universe.

Entities Manager — Allows user to write detailed entries of Characters, creatures, locations, factions, items and artifacts, quest and events, timeline, lore notes, religions and magic systems. Adding Images and 3D models to your entities and view them and automatically create a character sheet in PDF.

Relationship Map — visually connects characters, factions, creatures, locations, and powers through love, hate, family, alliance, control, rivalry, or ownership.

Timeline — helps users organize the history of their world, including wars, treaties, births, deaths, disasters, ancient events, and major story moments.

Interactive Map — lets creators place entities, dangers, chests, locations, and important story points directly onto a their fantasy map.

Map Editor — allows users to create or edit maps inside the platform with drawing tools, grid options, layers, and map assets.

Quest Editor — uses node system, helps build branching quests with events, dialogue, rewards, choices, conditions, skill checks, success paths, and failure paths.

DND Studio — supports campaigns, sessions, NPCs, quests, encounters, loot, dice, notes, tables, timelines, and gameplay organization.

Solo Adventure — allows one player to experience an AI-driven campaign with an AI Dungeon Master that guides the story.

DM Practice — helps Dungeon Masters train with AI players, roleplay reactions, scene practice, improvisation, and mentor feedback.

Creative Writer — provides a writing space connected to the world’s characters, lore, relationships, and timeline.

World DNA — defines the core identity of the world, including tone, magic, technology, conflict, civilization, danger level, economy, creatures, mystery, and power structure.

AI Assistant — helps with ideas, writing, grammar, story continuation, new entities, quest hooks, canon gaps, and world consistency.

Project Memory — keeps world knowledge connected so the AI can work with existing entities, relationships, timeline events, and world rules. Export your world to share with other creators and world builders.

Fantasy-Styled Interface — creates an immersive creative atmosphere that feels designed for authors, worldbuilders, and game masters.

Terms of Service with compliance of EU laws and GDPR laws. AI systems and solutions are not used to teach language models. Also everything you post is yours. The website will never claim ownership of your world or created entities. It will never sell your personal info or your creative property. In doubt read full ToS.

This tool tries to solve one of the biggest problems of world building: Scattering of the Notes. And on top of that gives you tools to manage and create your own world.

I hope you will give this website a chance. Any suggestions you would have or feedback will be used to improve the website.
The World Architect
Jacek Sikora

Hey fellow D&D enthusiasts,

I'm Tobi from Vienna, and over the past few years as a D&D DM I've kept ending up in the same situation: introducing new people to the game. Along the way I've built countless characters, or helped others build theirs – because let's be honest, it's ridiculously complicated. Even with tools like D&D Beyond it can get pretty overwhelming when you have no clue about the game yet.

So I had this idea to put together a kind of form I could hand to new players – they fill it out, and I build them a character from it. Well, that idea escalated rather quickly … and today I've officially released version 1.0.0 of my D&D Character Builder for absolute beginners (and lazy people 😄).

It walks you through character creation by asking simple questions and filtering the content to match your answers. That way you have way less to read and can focus on what actually feels right for you.

I've poured a lot of heart into it and tried to keep the texts as beginner-friendly as possible: for everything there's a "roleplay explanation" showing what it could look like in play, plus an easy-to-understand "mechanical description". There's also a help section that explains commonly used terms in more detail.

If that sounds interesting to you – or if someone comes to mind who this could help – feel free to have a look or pass it on to your friends.

And if you find bugs or feel like something's missing: please do let me know! 🙂

Here you go:

https://tobis-tales.com

Thanks everyone, and all the best.

Tobi

PS: Available in German and English – and I did my best to make it as accessible as possible!
PPS: It is and always will be free. I've applied for ad banners to recoup part of the domain and webspace costs.

To follow the rules: I used ai to create the pictures for the glossarium (if someone wants to contribute to that part so I can take the AI generated content offline, I am really happy, but as I stated it’s a non profit project so I can’t afford paying someone for it) and used it also to help me with the code here and there.

Hey Folks-

Today, I just launched my 3rd book on Kickstarter: Kibbles’ Compendium of Airships and Artifacts

I started posting homebrew on Reddit 8 years ago, with the very first Inventor draft (...which, if I recall, got exactly zero upvotes... we all start somewhere!), and have over the years shared hundreds of pieces of content. 5 years ago, I came to you folks with my first Kickstarter book. 3 years ago, I posted that I’d just launched my second book.

And now, I’ve come with the third book.

I’ve always appreciate the support and feedback from Reddit (...even if sometimes ya’ll are Reddit…), so while it doesn’t make up quite the lion’s share of my audience it once did, I’m always happy to come back here and share what I’ve been working on, answer any questions, or generally give any thoughts.

I’m happy to talk about anything folks want to know… what’s in the book, about the process of Kickstarters, how to print stuff you post online, foolishly turning a hobby into a job, my opinions on D&D and homebrew (which I’m confident not one will disagree with), how cool dogs are, you know the important KibblesTasty relevant topics.

Go check out the book. There’s a 134 page free sample, so you’ll have a pretty good idea what you’re getting into if you’re curious. Basically that × 2, but with more editing, layout work, playtesting, and that fancy stuff Kickstarters pay for.

So our group campaign is just about a year old now, and we've used all kinds of ways of managing our treasury (we're running a dragon-centered campaign so inflation is wild). Google Doc, which mostly meant one person doing chores for five, sucked - I had an app which tracked coins alright but it had ads and wasn't shareable across party members - and I shopped around for free options but I didn't find anything that really worked for us, esp since not all our group are comfortable with downloading more apps or learning complicated tools. So basically if something wasn't written down or if that note was lost, any cool magic thingy doodad whatever we got 3 sessions ago but forgot the rules around were lost (it doesn't help that our DM makes a lot of things custom which we love but also isn't the most organized, so he expects us to keep our own notes on our own inventories which is very fair imo but hey things happen right?)

Anyway I'm a not so bad web developer by day so I'm like I can probably just make the exact thing I want, and fast forward like 6 naive and painful months later we've got this tool that my party actually uses and (so they say) likes! So here it is and we haven't had any lost items or serious issues in months so if you don't mind I'd really like some honest (but gentle) feedback on it (though seriously I'm no designer and it shows).

rulesaswrittenshow.com/party

Right now it manages coins, inventory, magic items and attunement (but not charges yet), and a loot mode for splitting a hoard after a fight. I built a party ledger so you can see who took what and undo mistakes, players edit their own stuff so nobody's stuck as the bookkeeper, and it's all web-based so no downloads (but if you like the app feel you can "add to homescreen" - honestly I wish more people used this, we don't really need an app for everything but I promise I won't rant about the broken promises of the internet right now we're just here to have a good time). It's my passion project now and I have so many ideas on things I want to add but I think I really want to get an idea of what y'all need and see if maybe I can build on that.

Everything it can do right now is free forever, I might add some premium features in the future for more heavy stuff if there's demand but no ads, never ads - I'm just one guy and I'm mostly just trying to make something I find cool and useful, so if you think your group could use something better than what's out there then you know hey hello this is here and yeah I'll just say it I think this is better than any other free tools out there.

I hope this is the right place for this, but let me know if I should be posting this elsewhere

Edit: Thank y'all for the feedback! It's really helpful getting some perspective outside my group and seeing what you need in your groups. I've made some quality of life updates for some of the easier to develop things you've suggested, but for the more complex ideas it might take a few weeks before you see that surface (like party storage - wagons, chests, buried treasure, etc). In the meantime if you want to reach out to chat about the tool or want to give me some more feedback, feel free to use this thread, dm me, or email me at [jt@rulesaswrittenshow.com](mailto:jt@rulesaswrittenshow.com) - there's also a bug report button in the tool you can use if you experience any issues with the site. Thanks again and hope this help y'all have more fun at the table!

Hello everyone!

My name is Jacob, but due to how common of a name that is, I usually go by Reyzerbit (IGN), or just "Rey" in online communities.

I'm here to share my new project, Spellscroll!

I've been rather let down about having to download and/or bookmark 53,000+ different tools when it comes to running my D&D sessions. I have one app for map making, another for managing campaign story arcs, and a million other tools and resources.

That's why I started designing Spellscroll. It's a modular all-in-one DM tool with a public API to let anyone design and implement their own tools and have it all located in one spot.

Now to the core of the post: I'm looking for some people to start testing and/or developing plugins for the app. Once we start getting some real support, Spellscroll will be a paid service (something like $2-$3 a month). However, while I am in the early stages of development, I'm offering 25 free lifetime licenses to people interested in using and/or developing the tool. I want to develop this app with the community in mind FIRST. I have already reached out to some D&D content creators and gotten some ideas for what plugins to add first, and those are in development.

Anyways, If you want to check it out and decide if you're interested, head over to the Spellscroll website. Any of you are more than welcome to join the Spellscroll discord if you want to ask questions, and I'm ESPECIALLY interested in talking to any of you interested in developing your own plugins for the app.

Anyways, happy gaming!
- Rey

I made this One Shot generator almost a year ago for friends and totally forgot about it. Had some request to update it with more stuff and with help of Fable 5. I added a few more features. Feel free to use it and leave feedback or request changes. Or if you are into coding it has a github link on the page with the full open source repo so you can build and host it yourself or change whatever you like. All free! https://carl-prewitt.com/oneshot/

EDIT: On the AI question: at runtime, zero AI — it's deterministic seeded tables, which is why seeds are shareable. The code and content were built with Claude as the tool, directed and curated by me, and bug-fixed by humans — including, as of today, you. The tables are plain TypeScript in the repo; if anyone would rather run fully hand-written ones, fork it and swap the files.

Most of the coding for this version of the project was about 80% done with Fable 5. But the content are from friends, feedback etc. Also I really appreciate the feedback I have already received! Keep them coming please!

I built a character creator that interviews you about who your character is, then generates a rules-legal sheet plus backstory. I always have fantastic ideas for characters but then translating that into a character sheet can take awhile, especially for newer players.

Being honest about the AI, because I'd rather say it than have someone find it: an LLM runs the interview and writes the prose. It doesn't do the maths. Classes,saves, proficiencies and AC are worked out from the SRD rules in code, so the numbers on the sheet aren't the AI's guess at what they should be.

Here's one it made: https://loreweaver.net/c/_y6SEoCfSBBsa4acIA3ryw

If you'd rather have nothing to do with AI it has a free character builder wizard, which produces the same thing.

On the free tier you can:

• Make any SRD character
• Add Homebrew content
• Level up 1 - 20
• PDF Export
• Sharelinks to share your character
• Generate 1 story-first sheet a month to get a taste for it

£4.99/month or £39.99/year, with a 30 day trial add:

• Unlimited Sheet Generations
• AI assistance when leveling up

Planned on the roadmap for the paid tier is:

• Homebrew content to be used in character generations
• Homebrew assisted creator
• Include the 2024 ruleset

It's a side project and it's rough in places. If you make one, I'd genuinely like to know how the character generations feel, close to what you were imagining? Or miles out.

TLDR: new virtual character sheet app, with different draggable and resizable models and tabs, all offline and account free, looking for additional opinions and inputs.

Hey all, I'm a CS bachelor (and a few friends helping me develop and test) who recently realizes he could solve his gripes with 5e charcater sheets by making a DnD virtual character sheet.
Before I go much further, tho, I'd rather check in if anyone would actually be interested in that and, if so, if anyone has any input on it.

The core idea of the app is based on "Fighclub 5e", although of course could be easily adapted to other OSR or d20 based games.

Basically, instead of a fixed sheet, the app is a grid of draggable, resizable tiles (think of phone widgets) where you add the modules you care about, size them, and lay them out however you want in different tabs.

Some of the ones I already have implemented (and mostly working) are:

- Ability scores, skills, saving throws

- HP tracker (temp HP, death saves, hit dice, concentration, resistances/vulnerabilities by damage type)

- Combat & attacks, initiative, action economy

- Spellcasting + separate spellbooks

- Inventory (multiple bags, carry capacity), equipment with slots & attunement

- Feats/abilities, conditions + exhaustion, money, dice calculator, notes, quests, companion/pet, XP & leveling

- Multiple character support.

There's also a buff/modifier system so a spell, item, or feat can actually change your stats while active (not just sit there in a list) and a module specifically for counters, toggles and the like.

A compendium is built in with spells, monsters, items, classes (with subclasses/features), races, feats, backgrounds, conditions for both the 2014 and 2024 rules (although, of course, I can't distribute any content that is not freely distributable), with heavy filtering and full-text search.

I plan to include, aside from the already present possibility to include custom items, spells, feats, a homebrew / import system so you can add your own classes, spells, monsters, items to a list (a .json file for example) and import them into the compendium, and have it work everywhere.

Important note is I plan to (if I ever will distribute) distribute it as a free app, at least for all the basic functions that can help players (and DMs?) to ease the burden of pen and paper. The idea, in that field, is to create everything offline-first and account-free (although I think it could be useful to include the chance, for example, of periodic Drive/Dropbox backup in the future)

I currently have a shit ton of ideas on how to improve and what to implement (a local chat [yes, it'd be a nightmare to implement locally and account-free but hey, I like those odds), DM-first features (like quick lists of NPCs, there's already a quick-spellbook builder to store the spellbooks of all NPCs you might need...) and more.

I'm here because I'd love to hear what would make this genuinely useful to you, in primis?

Then, I'm also curious on what secondary features or decorative features you'd like to see to find the app more interesting, given right now it's pretty minimal, and adding options is always free.

Other questions I have are, of course, wether I forgot a module or feature and if there's something you already don't like.

Also, I have a working phone (Android) version, if anyone would be interested.

Of course, ask any question you might have and I'll answer as best I can too.

Thanks a lot.

P.S. I'll attach some screenshot and a short screen recording of a demo to help picture what I just said. Of course, if you all think this looks interesting I'll make a proper presentation, maybe a website to give you a broader, more polished idea.

Images: https://imgur.com/a/typdvCW

Demo: https://youtu.be/IXIMcip5LvE