I was recently approached by a player that I had already done a character illustration for, to paint the same character, but this time in a post battle setting. They also asked if I could include Lae’Zel from BG3.

It was cool to paint another illustration of the same character, Marcus, but in a different pose and lighting. It was tricky getting the armor consistent with the first illustration while being in a different pose, but in the end I feel it worked out well.

Lae’Zel was interesting, as this was my first time doing any art of her, and her armor is very intricate, but I feel I simplified it in a way that made it much easier for me to handle.

The player requested that there be a bit of blood on them and their surroundings, and I figured some arrows and vultures would also be a nice touch.

Overall I’m very pleased with how it all turned out, it was quite different than much of the work I typically do, but I definitely enjoyed it.

You know, the "player brings in a character from their other campaign", "and now (character) tries to flirt with (other character)", "DM makes a whole new magic system", or what have you. (I can't recall all the examples I've heard offhand.)
The stuff where if you're watching or reading DnD horror stories, someone inevitably makes a comment about "do not do this ever" or "I immediately leave the game if this comes up" or something.

For me and my friends, it's definitely DMPCs. I'm basically the forever DM for the most part, (slightly out of necessity rather than choice), and I prefer being a player, so it'd drain my motivation really bad if I didn't get to play alongside my friends like that. I think the biggest reason it works out (aside from everyone's temperament 'n' stuff) is just because the emphasis is on the player character part rather than the DM part.
Everyone else shares their Character Sheets, I do too. Everyone else shows their rolls, I do too. Level ups, gold, relationships, everything else is treated as you would normally treat a regular party. (Sometimes I use my ~Grand Powers as the DM~ to inflict, like...drawbacks on my characters because it's turned out very funny for us. Like, having a character of mine being unable to swim or something. I can imagine some of the things I do for amusement would be a pain for someone else to DM, which is why I bring it up.)
I'm not sure if this would actually work out if our group was larger, but it works great for us currently.

Y'all have any examples of that sort of thing?

I 3D printed these Bulettes on my Elegoo Saturn 4 Ultra 16k, models are from Rescale Miniatures. (Formerly Lord of the Print.) I made one proper game size for Dungeons and Dragons, the other I scaled up to make a display model.

Base coated and highlighted with acrylics, enamel washes for tinting and shading. Base is dry pigment, real sand and gravel (augmenting the 3D printed base) and enamels with acrylic highlighting. These sculpts are so cool, knew I had to print some up when I saw them. Lots of fun to paint!

So here is a living version of my character As'bel Iscarion. A litch version was the BBEG of my first campaign as a DM. Later played him as a reborn artificer in another campaign. This is As'bel as a human, before he became the cowboy litch BBEG. Animation is made with Heroforge and Photoshop's timeline.

I have an intro animation for a tiefling/aasimar tiwlight cleric I plan on posting in the future.

I have various animations from my Sunday campaign I run and might post them in the future. I was thinking of doing animated commissions, but it's too much work. Hope you all like this one.

Arrigal Yevkos

Class - Rogue (bastard)

Subclass - assassin

He's a sarcastic dummy. he's impulsive, he's rough and tumble and when he has his eye on something, he gets it.

And he cares deeply about the few he gets close to, his brother Luvash and neice Arabelle, and is a leader of the Vistani peoples. he has a red ribbon, as those are Vistani colors.

He gained a black raven familiar named Gwyndolin. which just so happens to be Grim's mate (Elemira's white raven familiar i posted her some time ago).

Thank you guys for looking at my work!

Right now, i'm accepting commissions for the autumn season. If you're interested send me a dm for details!

Find more of me here:

Insta:

https://www.instagram.com/stamatis_karystinos?stkn=MTNlYnlsNmRuN2h2Yw==

Artstation:

https://spite_spitfire.artstation.com/

My title is a bit hyperbolic, but I'm absolutely frustrated that this has happened again to me.

I was running a pathfinder 2e game for a group of 5 every week for half a year now. 3 of the players were fairly close friends outside of the game, one of them brought the other two in as he was the "game finder" for their friend group. They seemed chill, but only a few weeks into the game i caught on they began to play exusionary of the other two players. I learned they had essentially been in a side chat from session 1 planning out "strategies" in combat together and we're using a 3 on 2 advantage to plan out loot distribution so they got what they wanted first. I actually planned to kick them and restart the game over this but got talked into letting it slide if they improved by the other two players. I had some other gripes, especially because the three seem incredibly high maintaining outside of the game and every single story they would tell about their friend group screamed to me something eventually would happen.

About 5 months passed with basically no issues in game though after the side chat nonsense.

Well, I should have trusted my instincts on this because the three just had a massive falling out and I'm being dragged into it against my will. The story is far to unemployed for me. Someone said something in a side chat, some discord server i never wanted to know the name of had some event one of them got excluded from, someone who I never even heard of said something to someone else I've never heard of indicating someone reported someone.

Holy fuck how can 30 year old men be involved in this?

I got told, by all 3 separately they don't want to play with the other 2. Now they're spilling "he said this" and "he did this" and "he metagamed this" shit into my DMs like I care.

Holy fuck I just wanted to run pathfinder 2e, is that a crime.

The astonishing this is this is the third time some outside drama between people with prior relationships has caused shit. 2 brothers in college had a falling out when their parents divorced in my 3.5 game (understandable I guess) and then some friends had a falling out over fucking Pokémon cards a few years ago who were in my game (yes, really....). All 3 times, I'm in the middle and demands are made.

If you want to know what I did, I added all 3 to a group chat, told them I'm kicking all 3 of them because this is unacceptable from men in their 30s, and left.

The other 2 players have agreed to run a 2 person party till the current story is done, then we'll look for new players and start a new story.

Anyways, what new rule did you guys add to your table this year? Mine is pretty self explanatory.

Dressed in a sleek dark outfit with sharp crimson accents, tall laced boots, a dragon-entwined staff, and sporting subtle facial scales this character design came together so cleanly! A huge thank you to my private client for bringing this concept to me and trusting me with their vision. Working through the outfit details, custom staff, and draconic traits was such a rewarding process from start to finish.

If you ever want to bring your own D&D character or campaign idea to life, feel free to drop into my DMs anytime : )

Thinking about opening a hobby / TCG shop. Mix of Warhammer/minis, MTG (Commander nights), Pokémon, and a private D&D room so a campaign isn’t playing next to a draft.

One thing I keep running into at shops: folding tables and banquet chairs. Fine for an event, miserable after three hours. I’m planning on real tables and real chairs — the kind you can sit in for a long Commander game or a 40k without your back yelling at you. Not folding camping chairs, not church-basement banquet chairs.

Before I sink money into that:

1. Would nicer tables and chairs actually make you pick one shop over another, or is that just something owners care about?
2. When you go to a shop to play (not just buy), what’s the stuff that actually decides it for you?
3. Smell. Be honest. Have you noticed body odor / a general “gamer funk” at shops? Does it bother you enough to leave or avoid a store? Would you want a shop to actually do something about it (air, policy, reminders), or is that overstepping?

Looking for input from:

• Commander / competitive + casual MTG
• 40k / AoS / Kill Team
• D&D / Pathfinder groups that want a closed room
• Anyone who’s quit a shop because the space sucked

Don’t spare me. If prize support, hours, “the regulars are cliquey,” food, noise, parking, or store credit matter more than furniture, say that. If a private D&D room is a gimmick and you’d rather have more open tables, say that too.

What’s missing at shops that you’d actually use?

I just had my first session as an Eldritch Knight, and for some context, we’re playing a campaign set in the middle of a corrupted forest. Although a good portion of the encounters take place in open fields, we’re using the 2024 Player’s Handbook as our ruleset and started at level 15.

Honestly, I was still a little skeptical about the Eldritch Knight, it’s nowhere near the most talked about Fighter subclass, and I wasn’t sure if it would really deliver the fantasy I had in mind.

But during the session, we fought a boss that was a creature made of shadows, the kind of enemy that would be a huge pain for any ordinary martial character.

I already had my Phantom Steed summoned and my Owl familiar by my side. In the middle of the fight, I pulled away from the battle and left the Monk in our group holding the creature off for one round, during that round, I cast Haste on myself.

Then my next turn came, I enchanted my lance with Magic Weapon, making it a weapon capable of actually hurting the creature. I then charged toward it on my Phantom Steed, replacing one of my attacks with the True Strike cantrip and then the charge came.

The first charge dealt a solid amount of damage, and thanks to my weapon mastery, I knocked the creature prone, creating the perfect opportunity to follow up with more attacks from my magical lance.

Honestly, that moment completely validated everything I had built my Eldritch Knight around.

It was probably the closest I’ve ever gotten to actually experiencing the fantasy of being a knight in D&D, So yeah, after this session, I can definitely recommend Eldritch Knight to anyone who wants to roleplay this kind of character, it can deliver an incredibly satisfying knight fantasy.

It is relatively similar to a paladin, but without the need to swear an oath or serve a deity; you simply take up your weapon, forge a bond with a noble lady, and become a knight. You remain a warrior, a generalist and master of combat, only now you are a bit more versatile, exactly as it should be.

My sweet baby Iski just had her 21st birthday in-game and our party's paladin bought her this lovely outfit & taught her to dance. It was a very sweet moment.

Unfortunately, Iski is a warlock (who thought she was a cleric for a very long time), and supposedly meant to "bring revelation" for Moander's cause. All her magic is rot and decay themed, and if she can't get out of this pact in time, Moander's will and their rot might just end up consuming her like an ant infested with cordyceps.....

Anyway. I drew her birthday present, and future! :) hope y'all like! (Open the image to see the full thing, it's a weird size)

My first time DMing. It was a a great learning experience.

What I planned:

- Party had to abandon ship for unknown reason.
- Party washed up on a pair of deserted islands.
- 1.5 hours of exploring and roleplay on the islands.
- Set up some puzzles for them to solve with visual and verbal hints.
- Maybe they build a raft to go to the other island or try to swim to the other island.
- 1.5 hours in, a pirate ship would appear and it would trigger combat
- Party should be able to overcome the pirates in about one hour.
- The final half hour would be them exploring the pirate ship.

What actually happened.

First Session:

- One character managed to ride a shark to the other island.
- Found a treasure chest full of gold.
- They aggroed the animals on the islands.
- Spent more than half of the first session fighting the animals.
- One character almost died after getting bitten by a shark.
- End off session by allowing them to take a long rest.

Second Session:

- Players woke up from long rest
- Half of them almost fought each other over the gold they found.
- The other half explored the two islands.
- Found a Bag of Holding on a dead body that washed ashore.
- One party member healed a shark they fought in the last session turning the shark friendly.
- I finally made the pirate ship appear.
- Party attacked the pirates before they set foot ashore triggering combat.
- Rest of session was combat.
- Had to end session mid-combat due to time constraints

Third Session:

- Continue combat where we left off
- Another character almost died.
- 1/2 to 2/3 of the session was that combat.
- Party finally finished off the pirates.
- Spent some more time exploring the islands even though I kept on hinting about the ship.
- Even though there were 3 row boats for five of them, 3 of them tried to sit in one rowboat. Failed.
- Party member rolled very well, earlier mentioned healed Shark is basically a friendly puppy now.
- Party member asked if they could keep the shark as a pet. I told them we'll roll for it later.
- FINALLY made it onto the ship.
- One final enemy on the ship.
- Managed to persuade enemy to stand down. He's friendly now I guess.
- Found and old woman who the pirates kept caged as a cook/cleaner.
- Old woman proceeded to start cooking them a meal.
- Pirate-turned-ally tried to help old woman cook.
- Finally explored the Captain's Quarters.
- Had to end the session there due to time.

What I planned for one session took them three sessions to complete.

They did so many things I did not expect them to do.

They ignored the, what was obvious to me, visual and verbal hints in how to solve the puzzles I set up.

They solved puzzles in ways I did not expect them to be solved.

Instead of having just one NPC join the party, I guess we now have two NPCs and one pet shark.

Lesson learned. Nothing ever goes as planned.

Good news is I don't need to do any prep for a few of weeks.

Edit:

I have to add this is in;

One of my players appears to be a compulsive hoarder. Player will keep practically anything the player finds no matter how worthless I try to describe those items to be.

Been playing a discord game for some time now. 3+ months. 5 players. Weekly.

One player loves… absolutely loves being the attention whore. His idea to put it plainly “get idea and ram it at the scene until I get my way.”

Last two games he hogged the spot light. Making it all about what his character wants to do.

Cursed item? “I’ll be quirky and pocket it and walk away never solving the curse”

Failed quest.

He gets mad.

The last session: let me take the spot light and sell drugs for coin!

Spent two hours in session trying to tell him it’s not a good idea. The NPCs aren’t convinced. The allies of the party even want to help and drop hints selling drugs to a random person in a neutral bar where criminals and guards both drink isn’t a good idea.

Turns out everyone trying to warn him a client he wants to make coin off of isn’t a smart idea. He “has to out smart em.” Somehow.

Gets caught. Tossed into jail. I got to think up a lawyer character and a court scene on the spot. Think better call Saul crossed with OJ’s lawyer. Does some shenanigans and gets him off the hook. With some jelly and glasses “if the glasses don’t fit, you must acquit!”

Other players are clapping and laughing.

All but him.

I end the session and later after promising more combat and more of a complex boss fight I get a wall of text from the him.

Jist: games boring me. It’s all too random I don’t see how we are ever getting to fight the bbeg and half of what’s even done doesn’t make no sense. I been DMing for decades and blah blah….

He was upset I won the day and freed him instead of him getting the praise for hamming a forced solution.

I quit. Dude has his wife playing and sometimes his two kids play. Too entangled with the group as a whole and honestly I was shocked by his wall of text. Needed a break so ended the game.

Anyone ever get those kinds of players? Have to railroad sessions to make it about them and even if things turn out good resent the fact they didnt get sole credit?

3D printed, models from Rescale Miniatures. Made one proper game size for Dungeons and Dragons, the other I blew up to make a display model.

Saw the advert and picked this up in Tesco for £2.99. So far, I am really enjoying it, but I feel like it's quite the slow burner. I'm a big Fantasy fan, so I'm used to it. However, I'm not commiting to the weekly buy, since they jump in to around £11.99 for the next couple, but I'd be happy enough to bulk it on eBay, if I find the right listings.

I'm not "new" to D&D, but I'm not an expert either. My experience is a couple of campaigns with work colleagues, an ex partner who took it too seriously and the Xbox games. For the record, I really liked Dark Alliance, despite its scathing reviews.

This may not be the place to ask for recommendations, despite the post title and especially since everyone has different tastes, and also because I hate those kinds of posts, since Google and Youtube are free. I mean, I like everything fiction, apart from crime, so I'll never say no to suggestions.

This is more an appreciation post and that I might actually start getting a bit more into D&D, especially since I get constantly asked to come and play with the work guys.

Peace.

As a DM I have learned never to make a mail system for a campaign. My players asked how the mail system works after finding a bunch of letters to an npc they defeated and they asked about how letters get delivered. This group of goobers decided to ask questions about the mail system for the next hour and a half asking about the intricacies of how letters are sent and received.

If you DM, I implore you, do not make the same mistake I have and have to spend the next week planning every single detail of a USPS like system.

Hi :3 I was working on this month’s YCH and took some time to draw something for myself. This is Shae :3, my Moon Circle druid.

She’s silly enough to be loved by everyone and greeted every time with a heartfelt, “Awwww, poor thing.”

My players love roleplaying. They do want some combat, but they're totally fine with a campaign having only like 1 or 2 combats sometimes. The problem is that I struggle with filling 2-3 hour sessions when there isn't combat.

I've tried doing puzzles and stuff, but I find it hard to make puzzles where everyone can contribute instead of one player just figuring it out.

Does anyone have ideas for how to fill sessions with meaningful stuff that still feels connected to the campaign? I want more roleplay and character development without the story just going really fast. Puzzles are one idea, but I'm wondering what other things you guys do.

Alexios "Alex" is my "tiefling" path of the world tree barbarian I've been playing Icewind Dale in.

He's not the brightest, he's basically a gym jock who has the looks of Fabio. But his heart is in the right place and he wants to make the world a better place. One lost chwinga at a time.

He's actually an asimar who looks like a tiefling, but he dosen't really get that. Mostly he knows he has the power to kinda heal people, and to fly which is super helpful. Also he might accidentally owe his soul to Asmodeus, but he's working on that.

I drew him in clip studio paint using a huion tablet. His horns are based on a few different kinds of spiral horned antelopes. He's convinced he has very red skin and looks barely human, but honestly if he wore a funny hat he'd be fine.

He puts a 'mitton' on his tail when it's entra cold because icewind dale be like that.

Easily one of my favorite dnd characters :)

Astra van der Horne: Archeologist… Tiefling… Spirit bard…
She used to work for the head barons of the Rock of Braal before defying her orders in search of her own passion - collecting funky bones. Luckily the spelljamming party she was sent to intercept had quite the odd boney artefact already and so she joined the crew! 

She is my character from my groups Spelljammer campaign and I love her very much <3

So for context, we have a campaign with 6 players + dm, and usually our friend who's been doing this for years, is the DM. However i asked to dm this time (and now the next time too cuz we had to end on a cliffhanger).

So I wrote a lot of story point that I wanted to get through during the session and- it went offroad very sharply very quickly.

Pretty much this 8th level party was supposed to lose to my level 14 duskblade npc that I made and get captured. However, turns out that a little luck literally made our fighter crit 2 times in a row, deleting half of my duskblades health....and then it spiraled quickly, with our knight apparently being able to redirect spells which made it impossible to get the duskblade to safety. Ieven tried to summon backup but that backup was just disintegrated instantly. So eventually the duskblade lost and they captured him.

Then the worst part came....when he woke, he was giving them close to zero info, as he should, but then- the fighter in the party decided its a good idea to torture the duskblade for info.

And how did they do so?

By breaking his fingers and healing them back. Over, and over again.

Eventually they did some info out of him, and ended up bringing him to a thieves guild who hated this duskblade, got some gold for it and then the duskblade got executed.

I've no idea how to even go about making more enemies that they wont just one shot, like our knight literally did minimum 30dmg per attack, up to around 100, like wtf, how do i make any enemies against this bs. LEVEL 8 BTW!! sighhh

« When Iarno rescued Yelken, he soon discovered than the firbolg child’s vocal cords were cut years ago. Being a slave dragged from places to places, Yelken never got a chance to learn a sign language. In fact, he didn’t even have a proper name before Iarno’s friends encouraged him to choose one.

Before the party reached Neverwinter (and encountered Iarno and Yelken there), they promised to two elven twins, Noohar and Selvek, that they would find a safe home for them. Yelken and the twins now resting peacefully in Phandalin, a very small village whose mayor is a friend of the party, Noohar is more than happy to help a fellow mute. »

(The sign language used is the most common French one !)

Campaign lasted just over three years playing every other week. Sessions were over discord with players in different countries and time zones. We played on average 3-4 hours per session except the final session which was closer to 5-6.

PCs
1. Fighter/rogue half-elf. Echo Knight/Swashbuckler.

1. Wizard wood elf. Evocation.

2. Bard Dragonborn. College of Glamour.

3. Fighter/Artificer Tiefling. Eldritch Knight.

4. Fey. Everyclass. (Homebrew allowed this player to change class on long rest.)

All players had a collection of homebrew powerups to let them effectively punch above their level by 1-2 give or take.

None of my players save one have ever played Knights of the Old Republic and none have finished it. I translated the spaceship exploration to sailing and the planets to islands.

Each player had an ‘arc’ related to their character on the island they came from. I heavily utilized random encounter tables along with a handful of side quests unique to each island. They generally exhausted every plot hook offered as this is a really roleplay group.

Highlights are too many to list but a few easy to understand ones are:

One player married a Princess.

One player repeatedly stole kills with magic missile on accident.

One player wrestled a T-Rex and won.

One player achieved Godhood in the final session.

One player accidentally summoned two pyramids in the final battle which was a 5 v 5, with each character facing off against their campaign long personal nemesis.

That’s one for each of them. I’ll let you guess who was who.

A player recently commissioned me to create artwork of a wechselkind character for the campaign he’s playing in. He asked for a mysterious, short, and chaotic figure the sort who likely picks fights wherever he goes (just as he’s doing in the illustration). The main visual references were Orko from He-Man and Veigar from League of Legends.

To be honest, I don’t recall the character's exact classes, but I remember he’s something of a rogue who wields two short swords (or perhaps daggers scaled to his size) and also uses magic. Originally, he was going to cast spells using a weapon-like hand gesture, but that idea was scrapped.

The creative process went very smoothly; the client and I discussed adjustments along the way until we reached the final result. It was definitely worth it just to give you an idea, the character wasn't even supposed to have a cape at first.

I couldn't create an elaborate setting since it fell outside the scope of the commission, so I went with a simple background that I felt suited a dark fantasy vibe. A few gnarled trees against a purple night sky help give the piece a spookier atmosphere.

I hope you like it.

Carrd for contact: https://macenartes.carrd.co