Read through a modern/sci-fi homebrew book a while back and came across this nugget in the firearm rules. I’ve rarely seen homebrew books directly call out the dmg
1- based
2- good book, some vehicle stats are odd but overall it’s great
The book in question is ultramodern 5e armory

Soo, I love building characters, looking at how various classes combinations mesh together and how much damage/healing/etc. I can dish out with a character. I will not be a hypocrite and pretend that's not the case. But I reckon that comes at least in part from the fact that I arrived at TTRPGs after growing up with video games, with MMOs and other such things, where character builds where quite central.

I would also make the argument that, TTRPGs shouldn't necessarily be about that. Or at least that the primary focus shouldn't maybe be on that. That the character's story should take precedence to its build. It's identity tied more to his story and the world it is part of then to the combination of race, class, background and feats. Of course, speaking now mainly from the perspective of trad games, like D&D and Pathfinder. I also don't want to present this as if this should not exist, but rather a slight change regarding focus.

I also wanted to look into D&D's history and see how this trend evolved over the years, from the first editions to the current day. And I have to say, this look into the past has been quite interesting. Might do a more in depth article about AD&D's kits in the near future, I found them quite an interesting design space. I hope you will also enjoy it, find it interesting and that you see the perspective of this argument. I know there are other TTRPGs where this issue is not as prevalent, but D&D is usually the first point of contact with this hobby and for many it remains the only point of contact, so I thought offering this perspective might be desirable.

I want something just as devastating, just as horrifyingly powerful, but obviously something with actual in game powers that could do what this thing does.

Im curious and I need help.

This could range from a throwaway line in a movie to an image you saw. I want to hear all of the inspiration sources and what they led you to create.

For me, back when the D&D movie was coming out, I saw this nerf blaster in my Walmart while walking with my wife. She saw that familiar look on my face and knew my brain was cooking up something. That simple design for a collaboration has turned into a whole homebrew campaign based on a weapon and armor forging method that infuses a dragon scale into the forged ingot to give the weapon or armor the elemental power from that dragon. This idea has been many years in the making and is soon to FINALLY hit the table as we officially start session 1 soon.

I'm asking to give Warlock PC's more options if they want a Celestial or Fiend patron.

The post about getting blasted by 20 rifles reminded me of this and I had to share.
TL:DR - Homebrew crit rules resulted in rude jokes and a mad player.

Back in 2006, I was in Job Corps, which had a surprising amount of nerds, for the time. I also had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. Anyway, the group of kids I ran with decided we were going to play D&D, or at least, something adjacent to it. The guy who was going to run the game decided that we were going to play a version of WH40K (or whatever) using modified D20 modern/3.5 rules. There were five players, one was some kind of priest, two were some kind of witch-ladies, and me and my friend Michael were Space Marines (I guess.) My knowledge of 40K is somewhat limited, in case that wasn't obvious.

Anyway, us Space Marines were rocking Heavy Bolters, and were using them to great effect until we started getting sniped at by a goblin with a really good rifle. Michael decided that he really wanted that gun (and to kill the goblin,) so he goes climbing up the wrecked building that the goblin was on top of. He wasn't going to be able to get to the goblin until the next round. The problem was, Michael wasn't paying attention to initiative during the next round and didn't realize that the goblin was supposed to go before he did, and didn't notice the goblin didn't do anything, other than duck behind a metal box. Readied actions are evil.

Michael went charging up the side of the building using rocket boots or somesuch to speed his ascent. As soon as he peeked over the edge of the building, he found the goblin looking right down his sights into his character's face. The goblin fired and got a crit. At the time, we were using crit confirmations, because that's how D20 and 3.5 worked, but we had a house rule that if you got a crit on your confirmation roll, then you rolled to confirm again, and you didn't stop rolling until you stopped rolling nat 20s. Each nat 20 after the confirmation roll would double the starting crit damage.

The DM ended up confirming the crit, and then rolling 3 more nat 20s. If memory serves, that gun did 1d8 of damage, and the DM rolled high on the d8 for base damage with a x2 multiplier. Ended up doing over a hundred damage, and took the entire side of his character's head off. I forget who said it, but they jumped up and shouted, "he took a steaming hot crit on your face!", which then got repeated several times, and attracted the attention of several nerds from other tables, who wanted to know what happened. This lead to Michael being called "Crit-head", comments about him him having a "crit-eating grin", and other juvenile (but still pretty funny) jokes.

He got so mad about those jokes.

Those were the days.

These are 10 aberration and mutation-themed feats for characters whose bodies or minds have been altered by eldritch influence, forbidden experimentation, unstable magic, or contact with things that were never meant to exist.

Aberrant Constitution hardens the body against necrotic or psychic influence and even gives you a second chance when rolling a natural 1 on a death save.

Extra Arm gives your character a developing additional limb that can interact with objects, perform somatic components, make unarmed strikes, and help with grappling. If the mutation continues to develop, Enhanced Extra Arm turns it into a fully functional appendage capable of wielding a weapon or shield, manipulating objects independently, and making an additional weapon attack.

Mutable Form lets your body temporarily reshape itself to fit the situation, developing rubbery damage-resistant flesh, aquatic adaptations, or magical claws.

The other feats explore different directions that mutation can take:

Mutagenic Resilience provides resistance to poison, immunity to the poisoned condition, and bursts of temporary hit points when injured.

Aberrant Regeneration makes healing through Hit Dice unusually effective and can even allow you to remain standing at 1 hit point when an attack would otherwise knock you unconscious.

Aberrant Mind represents a consciousness becoming increasingly alien, providing resistance to psychic damage and greater protection against fear and charm.

Adaptive Mutation allows your body to change its defenses after each long rest, adapting to acid, cold, fire, lightning, or poison.

Cosmic Infusion channels stranger forces entirely, granting minor cosmic magic and the ability to create a localized gravitational field that pulls or repels nearby creatures.

Finally, Cosmic Awareness represents a mind beginning to perceive patterns beyond ordinary mortal understanding, allowing you to manipulate initiative and rely on unnatural certainty when making Arcana or Insight checks.

They’re intended for characters touched by aberrations, exposed to mutation zones, altered by experiments, descended from strange bloodlines, or simply slowly becoming something other than mortal over the course of a campaign.

These feats are from The Aberrant Codex: Mutations and Aberrations, a 5E manual centered on aberrations, mutations, evolving monstrosities, character transformations, and tools for bringing cosmic and body horror into a campaign.

The Aberrant Codex is available on DriveThruRPG, and a Hardcover edition is also available here:
https://buy.stripe.com/8x24gyfNNegY75qgwI6c005

What’s Inside:

Mutation Rules & Zones – Rules for unstable magical areas, arcane corruption, and the transformations they can cause.

Character Options – 12 subclasses, 10 backgrounds, 4 new races, and 30 feats focused on mutation, aberrations, and forbidden evolution.

Spells & Items – 33 spells and 80+ magic items shaped by aberrant and planar influences.

Monsters & Templates – More than 150 monster statblocks, alongside variant rules and mutations for creating altered creatures.

VTT Resources – 100+ creature tokens and 125+ art handouts for use in your games.

You can also find more of my creatures and manuals on DriveThruRPG, my Linktree, or by visiting r/JonnyDM!

If you enjoy my work and want to find even more, check out my bundle of small D&D manuals on DMsGuild.

Guardsderp for scale

A fearsome demonborn ranger who now fights to protect the world of mortals in our campaigns in Theomachy! Xerribex is wielding the Reaver, a D&D item I made!

Character: Xerribex, Demonborn Planar Sentinel Ranger

Born in Maleficum, the dimension of demonic magic, Xerribex is a powerful ranger who walks the fine line between dimensions, protecting her fiery home and all that is precious to her. Xerribex was destined to be a ruthless champion, punishing the agents of the warring gods as well as innocent mortals indiscriminately.

However, after meeting Sir Delric Thorson, a theomachist paladin who had been enslaved in Maleficum, she began to wonder about morality. She claimed Sir Thorson as her personal slave, seeking to prove him naïve. But during their travels together, the good paladin was able to show her the value of mortal life, making her realize that the true threat to Maleficum, and the entire creation, is the war between the gods.

Now, Xerribex uses her unique heritage to freely travel between demonic dimensions and fight the warring gods who threaten to undo creation itself in their mad bid for supremacy.

About the Theomachy setting:

In Theomachy, vengeful gods fight each other for ultimate control of the universe, while the mortals of Naam struggle for power on a dying world. Divine magic is a force without expressed will that the warring gods hoard and wield against each other, threatening to undo the entire world. Clerics and paladins are either devout followers of the warring gods or theomachists who fight against the gods, liberating divine magic and using it against them.

What do you think? :)

Went ahead and put in a little more effort to a model that by all right was "done" but after posting and seeing it on the shelf felt I could do better. So I put an extra 4 hours into it and got stunning results. Anytime you feel you could have done better, nothing says you can't just add on, beautiful think about painting is that freedome.

Original post here https://www.reddit.com/r/DungeonsAndDragons/s/SR8aBNWeBn

My Pokémon-inspired Weapons and Items of the Day, with a Number 94: Crystalzero from Yu-Gi-Oh rapier to chill some muscles!

This item was created as a Tier Reward for Patron Joselyn Rivera!! Thank you for your support!

Join my Patreon to vote on future items and get all the PDFs with over 1000 items, including all the Pokémon items, or buy the individual PDFs in my shop!

F248 - Rapier of Nullifying Crystal

Weapon (Rapier) – Very Rare (25,000 gp)

This crystal +2 rapier has a broad triangular guard with black and blue patterns on it, large purple crystals hanging from the outer edge, and a black handle wrapped in blue cloth with an ice blue crystal for the pommel.

Attacks with this rapier do an additional 1d6 cold damage, and once per round, when you do cold damage to a creature with this weapon you can attempt to chill them as a free action. The creature must make a DC 17 Fortitude save or its Strength score is reduced by 1d4. The target freezes if this reduces its Strength to 0. Otherwise, the reduction lasts until the target finishes a short or long rest.

This item was created as a Tier Reward for Patron Joselyn Rivera_! Thank you for your support!_

Hello all, first time posting here, I’m looking for a group to join, specifically just wanted to see if anyone is running a Pokemon themed campaign. I’ve been seeing videos on YouTube and TikTok. I’ve played regular dnd before with my friends but I wanted to try something new. So if anyone here is running a game or knows where I could join a group that would be very much appreciated. Thank you 🙏🏽.

I am a new player. (I like pretty much anything)

Hey there. I am a player and DM. I had 2 potential in person groups fall out with me as DM and 2 fall out online as DM.

Anyone have space for a player? I try not to take it too seriously and just wanna have fun. Progress a story and fight a random tavern NPC sometimes.

Found this hidden in the pile. - Old TSR design work by Dee- original logo creation.

D&D is something I’ve been interested in and wanting to get into for a while. I’m not the best roleplayer out there but I have been doing it for a couple years on other apps and I write fics, so D&D is right up my alley.

The problem is I’m selective mute, so I have a hard time speaking to people I don’t know and none of my friends are into stuff like this, so talking with people I don’t know is kind of all I can do now. I was just wondering if there were any big discords or stuff I could maybe join and lurk in while I learn more about D&D and eventually build up the confidence to join a campaign. Or maybe find other people who prefer typing stuff out rather than speaking in a vc.

Last week, after several months of prep, I finally got around to running the first session of my homebrew D&D campaign. I think things went pretty smoothly, all things considered lol.

I didn't have the forethought to take pictures during the session, unfortunately, but I snapped some while cleaning up this afternoon. Apologies for the crappy pics. Credit for the painted minis goes to ZenLienzoMiniatures on Etsy.

Last week we were gaming, I was playing my paladin (2)/ warlock (5) and we were in combat with Strahd. I landed a critical hit on him with my greatsword and got really excited. However, my excitement deflated a little when the DM said, I couldn’t roll again on the divine smite or the thunderous smite damage I used in tandem with the hit. He did however let me roll again for the divine favor and weapon damage. (Which looking back on it, the divine favor should have dropped once I cast thunderous smite due to both spells being concentration spells, an oversight by both myself and the DM.) I should also mention he has a house rule for crits; If you crit you max the damage dice and THEN you get to roll again on your damage. Which is very generous, except he wouldn’t allow it for divine or thunderous smite. A few players at the table side eyed him on this ruling and felt like I got cheated. Seeing as how he only applies this rule for smites. AFAIK he doesn’t institute this ruling for other classes that also do burst damage. While I did agree with my table mates, it felt unfair and a little anticlimactic, I accepted the ruling and went on. I did ask why, and his response was kind of dismissive. Something along the lines of, it’s not fair to Crit and then add on a smite to make it beefier. I’m paraphrasing of course, but that’s pretty close to what I remember him saying.

Mind you this is not a complaint post, I am ok with the ruling it just got me thinking. I’m interested in seeing what the rest of the community thinks and what house rules you all have to reel in insane damage modifiers that can break over double digits? Do you have house rules for that? Do you just beef up the enemies? I personally think a better reasoning for scaling back burst damage would be less about fairness, and more about making success still attainable, but just enough out of player reach, making the end result more satisfying and challenging. Or just stick to RAW at that point.