New Dungeons & Dragons Supplement Provides New Rules on Upgrading Equipment

A new Dungeons & Dragons supplement provides a set of new rules for upgrading existing equipment and modifying them using rune magic. Earlier this week, the DMs Guild creator "heavyarms" released The Complete Armorer's Handbook, a new supplement providing optional rules for upgrading equipment using mundane or magical means. The ruleset builds off of those found in the Player's Handbook and Xanathar's Guide to Everything and also contains details about managing equipment wear and repair.

The Complete Armorer's Handbook acts as a kind of alternative to how players typically upgrade their weapon - which usually involves discarding old weapons for better ones that they find in dungeons or stores. The ruleset allows a player to upgrade their armor and weaponry as they level up, causing them to grow more powerful as their abilities grow. The supplement also adds a level of customization for those characters (usually martial ones) that are unsatisfied with current weapon options found in 5E rules.

At the core of The Complete Armorer's Handbook are a series of tags that can be applied to weapons and armor, provided they have the gold and a blacksmith with enough skill. Tags add various benefits to non-magical armor and weapons, ranging from muffling heavy armor to bypass disadvantage on Stealth checks to adding flanges to a weapon, which lowers the armor class of any enemy the weapons hit. Players can also have their armor proofed, which negates damage from "weak" attacks. There are also a few types of material that players can build armor from, such as ironwood (which can be used to craft medium or heavy armor usually made of metal for druids) or dragonhide.

The Complete Armorer's Handbook also includes rules for adding nearly 40 types of runestones to weapons and armor. These provide different kind of magical upgrades to weapons, ranging from the ability to instantly raise a fallen foe as a zombie under your control to making your armor water-repellent, which allows you to make normal attacks underwater. Rune magic requires special training, and the supplement also contains rules on how to join a Runesmith's Guild so that they can upgrade their own armor.

The Complete Armorer's Handbook is an easy and elegant upgrade system, one that focuses mostly on providing players with lots of options without overwhelming them or forcing them into set progression patterns. It's a great compromise between the simplicity of 5E rules and the near-limitless options found in older rulesets, and should appeal to both older and newer players of Dungeons & Dragons.

The Complete Armorer's Handbook is available on the DMs Guild for $9.95.