Mage Hand Press

MHP Character Sheets | Batch 1

I've always loved the core 5e character sheets, but I'm also an irreconcilable perfectionist. After dabbling with Monster of the Week and realizing that their character sheets contain all the rules for their classes, I knew it was something I wanted to try. These character sheets are my first attempt at that: custom character sheets (fully form-fillable) for Mage Hand Press classes with every feature listed in the order you get them. 

If you guys like them...

Warmage Redux 2.0

We're rounding the final bases on our "making every base class as watertight as possible" tour, and I'm not exaggerating when I say the warmage had some of the toughest design hurdles in the lineup. We spent nearly three months working on this on and off, but we think we've nailed it! (Or at least, very nearly—we might need to change the numbers of the Cantrip Bonus Damage column a bit.)

We’ve fixed every subpar feature in the core chassis, rewritten most of the subclasses, and reva...

Tier Changes Reminder

Quick reminder that the changes to our Patreon tiers are fully coming into place. To recap, these are:

• $1 and $2 tiers are going away. If you’re still in “Retiring Tier Name” when it’s deleted, you’ll still be my patron, but you’ll be a “no benefit” patron, and won’t have the same access as you currently do.
• The $3 “Hero” tier will have access to only the last running year of posts. 
• The brand-new $5 “Dungeon-Delver” tier will have ...
  2020-05-16 11:53:50 +0000 UTC View Post

Fantastical Felines

It’s always tough to categorize catapillars, catbats, and catki in a catalogue without catastrophe.

Cats might not be man’s best friend, but we love them anyway. Even in our fantasy worlds of wizards and dragons, your character probably wants a furry friend to curl up around their ankles and wake them up at odd hours of the night. But surely, in enchanted worlds of magical beasts,...

Patreon Restructuring and Announcements

Digit Farewells

First and foremost, I'm sad to announce that three long time members of the Mage Hand Press writing team, the Palm, Thumb, and Knuckles are parting ways. When we started this project, it was a fledgling blog for a game system with no content. With their help, we grew it into the wonderful little platform it is today. We've all picked up responsibilities in the meantime, however -- marriages, kids, ferrets -- which dema...

Kobolds and Witches WIP

I hope everyone's keeping safe out there! This month has been a roller coaster for everyone, but at this moment, every member of the MHP team is safe, sound, and working on D&D stuff for you all. This month, we finally wrapped up the design for the Complete Witch redux, and made big strides into the Cobalt Book of Kobolds.

Cobalt Book of Kobolds (Work in Progress) 

We’ve been promising this book for a long time, and it’s much further along than it seems. We have a l...

Martyr, In-Complete Marshal, and Updated Alchemist

Sorry again for the delay. Here's the bounty of our work for February: a greatly expanded marshal and martyr, and a slightly expanded alchemist. 

The Martyr is roughly complete, and will likely look much the same when it appears in the MHPPHB. We expect to add one or two more subclasses to the Marshal to get it ready for being totally "Complete". We're extremely interested in feedback and playtesting on these two classes before we push forward with them. 

The alchemist h...

Delayed March Posts

Hey, it's Mike!

The MHP crew is in Chicago for C2E2 at the moment, which means we're far away from our PDF-making desktops. Thanks to the remote desktop control software failing to work, we'll have to delay our March content until the 2nd, when we're all comfortable at home.

If you're in Chicago for C2E2, drop by the booth to say hi and give us a hard time about the delay. We've got a bunch of fun stuff this month and we can't wait to show it to you all.

Martyr, Incomplete Channeler, and Witch Redux

We have a lot of plates -- arguably too many -- plates spinning in the run up to our next hardcover project. The biggest pile of spinning plates is making sure our base classes are hilariously watertight before they see print. As such, we're going back and reviewing every aspect of them with fresh eyes and red ink pens.

Here, we've got the fruits of two months' labor:

The Martyr: Finished, polished, and playtested. The martyr works like a well-oiled machine.

Complete Binder (in progress)

All these secrets, all this lore: what does it all mean if you only discover that the world is miserable and cruel? You already knew that before you took to binding.

We’re back! 

In the month or so we’ve been off, we’ve done a lot of work in various directions: more progress on the MHPPHB, on Insomnia, and on the Complete Binder (which is finished, sans a ton of art, and some small additions we can add on to the end.) Within the next day, expect to see a Partia...

March Poll

We're a bit overdue for a poll! 

Largely, this is because I knew that we would need to take December off. Just like last year, we need this one month to rest, be with our families, and travel. 

As a matter of fact, this year we'll be spending the first half of December traveling to Philadelphia for PAX Unplugged. Visit us in Booth 3755! We'll be selling hardcover copies of Dark Matter and softcover copies of Men and Monsters. Plus, you g...

Complete Investigator

It seems every evil thing was detailed in those pages; it was no surprise when I saw my own face staring back at me in his book.

As promised, this month on Patreon would be a month of wrapping stuff up. The Mimic Book of Mimic has all of its art and the Complete Investigator has two new subclasses and a system of Truenaming spells. Plus, we had this other thing cooking. 

You'll noti...

Glitch

Surprise! A new base class!

It should come as no surprise that we’ve been fiddling with a chronomancy base class in the background for some time. In fact the Glitch represents the culmination of several ideas we’ve had bouncing around: clone mechanics, an advantage-based class, chronomantic manipulations which don’t get in the way of gameplay, and a class bridge to link all of our different supplements and settings. 

This class is for you if you like time-trave...

Complete Investigator (Almost done)

Ghosts and ghouls? I've got a remedy for that.

Hey folks! This month we've got the Complete Investigator, the definitive and reworked version of our investigator class. Or at least, we've got the majority of it. The class now has revamped and playtested core mechanics and eleven (11!) subclasses in total, along with a few new rituals. We'd still like to include another subclass or two, an entire suite of truenaming spells, and some additional art.

Enjoy!

Next month ...

Mimic Book of Mimics

Whoever told you that this book is a mimic was lying. 

It's time to fear the dungeon again with Mage Hand Press's Mimic Book of Mimics. This tome (which is, incidentally, not a mimic itself) contains all which is known of mimickind to the realm of science, from its diet, to its hunting tactics, to its idiosyncrasies. It's pages detail 14 varieties of the common mimic, from the gigantic bluff, to the diminutive mock. Moreover, it contains invaluable subclasses for ...

Insomnia 2

I intended to get far more of this done this month, but with GenCon eating the beginning of the month and an unexpected injury leaving me unable to type at the end, we only have a few pages of real progress on the PDF. Moreover, it's still very barren, in spite of the fact that our artists have been doing spectacular work. The reason for this is that one of the lessons I learned from Dark Matter is that I can make the layouts of books tighter and cleaner if I wait until every element in a cha...

Martyr Playtest

This one was a bit unexpected. Ever since we worked out a (very) rough draft on Discord, this class has been gnawing at the back of my mind, begging to get finished. Ostensibly, it's an HP caster, but cloaks itself in a divine theme, rather than the cliched blood-caster archetype. I'm extremely happy with the interplay between the theme and the mechanics, but it most certainly needs playtesting. In a perfect world, this class would be balanced, but we have yet to see whether or not it'll feel...

December Poll

Time for another poll! 

We just released a small update for Insomnia (we have a lot more to do for that book), plus a surprise base class, the Martyr, which I hope you all enjoy. The beginning of next month, October, should have the Mimic Book of Mimics, a suitable book for the spookiest month of the year. Following that up in November will be the Complete Investigator! Even though the normal poll had the binder a ...

November Poll

I'm experimenting with releasing these at the end of the month, rather than in the middle. Let me know if this is better/worse.

From now until September 1st, we're working on our first pass on Insomnia, our new horror-inspired book for 5e. It's a big project, and we're not getting it done in one sprint, so October is going to see us switch gears to the Mimic Book of Mimics. This poll is for what we tackle after that, in November.

Insomnia 1

The Lovecraft Redux has evolved into something a little more ambitious -- it's our Next Big Project now. I'll explain more about where we're taking the project in a bit, but first, let me explain what we're making:

What's Insomnia?

Insomnia is Horror 5E. In this supplement, your goal in any given adventure is to survive a single, outrageously powerful monster, while simultaneously investigating it to expose some sort of weakness that allows it to be banished/wea...

Complete Warden

Her shield was as stone ramparts, her axe concussive as battering rams; a siege engine in furious form.

The Complete Warden is the definitive version of our warden, an iconic tank/control class for 5th edition. Its complement of features is at once easy to learn, perfectly cohesive with the rest of 5th edition, and utterly unique. The warden lets you take control of the battlefield and shelter your flimsy allies from harm, while marking and eliminating a single target ...

October Poll

We haven't done one of these in a while, huh? Let's run a poll for the next book we work on!

We're wrapping up Complete Warden right now for the 1st of July, then on the 1st of August, we'll be showing off progress on what eventually came of the Lovecraft Handbook rework (spoilers: it's not just Lovecraftian horrors anymore, but there'll still be plenty of spooks.) I anticipate that book will take at least two months to make real progress, bringing us t...

Binder Playtest

So this is long overdue, huh?

For those of you who don't know, the binder is one of our pet classes from earlier editions, which we've lovingly resurrected twice now, most recently via an aritcle series on the blog. I intended to bring this class to the Patreon fully-illustrated with all the artistic bells and whistles, but due to projects taking more art, Dark Matter wrapping up, and another big book on the horizon, that's just not in the cards at the moment. You'll have the chance to ...

Taverns and Tankards

You start in a tavern…

Nothing is more universal to D&D than taverns. Half of all adventures (maybe more) start there, nearly all stop at one along the way, and most successful ones wind up at the tavern for the after-party. This book, Taverns and Tankards, is your very own guidebook to bars, brewhouses, and inns, and a survival manual for every type of barfight and drinking game.

Using this book, GMs can create and populate a one-of-a-kind tavern and fill ...

Taverns and Tankards (in progress)

You all meet up in a tavern…

Nothing is more universal to D&D than taverns. Half of all adventures (maybe more) start there, nearly all stop at one along the way, and most successful ones wind up at the tavern for the after-party. This book, Taverns and Tankards, is your very own guidebook to bars, brewhouses, and inns, and a survival manual for every type of barfight and drinking game.

Using this book, GMs can create and populate a one-of-a-kind tavern and...

Complete Craftsman

Such a strange contraption: it resembled a cheese-grater attached to a forge on the end of a handle. Never again would I witness such a devastating weapon.

The Complete Craftsman is here, finalized, and polished to a mirror-sheen. Never before have we written a class with such customization as the craftsman. This class upturns the very core weapon system, hands it to the player, and lets them build weapons from scratch, all while keeping things perfectly balanced with core opti...

Modern Mayhem WIP

We bit off a lot with this one. To rewind and talk about all the twists and turns: this release was originally supposed to be for Electric Empire, a new setting in a modern/near-future Japanese-inspired megacity. To better distinguish it from Dark Matter, we decided to shift the book slightly into a more modern, rather than Cyberpunk direction (which doesn't mean we won't have cyberpunk influences in there, but that the general tech level will be more realistic, rather than science fiction.)&...

Binder Playtest 1-10

Time marches onward, and so does progress on the binder! Here's an unscheduled mid-month treat: the playtest document of the binder, extended out to 10th level.

If you're playing a binder right now, or just have a good eye for balance, feel free to chime in down in the comments and let us know how it's coming together.

Craftsman Final Redux

Cascades of sparks leapt from his hammer as it beat the unruly iron into shape. The smith was always distantly aware of the irony that the crimson sparks were but a preamble: once finished, far more red would cascade from this blade. 

The final craftsman redux is here! 

We've reexamined the whole of the craftsman class with an eye for making it easier to pick up and use, more dynamic, and more expressive for players that really want to tinker with things. The la...

May Poll

I think it's safe to say that the Digits are feeling rested and rejuvenated, having spent most of December taking a break. Most of this month, we've been working on Modern Rules (we'll talk about what I mean by that in this post), and we'll be doing more for that next month, until March 1st. The month after that, we should have a Tavern Book ready for you! This...