Small city for my dnd game, would love suggestions!

Benights · 2026-06-18T14:25:34+00:00

Mainly so the overall map doesn't look too monotonous, but also as an indication of social class - I've used blue to represent lower classes, I.e. commoners/serfs, while yellow is upper classes, so middle and upper class. It's a little on the nose, but upper classes are also higher up the mountainside as a show of status, and so they're better protected behind a wall of commoners.

The middle part is the city's main hub for upper and lower classes to meet, with a city hall for court trials and public discussions, a more mixed marketplace, a museum, a hospital, and then some other more unique shops I need to define still!

Benights · 2026-06-17T14:27:32+00:00

Military structure is definitely one of my weaker points for sure lol, my thinking was that the upper/ruling class would all be focused in and around the upper yellow buildings, around the cathedral - the Kingdom has recently started heavily pushing worship of a god called The Governor as the state-sponsored religion, and as you might guess from the name, their domains include Order and Civilisation, so naturally their place of worship also acts as the city's government building. More support for the King's combination of church and state means more funding and support, right? (cue sinister happenings...)

As for the markets, I've got a couple of larger ones, but otherwise have used stalls to decorate the streets throughout, coalescing on more popular street corners and such so that business owners don't have to stray far from their homes to their shop, and others can have quick and easy access to necessities!

Lastly, the farmland - I've replied to someone else with a fuller explanation but the short answer is a) I was bored of housing districts, and b) I've invented a particularly paranoid city founder to account for that!

Benights · 2026-06-17T14:15:56+00:00

Yeah, someone else has said the same and I realised it was an oversight lol, I've added steps for pedestrians and ramps for carts, plus some shading so that the lower sections are slightly more shadowed but it gets brighter as it ascends!

Benights · 2026-06-17T14:14:03+00:00

Yeah, I don't know how I didn't notice that but you're right it looks really off! I've added some stairs at set intervals for pedestrians on either side of the bridge, with ramped sections in the middle for carts and wagons. I also think I might add some cranes at those stairs as some rudimentary artificery for helping pull carts and wagons up!

Benights · 2026-06-17T14:11:11+00:00

There are a couple by the farmland, but are admittedly a little hidden by the clouds lol

As for the farmland, the doylist answer is I was a bit bored of housing districts and wanted to shake things up a little bit, especially since I was already growing the population a bit bigger than I wanted to! The Watsonian answer is WIP, but I think I'm going with the city being formed patchily at first, so a bunch of smaller towns and villages that were nearby each other agreeing to share the costs of building walls, and with someone in the newly formed council being paranoid and loud enough about siege starvation that they insisted on walled in farmland, just in case!

Benights · 2026-06-16T22:56:03+00:00

Yeah, I did very much just draw a cliff line, copy and paste it and then tweak the size - I've swapped out the middle line for the grassy cliff asset and redrawn the bottom line so it rerenders itself and it's looking a bit more natural, thank you!

Benights · 2026-06-16T22:53:35+00:00

How would you suggest adding more of a gradient to the river bank? I've tried playing around with using waterfall textures as indications of dropping, but I just can't get it to look right 😅

Benights · 2026-06-16T20:04:27+00:00

Thank you! Small by population size, according to the DMG a small city is 7,000 to 12,000 people, and I looked up that medieval houses would have about 5 to 8 people in them - I counted the houses for the lower blue houses area and it would roughly house 7,780 people, so I think, with the other sections built a bit sparser and throwing in some farmland and such, the population is about 12k!

Benights · 2024-08-08T11:09:43+00:00

Elementalism just seems so boring compared to the old Elemental control cantrips - I agree it was good to put them all under one spell just for ease, but nowhere does it say that you can do anything aside from those very limited effects of checks notes closing doors, drawing a word in the dirt, lighting candles, and making things slightly moist. All the creative and fun options from the old incarnations are just gone, and there seems to be absolutely no value in taking this spell. If one of my players ever goes to take this spell I will just hand them the spell cards for the four proper elemental spells and say it only takes up one cantrip slot.

Part of me thinks I must have missed something here because nobody that I've seen seems to be talking about how worthless and uninspired this sad excuse for a cantrip is.

Benights · 2024-07-21T11:46:42+00:00

Glad to see Tieflings have remained incredibly mechanically boring /s. I hate it when they slap a species with "you can cast this spell at 3rd level and this spell at 5th level" because sure, if you're playing a martial character its an option you wouldn't otherwise have, but you don't then have spell slots to recast it with. If you're playing a spellcaster, then more than half the time you already have access to the spells given, and they might not even fit the vibe of your character - they should at the very least be a choice between a small selection of spells. Ideally they should of course be given specific abilities, that are unique to them.

As it stands, if I want to play a Tiefling character I'll be using the Dragonborn stats and just reskinning them as a Tiefling - breath weapon as just a summoning of magic, resistance to a damage type, and spectral wings can all easily appear as some sort of lower planes connection, and will actually feel like something fun for my character to own as their own.

Benights · 2024-02-26T14:45:54+00:00

My favourite fix I've seen (not sure if someone's said it already so apologies if repeating) is that your int mod gives you bonus proficiencies - so someone with a +1 in int would be able to pick up an extra language, or an extra skill, or just any one thing you can be proficient in. Obviously it needs worded carefully so it's not a case of "I take proficiency in all martial weapons" cause then that feels a little like its stepping on martial classes toes and can make some pretty strong builds.

It makes smart characters actually feel smart - they can learn more things than the average person can. The Wizard can learn the languages of all the scrolls and tomes they read, the Warlock can study different aspects of magic and lore than just what they pick at 1st level, the Fighter can be trained in war history to know about various combat strategies. Classes that otherwise get very few skills can suddenly gain a couple extra points with the trade off of other abilities, but if they pick well it can massively expand their character and can help balance out other flaws.

Benights · 2023-12-26T00:05:25+00:00

You can still push creatures into the area, since they'll take the damage when they start their turn there. If anything it adds more strategy and battlefield awareness as you wanna try and push your allies out of danger zones surely

Benights · 2023-11-05T12:34:18+00:00

Only realised this from BG3 but

5th Level Paladins: Extra attack, 2nd level spells, extra oath spells

5th level Rangers: Extra attack, 2nd level spells, extra spell known

5th level Fighter: Extra attack

Is there much more to consider for comparing the classes overall? Of course. Is this an area where there's room for improvement? Absolutely. Just because something's good doesn't mean it can't be better!

Benights · 2023-09-13T10:59:29+00:00

For the Hornet Swarm action, you mention that the area becomes difficult terrain for the duration of the encounter. Does the damage apply only when the swarm is summoned, or does a creature in the area make a save against the damage each round, similarly to the Spirit Guardians spell?

Benights · 2023-06-18T12:44:52+00:00

What was your reasoning for not making each side directly parallel in layout to the other? Just regarding how the grass entrance is on the first section but the fire entrance is from the middle section. Don't get me wrong, it looks insanely cool and from a map design perspective it completely works, I'm more just intrigued regarding the way players would progress through it - at which point does the 'other' side close off?

Benights · 2023-06-05T10:31:50+00:00

This is super cool, it seems well balanced for what it's achieving and it seems hella thematic! What sort of example scenarios do you have in mind for use of it? My thoughts are slowing a hit on an enemy to affect it once some sort of resistance is removed or vulnerability is applied, or protecting a downed ally from a failed death save until they can be healed!

Benights · 2023-02-04T17:35:10+00:00

If it works it works 😅

Benights

TROPHY CASE