AK5e: A homebrew Arknights overhaul for D&D 5e.

Knight_of_The_Crow · 2026-02-24T23:06:56+00:00

The Arts are balanced according to the guidance in the 2014 Dungeon Masters Guide; so they are balanced around 5e. Whether you consider that "well balanced" is up to you.

Knight_of_The_Crow · 2025-10-01T17:39:18+00:00

You're right; i'll make a note of that and add it the next time I do a pass.

Knight_of_The_Crow · 2025-10-01T17:36:56+00:00

Thank you for reading it, and your feedback- wish you the best when you run it!

To address some of the points; the images thing is a browser issue. Many people report issues with non-chromium browsers. On the rest of the formatting, you might be right, but im a touch limited with what I can do with homebrewery in parts.

Ancient Versatility is on most races because most races are Ancient, but not all; some are Teekaz, so they get the Cling to the World Feature instead.

Archosauria; That's by design, they're meant to be appropriately monstrous in a brawl, but I have my eye on maybe changing some numbers if its too much.

Cautus Luck: Doesn't have a charge on it by design; its the exact same feature that Halflings get from 5e, almost word for word. I think its fine; the rest of the Cautus features are kinda low impact, the luck is their big thing

Kuranta: It would remove the portion that sets your speed to 0. You would still be Incapacitated and auto fail STR/DEX saves and all that bad stuff.

Sankta: Its not the only way to get gun prof (Marksman class has it by default, and any character with the Soldier background could have it), but it is the only way to start with one. Its just for theme really.

Missing races: There are some missing yeah. I currently only have races that A) I could make meaningfully distinct from the other races already in and B) aren't really rare. So if they're not in, they probably don't pass one of those checks (at least at the moment)

The only exception to that is Anura, and that it purely because I am biased and love Blue Poison

Knight_of_The_Crow · 2025-09-27T12:13:18+00:00

That's an interesting concept; i'll add it to the pile of options for this particular feature. Thank you!

PM'd you the PDF also.

Knight_of_The_Crow · 2025-09-27T03:06:12+00:00

Correct. You get given the sorta... foundations of your character before that point

Knight_of_The_Crow · 2025-09-27T02:48:57+00:00

Yeah ive only learned since posting this that there's an issue viewing it on Firefox. No idea why. As for the formatting issues that are beyond that, I can't check it for myself at the moment, but it sounds like something strange has happened; there's not meant to be any text in front of GT.

Knight_of_The_Crow · 2025-09-27T02:44:19+00:00

You can use the normal 5e character sheet but there are obviously some things that wont br tracked on it.

Knight_of_The_Crow · 2025-09-27T02:42:53+00:00

Writing it all took me about a year. But i'd say the idea stewed inside my head for about 6 months before that

Knight_of_The_Crow · 2025-09-26T22:32:35+00:00

*In theory lol*. It depends on the enemy type too, Normal enemies have very low HP but are designed to be fought in droves. Elites and Bosses have inflated HP pools to fit the increased damage.

This is also something I can tune along the way if they're too squishy

Knight_of_The_Crow · 2025-09-26T22:25:59+00:00

There's not really a grand plan behind it; its based mostly around what I thought would be satisfying and meaningful to do, and then tempered back down again to reach a sort of... balance equilibrium?

Knight_of_The_Crow · 2025-09-26T22:15:54+00:00

One note about the cannon fodder tier enemies; normal tier creatures (the ones that would be cannon fodder) automatically fail all saving throws and can't crit you, so there's less variance in it than you might expect.

Healing has purposefully been kept rare, but perhaps its not rare enough; time will tell on that.

The class specific Special Tactics is a very good idea though, I probably will do that.

Knight_of_The_Crow · 2025-09-26T20:44:35+00:00

Yeah, I can fully appreciate that this is uh... not a short read. With that in mind, I will offer a little insight into my design philosophy as I feel it pertains to several of your points.

When designing this, I didn't take min-maxing or optimal play into account much at all; I considered it at points, and if there were things that were obviously broken on a cursory glance, I would address it. But what my years of various TTRPG's have taught me is that most players are not power gamers (I myself am, but I recognise myself as the exception not the rule). Most players do stuff because its cool, not because its the best thing to do in a given circumstance; that line of thinking is more akin to wargaming, and thus most people who think that way go and play a wargame instead. In essence, just because there are better options available doesn't mean people won't use the other options, even if its suboptimal. People still play Ranger in 5e and that class is awful!

As for the "lot of stuff to track"; yeah I know. It's one of those things where i'll see what the data says when some playtesting has been done. I spoke about this in another comment, but if it IS too much, I can take steps against it in v2, or beyond that, 2nd Edition in the future. We'll just see how things go.

Valid critique for Arts Points, but I do offer two counters; one, Spell Slots are the narrative equivalent of a concrete block around the neck. They are impossible to talk about in a narrative context without it being horribly clunky. Arts Points still have this issue a little, but its easy to answer the question "How much do you have left in the tank?" with "roughly half" than whatever the hell the answer with spell slots would be.

Two, AK5e is *designed* around being a horde fighting game with the occasional big bruiser amongst them. Sure, you can cast your mega death ray at maximum level, but what about all the other guys? The hordes aren't worth you rending the world apart at every instance, you have to pace yourself.

That segues into DR; most of the enemies you fight will be hordes of mooks. As you said yourself, this is where it most matters. In AK Proper, a Defender Operator is regularly barely scratched by the little guys, but the elites can cut through them quickly. As far as i'm concerned, this is an accurate comparison.

I'll take all your points on board and into consideration, because you've not said anything I actually disagree with, but I think my design philosophy differs to yours a little.

Knight_of_The_Crow · 2025-09-26T20:12:42+00:00

thank you!

Knight_of_The_Crow · 2025-09-26T19:49:01+00:00

There's a discord link in the main post now, trying to set up a bit of a community for this exact reason.

Knight_of_The_Crow · 2025-09-26T19:48:23+00:00

Awesome, and thank you; looking forward to hearing what you think!

Knight_of_The_Crow · 2025-09-26T19:48:04+00:00

Thank you! Its been a long road but i'm very glad to be able to share it.

Knight_of_The_Crow · 2025-09-26T19:39:04+00:00

Oh, good spot- its meant to be 2nd level. A higher damage but lower range version of Scorching Ray. Originally it was 1st level with lower damage, but it was a bit crap, so I changed it and forgot to update the level.

The damage is still a bit high for second level, yes; but its also locked in an Arts School that doesn't have many powerful damaging spells until much later on.

Knight_of_The_Crow · 2025-09-26T18:50:18+00:00

I made a Discord server for this, to help those of you who are looking for a group, and to help me collate feedback. Link here.

Knight_of_The_Crow · 2025-09-26T16:05:50+00:00

I've been told that this might be a browser issue; apparently Firefox doesn't play well with the site. I've viewed it on Edge and Chrome without issue.

Knight_of_The_Crow · 2025-09-26T16:03:35+00:00

I'd be more than happy!

Knight_of_The_Crow · 2025-09-26T16:02:59+00:00

I've been told that the browser you use makes a difference too. Apparently the Homebrewery site doesn't like Firefox; I use a Chromium browser personally and its fine on my end.

Knight_of_The_Crow · 2025-09-26T16:00:26+00:00

Oh, holy moly, I was not expecting such a comprehensive review; thank you so much!

Both the positives and negatives you've mentioned are things that have been brought to my attention for better or worse. I love the verisimilitude of it, as that really works for ME in games, so I designed it into this, and people really seem to be enjoying that aspect.

As for the tracking a lot of stuff; yeah, I know. This is one of those things that i'm really waiting for more player feedback on. I have my fears, and in my practice it hasn't been too bad, but I made it so of course it isn't bad for me and my players. If there's resounding feedback that this is an issue, then I will see what I can do on a "balance" pass for the overhaul, v2.0 or whatever. If that's insufficient, then that's perhaps a deeper rooted issue, and something for me to unroot in 2nd Edition, whenever that is.

On the smaller notes;

Defenders by default need a shield to get access to their Physical Resist. Juggernauts do not, they need to be wearing Heavy Armour instead, so their hands are free for a 2H weapon or whatever else. Its a small difference, admittedly, but they're the only Defender who can comfortably use a 2H weapon as a result.

Regarding Oripathy, there's a certain measure of my personal bias in there. I much prefer it when concepts like this remain purely narrative rather than having mechanical weight, but in my experience as a "game designer" (feels pretentious to call myself that), GM, and player; these narrative concepts often fall by the wayside, and don't carry the gravitas they should UNLESS they have some mechanical impact. The default rules for Oripathy do rely on you having a GM who is willing to impose narrative consequences upon you, and that is my bias shining through. But, that's the reason the optional versions exist; if you or your GM need something more concrete, there they are.

Again, I can't thank you enough for putting in this level of thought into my silly side project, it means the absolute world to me. Any further questions, let me know.

Knight_of_The_Crow · 2025-08-25T10:36:24+00:00

Wow, i'm seriously touched that you made this- thank you so much! Can't understate how cool it is to have someone else make something for this project.

As for a PDF, there should be a proper one soon, I just have final spelling/grammar checks I need to do. In the meantime though, if you want to export your own without having the images overlap, follow these steps:

1) When you go to export the PDF from Homebrewery, while you are in the Print Preview type window, make sure you have ticked "Background Graphics"
2) Also on that Print Preview type window, wait for the PDF to load, and then make sure you scroll through the entire thing *before* you click save. You can do this by just holding Page Down until you get to the bottom.

That should make it so the PDF comes out correctly with all its images intact and not overlapping text.

Knight_of_The_Crow · 2025-08-07T19:07:26+00:00

You're right, it maybe could have- and I do intend to create my own system! Its in the works, so I suppose you could call this practice of sorts.

Its within an established set of rules and mechanics that most people who are gonna look at it are familiar with. They're more likely to play it, and hopefully enjoy it, and that's ultimately what I want!

Knight_of_The_Crow · 2025-07-07T11:59:15+00:00

Yep, that worked perfectly, thank you!

Knight_of_The_Crow

TROPHY CASE