First of all, it's great to be able to use this site and share creations with fellow players & dm's.
I would like to share some of my ideas on the site hoping not to step on anyone's toes.
1 : a tutorial on home-brew subclass creations would be nice. (It is not in the list of tutorials on the forum yet)
2 : it would be nice if an official/home-brew section would be created about materials, more specifically those used in spells, item creation etc. Think herbs, ore/metals to harvested parts of killed monsters. Features could include : standard use, alternative uses, hardness, any vulnerabilities or resistances, prices, gathered from (locations/regions & beings), how hard to find/gather (maybe a challenge rating system would be appropriate for this?) etc.
3 : maybe add a featured home-brew section on the main page showing a home-brew of the day or 1 home-brew creation a week for each type. (item, spell, class, race, feat) I think this would be a good move and would improve site-enjoyment and increase activity for the following reasons. People would check the main page more often because of curiosity of the featured home-brew, not only by creators themselves but also other members whom in their turn bring more people in. Another reason is that if a creation is featured every now and then people would see other stuff then the first few pages which almost only hold creations with names specifically made to enhance the visibility. Then these creations have the most votes twisting the reliability of the home-brew rating system into a naming competition. By featuring (checked) home-brew and possibly even adding a hotlink to that member's home-brew creation list should increase the visibility of creations otherwise not gotten to. To further go into this a competition like element could be added in the form of home-brew class, item, feat etc. of the year, to achieve this maybe a simple voting system can be used while the creation is featured. For prizes d&d beyond could offer an e-book here and there and i guarantee you creations and attendance will increase for minimal expense.
4 : with the home-brew auto-publish in effect it would be nice if the posting rules become a bit more strict to limit the amount of badly created home-brew. A way to do this is making every field in the creation pages a required field. Even for those not applicable which should have said option to enhance the usability of the search filters and in-game use of the creations at the same time. Another possibility is making it only a necessity for people who would like to see their creations in the featured section. (as described at point 3)
5 : The miscellaneous home-brew item type list should be expanded. Now it only holds a few, rod, wand, ring etc but there are a myriad of item types and adding one or two dozen should improve find-ability significantly and if properly accompanied with specific information per type should make creating easier.
6 : i mentioned this in the forum before deciding to make this post but i would like to see a search option and filters for home-brew classes & races, same goes for feats. Scrolling through that much pages is a pain if you have an idea of what you're looking for but have no way to search for it. Using the stricter auto-publish function (see point 4) should help too.
7 : for people interested in seeing how many people viewed and/or saved their creations adding this to the list in the your home-brew section would be nice. For the same reason a home-brew search could be added to show all the creations by one person, i.e. items, spells, feats, classes & races all in one search.
These are the things i can think of right now, might add other things later on
For now thanks for the effort put into this site and the game itself.
Edit : an official/home-brew consumable list with sub-types would be nice. Not sure how it is with other groups but potions and elixirs aren't the only things consumable items which influence stats. A very well known version is technically the hero's feast but i am talking about the simple things like special tea's, coffee's, types of liquor and also foodstuffs like magically infused bread rolls and berries to cured meats and soups. This could encompass other one-use type items like scrolls, alchemy flasks etc. but truthfully i am divided on the matter.
First of all, it's great to be able to use this site and share creations with fellow players & dm's.
I would like to share some of my ideas on the site hoping not to step on anyone's toes.
1 : a tutorial on home-brew subclass creations would be nice. (It is not in the list of tutorials on the forum yet)
2 : it would be nice if an official/home-brew section would be created about materials, more specifically those used in spells, item creation etc. Think herbs, ore/metals to harvested parts of killed monsters. Features could include : standard use, alternative uses, hardness, any vulnerabilities or resistances, prices, gathered from (locations/regions & beings), how hard to find/gather (maybe a challenge rating system would be appropriate for this?) etc.
3 : maybe add a featured home-brew section on the main page showing a home-brew of the day or 1 home-brew creation a week for each type. (item, spell, class, race, feat) I think this would be a good move and would improve site-enjoyment and increase activity for the following reasons. People would check the main page more often because of curiosity of the featured home-brew, not only by creators themselves but also other members whom in their turn bring more people in. Another reason is that if a creation is featured every now and then people would see other stuff then the first few pages which almost only hold creations with names specifically made to enhance the visibility. Then these creations have the most votes twisting the reliability of the home-brew rating system into a naming competition. By featuring (checked) home-brew and possibly even adding a hotlink to that member's home-brew creation list should increase the visibility of creations otherwise not gotten to. To further go into this a competition like element could be added in the form of home-brew class, item, feat etc. of the year, to achieve this maybe a simple voting system can be used while the creation is featured. For prizes d&d beyond could offer an e-book here and there and i guarantee you creations and attendance will increase for minimal expense.
4 : with the home-brew auto-publish in effect it would be nice if the posting rules become a bit more strict to limit the amount of badly created home-brew. A way to do this is making every field in the creation pages a required field. Even for those not applicable which should have said option to enhance the usability of the search filters and in-game use of the creations at the same time. Another possibility is making it only a necessity for people who would like to see their creations in the featured section. (as described at point 3)
5 : The miscellaneous home-brew item type list should be expanded. Now it only holds a few, rod, wand, ring etc but there are a myriad of item types and adding one or two dozen should improve find-ability significantly and if properly accompanied with specific information per type should make creating easier.
6 : i mentioned this in the forum before deciding to make this post but i would like to see a search option and filters for home-brew classes & races, same goes for feats. Scrolling through that much pages is a pain if you have an idea of what you're looking for but have no way to search for it. Using the stricter auto-publish function (see point 4) should help too.
7 : for people interested in seeing how many people viewed and/or saved their creations adding this to the list in the your home-brew section would be nice. For the same reason a home-brew search could be added to show all the creations by one person, i.e. items, spells, feats, classes & races all in one search.
These are the things i can think of right now, might add other things later on
For now thanks for the effort put into this site and the game itself.
Edit : an official/home-brew consumable list with sub-types would be nice. Not sure how it is with other groups but potions and elixirs aren't the only things consumable items which influence stats. A very well known version is technically the hero's feast but i am talking about the simple things like special tea's, coffee's, types of liquor and also foodstuffs like magically infused bread rolls and berries to cured meats and soups. This could encompass other one-use type items like scrolls, alchemy flasks etc. but truthfully i am divided on the matter.
I like to create stuff, and always appreciate any feedback given to help improve the things i make.