Welcome to the "Everything you need to know about Homebrew" thread!

Update - check out the video tutorials.

Update Dec 2019 - This entire thread is over 2 years old now, so some of the information is out-of-date. I'll look at getting some new "how to" articles posted in the New Year.

This thread contains a series of tutorials on creating homebrew content on D&D Beyond, followed by a FAQ post - we'll keep adding to the FAQ post as more questions arise.

• Tutorial - Monsters
• Tutorial - Magic Items
• Tutorial - Spells
• Tutorial - Feats (video)
• Homebrew FAQ

There are also an excellent set of Design Workshop articles written by James Introcaso:

• Design Workshop: Backgrounds
• Design Workshop: Feats
• Design Workshop: Magic Items
• Design Workshop: Monsters
• Design Workshop: Races
• Design Workshop: Spells

Introduction

Before you start creating homebrew, please be aware that you have access to the same tool that the development team use to create content. This means it is both powerful and complex - and can be confusing at first.

The staff team have provided release notes, which are worth reading before you delve into these tutorials.

You should also familiarise yourself with the Homebrew Content Rules & Guidelines before creating your own content.

 Undoubtedly the best way to create homebrew content is to find an element (monster/spell/item) that is fairly close to what you want and then use that as a template. This allows you to see how the designers have added the various abilities/bonuses. We recommend that you use this method for creation until such time that you are experienced with the homebrew creator and the content fields.

The tutorials below will walk through creation from templates.

For these tutorials, we'll be using a theme for a specific scenario - we're running a campaign where the player characters have entered an area of dark forest, twisted by an artefact from the shadow dimension, so we're going to create monsters, variant spells and magic items to fit that for our campaign.

To access the Homebrew area of D&D Beyond, you must be logged in to the site, then hover your mouse over your username at the top-right of the page and click on Homebrew from the menu that appears.

 This will take you to the Homebrew landing page:

Please see the specific tutorials below for magic items, monsters & spells.

Once you have created some homebrew that you're happy with, if you would like for others to be able to see and use your creation, you can submit the creation for Public Homebrew.

To do this, go view your monster/item/spell and click on the PUBLISH link at the top of the page. A confirmation dialog will appear:

Click the SUBMIT button.

Your creation is now public for all users to see! Please ensure that it adheres to the Homebrew Content Rules & Guidelines.

Tutorial - Monsters

First off, some themed opposition for our player characters. We've decided that the magics from the shadow dimension have sufficiently changed some of the standard creatures in the area that they have additional abilities.

The main opponents in these woods are going to be a large tribe of Hobgoblin that are worshipping an artefact that is causing the shadow influence, so we're going to create a variant of the Hobgoblin.

From the homebrew landing page, click on the CREATE HOMEBREW MONSTER button.

We want to create our new monster based on the existing Hobgoblin template, so on the new page, select the MONSTER TYPE of Humanoid, as this will reduce the number of monsters to scroll through in the MONSTER dropdown. Then select Hobgoblin from the MONSTER dropdown.

The page that shows up next is pretty big and has a LOT of fields for all of the various data that we can edit for our monster! To make the page easier to use, it is broken down into a number of sections that can be expanded and collapsed. The first section, and what you are likely looking at currently, looks like this:

Let's make some changes to create our new monster!

Step 1 - MONSTER NAME field currently contains, "COPY_OF_Hobgoblin" so click on that field and change that to the name of our new monster, "Shadow Goblin" or you can call it something different if you prefer.

Step 2 - ALIGNMENT field is currently Lawful Evil, but we've decided that the power of the shadow artefact is aligned with chaos, so it is appropriate for our Shadow Goblins to be Chaotic Evil instead. Go ahead and click on the dropdown box and select the new alignment.

Step 3 - SPECIAL TRAITS. The martial advantage ability that Hobgoblins have remains appropriate for our Shadow Goblins and is part of the reason we used Hobgoblin as a template. We're also going to give them some other special traits. Click in the Special Traits text box and, below the description for Martial Advantage, add a new ability called "Shadow stealth" which we've borrowed and adapted from shadow:

Step 4 - MONSTER CHARACTERISTICS. Here we modify the description of the Hobgoblin from the standard hobgoblin, to a description of our shadow goblin.

Note that we are skipping a number of fields here, that aren't relevant to this monster, such as LEGENDARY ACTIONS and LAIR AND LAIR ACTIONS.

Step 5 - STATISTICS. We want these goblins to be tough, but sneaky, so wearing chain mail doesn't really fit, so we're going to drop them down to Studded Leather and increase their dexterity and hit points. Also, another change also borrowed from the Shadow entry - we want to give our Shadow Goblins a vulnerability to radiant damage. Overall, we make the following changes:

• Decrease ARMOR CLASS from 18 down to 17 (Studded leather, + 3 dex bonus, +2 shield).
• Change the ARMOR CLASS TYPE from chain mail to Studded Leather.
• Increase the PASSIVE PERCEPTION from 10 to 13. They're sneaky, but also more observant.
• Increase the HIT POINTS DIE COUNT from 2 up to 3. This is the number of hit dice the monster has. A standard Hobgoblin has 2d8+2. We're increasing this to 3d8+3.
• Leave the HIT POINTS DIE VALUE unaltered. If we wanted to, we could increase this to d10, but d8 is typical for humanoids.
• Increase the HIT POINTS MODIFIER from 2 up to 3.
• Increase the AVERAGE HIT POINTS from 11 up to 17 (an overall increase of 6 hit points).
• Increase the DEX SCORE from 12 up to 16.
• Click in the DAMAGE ADJUSTMENTS and select RADIANT - VULNERABILITY from the dropdown list. You can start typing the word radiant if you want, to quicker find the entry we are after in the list.
• In the MONSTER ENVIRONMENTS box, click the [ x ] next to each terrain type that we want to remove. In this case, our Shadow Goblins are only found in a specific forest, so we remove all other environments.

Our statistics area should now look like this:

Step 6 - SAVE CHANGES. You should see a bright red SAVE CHANGES button. Time to click that, as we've completed the first section for our monster and don't want to lose any changes we've made.

Step 7 - LARGE AVATAR. We're going to add an image of our Shadow Goblin, that will appear when we look at the entry on D&D Beyond. If you're an artist, go ahead and create some art for your monster, but if you're like me and not very good at art, then Google Advanced Image Search is your friend. Go to the search page and then scroll down to "usage rights" and set that to "Free to use or share" so that we're only going to find images that are free from copyright. Then enter your search terms in the "Find images with" section at the top and start the search. By searching for Shadow Goblin, I found a nice image that someone kindly drew and placed on the internet, free for use. However you arrive at your image, make sure it is smaller than 1000 pixels by 1000 pixels, then click on the [ Choose File ] button underneath LARGE AVATAR. Find the image file with the dialog and open it. Make sure to click the red [ SAVE CHANGES ] button and the image will be uploaded.

That's the main section complete - there are a few sections left now: Languages, Senses, Skills & Movement. Let's take a look at each of these.

Step 8 - LANGUAGES. Clicking on the LANGUAGES title, it expands and we can see that our Shadow Goblin has inheited from Hobgoblins, the ability to speak both Common and Goblin. This fits our new Shadow Goblin, so we'll leave this as it is. If we did want to add a new language though, we'd click the blue [ ADD A LANGUAGE ] button and select the new language from the screen that appears. You can click on the LANGUAGES title again to collapse the section.

Step 9 - SENSES. Clicking on the SENSES title, it expands and we can see that our Shadow Goblin already has Darkvision 60ft. We're going to improve this, so click on the Edit link to the right. A new page will appear, allowing us to edit the sense. Go ahead and change the MONSTER SENSE NOTE from 60 ft. to 90 ft. to extend the range of the Darkvision that our Shadow Goblin possesses. Then click the [ Save Changes ] button.

Step 10 - SKILLS. Our Shadow Goblin currently has no skills and there are several that it needs, so click on the blue [ ADD A SKILL ] button.On the page that appears, click on the SKILL dropdown and select Perception from the list. Then enter a value of 3 in the VALUE field. Click the [ Save ] button and return to our main monster page.

Repeat this, adding the Stealth skill with a value of 6.

We should now see both skills on our page.

Step 11 - MOVEMENT. Checking the MOVEMENT section by clicking on it, we can see that the Shadow Goblin has a standard Walking speed of 30 ft, which we'll leave as it is.

Don't forget to before leaving this page!

Step 12 - REVIEW our creature! Go back to the Homebrew Landing page. On the bottom-right of the page, under "Collections & Creations" click on the [ VIEW MY HOMEBREW CREATIONS ] button. This takes us to a page showing all of the homebrew that we have created, where we can see an entry for our Shadow Goblin:

Click on this entry and we can see a preview of our monster. Click on the red [ VIEW DETAILS PAGE ] to see the full information for our Shadow Goblin.

.... and we're done!

Tutorial - Magic Items

Now we're going to create a magic item that's also themed to our scenario. We've chosen a set of magical Studded Leather, with shadow powers, which will be on a powerful Shadow Goblin captain (we can create this as a separate monster, based on our Shadow Goblin above)..

From the homebrew landing page, click on the CREATE MAGIC ITEM button.

On the page that follows, we want to select Armor from the MAGIC ITEM TYPE box and then within the MAGIC ITEM box, select Studded Leather, +1 which will be the template we use for our item. Once these are selected, click the blue [ CREATE ] button.

The next page has a number of fields and is where we make the changes to our magic item, to make it what we want. It should look something like this at this point:

So, let's make some changes, to make our magic item!

Step 1 - NAME. As a default, because we created this item from a template, it's called, "COPY_OF_Studded Leather, +1" so we click in the field and change that text to what we wish the name to be. In this example, we'll call the item, "Studded Leather of Shadow Aura" describing what the item does.

Note - we're not going to change the following fields, because they're already defined by the fact that the item is Studded Leather: DEX BONUS, STR REQUIREMENT, STEALTH CHECK. These fields are designed to only be used when the magic item has properties that are different to the base armour type.

Step 2 - REQUIRES ATTUNEMENT. We've decided that anyone using this armour must attune to it, to gain access to its magical powers. We click on the checkbox next to REQUIRES ATTUNEMENT, so that it has a green tick in it. We don't have to provide specific information about the attunement process, as that is covered in the rules for attunement. In this case, we want to provide some limitations, so in the ATTUNEMENT DESCRIPTION field, we enter the following text, "Can be attuned to by anyone able to use light armour, who also has proficiency in the Stealth skill."

Step 3 - DESCRIPTION. This is both the description of the item (what it looks like) and also the description of the powers and abilities of the item. We've decided that, as well as functioning as a suit of +1 Studded Leather, we want the item to confer two additional powers to the wearer, if they are attuned to it. Whilst we will specifically add these powers to the item below, we want to describe them here as well. The abilities we're adding are:

• Increased Agility. The armour provides a +2 bonus to the Dexterity score of the wearer, to a maximum of 20.

• Obfuscated Presence. While wearing the armour, in an area of dim light or darkness, you can use your action to cast Pass Without Trace on yourself. You may end the spell prematurely by using a bonus action.

Now is a really good time to hit that  button, if you haven't already done so!

Step 3 - ADDITIONAL INFORMATION. Clicking on this section causes it to expand. There are a number of fields here, concerning charges, which we are not interested in for this item. There are a couple of fields we are interested in though: LARGE AVATAR and MAGIC ITEM TAGS.

Step 4 - LARGE AVATAR. We're going to add an image of our armour, that will appear when we look at the entry on D&D Beyond. If you're an artist, go ahead and create some art for your item, but if you're like me and not very good at art, then Google Advanced Image Search is your friend. Go to the search page and then scroll down to "usage rights" and set that to "Free to use or share" so that we're only going to find images that are free from copyright. Then enter your search terms in the "Find images with" section at the top and start the search. I found a nice image that someone kindly drew and placed on the internet, free for use, which I edited slightly to make it darker in colour. However you arrive at your image, make sure it is smaller than 1000 pixels by 1000 pixels, then click on the [ Choose File ] button underneath LARGE AVATAR. Find the image file with the dialog and open it.

Make sure to click thebutton and the image will be uploaded and saved.

Step 5 - MAGIC ITEM TAGS. As we intend to submit this creation as Public Homebrew, we really need to ensure that the item has the correct tags, so that people can find it when searching for items. In this case, it already has the tags COMBAT and WARDING due to the template we used. We're going to go ahead and add a further two tags. Click in the MAGIC ITEM TAGS field and start typing the text "BUFF" - you will see that two options become available for us to click on: BUFF and DEBUFF. Click on BUFF and it will be added as a tag. Now do the same again to add the tag DECEPTION.

If you want to know what tags are available, take a look at the Magic Items page and click in the TAGS field.

Click thebutton again, to ensure the item is saved before we move on.

Step 6 - MODIFIERS. Click on the MODIFIERS (1) section and it will expand to show the single modifier that has been inherited from the template we used (+1 armour). It should look like this:

We need to add a further modifier though, to represent the Dexterity bonus we described above. To do this, click on the ADD A MODIFIER button. On the page that appears, we need to describe what modifier we are adding. We use the following fields and values:

• MODIFIER TYPE - Set this to Bonus. This describes the sort of modifier we are adding.
• MODIFIER SUBTYPE - Set this to Dexterity Score. This describes what we're modifying.
• FIXED VALUE - Set this to 2. This is the amount we are modifying by.
• DETAILS - Enter the text "Maximum of 20." This is a free text field, where we can add any other relevant information for the modifier.

Your page should now look like below:

Click the SAVE button to finish adding this modifier.

Your main page should now look like this:

Step 7 - SPELLS. Click on the ADD A SPELL button in the SPELLS section. Here we're going to add the Pass Without Trace spell and then click the SAVE button.

That's it, we're done with creating the item! Click thebutton to ensure everything is saved.

Step 8 - View our item. Head to your Homebrew landing page and click on the VIEW MY HOMEBREW CREATIONS button at the bottom-right. On the next page, you should see our Studded Leather of Shadow Aura item. Click on the item to view it.

You probably noticed that the text for attunement doesn't read well: "(requires attunement by a anyone able to use light armour, who also has proficiency in the stealth skill.)"

So we need to change it. That's easy - we can go edit our item by clicking on the EDIT link on this page. In this case, we change the ATTUNEMENT DESCRIPTION field to, "creature able to use light armour, that also has proficiency in the Stealth skill." and then hit the SAVE CHANGES button.

Good work - we've created a custom homebrew magic item!

Tutorial - Spells

 Now let's create a new spell that also fits our campaign scenario. This Shadow Goblins and the Armour of Shadow Aura that we created above, both rely on areas of dim light or darkness to operate at maximum efficiency, so we'd like a spell to allow the high priest of the Shadow Goblin tribe to prepare permanent areas of magical shadow in and around their lair(s).

Rather than create a new spell from scratch, we're going to base our spell on an existing spell that already performs a similar function - Hallow.

From the homebrew landing page, click on the CREATE SPELL button.

On the page that follows, click in the SPELL field and start typing the name of the spell we want to use as a template (in this case Hallow) then select the Hallow spell.

Click on the CREATE button and you should see the following page:

You can go ahead and dismiss the hint titled CREATE A COPY OF A SPELL, by clicking the X at the top-right corner of the hint, then let's go ahead and make changes to create our spell!

Step 1 - SPELL NAME. Currently, this will show the text COPY_OF_Hallow. Click in the SPELL NAME field and change the text to Veil of Shadows, or whatever name you would like for our homebrew spell.

There are a number of fields we can skip, because we're happy with the values they contain: SPELL LEVEL & SPELL SCHOOL.

Step 2 - CASTING TIME. The Hallow spell takes 24 hours to cast, but we want this spell to be a bit more rapid in deployment, so we're going to change it down to an hour, which we'll set as 60 minutes. Click on the CASTING TIME field and change the value from 24, to 60. Now we click on the dropdown box next to this and change it from Hour to Minute. It should now look like this:

Step 3 - COMPONENTS. We're happy that the spell requires Verbal, Somatic & Components, so we'll leave all three of those checked. If we did decide to disable one, we'd just click on it here. We're also happy with the description of the components in the MATERIAL COMPONENTS DESCRIPTION field.

We picked well with Hallow, as the next few fields are also exactly what we wanted: SPELL RANGE TYPE, RANGE DISTANCE, DURATION TYPE & DURATION, so we'll leave those fields as they are.

Step 4 - DESCRIPTION. We need to change the description of casting the spell, to better suit our spell. We adjust the description of the spell to the following:

You touch a point and infuse an area around it with holy shadow power. The area can have a radius up to 100 feet, and the spell fails if the radius includes an area already under the effect a Veil of Shadows spell. The affected area is subject to the following effects:

Warded. Summoned creatures can't enter the area, nor can such creatures charm, frighten, or possess creatures within it. Any creature charmed, frightened, or possessed by such a creature is no longer charmed, frightened, or possessed upon entering the area.

Shadow. the area is filled with shadow, reducing the light condition to dim light at most. Normal light, as well as magical light created by spells of a lower level than the slot you used to cast this spell, can't illuminate the area.

Fear. Creatures that do not follow the same deity as the caster, are frightened while in the area. When a creature that would be affected enters the spell's area for the first time on a turn or starts its turn there, it can make a Charisma saving throw to negate this.

There are a number of other fields below the description field, which we do not want to change for this spell: RITUAL SPELL, AT HIGHER LEVELS SCALING, HIGHER LEVEL SCALING TYPE, AVAILABLE FOR CLASS(ES).

Step 5 - ADDITIONAL INFORMATION. This section is mostly concerned with technical data about the spell. We changed the size of the spell in the description (above), so need to edit it here also. Click in the AREA OF EFFECT SIZE (FT.) field and change the value from 60 to 100.

We're going to leave the SAVE TYPE as Charisma, as it's appropriate for resisting the Frightened effect.

Lastly, for this section, click in the SPELL EFFECT TAGS and add the tag WARDING, which is now relevant for our spell.

 Click on thebutton to ensure our spell is saved and we don't lose any information.

Step 6 - CONDITIONS. Lastly, we need to add a condition for our spell. Click on the ADD A CONDITION button. On the following page, we set-up the condition caused by the spell - this is the fear effect that we included in the description above.

Click the SAVE button once the data is entered.

The bottom of our spell page should now look like this:

Click on thatbutton, to save the new changes to the spell and then we're done!

Step 7 - REVIEW our spell! Go back to the Homebrew Landing page. On the bottom-right of the page, under "Collections & Creations" click on the VIEW MY HOMEBREW CREATIONS button. This takes us to a page showing all of the homebrew that we have created, where we can see an entry for our new Veil of Shadows spell. Click on the spell to view it.

Homebrew FAQ - Terminology & General

Q: What can I homebrew?
A: Homebrew currently allows for the creation of Backgrounds, Feats, Magic Items, Monsters, Races, Spells, and Subclasses. The development team is continuing to work to bring more content and tools to D&D Beyond and expansion of the Homebrew system is part of that. It has been confirmed homebrew Classes will be included in the future.

Q: Can I have a hyperlink within my item/spell/monster, that links back to my content elsewhere (DM Guild / Website / Blog)?
A: No. You are not allowed to have links within your homebrew content. We are aware that the editor allows links to be added, but any content containing links will be rejected if submitted as public homebrew.

Q: What is an "element"?
A: It's a term used to refer to a single thing, such as a magic item, a spell, etc.

Homebrew FAQ - Publishing

Q: How do I publish my homebrew, so that others can see it?
A: Take a look at this tutorial. Before submitting it, ensure that it adheres to the Homebrew Rules & Guidelines.

Q: Can I share my homebrew with others in my campaign, without submitting it as public homebrew?
A: Absolutely! The DM of a campaign will be able to select which homebrew is in use within their campaign and this included any homebrew items they have created, whether they have made them public or not. 

Q: I published my homebrew, but now I want to make a change to it. Why can't I delete/edit the published version?
A: Once homebrew has been publicly published, it may be added by players and in use by them. The player who has your homebrew may like it how it is and not want the change(s) that you are making. You should create a new version of the homebrew, with your changes and then submit that, then others have the choice to change to your new version.

Q: I published my homebrew, but it has been rejected due to copyright? What does that mean and how do I avoid that again?
A: There are several different reasons that your homebrew could be rejected on copyright grounds: the name or description matches an existing Wizards of the Coast intellectual property (Mind Flayers, Beholders, Mordenkainen, etc.); the name or description matches a copyright registered by another company (Darth Vader, Captain America, Pizza Hut); the image you have used is artwork that is copyright protected - don't just swipe the first image you find on google - check the usage rights first.

Q: I created a variant of an existing monster and it was rejected - why is that?
A: Ensure that the monster has significant enough changes to warrant a new statblock and doesn't contain minor adjustments (such as changing the name of a single trait or giving it a different weapon). 

and .... we're go!

Quote from dropbear8mybaby >>

I might be missing something but is there no way to edit your monster after it's finished (aside from adding in languages, skills, etc.)? It's looking like I'd have to make a copy and edit that and then replace the original.

EDIT: No, wait, doesn't look like I can do that either as there doesn't seem to be a way to copy the original.

Quote from Elimyst >>

Are we going to be able to add a homebrew class or race?