I was really hoping that Tasha's would dive in and get specific with tattoos, but instead we got a disappointing seven sentences that really didn't answer any of the questions I had about them. It's possible that these are answered elsewhere, but it's just really frustrating that they aren't answered in Tasha's since that just came out and is currently the only official source for information about them.
Can I attune to more than one at a time and, if so, do they take up multiple attunement slots? I was under the impression that you can have as many as you want but they only take one slot, but there's no mention of this in the book.
Now that artificers can create any common magic item via infusions, can an artificer create a tattoo needle for one of the common tattoos? If so, what happens if the tattoo is created but the infusion is later lost? What sort of needle would be required to create the infusion? Seeing as artificers were "introduced" in this book, seems like an enormous oversight not to talk about this.
I would love to have had these clarified before they printed the books, but hopefully they'll at least get some clarification in a future errata.
The rules are clear enough. Each tattoo is a separate magic item; you attune to each one individually and can't attune to two instances of the same one, as usual.
You have your answer with the coverage, obviously you can't have overlapping tattoos...
That's not actually in the rules, and tattoos continue to function even if defaced. I suspect the coverage table is mainly there to give you an idea of how your character's look will change.
I know they were actually introduced earlier, but the messaging for the past like month is that they are "introducing" them in this book. And certainly you can have multiple tattoos depending on coverage, but that doesn't really address whether or not you use one attunement slot for all tattoos or one per tattoo. Each tattoo needs to be attuned and you can lose your attunement to tattoos individually, so it stands to reason that each tattoo would require a slot. But again, I can't find anywhere that clarifies that.
The rules are clear enough. Each tattoo is a separate magic item; you attune to each one individually and can't attune to two instances of the same one, as usual.
You'd think so, but back when they were originally introduced (https://media.wizards.com/2020/dnd/downloads/UA2020-SpellsTattoos.pdf), they included this line in the "item" descriptions: "If you have multiple magic tattoos, they count as a single magic item with regard to the number of magic items you can attune to." This line is no longer present, but it also doesn't specify that each one is a separate attunement "item," so it's not very clear which version is correct.
The rules are clear enough. Each tattoo is a separate magic item; you attune to each one individually and can't attune to two instances of the same one, as usual.
You'd think so, but back when they were originally introduced (https://media.wizards.com/2020/dnd/downloads/UA2020-SpellsTattoos.pdf), they included this line in the "item" descriptions: "If you have multiple magic tattoos, they count as a single magic item with regard to the number of magic items you can attune to." This line is no longer present, but it also doesn't specify that each one is a separate attunement "item," so it's not very clear which version is correct.
It is very clear which is correct. UA content is not official. What’s in the actual book is correct. It doesn’t need to specify that each one is a separate “attunement item” because that’s always the case unless otherwise stated, and, as you yourself discovered, nothing states otherwise.
"The rarer a magic tattoo is, the more space it typically occupies on a creature’s skin." For me, the "occupies" is pretty clear. When an area is "occupied", it's not free to write anything else there.
That is an incorrect understanding of the word “occupied.” If a bathroom is occupied, that does not prevent another person from going inside. It just means that it’s inappropriate for them to do so. Likewise, if an area of your skin is occupied by a tattoo, that doesn’t prevent another tattoo from being applied there, it just means that to do so would be to, say, deface the first. Luckily, we have explicit rules that say what happens if a tattoo is defaced: nothing.
"The rarer a magic tattoo is, the more space it typically occupies on a creature’s skin." For me, the "occupies" is pretty clear. When an area is "occupied", it's not free to write anything else there.
That's something you're projecting onto that sentence. At a minimum it's simply stating rarer tattoos are bigger. It's not like having a tattoo stops you from wearing clothes over it.
If we weren't talking about magic items in D&D it'd be perfectly natural to talk about the space a tattoo takes up and it'd clear to everyone involved that we're talking about surface area and not a physical obstruction. Everyone knows you can draw over tattoos.
Because we're talking about D&D, you're coming into that sentence with preconceived notions about how this should work and using that to justify your reading of it.
You can read into that as much as you want but you can't claim that's clearly the right way to read it when there's another equally natural way to read that sentence.
Most characters couldn't have more than three tattoos at a time, if we go by your earlier assertions that each one takes up an attunement slot, so it doesn't really seem like it matters much anyway. Two legendary rarity tattoos would take up pretty much your whole body, but otherwise, any combination of tattoos could coexist without overlap within that 3-tattoo limit.
Well, I'm coming at it from three different angles, all going in the same direction, first that overlapping tattoos, while technically possible in the real world, is not done because it's ugly...
People do add on to existing tattoos in real life. Based on the art in the book these are basically tribal tattoos, I don't see what's so impractical about having a second design that complements the first.
...as a general rule, 5e does not allow items to overlap on specific locations, so when the description of an item tells me that it occupies an area, I naturally read it from the perspective that it's to prevent overlap...
The general rules do allow items to overlap when it makes sense. If you take this to its logical conclusion you can't combine hand tattoos with gloves. If you concede that those are meant to be possible because the tattoo obviously doesn't physically obstruct the other item, you also have to concede one tattoo wouldn't physically obstruct another.
For me, combining all these arguments are more valid than just "the restriction is not clearly stated" and "the description is just fluff".
I'd agree with that if the text didn't explicitly say it doesn't matter if the tattoo is defaced, if there wasn't a joke in the book about wizards hiding their tattoos (which reinforces that this is about looks) and if it didn't lead to strange restrictions that simply don't exist for other magic items. E.g.
There's normally nothing stopping you from having two legendary items.
The Spellwrought Tattoo is essentially a spell scroll. There's no hard limit to how many of those you can carry with you either.
Your capacity to carry spell scrolls or non-attuned magic items in general isn't based on the rarity of your other magic items.
The whole point of following precedent is consistency, but these results are inconsistent. The main limiting factor for magic items is scarcity and attunement. The rules don't need to stop you from having two legendary items because you won't just trip over two legendary items unless the DM really wants you to have them, and you'll still be out two attunement slots. Likewise the rules don't stop you from having 100 spell scrolls because you probably won't find or have the money to create 100 spell scrolls.
Again, functionally none of this really matters. But I will say that tattoos can't really "overlap." It's not like Photoshop where you can have different things on different layers. If you start putting down new ink over existing ink, they merge into one new tattoo. It's more akin to drawing in MS Paint where everything is on one layer. As mentioned, you could argue that this counts as defacing, which the rules say is okay, but if the idea is that they should remain distinct tattoos, the only way to do this would be to put them next to each other, not on top of one another. I think most people with tattoos (like myself) would agree that you would never "overlap" them unless you were trying to cover up a tattoo you don't like anymore.
Completing a tattoo is fine, but this is not what this is about, these are not normal tattoos, they are distinct magical items taking the shape of a tattoo, there is no reason for them to complement each other.
There's no reason why they can't. The appearance of the tattoos is up to the player, there's nothing you can do to an applied tattoo that would impact its functionality, and you can even remove attuneable tattoos and reapply them with a new design if you wanted to.
Each one is expected to occupy fully a section of the body. ... This is something else again, to prevent a magical item from being destroyed by receiving wounds, for example. It changes nothing about occupying.
Both of these are assumptions with no text support.
Just let me check something, if you have a magical tattoo on one arm, what happens if the arm is cut off ?
Presumably the same thing that happens if you lose an arm with two magical tattoos. The rules don't address dismemberment.
Not all the rules are similar, but the rules do prevent you from wearing two armors or two hats because they are in the same spot. Same for the rings, not two rings on the same hand. If you look at it, every kind of magical item has some sort of limitation of the sort.
The rules allow this if the items fit. The ring limitation isn't even a thing. You can wear as many rings as you like on one hand, you can wear a ring over or under gloves, you can wear a magic shirt under magic armor and you can wear a magic headband under a magic helmet. It's about physical obstruction, not body parts, and a rarer magic item doesn't take up more of your body than a common one. Tattoos aren't tied to specific limbs either; you get to choose where you put them. These aren't comparable systems.
I'm finding the tattoo system a bit underwhelming. I'd be more inclined to flavour a Warlock build as the character getting magical tattoos for each spell they want to be able to cast. You could spin it a couple of different ways -- either their artist is their Patron, or their Pact stipulates that their Patron gives them the power to use the spells they have inked on their body. Maybe the ink is magical and has side effects, as a way to prevent them from just tattooing all the spells. (Plus a body is a finite canvas.) And oooh... maybe it's kraken ink. The Fathomless!
Now I'm pondering a once-powerful sorcerer who lost his magic and is clawing it back by tattooing himself, one spell at a time.
After reading the text, I am 100% inclined to think that the RAI of the coverage table is to limit the number of tattoos you can have. Tattoos, like any worn item (and most magic items), can only be used if you can hold, wield, or wear it. The coverage chart for a tattoo is the same thing, showing how many you can wear (basically 1 legendary, or two very rare, or a larger number of rare, uncommon, or common ones, or certain combinations). This is necessary as this is essentially a new equipment “slot” that otherwise could be highly abused.
While not stated, I would also suggest a tattoo artifact be a whole body tattoo, feeding into the general progression
Oh well, it seems a waste to have a table if it’s just going to be fluff...given that the RAI is clear, I’d just let the Player describe the tattoo however they want, size and all, because the table is now meaningless
I was really hoping that Tasha's would dive in and get specific with tattoos, but instead we got a disappointing seven sentences that really didn't answer any of the questions I had about them. It's possible that these are answered elsewhere, but it's just really frustrating that they aren't answered in Tasha's since that just came out and is currently the only official source for information about them.
I would love to have had these clarified before they printed the books, but hopefully they'll at least get some clarification in a future errata.
The rules are clear enough. Each tattoo is a separate magic item; you attune to each one individually and can't attune to two instances of the same one, as usual.
That's not actually in the rules, and tattoos continue to function even if defaced. I suspect the coverage table is mainly there to give you an idea of how your character's look will change.
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I know they were actually introduced earlier, but the messaging for the past like month is that they are "introducing" them in this book. And certainly you can have multiple tattoos depending on coverage, but that doesn't really address whether or not you use one attunement slot for all tattoos or one per tattoo. Each tattoo needs to be attuned and you can lose your attunement to tattoos individually, so it stands to reason that each tattoo would require a slot. But again, I can't find anywhere that clarifies that.
You'd think so, but back when they were originally introduced (https://media.wizards.com/2020/dnd/downloads/UA2020-SpellsTattoos.pdf), they included this line in the "item" descriptions: "If you have multiple magic tattoos, they count as a single magic item with regard to the number of magic items you can attune to." This line is no longer present, but it also doesn't specify that each one is a separate attunement "item," so it's not very clear which version is correct.
It is very clear which is correct. UA content is not official. What’s in the actual book is correct. It doesn’t need to specify that each one is a separate “attunement item” because that’s always the case unless otherwise stated, and, as you yourself discovered, nothing states otherwise.
The attunement rules already avoid abuse just like they do for other magic items.
Again, there is nothing in the rules saying they can't overlap and laying one tattoo over another is a form of defacing.
It's not going to make a big difference either way and it's not an unreasonable restriction but don't pass that off as a rule if it's not in the text.
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That is an incorrect understanding of the word “occupied.” If a bathroom is occupied, that does not prevent another person from going inside. It just means that it’s inappropriate for them to do so. Likewise, if an area of your skin is occupied by a tattoo, that doesn’t prevent another tattoo from being applied there, it just means that to do so would be to, say, deface the first. Luckily, we have explicit rules that say what happens if a tattoo is defaced: nothing.
That's something you're projecting onto that sentence. At a minimum it's simply stating rarer tattoos are bigger. It's not like having a tattoo stops you from wearing clothes over it.
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If we weren't talking about magic items in D&D it'd be perfectly natural to talk about the space a tattoo takes up and it'd clear to everyone involved that we're talking about surface area and not a physical obstruction. Everyone knows you can draw over tattoos.
Because we're talking about D&D, you're coming into that sentence with preconceived notions about how this should work and using that to justify your reading of it.
You can read into that as much as you want but you can't claim that's clearly the right way to read it when there's another equally natural way to read that sentence.
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Most characters couldn't have more than three tattoos at a time, if we go by your earlier assertions that each one takes up an attunement slot, so it doesn't really seem like it matters much anyway. Two legendary rarity tattoos would take up pretty much your whole body, but otherwise, any combination of tattoos could coexist without overlap within that 3-tattoo limit.
People do add on to existing tattoos in real life. Based on the art in the book these are basically tribal tattoos, I don't see what's so impractical about having a second design that complements the first.
The general rules do allow items to overlap when it makes sense. If you take this to its logical conclusion you can't combine hand tattoos with gloves. If you concede that those are meant to be possible because the tattoo obviously doesn't physically obstruct the other item, you also have to concede one tattoo wouldn't physically obstruct another.
I'd agree with that if the text didn't explicitly say it doesn't matter if the tattoo is defaced, if there wasn't a joke in the book about wizards hiding their tattoos (which reinforces that this is about looks) and if it didn't lead to strange restrictions that simply don't exist for other magic items. E.g.
The whole point of following precedent is consistency, but these results are inconsistent. The main limiting factor for magic items is scarcity and attunement. The rules don't need to stop you from having two legendary items because you won't just trip over two legendary items unless the DM really wants you to have them, and you'll still be out two attunement slots. Likewise the rules don't stop you from having 100 spell scrolls because you probably won't find or have the money to create 100 spell scrolls.
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Again, functionally none of this really matters. But I will say that tattoos can't really "overlap." It's not like Photoshop where you can have different things on different layers. If you start putting down new ink over existing ink, they merge into one new tattoo. It's more akin to drawing in MS Paint where everything is on one layer. As mentioned, you could argue that this counts as defacing, which the rules say is okay, but if the idea is that they should remain distinct tattoos, the only way to do this would be to put them next to each other, not on top of one another. I think most people with tattoos (like myself) would agree that you would never "overlap" them unless you were trying to cover up a tattoo you don't like anymore.
There's no reason why they can't. The appearance of the tattoos is up to the player, there's nothing you can do to an applied tattoo that would impact its functionality, and you can even remove attuneable tattoos and reapply them with a new design if you wanted to.
Both of these are assumptions with no text support.
Presumably the same thing that happens if you lose an arm with two magical tattoos. The rules don't address dismemberment.
The rules allow this if the items fit. The ring limitation isn't even a thing. You can wear as many rings as you like on one hand, you can wear a ring over or under gloves, you can wear a magic shirt under magic armor and you can wear a magic headband under a magic helmet. It's about physical obstruction, not body parts, and a rarer magic item doesn't take up more of your body than a common one. Tattoos aren't tied to specific limbs either; you get to choose where you put them. These aren't comparable systems.
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I'm finding the tattoo system a bit underwhelming. I'd be more inclined to flavour a Warlock build as the character getting magical tattoos for each spell they want to be able to cast. You could spin it a couple of different ways -- either their artist is their Patron, or their Pact stipulates that their Patron gives them the power to use the spells they have inked on their body. Maybe the ink is magical and has side effects, as a way to prevent them from just tattooing all the spells. (Plus a body is a finite canvas.) And oooh... maybe it's kraken ink. The Fathomless!
Now I'm pondering a once-powerful sorcerer who lost his magic and is clawing it back by tattooing himself, one spell at a time.
After reading the text, I am 100% inclined to think that the RAI of the coverage table is to limit the number of tattoos you can have. Tattoos, like any worn item (and most magic items), can only be used if you can hold, wield, or wear it. The coverage chart for a tattoo is the same thing, showing how many you can wear (basically 1 legendary, or two very rare, or a larger number of rare, uncommon, or common ones, or certain combinations). This is necessary as this is essentially a new equipment “slot” that otherwise could be highly abused.
While not stated, I would also suggest a tattoo artifact be a whole body tattoo, feeding into the general progression
I managed to grab Jeremy's attention and the RAI is that the table is just for appearances:
"If your DM introduces magic tattoos in your D&D game, the only limit on the number you can have is attunement.
The Magic Tattoo Coverage table in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything helps visualize how big a tattoo might be, but it doesn't impose any limits. Tattoos can overlap. #DnD"
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Good to know, though I'd note that was never part of my confusion... Still no answers to my second question, unfortunately.
Well done.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
Oh well, it seems a waste to have a table if it’s just going to be fluff...given that the RAI is clear, I’d just let the Player describe the tattoo however they want, size and all, because the table is now meaningless
I read the title of this thread and all I can think of is Memento.
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