The party made their way through a sanctuary decorated with ornate tapestries, incredibly life-like sculptures, and paintings which must have been the life’s work of a masterful artist. When the party made its way through the luxurious lair, they set their eyes upon the shimmering form of an adult red dragon, stretching out atop a mountain of gold pieces. His attention turned towards the adventurers, and he chortled. Just as he prepared to wipe the group from existence with a single breath, the small gnomish innkeeper of the group spoke, “If I might interject, would you like to make a deal?”

After raising a toast to the appointing of a new emperor, a shout is heard from the half-orc sitting two seats away. The legs of the wine the table was about to consume trickled slowly back into the liquid, atypical for this family’s blend he had traded often. His insight thwarted an assassin’s attempt at instilling international hostility between two nations and leading to war.

May they be an appraiser of rare magic items, a peddler of illicit substances, or a bookkeeper for the royal court, merchants are masters of exchange. They may invest into their allies to strengthen them or push coin to make sure the object of their ire has every skeleton dragged out of their closet for all to see.

Merchant Revised

This version of the Merchant Class is a complete overhaul of my Merchant Class published on the DMsGuild in August of 2018. Despite the extremely positive reception it received, I found myself looking at the design in 2020 after having worked on several other projects, including discussions about Fifth Edition class design with several prestigious DMsGuild class designers, and found myself unhappy with the amount of bookkeeping and calculations the original version had.

The Merchant went Copper Best Seller and I felt that I wanted to give this one another go, but really do it as polished as I possibly could and used my revisions of the Merchant as a series on homebrewing for my YouTube channel. I hired on two designers who’s work I highly respected as consultants, and commissioned my friend Jeremy to create completely original artwork for the class. Their work helped to create something incredibly special, and I’m excited for the stories you all will make with this new version of the class I’m most proud of having designed for the Dungeons & Dragons 5e community.

The Merchant’s Place in the Party

The class is intended to be a high-support spellcaster that helps the party stay equipped and rewards players that enjoy solving problems using the equipment they have on-hand rather than spellcasting and skill checks. The class creates characters with the dynamic of a: