Summary

• Magical tattoos in D&D 5E from Tasha's Cauldron offer unique abilities and must be attuned.
• Glowrune Pigment from Bigby Presents can lay the foundation for a magical tattoo.
• The Absorbing Tattoo offers damage resistance, absorption, and flashy aesthetic colors.

Officially revamped for 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Dungeons & Dragons 5E in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, magical tattoos provide creative flair for your appearance and playstyle. Most pack a punch in combat, some even tipping the scales between life and death, but others aren't for everyone.

Magical tattoos are considered magic items, so almost all options must be attuned to your character. If you're already attuned to three items, getting inked isn't an option, but not to worry: The magic of tattoos is bound in needles, not an artist, so you'll be able to carry these enhancements in your back pocket. Magical tattoos are removable and can be placed back into a needle, providing a Dungeon Master with exciting options (and DMs already have so many that newcomers may find the🌃mselves overwhelmed) for how players enc🐷ounter these rare treasures. This also gives the ཧplayer a handy way to pawn them when they see something shinier.

Updated September 9, 2024 by Jon Eakin: Even in our own world, tattoos are in a sense, magical. Dungeons & Dragons allows you to take that idea to a more literal place with enchanted tattoos that grant incredible benefits. With the game moving forward with the 2024 core books, we decided to look back on this incredible feature and update the list to help you include magical tattoos in your own games.

12 ෴🃏 Glowrune Pigment

More Like Warpaint

Full disclosure, the Glowrune Pigment item from Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants isn't technically a tattoo. It's magical paint that, when used to draw runes on a person, confers them with benefits depending on which rune is drawn, with five options in total.

Each option is unique, and although it's not a magical tattoo, it could form the beginning of one. Whether you take the effects mechanically as the idea for a homebrew tattoo item or your character is inspired by the paint to get a magical tattoo, Glowrune Pigment is a great starting point.

If you're looking for narrative ways to expand on this idea, consider an aspiring tattoo artist NPC who has Glowrune Pigment but needs the players' help to obtain the resources to make more permanent markings on people.

This provides a memorable NPC, a ready-made questline, and a clear reward at the end of it. You can use something other than this framework, but it's a solid starting point for ink-centric adventures.

11 Absorbing

Damage Will Only Go Skin Deep

• Quick Summary: It provides damage resistance and absorption.
• Tattoo Rarity / Coverage: Very Rare - The tattoo covers two limbs or your entire chest or upper back.
• Attunement: Required
• Tattoo Aesthetic: The tattoo will have the distinct color of the damage it resists.

The Absorbing Tattoo grants the wearer resistance to a single magical damage type, which your DM either chooses for you, or rolls for randomly. On top of that, when you are hit with that specific type of damage, you can use a reaction to become immune to that damage and regain half the dama🥀ge dealt as HP instead.

Unfortunately, due to the 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:scarcity of some damage types, this power can either be the ace up your sleeve or a bench warmer. Although you may not come up againstไ your tattoo ty🌃pe often, very little can stand in your way if you do.

10 ๊ Illuminator

Ink Begets Ink

• Quick Summary: You can conceal written messages for you and another person.
• Tattoo Rarity / Coverage: Common - The tattoo covers your hand, foot, or a quarter of a limb.
• Attunement: Required
• Tattoo Aesthetic: It depicts quills, pens, and calligraphy.

If your character has a penchant for secrecy, the Illuminator's Tattoo is perfect. With this tattoo on your skin, your fingertip becomes a working ink pen that will never waste. It also allows you to cause a single page of writing to be invisible to everyone but yourself and one other person of your choice for an entire day.

The limit of this spell is your creativity. If you need to communicate with an NPC across enemy lines, you can do so. If you've been plotting to 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:hire some help from the Nine Hells, but your friends would disapprove, they're none the wiser. It's hardly the most conventionally powerful effect, though.

9 ꧟ Masquerade

Be Who You Want To Be

• Quick Summary: You can cast Disguise Self and change the tattoo design.
• Tattoo Rarity / Coverage: Common - The tattoo covers your hand, foot, or a quarter of a limb.
• Attunement: Required
• Tattoo Aesthetic: It shapeshifts on command to whatever you wish.

The Masquerade Tattoo will equip you with the ability to blend 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:into the background of ওany social situation. This tattoo allows you to💝 freely manipulate its size, placement, color, and imagery, an invaluable tool for gaining access to a thieves guild or local gang.

Also, with this tattoo, you can cast the first level spell Disguise Self once per day, which inquiring minds will need to beat a DC 13 Check to see through. Even if your character hasn't focused on their Charisma stat, they'll fit in perfectly anywhere with this handy effect.

8 Spellwrought 🎶 ♎

Not So Permanent Ink

• Quick Summary: It allows you to cast a one-use-only spell.
• Tattoo Rarity / Coverage: Varies depending on spell level.
• Attunement: Not Required
• Tattoo Aesthetic: Your choice of design.

A Spellwrought Tattoo allows you to cast a single spell predetermined by the DM without needing 🐽material components, upon which the tattoo wꦗould disappear. The spell provided can be from a Cantrip to a fifth level and comes preset with Ability Modifiers, Save DCs, and Attack Bonuses.

This may sound like a spell scroll, but a🐲 spell scroll is technically illegible to anyone not belonging to the class from which the spell is derived. The spells of a Spellwrought tattoo may n♛ot exceed past the fifth level, but anyone can use it. Your tattoo glows faintly while you use it, making it a visually impressive way to cast your spell.

7 Lifewell

Never Say Die

• Quick Summary: The tattoo provides necrotic resistance and a once-per-day death avoidance.
• Tattoo Rarity / Coverage: Very rare - The tattoo covers two limbs or your entire chest or upper back.
• Attunement: Required
• Tattoo Aesthetic: Imagery linked to rebirth and life.

The Lifewell tattoo makes it much harder for death to claim you. Right off the bat, you'll receive resistance to necrotic damage. Although situational, several highly damaging spells deal necrotic damage, so it's nice to have them on hand against those formidable undead foes and spell casters. This tattoo also prevents death once a day by dropping you to one HP instead.

Having a preventative feature like this during earlier levels is crucial. If you manage to survive being at one HP, that's one day more your new character lives to tell the tale.

6 Ghost Step ꦏ

Ain't Afraid Of No Ghost

• Quick Summary: You can take an incorporeal form for one turn.
• Tattoo Rarity / Coverage: Very rare - The tattoo covers two limbs or your entire chest or upper back.
• Attunement: Required
• Tattoo Aesthetic: The tattoo is sometimes blurry, flickering on the skin.

If you don't believe in ghosts, the Ghost Step Tattoo may have you rethinking. On a bonus action, you can expend one of three charges from this tattoo to enter into a Ghostly Form until your next turn, giving you resistance to bludgeoning, slashing, and piercing damage from non-magical attacks, freedom from restraints or grapples, and the ability to walk through walls.

There isn't a single danger you can't get away from with this tattoo. Just be sure not to end your turn inside a wall during your Ghostly Form, or you'll suffer some force damage. Another downside is that it feels like it should last longer than a single turn of combat.

5 Shadowfell Brand ♌

Never Get Caught

• Quick Summary: The tattoo provides darkvision, advantage on stealth checks, and half damage once per day.
• Tattoo Rarity / Coverage: Rare - The tattoo covers one limb.
• Attunement: Required
• Tattoo Aesthetic: Abstract shapes with dark colors.

The Shadowfell Brand grants you abilities derived from the infamous Plane of Shadow, making your ability to conceal yourself as sneaky as ever. If you didn't have it already, you'd receive darkvison out to 60 feet, which is nice, but a common trait among many playable races. The tattoo also grants you advantage on all stealth checks and the chance for you to, as a reaction, halves all incoming damage to you once per day.

The Shadowfell Brand's potential depends on how your group handles spying and surveillance. If your class or a racial trait doesn't already have the abilities provided by the tattoo, it can change how your character plays entirely.

4 Eldritch 🧜Claw 🎀

They Can't Escape You

• Quick Summary: You have stronger melee attacks with a longer range.
• Tattoo Rarity / Coverage: Uncommon - The tattoo covers half a limb or your scalp.
• Attunement: Required
• Tattoo Aesthetic: The shape of sharp claws and spikes.

While on your skin, the Eldritch Claw Tattoo powers up your fists by causing unarmed strikes to not only deal magic damage but also receive a +1 bonus to the attack and damage rolls of said strikes. The tattoo also improves your action economy by granting you a new bonus action, which allows your strikes or weapon attacks to reach up to 15 feet🎃 away and deal an extra dose of 1d6 force damage for an entire minute.

This tattoo's first ability is redundant 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:if you're playing a monk, but the bonus action is a welcome sight for anyone. The Polearm Master feat is an especially nasty pairing for the Eldritch Claw Tattoo, as your weapons' reach would then be 25 feet away. It also adds another bonus action for you to eke out extra damage.

3 🦩 Coiling Grasp

Tattoo Tendrils

• Quick Summary: You can deal force damage and grapple an enemy.
• Tattoo Rarity / Coverage: Uncommon - The tattoo covers half a limb or your scalp.
• Attunement: Required
• Tattoo Aesthetic: Inky tendrils that reach out when the spell is used.

The Coiling Grasp Tattoo allows you to use your action to grapple someone within 15 feet of you.𝓡 As long as the grapple is successful, it also deals 3d6 force damage and requires a DC 14 Strength or Dexterity Check to escape.

This kind of reach for a grapple creates many opportunities to synergize with your fellow players. For instance, that sorcerer can finally cast an AoE spell on an enemy in your grasp without cooking you. What's nice about this feature is its unlimited use per day, which other magical tattoos do not share.