A 5E-compatible character builder and compendium. Try the live app (static GitHub Pages, data stays in your browser). Current release: 0.25.
Maximally customizable by design. Nearly every mechanical decision — species, classes, subclasses, feats, spells, equipment, backgrounds, creatures & companions, custom abilities, and the modifier effects behind them — is editable in-app from a single shared catalog. The same wiring that powers the bundled SRD content can process your own imported homebrew.
Author and purpose. Hi all, I'm Jeff and this is a hobby project of mine. I made this app because I really wanted a character creator and interactive sheet that does custom classes! There are so many outstanding D&D content creators out there like Kibbles Tasty, Mage Hand Press or Laserllama who make content that's brilliant but too complicated to easily adapt to D&D Beyond or Foundry VTT (those are great and I think you should support them too!). While I'd like for this app to remain open source and free for everyone I won't say no if you'd like to buy me a coffee. The first thing I plan to do with any money raised by the project is pay a real artist for art.
Please note that I'd like to keep the scope of this app to assisting play at a physical table (so no VTT ever) but I am open to feature suggestions and could absolutely use your help identifying bugs to fix.
- Features
- Tech stack
- Requirements
- Quick start
- Deployment
- Local card art
- Troubleshooting
- Project structure
- License & credits
- Guided creation through species, class, ability scores, background, gear, spells, and details
- Multiclass with independent levels, plus a live sheet preview
- Player-choice modifiers (skills, tools, languages, weapon masteries, feat grants) at the step where they apply
- Point buy and standard array; HP, AC, attacks, saves, and skills calculate automatically
- Seed the full SRD 5.2.1 catalog, then create or edit anything
- One common modifier catalog: class features, feats, species traits, and custom abilities pick the same effects (resources, spell grants, creature grants, level-scaling dice, …)
- Creatures & companions as a first-class type, including Wild Shape, familiars, steeds, and summons
- Card art on browse cards and detail overlays; enable/disable entries for the builder
- Class resource pools (Rage, Ki, Superiority Dice, …) linked from feature limited uses
- Condensed character sheet with rolls, HP tracking, companion / beast-form tab, duration reminders, and class-feature toggles
- Level-up wizard for new features, subclass unlocks, and ASI / feat picks
- Save characters (MySQL hosted, or IndexedDB in static mode) and export JSON
- One-click SRD seed (no AI)
- Dump Stat JSON and Foundry VTT JSON (no AI)
- BYO LLM clipboard (paste text → copy prompt → paste JSON) without server keys
- Optional server AI for PDF / text extraction (OpenAI, Anthropic, or Gemini)
- Name-collision handling (update, replace, or rename)
Formats, multi-file order, and AI keys: docs/import.md.
- Framework: Next.js 16 (App Router) + React 19
- Data: MySQL 8+ with Drizzle (hosted) or IndexedDB (static)
- UI: Tailwind CSS 4, shadcn/ui, Lucide + Game Icons
- Validation / tests: Zod, Vitest
- Node.js 20+
- pnpm (via Corepack) or npm
- Hosted mode only: MySQL 8+
The browser never connects to MySQL directly. Only the Next.js server uses database credentials from environment variables.
Pick a profile first:
| Profile | Storage | When to use |
|---|---|---|
| Static | IndexedDB in the browser | Try the app, GitHub Pages, no database |
| Hosted | MySQL via /api/* |
Self-host, multi-device save, PDF/server AI import |
git clone https://github.com/Geph/dump-stat-character-builder.git
cd dump-stat-character-builder
corepack enable
pnpm install
pnpm build:static
npx serve outOr just use the live Pages build. Details: deploy/github-pages.md.
git clone https://github.com/Geph/dump-stat-character-builder.git
cd dump-stat-character-builder
corepack enable
pnpm install
cp .env.example .env.localCreate a MySQL database, then either:
pnpm db:setupor import mysql/schema.sql yourself. Set DATABASE_URL (or MYSQL_*) in .env.local. URL-encode special characters in passwords.
pnpm devOpen http://localhost:3000, go to Import, and click Seed SRD 5.2.1 Content, or curl -X POST http://localhost:3000/api/seed.
After pulling schema updates:
pnpm db:migrateIf pnpm is not on your PATH, use corepack pnpm …. Remote MySQL often needs an SSH tunnel (ssh -N -L 3307:127.0.0.1:3306 user@host) and DATABASE_URL pointing at 127.0.0.1:3307.
Optional AI import: add one of OPENAI_API_KEY, ANTHROPIC_API_KEY, or GOOGLE_GENERATIVE_AI_API_KEY to .env.local. Without a key, seed, JSON, Foundry, and BYO clipboard still work. See docs/import.md.
Dump Stat is a build-time profile. There is no runtime toggle in the deployed app.
| Profile | Command | Storage | Target |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hosted (default) | pnpm build:hosted |
MySQL | VPS / Node (pnpm start) |
| Static | pnpm build:static |
IndexedDB | GitHub Pages (out/) |
- Static: deploy/github-pages.md — live at
https://geph.github.io/dump-stat-character-builder/. Includes builder, characters, compendium, bundled SRD, and JSON import/export. Excludes PDF/server AI and the seed API. - Hosted VPS: deploy/vps.md — Node + MySQL behind nginx/Caddy, PM2 config in
deploy/.
Vercel is not recommended (no persistent MySQL on the same project).
In visual mode the public repo ships Midjourney-created card art for SRD 5.2.1, species portraits and potentially more I may have added since writing this. Player’s Handbook / setting-book backgrounds and other class/subclass art can still run on your copy when present locally; you can also import JSONs of art sources from external URLs.
What is safe to commit is documented in CONTRIBUTING.md. Drop-folder notes live next to the masters:
| Drop folder | Optimized output |
|---|---|
scripts/subclass-card-sources/ |
public/images/compendium/subclasses/{class}/{slug}.png (771×1024) |
scripts/class-card-sources/ |
public/images/compendium/classes/{slug}.png (771×1024) |
scripts/species-card-sources/ |
public/images/compendium/species/{slug}.png (all ship on GitHub) |
scripts/background-card-sources/ |
public/images/compendium/backgrounds/{slug}.png (1680×720) |
Put full-resolution masters in origin folders (SRD/, kibbles/, magehandpress/, PHB/, eberron/, …), then:
pnpm images:optimizeMap display names in the matching lib/compendium/*-card-images-defaults.ts file. Masters in scripts/*-card-sources/ stay gitignored.
| Symptom | What to check |
|---|---|
| Dev server hangs / pages never load | Stale next dev on port 3000 — kill the Node process, delete .next, run pnpm dev again |
Database is not configured |
.env.local missing or placeholder values; restart the dev server |
fetch failed / ECONNREFUSED |
Wrong host/port, tunnel not running, or firewall blocking MySQL |
Access denied |
Wrong user/password; user not granted access to the database |
Unknown table / doesn't exist |
Run mysql/schema.sql or pnpm db:setup before seeding |
| Seed returns 500 | Server logs; confirm DATABASE_URL points at the DB where schema was applied |
next build OOM |
Set NODE_OPTIONS='--max-old-space-size=4096' |
Unknown column after git pull |
pnpm db:migrate |
Get-NetTCPConnection -LocalPort 3000 -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue |
ForEach-Object { Stop-Process -Id $_.OwningProcess -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue }
Remove-Item -Recurse -Force .next
pnpm devapp/ pages and API routes
components/ builder, sheet, compendium, import UI
lib/ rules, modifiers, import pipeline, seeds
docs/ import handbook, repository map
deploy/ GitHub Pages + VPS notes
mysql/ hosted schema
public/ icons and bundled images
scripts/ seed, optimize, import ops
Directory map and “why this folder exists”: docs/repository-overview.md.
Everything the SRD content does, your homebrew can do too — there are no hard-coded class mechanics you cannot reproduce in the editors.
- Content — Create or edit catalog entries in the Compendium. Custom entries use source Custom; SRD rows can be edited, disabled, exported, or replaced.
- Mechanics — Link common modifier effects instead of one-off rules. Edit a modifier once and every linked entry updates.
- Layout & theme — Compact vs visual builder in settings. Themes live in
app/globals.css(Parchment, Astral, Stone, Moss, Sands). - Portability — Dump Stat JSON between hosted and static deploys; Foundry, text, or PDF for third-party content.
Hosted builds talk to MySQL through /api/*. Static builds use IndexedDB in lib/data/. There is no Supabase dependency (pnpm check:mysql).
Contributions are welcome. See CONTRIBUTING.md and CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md. Track bugs in GitHub Issues.
The Dump Stat application source code is licensed under the MIT License (Copyright © Geph). MIT covers application code only, not third-party game content or assets.
This work includes material from the System Reference Document 5.2.1 ("SRD 5.2.1") by Wizards of the Coast LLC, available at https://www.dndbeyond.com/srd. The SRD 5.2.1 is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode.
Compatible with fifth edition.
Section 5 of CC-BY-4.0 includes a Disclaimer of Warranties and Limitation of Liability that limits our liability to you.
Seed data is rebuilt from SRD-derived markdown via pnpm srd:build — see lib/srd/README.md.
Compendium icons are from game-icons.net (CC BY 3.0). Attribution appears in the app footer, the landing page, and the icon picker. The site logo uses Spiked Dragon Head by Delapouite (CC BY 3.0).
Display type uses Solbera’s D&D Fonts by Solbera, with fixes and remakes by Ryrok, Ners, and LUCASTUCIOUS, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 (legal code). Source: jonathonf/solbera-dnd-fonts.
Bundled families (Nodesto Caps Condensed, Bookinsanity, Scaly Sans, Mr Eaves Small Caps) live in app/fonts/solbera/. Filenames were kebab-cased for self-hosting; outlines were not edited. Those .otf files are not MIT — keep them under CC BY-SA 4.0 if you redistribute them. See app/fonts/solbera/NOTICE.md.
Section 5 of CC BY-SA 4.0 includes a Disclaimer of Warranties and Limitation of Liability that limits our liability to you.
All product names, logos, and brands are property of their respective owners. Use of these names does not imply endorsement.
Dump Stat does not collect personal identification data. Character and compendium data stay in your browser or your own database when you host the app yourself.