Temu Time

We thought we would shake things up a little bit and, instead of sharing more 3D-print goodness, show you some incredibly affordable items we snagged online that will give us back more valuable hobby time (while stretching our tight hobby budget a bit further).

Now, it could be that the 3DRPG team is very late to the party, and many of you are already occasionally perusing Temu for handy yet inexpensive DnD accessories. However, we have a hunch that most of you have heard the same rumors: that their pieces are incredibly small due to deceptive product photos, and the risk isn’t worth the reward. Or, you just never thought of Temu as a website a DnD gamer would ever find useful. Welp, we decided to try a few of their TTRPG offerings ourselves and share the results with y’all. We definitely don’t mind being your product tester!

We operate on a shoestring budget here in sunny Chandler, AZ, so it’s important that we don’t make illadvised DnD purchases, no matter the product type or dollar amount. This is especially true because we continuously use AnyCubic Fast-curing Resin ($16-ish a bottle) mixed with Siraya Tech Tenacious Resin ($45-ish a bottle). Those ongoing material costs add up uncomfortably fast, especially because we never sell any of our 3D prints. Hence, doing our due diligence and research is key.

So, we’ll typically buy any item in the smallest available quantity, and if we like what we see and feel when it physically arrives in our hands, we’ll reorder on a larger scale as needed.

Let’s start with this three-piece wooden door set sold by Single Door Small House. We paid $3.53, including free shipping, for these three Hobbit-style doors. These exact doors (and several other versions) are sold by many sellers, so be sure to search carefully to get the best price (but more on that later).

These DnD entrances arrived as expected, but with a few caveats: the paint job was rather light, and the backsides were not colored. Still, the overall quality was excellent. These will be handy for outdoor encounters where your adventurers have to go inspect a DnD dwelling and need to drop down a quick scene (or even a fancier one with your 3D-printed tiles).

We’ve put a couple different sized DnD miniatures next to one of the doors so you can get a better idea of this TTRPG scatter terrain’s overall scale. Also, our pics are post-paint touch-up, so here’s how we tweaked them after they arrived in our mailbox.

• Base Bricks: went back over it with ASP Runic Grey.
• Nails: touched up with Citadel Stormhost Silver.
• Put a brown wash over the wood to darken it up.
• Applied GSW Elfwood Brown on the backside.

Those super-easy paint steps took a mere five minutes, and just like that, we had three new doors to add to our RPG scatter terrain library.

There might be a couple of other variations of these doors that we’ll order later if the price is right and we need to add something to a current order to get that free shipping. Still, you have plenty of different use cases here, such as adding one of these doors to serve as a hillside or rocky burm entrance. A slammed hobbyist can do no wrong for a mere $1.18 per door here, though.

The other fab item we wanted to show off today was this set of Healing Potion Bottles sold by Magicians Home. Again, don’t worry about the vendor; focus more on the item itself. Temu’s inventory seems to change dramatically from seller to seller and from week to week. Since you will often see the same item sold by multiple vendors, always focus on the item itself and not the specific seller.

We were really concerned we were gonna get the proverbial shaft on this purchase, but those worries were quickly put to a long rest. You get four different healing potions: Healing, Greater Healing, Superior Healing, and even a Superlative Healing potion. The set includes all the necessary d4 red dice and has these cute corks and slick labels. Overall, the sizing for both the potion bottles and the dice was excellent. It’s worth noting that the containers are made of a very durable plastic, not glass.

You just don’t know what type of material and true size the item will come in, but the $10.45 price was so good that it was worth a shot. Similiar items on Etsy are easily $30+, so we wanted to try this alternative for value-sake. We were so impressed with what came in the mail that we ordered three more sets, since it’s rare for our DnD players to have only a few of these important potions in their gear. In fact, when we re-ordered, there was a different sale, and we got each set even cheaper: $7.45 each.

A couple of other answers to some common Temu questions that might be floating in your RPG head. Shipping time was solid, clocking in at 7-14 days. We’re rarely in a rush to receive something, so that timeline was more than fine for our DnD needs. Also, if they miss their promised shipping window, you typically see a $5 credit guarantee for any unexpected delays.

Even better, they have this wicked-good price match/adjustment feature on your orders page. So, we’ll usually wait about ten days, then click that button and see if Temu has found it cheaper than what we originally paid, either for the item itself or from the specific seller. We didn’t even realize this feature existed at first, and we received over $8 in store credit in less than ten minutes. The process was seamless. Amazon –  pay attention here!

Until next time!