Who Are 5E D&D’s Chonkiest Bois? Meet the Monsters with the Most Hit Points
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted scoop up all the dice they can muster and discuss the myriad ways to roll a myriad of weapon damage dice in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. They draw the dividing line at making weapon attacks as opposed to spellcasting and if your 5E D&D playstyle leans more towards setpiece battles and sporadic cinematic combat you can really pile up the damage dice without as much concern for resource management over time. In other words, pull out all the stops for those crucial combat scenarios. Why would an adventurer need to deal such prodigious damage? Monsters in 5E D&D boast some hefty hit points potential so let’s get into it and take a closer look.
Critical Role’s Oath of the Open Sea and Way of the Cobalt Soul Available Free
Critters watching the most recent episode of Critical Role on Oct. 15 witnessed a wonderful surprise when Fjord chose his paladin Sacred Oath. Dungeon Master Matt Mercer wove this critical character choice into the adventure narrative during a very cool scene that ended with the Mighty Nein’s warlock-turned-paladin taking his Sacred Oath of the Open Sea. I can only imagine how many other people beside myself immediately started searching around online to find out more details. Thankfully it wasn’t long before Mercer shared the information that this new paladin Sacred Oath for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons is available for all to see over at D&D Beyond. As an extra special bonus another custom subclass appeared as well and 5E D&D players can now follow the Way of the Cobalt Soul for their monk characters too.
Surprise, Entertain and Terrify 5E D&D Heroes with Tome of Beasts 2 from Kobold Press
Kobold Press knocks it out of the park once again with a collection of over 400 new monsters for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. Tome of Beasts 2 follows a tradition of stunning monster books from the publisher filled with creatures to surprise, entertain and terrify 5E D&D characters and their players. I couldn’t wait to tear through my copy of the book along with Tome of Beasts 2: Lairs for a big boost of imagination and ideas for incorporating new creatures into my own adventures. So let’s get into it.
Creating 5E D&D Bytopia Kobolds Through Worldbuilding
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted look closer at the craven reptilian humanoids that worship evil dragons as demigods and serve them as minions and toadies in fifth edition Dungeons & dragons. Kobolds remain a staple of D&D from the very beginning and while their appearance changed over the decades from rat-dog humanoids into a more draconic form they’re still small, crafty and dangerous in large numbers. Volo’s Guide to Monsters punches these little buggers with lots of lore and rich material to strengthen their position in the 5E D&D multiverse and Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything all but guarantees a surge in popularity so I’d better get to work reimagining kobolds for players and Dungeon Masters alike with some razzle dazzle.
Scare the Heck Out of Your 5E D&D Halloween Game with David S. Pumpkins
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted do their own thang and come up with a fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons version of David S. Pumpkins, a bizarre character created for a Halloween sketch on Saturday Night Live in 2016 and revisited for the David S. Pumpkins Halloween Special in 2017. In the video they discuss the powers and abilities of the “Santa Claus for Halloween” in terms of player character options along with creating a character sheet for the absurd character played by Tom Hanks. But David S. Pumpkins is about as far from a 5E D&D character as they come and I’m not so sure he’d even work as a 5E D&D monster or NPC stat block either. The Halloween icon is his own thing after all. So let’s get into it.
Play Your Next 5E D&D Game Without Rolling Dice
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted discuss tips for players who suffer the curse of bad dice rolling. We delved into all the various fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons class features available to players whose funny shaped dice simply refuse to cooperate with them a couple of years ago through an examination of the support style of play, which you can check out here. Today I’m going to plumb our own 5E D&D content to see all the options we’ve come up with to assist those unfortunate folks whose dice never seem to work in their favor. So let’s get into it.
Play Your Next 5E D&D Game as a Frog Champion with this New Magic Item
A new magic item for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons emerges from the Mage Forge! Nerdarchist Ted and our artist retainer Nelson Vieira hopped to it and came up with the Croak Cloak for October. Nelson crushed it illustrating this fun and froggy 5E D&D magic item. An creature decked out in this along with the collection of frog themed items in Muckwuggle, The Frog God sounds like a ton of fun to play or encounter as a champion of all frogkind.
Everyone Knows 5E D&D is the Best RPG. What This Post Presupposes Is…Maybe It Isn’t?
We think about games a lot around here. It’s no surprise since we built Nerdarchy as a tabletop game centric business from the very beginning. Every single day we’re creating and sharing our news, view and homebrews here on the website, on one or both of our two YouTube channels and through our Patreon. Primarily we focus our efforts on fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons for several reasons. We all love the game and 5E D&D in particular. It also happens to enjoy unprecedented success and attention worldwide, something our audience clearly gravitates towards along with untold others. But of course it’s not the only game around nor the only game we play. And after some soul searching and several long conversations and introspections it’s not even my favorite version of the game. How can this be? Let’s get into it.
Play Your Next 5E D&D Game as a Deadshot Archer Sniper
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted take aim at a longtime audience request for an expert archer Character Build Guide for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. Long range mobile specialists focused on archery is a personal favorite combat strategy of mine so this CBG holds a special place in my heart. The 5E D&D Deadshot Sniper CBG hits the bullseye with all the resources in their quiver from character creation to 20th level. And the special NPC or creature version inspired by the character build for Dungeon Masters ready to drop right into your game incorporates a bit of flair from one of my most beloved character types from a previous edition, which was a lot of fun to develop for 5E D&D. So let’s get into it.
Threaten Your 5E D&D World with Horror Monsters If You Dare
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted dismiss the abstraction of hit points and delve deeper into monsters who don’t care how tough your character is in combat and other dangerous situations. Instead these threats target something much more precious — and difficult to recover. Monsters causing ability score damage, loss or reduction in 5E D&D are few and far between and thankfully so since recovering from these effects ain’t no walk in the park. At the same time they represent a different kind of horror and a campaign highlighting these awful creatures might just make players never look at things the same way ever again. So let’s get into it.
Play Your Next 5E D&D Game as a Blood Magic Expert
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted tap into blood magic and discuss whether the concept is evil by its very nature when it comes to fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. Also Ted crushes one of the best video intros to date, so it’s worth a watch for this alone. But did you know Nerdarchy already put together our ideas for a 5E D&D blood magic expert? In fact there’s more than one iteration of blood magic floating around. So let’s get into it.
Move Over, Armor Class — This 5E D&D Magic Armor Brings the Razzle Dazzle
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted pile on the Armor Class for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons — but is it all in vain? Whenever we create video content about Armor Class in 5E D&D we noticed it gets a ton of engagement so we asked ourselves why and tried to come up with an answer. The best we came up with is Armor Class represents a quantifiable part of a character that players can exert some modicum of control over. But for my money I’m looking to get a lot more out of my characters’ armor than merely an impenetrable Armor Class. That’s where magic armor with razzle dazzle comes into play.
Never Let Them See Your 5E D&D Mobile Archer Coming
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted reveal the secrets to challenging various highly specialized and powerful fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons character builds. Like so many RPG players we’ve been brainstorming and theorycrafting character builds for years and years because frankly it’s fun to talk about these things with fellow nerds. In the video Dave and Ted cover five different 5E D&D character build concepts with tips for Dungeon Masters on how to provide adequate challenges for these characters to overcome. But the one left on the planning room floor is the one I’m most interested in exploring so yay for me! Let’s get into what it means to be a long range mobile archer.
Play Your Next 5E D&D Game as a Broken Pact Warlock
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted pick up on a conversation started during a live chat about the concept of fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons warlocks with broken pacts between their Otherworldly Patrons. The three ways Dave and Ted approached the idea of a Broken Pact warlock represent very different and very cool perspectives for this discussion. If they’d stuck with just one of them and developed the single idea more then I’d be taking what they said and polishing it up here as an Otherworldly Patron for 5E D&D you could drop right into your game. But since they had to be all ambitious and come up with three distinct paths I’m gonna leave all those ideas in the video and instead give you my own take. And yes, I’ll break it down with specific class features so you can play your next 5E D&D game as a Broken Pact warlock. So let’s get into it.
5 Favorite 5E D&D Characters
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted take a cue from a fellow YouTuber and share tales of adventurers — and more specifically adventurers — past. It’s indulgent, it’s fun and it’s introspectively interesting to take a long view back at all the fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons characters who’ve solved puzzles, talked with other characters, battled fantastic monsters and discovered fabulous magic items and other treasure. And since they got to do it in the video I’m gonna do the same thing right here. A huge roster of 5E D&D characters took up the adventuring life in the last six years and from the group I culled my top five favorites, hopefully each with a little nugget of usefulness to you but certainly a hefty load for me. So let’s get into it.
