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Author: Robin Miller

Nerdarchy > Articles posted by Robin Miller (Page 7)
5E D&D frost king arctic hobgoblin

Expanding Frost King’s Arctic Hobgoblin Frost Raiders for 5E D&D

Salutations, nerds! We’re taking a powder to revisit Frost King’s arctic environment for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. I’ve been thinking a lot about colder places lately and if you remember our vikinglike hobgoblin frost raiders I have new features and traits for you to slot onto these creatures to make your 5E D&D adventurers’ excursion to the frozen tundra more memorable and challenging. Along with these new components you’ll find a couple of other goodies to pair nicely with the myth and magic waiting to be discovered on the frozen tundra. So let’s get cracking.

RPG NPC GM tips

4 Ways to Make NPCs Likeable in your RPG Experiences

Salutations, nerds. I’m coming in with some tips and tricks to get player characters to like a the non-player characters in your tabletop roleplaying games. I know we’ve all been there before in situations where you worked really hard on a character for the party to interact with and they got there and just hated them out of the gate. There’s not much to be done about this. You can do everything right and still have that happen every once in a while. Here are some methods I’ve gathered to narrow the margin for error and throw an NPC at your party they’ll like both in and out of character.

5E D&D animal handling skill checks

5 Survival Skill Challenges for 5E D&D

Salutations, nerds! We’ve done it. We’ve made it to the last skill in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. I hope you’re prepared to make some Survival checks because as suggested by the title, we’re going to get into five skill challenges to give more skill based 5E D&D characters a moment to shine without taking over your entire game. Hopefully. As a note, per the usual each skill challenge is geared toward small moments of conflict to show those hard earned skills off and give a little more conflict to situations that would have otherwise gone smoothly. So without farther ado let’s dig into Survival.

5E D&D Deception skill check Stealth skill challenge

5 Stealth Skill Challenges for 5E D&D

Salutations, nerds. We’ve arrived at the penultimate set of skill challenges for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. Be proud of me because you have no idea how tempted I was to skip Stealth, go straight to Survival and make a joke about how you failed your Perception checks. I resisted the urge! So today is all about you making 5E D&D NPCs fail their Perception checks, so let’s get to it. As a note, per the usual each skill challenge is geared toward small moments of conflict to show those hard earned skills off and give a little more conflict to situations that would have otherwise gone smoothly. They are not intended as hooks to bigger adventures but as you well know, no plan survives first contact with the players so know your table and be prepared for what they’re likely to do with what you hand them. Now, roll for stealth.

5E D&D Deception skill check Stealth skill challenge

5 Sleight of Hand Skill Challenges for 5E D&D

Salutations, nerds, and we’re back with another 5 skill challenges for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. This time it’s Sleight of Hand’s turn in the skill challenge spotlight and I’m going to be honest with you, this one was kind of difficult because Sleight of Hand is one of those 5E D&D skills characters typically instigate themselves by pickpocketing or trying to pilfer small objects in plain view. However, I wasn’t about to skip this one just because it’s difficult. Be prepared though, because things are about to get a little bit wacky and I’m hoping you laugh as hard as I did about it.

5 Religion Skill Challenges for 5E D&D

Salutations, nerds! Buckle up and cross your fingers I don’t burst into flames about three quarters of the way through typing this one because today we’re going to be talking about Religion skill challenges for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. Per the usual these are meant to be momentary stumbling blocks for 5E D&D characters and chances for them to show off their skills rather than the hooks to some other grand adventure, though as we all know the plan never survives first contact with the players. That said, get ready and try not to get smote.

dnd cartoon venger

5 Performance Skill Challenges for 5E D&D

Salutations, nerds! It’s that time of the week again and we’re going to be talking about Performance skill challenges for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. As usual, the point here isn’t to send characters off on some grand epic quest so much as to provide a momentary stumbling block giving those skill heavy 5E D&D characters a chance to shine! So without farther ado prepare your world to be a stage. I hope you’ve all practiced those soliloquies.

5E D&D archer

5 Perception Skill Challenges for 5E D&D

Salutations, nerds, and today we’re going to to be talking about five flash skill challenges for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons based on Perception. For example, did you notice the word ‘to’ was written twice in the previous sentence? The point of these is to give you a quick 5E D&D challenge to throw at characters for a moment of conflict when you need one or feel the need to slow things down. None of them are meant to send the party on some epic quest (though it’s always possible with the right — or wrong — group of players). Let’s get ready to roll some Perception checks.

5E D&D archer

5 Nature Skill Challenges for 5E D&D

Salutations, nerds. We’re back with another set of five flash skill challenges for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. This time we’ll be tackling Nature, which covers quite a few things. Per usual the point here is not to send 5E D&D characters on some epic quest but instead to give them a momentary diversion for those moments in the game where they’re breezing through the adventure too fast and you need to slow things down, or when you have a player who keeps trying to roll a certain skill when you don’t have anything for it so you can give them a little spotlight. So, without further ado, Nature checks.

undead

Speak With Dead #30: A Reprisal

For a while, once a week our resident necromancer Maxillae the Mad would take time out of her schedule of raising the dead and commanding the forces of evil to offer her insights and advice to the denizens of the multiverse. She’s been quiet for a while but there’s no one quite so stubborn as one death couldn’t keep in their grave and so long as there’s a letter, Maxillae is the necromancer with the answer. Not long ago, we had someone Speak with Dead to get in touch with her again, and she’s agreed to come back out of her coffin for a heartfelt response.

5 Medicine Skill Challenges for 5E D&D

Salutations nerds. We’re back again with another set of flash skill challenges for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons and this time we’re talking about Medicine. If you ask me this is one of the more neglected skills in 5E D&D since there are so many healing spells to cast. Of course a couple of these could be solved with a quick healing spell but the vast majority of them require an actual skill check and this is, in fact, the idea. The idea here is to give you a few small encounters based around a skill challenge you can drop into your 5E D&D game to slow the action down and give characters a chance to flex their skills they don’t get to use perhaps as often. Let’s get to it, shall we?

5E D&D Deception skill check Stealth skill challenge

5 Investigation Skill Challenges for 5E D&D

Salutations, nerds! Continuing with the theme of five flash encounters for the skills in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons, today we’re talking about Investigation. So put your detective hats on, get out your magnifying glasses, because we have some small mysteries to solve today. The idea here is to give you a few small encounters based around a skill challenge you can drop into your 5E D&D game to slow the action down and give characters a chance to flex their skills they don’t get to use perhaps as often. Investigation comes up fairly frequently anyway and sometimes it can be nice to have investigation for investigation’s sake. So with farther ado…

dnd cartoon venger

5 Intimidation Skill Challenges for 5E D&D

Salutations, nerds. For context, the past few weeks I’ve presented five flash encounters based around a skill challenge you can drop right into your fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons game at any point and aren’t meant to take up too much time or serve as longer plot hooks. The idea is to get dice rolling if things get slow, or stretch to give yourself more table time if players are chewing through your material too quickly (not that that ever happens to me…). I’m moving right along with these flash skill challenges and I realized something very important this week — and event for Intimidation is kind of hard to specify. While there are absolutely situations you can color to make it seem like a deceptive or a persuasive statement are the best way to handle them, typically Intimidation is one of those things either a certain kind of person engages in or one characters reach for as a bit of a last resort. In light of this, instead of coming up with situations only Intimidation works for I’ve gathered up five situations where Intimidation is a valid option and won’t make characters come across like jerks! Let’s get to it, shall we?

diana acrobat 5E D&D acrobatics

5 Insight Skill Challenges for 5E D&D

Salutations nerds. Today we’re going to be rolling some Insight checks. Get ready to cast detect bullcrap without using a spell slot because that’s where we’re headed with this fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons material. For those of you just hopping in with this series the purpose is to give you a set of flash encounters based around a skill challenge you can drop right into your game at any point and aren’t meant to take up too much time or serve as longer plot hooks. The idea is when things start getting slow at your table you can reach for one of these, give some spotlight to a 5E D&D skill and create a little conflict that won’t take over your entire session. So without farther ado, let’s see whose lying.

5E D&D Deception skill check Stealth skill challenge

5 Deception Skill Challenges for 5E D&D

Salutations, nerds! Today we are going to talk about the art of creative truth telling. You know, like a liar. That’s right, today is the day of Deception skill challenges for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons! As per usual the idea is you can take any of these five skill challenges and seamlessly drop them into your game. They are designed to be isolated incidents but if you want to play them into a larger issue of course you can feel free to do that. Without farther ado, let me tell you where the lies are in 5E D&D.