Make Your Own D&D Maps with Dungeonfog
Let’s face it — Game Masters can never have enough tools to help make running their D&D games easier. DUNGEONFOG is just one of those tools. The fine folks over at DUNGEONFOG sent us over some copies to check it out and sponsored this article and some videos. They were even nice enough to give us the promo code Nerdarchy so you can score a 10 percent discount on the annual subscription which is already discounted from the monthly subscription. There are a ton of features to help GMs run their games and prepare beautiful maps. Not only that, there are tons of maps already on DUNGEONFOG that you can drop into your games or modify to your needs. Go sign up for free here.
Don’t Use 5E Elementals Use This D&D Monster Instead
If you are tired of using elementals in your fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons game and want some alternatives try these monsters instead. This is from our Don’t Use this D&D Monster Use This Instead series. The video is below complete with transcription if you prefer to read along.
5 Go to D&D Wizard Spells for Tier 1 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons
We have the 5 Got to D&D Wizard Spells as well a transcription from the video. Quick bit of house keeping we goofed and accidently included 3rd level spells on our list. We realized it after we put the spell up oops. We still really like Fireball and Haste we just listed them in the wrong tier. Our apologies.
5 Go to D&D Wizard Spells for Tier 1 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons Video
Need D&D Battle Maps for Your Game
Since the inception of D&D maps have played a huge part of the game. But that makes a lot of sense when you consider the origin of the game. Since Dungeons & Dragons was born of Chain Mail, a tabletop miniatures war game. From the earliest day of Dungeons & Dragons it has been played both in the theater of the mind as well as with D&D battle maps and miniatures. Theater of the mind is a style of play that doesn’t use miniatures or battle maps. Many tabletop roleplaying games have come along since the beginning of Dungeons & Dragons. Some favor theater of the mind while others lean heavily towards using minis and battle maps.
D&D Monsters — Kobolds Mounted for Combat
Kobolds are insanely popular D&D monsters. So much so that players want to adopt them as henchmen and followers. Others want to play them as player character races. They’ve gone under bit of a transformation from the kobold from Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. In 3.5 D&D they went from being a combination of rat, dog, and lizard to little dragonmen claiming to be the descendants of dragons. Not too long ago we did a video pairing up D&D monsters. Kobolds mounted on other monsters seemed like a lot of fun. We even put together a pay what you want product over on the Dungeon Masters Guild — Kobold Cavalry Encounter. Grab it here.
D&D Sorcerer or Warlock Out of the Chaos
Time to slip into some Nerdarchy home brew D&D lore. With this piece of lore we’ve got some ideas for creating either a 5E D&D sorcerer or warlock subclass. Maybe even both, but for starters we throw it to the Nerdarchy community. We start off by discussing the land and monsters that spawn our concepts. Whether we go with a D&D warlock or sorcerer they will be steeped in chaos. We took our inspiration from the chaos giant miniature from Pacesetter Games & Simulations. We had former intern Jake paint them with some Vallejo Paints. You can find pictures below.
New 5E D&D Magic Items for Dungeon Masters and Players
What would be a Dungeons & Dragons game without magic items? Players love them, the Dungeon Master loves giving them out. Magic items have always been a huge part of the Dungeons & Dragons game. 5E D&D magic items are no different. They can completely make, and in some cases break, a Dungeons & Dragons game. How many stories have I heard of a new excited Dungeon Master who’s broken their game by giving out to many magical goodies too soon. Speaking of magic items, right now on Kickstarter you can find the Tome of Magical Mystery. It’s a new book full of over 200+ magic items for 5E. Check out the Kickstarter here.
Is D&D 5e Multiclassing Just for Power Gamers
Multiclassing has been a part of D&D 5E since nearly the beginning of the game. For that matter so have power gamers and power gaming. In the earliest days of Dungeons & Dragons, multiclassing was strictly the purview of the demihuman races. Humans could only dual class and the other races had level caps. With third edition Dungeons & Dragons the role of multiclassing greatly changed. In fourth edition D&D the multiclassing rules took a bit of a turn. D&D 5E realigned the rules back to a system like 3.5 D&D. Now let’s discuss multiclassing, power gamers, and D&D 5E.
Path of the Justicar Barbarian Paladin D&D Character Build
Nerdarchy recently switched how we do our 5E D&D character builds. Currently we are on a kick of creating Adventurers League legal builds. We are enjoying the limitations and challenges of exploring these builds. One of our latest was a barbarian paladin multiclass build. One of the things I really like about these character builds is crafting the story to go with them. The background behind this specific build was Nerdarchist Ted is joining an upcoming 5E D&D stream. You’ll be able to catch it over on the Mini Terrain Domain Twitch Channel. We do a little retooling of the barbarian character class. They get changed from being primal savage warriors. I would still call them primal, but instead of drawing from nature they pull their power from the history and past of their people.
D&D Barbarian 5E — Path of the Frost Wyrm
Nerdarchy has teamed up with Pacesetter Games & Simulations as well as Vallejo Paints to put together something special in our opinion, but we might be a bit biased. For one, both companies are sponsoring this article, video, and contest. So, disclaimer out of the way if you care about such things. Inspired by the Frost Wyrm miniature by Pacesetters Games & Simulations we came up with the concept of the Frost Wyrm barbarian tribe. As well as a brand new D&D barbarian primal path for 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons. For some extra inspiration we had our former intern Jake Kosman work his magic with Vallejo Paints.
5E D&D Traps — Nord Games is Making Them Treacherous
Our friends over at Nord Games asked us to help get out the word about their latest D&D Kickstarter — Treacherous Traps for 5th Edition! This is a sponsored article by Nord Games if you care about such things. For me the Holy Trinity of third party publishers is Kobold Press, Nord Games, and Frog God games. I feel you can generally drop any of the D&D content these folks are making right in your fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons game with no problem.
Magic Through the Editions of Dungeons and Dragons
We recently did a video about 5E D&D spells and how they affect the game. There is a huge difference between D&D magic now and throughout the editions of Dungeons and Dragons. We were discussed different effects various 5E D&D spells have on editions of Dungeons & Dragons compared to earlier version of the game. One of the comments I saw over and over again was some version of “that’s just a bad Dungeon Master”.
I find it to be odd people think it’s a lazy DM issue, because a DM might want to challenge players with things that are negated by spells. Couldn’t the same be said about simply overcoming random encounters during watch? What about wanting to introduce survivalist elements to the game even if only for a short time.
Sure a DM could temporarily nerf 5E D&D magic in order to do this but that seems even worse to me. I don’t find either methods pleasing and think we’ve gotta look a little deeper into D&D spells and magic.
D&D How to Pick Your Character’s Background
We were really surprised how much the D&D How to Pick Your Character’s Background Video from our D&D How to Pick playlist took off. I suppose it could be because D&D backgrounds are a newer part of the game. It’s seems fairly straightforward and one of the least complicated parts of the game. Even so, I feel it adds a lot of depth to character builds.
Your race is very straightforward — it’s just who you are. Your character class could be the result of training, birth, a deal, or being chosen. The background is very similar in that regard. It might be circumstance or choice. It’s mostly helps to define where the character came from and who they are in the world.
New Circle for Druid 5E D&D — Worshipping the Froghemoth
Nerdarchy recently partnered with Pacesetter Games & Simulations as well as Vallejo Paints. Use the promo code staynerdy15 for a 15 percent discount on their products. We’ve taken this partnership and built some and cool content for 5E D&D. We kicked things off with Horris the Horned Lord. Most recently we moved on to Abalor the Abhorrent and a dark druid 5E Circle — the Circle from the Beyond. Abalor is based off of the froghemoth model from Pacesetter. It’s a great looking model. You can see it below as painted by Jake Kosman using Vallejo Paints. The froghemoth D&D monster was reintroduced into 5E D&D in Volo’s Guide to Monsters. Part of the awesome Nerdarchy, Pacesetter, and Vallejo team-up is a contest to win a froghemoth both painted, unpainted, and the paints to paint your very own froghemoth miniature. There’s a bunch of ways to enter the contest to win the minis and paints. Check it out here.
D&D Fighter — Best Race in 5E Dungeons & Dragons
Our Best D&D Races for the fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons classes seems to be a pretty popular series on our YouTube channel. This time we will delve into the D&D fighter. The fighter in 5E D&D is so much more interesting over the previous editions of Dungeons and Dragons. Because in 5E D&D a fighter can be built with either Dexterity or Strength as the primary ability score it makes for a lot options. Only the ranger is as flexible. Yes, I know other classes can be built using an alternate ability score but they usually are more interesting than optimized. But in the case of the ranger and fighter they loose any of their optimization.
We came up with 40 official D&D races optimized to play a fighter. That is a lot variety. When you factor in the seven different martial archetype subclasses to choose from you’ve got a lot of combinations.
