The Genie from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything Fulfills Your Wildest 5E D&D Wishes
Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything brings a menagerie of new subclasses to the fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons table. Most fall somewhere between feeling like they should have already existed in 5E D&D and adding something strikingly new to the base class. One embraces the elemental realms where magic flows freely and the concepts of servitude and patronage meet an opulent and ornate aesthetic. Enter The Genie Otherworldly Patron for 5E D&D warlocks.
Soulknife from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything is the Best Heist Rogue in 5E D&D
Heist movies are a staple of cinema. They’re fun, smart and the thrill of danger is ever present. Heist encounters in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons scratch a similar itch and the rogue is an obvious contender for the class players should consider when pulling a high stakes heist. When it comes to heist rogues Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything offers arguably the best Roguish Archetype for the job — the Soulknife. Let’s look closer at this fun new subclass for the 5E D&D rogue and hopefully by the end I’ll convince you to bring one to your next heist themed escapade at the table.
Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything Fixes the 5E D&D Beast Master Ranger
Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons is full of new options for players and Dungeon Masters. The book adds new content for characters in 5E D&D and provide alternatives for existing character options. While 5E D&D has been incredibly successful many players feel certain discrepancies exist among the classes, frequently with the ranger at the forefront of these views. Several times over the years the 5E D&D design team released Unearthed Arcana playtest documents focused on the ranger class with one iteration removing magic from the class entirely. This muddies the ranger’s identity without really addressing the balance concerns. Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything offers new and exciting optional class features for all the core classes providing players a plethora of options to help each character feel unique — even those of the same class. The book’s Beast Master Companions optional class feature is the focus for this post.
Use This Circle of the Moon Druid for Your Next 5E D&D Game
When it comes to fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons the druid is probably my favorite class. Reasons for this abound. The 5E D&D druid is super versatile and comfortably fills the role of healer, defender, controller or damage dealer. Even when players focus on one particular aspect through one of the Druid Circles and other choices druid characters can still fill the other roles in a pinch. Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted cover one such aspect in a discussion about different Wild Shape forms a druid (specifically a Circle of the Moon druid) might use.
Make Flanking More Dynamic in Your 5E D&D Game
Flanking is an optional rule from fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons I’ve heard much debate on. The usefulness and overpoweredness of flanking and lacks thereof emerge in many 5E D&D discussions. Flanking is certainly a strange rule and much as I stated in the D&D Tag about the rules I just don’t get advantage is both generic and complicated — a bizarre duo to say the least. Nerdarchists Dave and Ted address this concern and others in a recent video. After watching I got to thinking about ideas to make 5E D&D combat more dynamic and homebrew rules to make combat faster paced and, well, engaging.
Avoid Boring 5E D&D with Bureaucracy
You’ve made it! The domain is saved, you and your party are renowned for your successes and the big baddie behind the first big bad has been soundly beaten. You’ve mastered rare and powerful magics. New upstarts look to you and yours as an example of what could be. Mechanically, you’ve just reached 10th level as a fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons adventurer. Now what?
Diving into the Evolution of Tabletop RPGs
I couldn’t be more excited going into our new Dungeons & Delving campaign at Nerdarchy Live. The premise is a dungeon delving reality game show where our characters are treasure hunters. This fascinating premise comes from the mind of our own Nerdarchist Ted. The hype is real and it’s gotten me thinking about the premise itself and why we’re seeing an influx of nontraditional content in the streamed gaming community for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons.
Weird and Wonderful Warlock Otherworldly Patrons of 5E D&D
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted talk about splashing some levels in warlock to gain the Gift of the Ever-Living Ones Eldritch Invocation from Xanathar’s Guide to Everything. A warlock in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons makes pacts with beings more powerful and ancient than the mind can fathom. Rivaling the power of the gods warlock Otherworldly Patrons in 5E D&D are wily, wonderful and sometimes downright weird. Seeing this conversation got me thinking about the nature of splashing classes by taking only a few levels in a class to gain access to a particular feature and what that might look like in roleplay.
How Hogfather and Terry Pratchett’s Discworld Offer Hope for 2021 and Beyond
Recently on our second channel Nerdarchy Live Nerdarchist Dave and Nerditor Doug talked about comedy in tabletop roleplaying games. Since I’ve written my own comedic fantasy book and the genre niche is my jam I simply had to talk about it. Talking about comedic fantasy reminds me of one of my favorite movies of all time, which also happens to be a holiday favorite, Hogfather. Or as I like to call this movie — How Death Saved Fantasy Christmas.
Transforming Worldbuilding Lore into a New 5E D&D Paladin Sacred Oath
Over the past several days I’ve been doing a challenge for 30 days of worldbuilding and one of my viewers shared how she is building two worlds at once with this challenge. This inspired me to do the same. So while I have been building a comedic fantasy world through YouTube videos and exercises I’ve also been building a dark fantasy world called Aulmn for my second project. Part of worldbuilding is developing your own lore surrounding… well, everything. My launch point for this dark fantasy was a history of oppressive spellcasters leading to magical revilement. Then I started thinking about how spellcasting classes fit into the world and everything just snowballed from there. Recently Nerdarchists Dave and Ted talked about using Dungeons & Dragons lore and making up your own. This video hugely inspired many aspects of my worldbuilding. Today we’re covering one aspect of this lore and how it led me to develop a new paladin Sacred Oath for fifth edition D&D.
The Nightmare Before Critmas Part 2
All things considered 2020 wasn’t too shabby for the Nerdarchy crew. We continued to grow across the board from Nerdarchy the YouTube channel to right here on the website where the quality and quantity of content increased dramatically. We started a second YouTube channel for our longform and live video content at Nerdarchy Live. Our Patreon got a needed refresh with more benefits for supporters and we’re super excited about the refined game content we produce every month and Nerdarchy the Newsletter evolved into a vibrant weekly dispatch with a huge subscriber list. Nerditor Doug (me) celebrated a one year anniversary as a full time employee while staff writers Robin and Steven became more involved in creating new content. Later this week we’ll be publishing our year end retrospective so keep an eye out for it but for now we’ll continue a tradition started last holiday season. So I’ll give you back over to Steven for the Nightmare Before Critmas Part 2. — Nerditor Doug
Play Your Next 5E D&D Game as a Circle of Wildfire Druid from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything
Lights are everywhere for the holidays! With Hanukkah coming to a close, Yule approaching, Christmas on the way and Kwanzaa candles igniting soon, twinkling candles and blazing hearths warm our hearts in the sparkling winter. There’s no better time to make the holidays merry and bright and talk about the fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons Circle of Wildfire druid from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything.
Power Your Next 5E D&D Game with Friendship as a Peace Domain Cleric from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything
Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything is kind of notorious for adding several aspects to fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons that feel like they always should have always been present in the game. One of these aspects embraces a classic fantasy trope — the power of friendship. The Peace Domain cleric is all about the power of friendship in all the best ways. The Unity Domain from Unearthed Arcana leveled up and evolved into this new Domain. The way mechanics support this subclass give such vital flavor and represent really the best restructuring of Unearthed Arcana content we’ve seen. What’s more this subclass really inspired me with its tone and flavor to the point I feel the best place for this particular subclass is a dark fantasy campaign in the vein of things like The Witcher and Dragon Age.
Join #My30DayWorld RPG World Building Challenge with Jorphdan
Renowned YouTuber Jorphdan’s (the PH is silent) normal repertoire includes Dungeons & Dragons lore videos on everything from Forgotten Realms to Spelljammer. Spurred by My 30 Day World challenge put out by Absolute Tabletop and a Fantasy World Building Guide from WebWriter.net, Jorphdan concocted a challenge to end this 2020 — 30 Days of RPG World Building! If you missed out on NaNoWriMo or GamoWriMo never fear because there’s still plenty of time to do #My30DayWorld challenge!
Play Your Next 5E D&D Game as a Phantom Rogue from Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything
Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything contains a variety of new material for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons not the least of which includes subclasses for each 5E D&D class. One of my personal favorites is the Phantom, a Roguish Archetype to allow communication with the spirits of the dead in order to enhance the rogue’s capabilities.
