Top 10 of All Time
Just like at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel with its thousands of videos celebrating tabletop roleplaying games like Dungeons & Dragons, here on the website we’ve got thousands of posts too. Since 2014 we’ve been writing and posting new content here many times each week and this post marks the 2,064th publication. Since we constantly strive to improve our craft and recognize what readers, viewers and fans want we took a look at all the published posts to try and glean some useful info. The results track with what we already knew to some extent but with much sharper image came into view that’ll help us create more of the kind of content people enjoy. All this aside we thought it would be fun to share the Top 10 Most Popular Posts of All Time from Nerdarchy the Website. So let’s get into it.
Speculating on Mythic Odysseys of Theros for 5E D&D
During our weekly meeting this afternoon we worked on planning videos, including one discussing the most recent Unearthed Arcana 2020 — Subclasses, Part 3. While looking over the playtest material the most intriguing one for me is the Circle of the Stars for druids. One of the subclasses features in particular, Starry Form, caught my attention before I even got to the part with any game mechanics.
“While in your starry form, you retain your game statistics, but your body takes on a luminous, starlike quality; your joints glimmer like stars, and glowing lines connect them as on a star chart.”
This vivid description immediately conjured images from Magic: the Gathering Arena, the online version of the incredibly popular card game. The newest set, Theros Beyond Death highlights the Constellation keyword and there’s a strong starry element featured in artwork and graphics from the set. That’s when it struck me — maybe we’ll see these and other Unearthed Arcana content in an official fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons book inspired by Magic: the Gathering. And after a little bit of digging around I believe that’s definitely the case.
Gamer Community and Group Identity
Group identity is important to tabletop roleplaying games. Heck, it’s important to any group of people. We as gamers see ourselves as a community. Whether they admit it or not, people need community. “Man is by nature a social animal; an individual who is unsocial naturally and not accidentally is either beneath our notice or more than human,” Aristotle wrote in Politics. The lone wolf is actually quite a rare phenomenon. Now, if you want I can go deep into scholarly literature about collective identity and start quoting research, but I won’t. After all, while I may be working toward my PhD, such academic stuff isn’t everyone’s cup of meat.
Wringing More from Halaster’s Tumultuous Templates and Mighty Conjurations for 5E D&D
Wow, D&D Spell Effects: Halaster’s Tumultuous Templates and D&D Icons of the Realms: Spell Effects: Mighty Conjurations are a mouthfuls for sure. If you are like me than you really dig using battle mats, miniatures terrain and effects to get more visual with your fifth edition Dungeon & Dragons or other roleplaying games. So I want to tell you about these two wonderful sets from WizKids. Halaster’s Tumultuous Templates and Spell Effects: Mighty Conjurations both allow you to add these lasting effects at your table so players and Dungeon Masters alike will have no question where any effects are, ending any potential dispute.
Top 10 5E D&D Homebrew Magic Items for Rogues by a Factor of Three
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted carefully consider the best magic items for a rogue in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. In some respects this is an unusual conversation topic. Characters rarely get an opportunity to choose magic items. But it’s worthwhile to have goals and keep an eye out for particular magic items during the course of adventures. There’s two other situations I can think of when players have control over their characters’ magic items. In Adventurers League play items can be traded on a one-for-one basis for items with the same rarity. Making a trade costs each player involved 15 downtime days unless they’re playing at the same table. The other scenario is games beginning beyond 1st level. In our own monthly fan one shots we give players an option to choose magic item(s) for their characters this way, and I’ve played in many games with the same guidelines. Protip: for a tier 1 adventure or campaign try letting players choose one rare magic item to start and see what happens. For now, I had so much fun looking through homebrew Otherworldly Patrons on D&D Beyond that I’m going to do the same thing here and see what interesting magic items I can find for 5E D&D rogues.
Learning the Secret History of Merfolk
As promised in The Secret History of Giants I’m following up with The Secret History of Mermaids and Creatures of the Deep, by Ari Berk. Along with The Secret History of Hobgoblins this series’ compelling cover art and design caught my attention and as a folklore and kitschy monster stuff fan I ordered them. Along with being enjoyable reads these interactive children’s mythology books are filled with fun ideas for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. Let’s dive into The Secret History of Mermaids and Creatures of the Deep bring some fresh ideas to the surface for our 5E D&D games.
D&D Ideas — Challenge
Welcome once again to the weekly Nerdarchy Newsletter. This week’s topic is challenge, which we discussed in our exclusive Patreon live chat. We hangout every Monday evening at 8 p.m. EST with Patreon supporters and talk about D&D, RPGs, gaming, life and whatever nerdy stuff comes up. You can get the Nerdarchy Newsletter delivered to your inbox each week, along with updates and info on how to game with Nerdarchy, by signing up here. The Out of the Box: Encounters for Fifth Edition Pledge Manager remains open, but only for a short time. Production on the book continues smoothly and we’re giving it an additional level of editing while the few remaining pieces of incredible art from Kim Van Deun and maps from Darryl T. Jones come. Speaking of challenge, in All That Remains adventurers are faced with the worst kind of challenge — deciding between treasure and monster fighting! Check out the Pledge Manager here.
Dragon Age’s Thedas is My Middle Earth for the Fantasy Genre
For many, The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien is their quintessential introduction into the fantasy genre, but that isn’t how it went with me. Today, I’m getting personal and sharing my own introduction into the fantasy genre, a world that few would expect: Thedas, the lands where the stories of Dragon Age take place. However, before I explain how Thedas is my Middle Earth, I need to provide some context. So, please indulge as I share some of my personal history.
Top 10 5E D&D Homebrew Warlock Otherworldly Patrons by a Factor of Three
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted get back to basics and discuss the warlock class for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. In the video they look across all of the 5E D&D books with warlock content. There are warlock subclasses in the Player’s Handbook, Sword Coast Adventurers Guide and Xanathar’s Guide to Everything and Dave and Ted share an overview of the character class plus weigh in on their personal gaming experiences. Outside of official sources there are countless Otherworldly Patrons created by players all over the world. We’ve created quite a few ourselves in our products, newsletter and posts here on the website. There’s more from the D&D design team included in various Unearthed Arcana playtest documents, and lots of terrific third party products contain new options for warlock players. Over at Dungeon Master’s Guild there’s currently 840 products tagged as character options with warlock content too. But there is another source of homebrew content I’m looking at today — D&D Beyond, where people have used the homebrew tools there to create 755 Otherworldly Patrons for 5E D&D warlocks. Let’s get into it and take a closer look at some!
Wringing Special Abilities from the Find Familiar Spell in 5E D&D
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted help get you extra familiar with the find familiar spell for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. Part of the video includes a breakdown and brief summary of a spellcaster’s different options for the spirit that takes an animal form you choose. The celestial, fey, or fiend can take the form of a bat, cat, crab, frog (toad), hawk, lizard, octopus, owl, poisonous snake, fish (quipper), rat, raven, sea horse, spider, or weasel. Warlocks who make a Pact of the Chain at 3rd level gain a few more options in the form of imp, pseudodragons, quasit or sprite. Some monsters like the gazer in Volo’s Guide to Monsters explicitly call out possibility for becoming a familiar and in fact any character can potentially gain the service of a familiar. In our Out of the Box book, Fibble’s Fantastic Familiars presents an opportunity for characters to acquire new and strange familiars too. Familiars come in very handy in so many situations in 5E D&D, but if I’m honest there’s something I miss from earlier editions of the find familiar spell, which at one point wasn’t a spell at all and granted special abilities to its master when the master and familiar are within 1 mile of each other.
