New D&D Campaign Setting — Guildmaster’s Guide To Ravnica
We got our hands on the new D&D campaign setting — Ravnica from Wizards of the Coast, aptly named Guildmaster’s Guide to Ravnica. It is a great resource for players and Dungeon Masters alike. It’s full of D&D monsters, subclasses, spells, backgrounds, and more. Ravnica is a fantastic setting. Different from any other D&D campaign setting. It’s a whole planet that is a city — a city run by guilds and full fantastical creatures and beings. Guildmaster’s Guide to Ravnica is Wizards of the Coast’s first official Magic: the Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons mash-up.
What’s in a Dungeon Master’s Screen?
We’ve seen them since the dawn of Dungeons & Dragons. For every player, the sight of the Dungeon Master looming mysteriously over the Dungeon Master’s screen telling the precarious plight of the characters. Over the years people have started speculating on why to use the DM screen, it’s cheating to use the DM screen, or you have to use a DM screen to tell the story. Why the attitude change? What is the purpose of it, and why do we use it or not use it?
She-Ra and the Princesses of Power as a 5E D&D Campaign Setting
She-Ra and the Princesses of Power dropped on Netflix today and although I’m only a few episodes into season one’s 13 episode run I am hooked. Big time. It’s got awesome characters, a terrific fantasy setting, great villains and a wonderful story of heroism. So naturally, my first thoughts are how to turn this into a 5E D&D campaign setting and adventures. Let’s get into it and see what comes about on the fly.
Melkor’s Advanced Guide to Wizardry: Archmages, spell lists, and you!
Let’s fix the archmage in 5E D&D, starting with the spell loadout. Greetings fellow nerds, nerdettes, and gamers! I am your humble host Kenneth Woody (aka Melkor the Mage), and today we’ll be discussing ways to fix a monster that a lot of 5E D&D worlds have — the archmage.
4 Businesses D&D Enthusiasts Can Run In Their Spare Time
Playing Dungeons & Dragons requires a lot of different skills: leadership, storytelling, acting, math, teamwork, communication, strategizing, resilience, and a whole host more. These aren’t just qualities that help you in D&D. They’re talents that you can use to run a casual business. Below I’ve...
Adventurers League Lizardfolk 5E D&D Character Build
The 5E D&D character build is something Nerdarchy is kind of known for. More recently we’ve decided to start doing Adventurers League legal character builds. It started off as just a 5E D&D character build fan request with the extra stipulation that it be Adventurers League legal.
Turns out we liked the idea of making builds within the constraints of AL so much so we decided to turn it into a playlist on our the Nerdarchy YouTube Channel – Adventurers League Legal 5E D&D Character Builds. One of our recent Adventurers League 5E D&D character builds is the Scaled Skald. We also referred to this build as our warrior poet build. You can check out the D&D Beyond character sheet, and get the Adventurers League legal Scaled Skald 5E D&D character build guide that includes an NPC version for Dungeon Masters over on the Dungeon Master’s Guild for pay what you want.
Kickstarter Korner for November 2018, Week 2
Each week during the Quests & Adventures live chat, Saturday at 2 p.m. eastern, Nerdarchists Dave and Ted and Nate the Nerdarch hang out live with fans from the Nerdarchy YouTube channel. It’s a chance to share announcements and news, answer questions from the live chat and generally just hang out and talk nerdy with the Nerdarchy community.
In the description of each weekly video, Nerdarchist Ted compiles a list and links to all the videos and website content from the week. But he also shares a selection of cool Kickstarter campaigns. As an avid Kickstarter supporter, he’s happy to share his favorite RPG and gaming-related Kickstarters with you, the Nerdarchy community. Enjoy!
Adventurers League Urban Ranger 5E D&D Character Build
I know many people have complaints about the 5E D&D ranger, especially the beast master ranger archetype. My complaint is a different one. I’d like there to be an urban terrain to be able to choose it as a favored terrain. I took advantage of this desire when we got a request for us to do a Gloom Stalker ranger/Assassin rogue multiclass D&D character build. You can check out the D&D Beyond character sheet, and if you are interested the pay what you want D&D character build guide is up on the Dungeon Master’s Guild.
Absolute Best Race to Play for the Paladin 5E D&D Character Class
Nerdarchy set out to come up with the best races to play a paladin. We had to comb through all the current D&D books to find the answer to the question. The purpose of our discussion is to figure the optimal mechanical D&D race selection.
Disclaimer: Best is for the most part subjective. We are speaking purely from a mechanics stand point. Fun is a personal matter for each person to determine for themselves.
Below we’ve broken down our race selections based on different criteria. Those criteria are relevant ability score modifiers, racial traits, and thematic elements. In this case for the paladin we are looking at Charisma as the prime ability score, followed by strength. We also include a Charisma- and Dexterity-based build as well. Finally there is the concept of the unorthodox character build that doesn’t worry about ability score placement as heavily.
Finding Adventure or Letting Adventure Find You in D&D
One of the greatest things about being a D&D player these days is the opportunities to game with lots of different people. Whether it’s through Adventurers League, online games or the huge number of people out there excited or curious to try fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons to invite to the table at home, I’ve been fortunate to play way more D&D than ever before in my 30 years of gaming. It’s provided so many chances to improve as a Dungeon Master and as a player. And I’ve learned that running D&D benefits your time as a player and vice versa. You can learn a lot about what you enjoy as a player through being a DM, and carry what you learn as a DM to the other side of the screen, too.
