What do 5E D&D Paladin Spells Say About the Class and Yes, There’s More than Just Divine Smite!
Over on Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted discussed five essential spells for tier 1 paladins in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. This cover 1st level spells only. Since there’s only 16 of them total (Unearthed Arcana — Class Feature Variants doesn’t add any either) and I help plan the videos, what else do I have to say about it? In the video comments there’s several “what about <spell>?” My thoughts on these are same as any other time: what about them? We looked at the list and made our choices. My curiosity about tier one 5E D&D paladin spells isn’t so much determining the best or essential ones. Instead I’m wondering what do 1st level paladin spells tell us about the character class, particularly from 1st-4th level?
Unearthed Arcana — Class Feature Variants Impact on 5E D&D
Over on Nerdarchy the YouTube channel, Nerdarchists Dave and Ted took a long look at the most recent Unearthed Arcana — Class Feature Variants. There’s a ton to unpack in the 13 page playtest document. For me these class feature enhancements and replacements illustrate more of fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons original design intent of modular content for our games than the actual core rulebooks. Sure, there’s feats and multiclassing and stuff, but I’ve been playing 5E D&D since the D&D Next days and I’ve only met one person for who really considers those optional and not included in their games. Even the Uncommon Races (dragonborn, gnome, half-elf, half-orc and tiefling in the Player’s Handbook) allude to them as optional, and in practice they’re essentially ubiquitous. Two concerns come to mind as regards Unearthed Arcana — Class Feature Variants. And since Dave and Ted break down what these variant options are, let’s get into what they might mean.
Drunken Tactician: Character Build for Adventurers League D&D 5e
Unearthed Arcana — Class Feature Variants remains the gift that keeps on giving this week. We took a look at the fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons ranger a few days ago with an eye towards creating a spellcaster focused ranger character and had a lot of fun exploring those ideas. So while Nerdarchists Dave and Ted discuss the drunken tactician character build for Adventurers League over on Nerdarchy the YouTube channel, I’m going to dive back into Unearthed Arcana and see what we’ve got available there for this character concept. More fighter tactics? More monk drunkenness? Let’s get into it and find out.
Changeling and Kalashtar for a New Eberron Campaign
There’s Eberron in the air tonight. Over on Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted discuss what class you should play as a kalashtar or changeling, Eberron: Rising from the Last War releases in a few days and I just watched a terrific video about playing a juggernaut warforged as a T-800 Terminator character for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. I’m on the same page with Dave and Ted as regards ideal classes for changelings and kalashtar, so we’ll go in an unexpected direction here instead. A fresh cohort of Unearthed Arcana subclasses recently wrapped with lots of fantastic playtest options. How might some of them interact with kalashtar and changelings for a new Eberron campaign? Let’s get into it.
New 5E D&D Feats for the Goatfolk
When we revamped Nerdarchy the Patreon, revising our monthly rewards was one of the most exciting parts of the process. For Patreon supporters this meant they’d receive the entirety of the rewards package with new Fifth Edition content ready to drop right into your game, at the lowest tier. Previously, supporters at the $3 level received the Mage Forge supplement with new magic items. But for the past couple of years now we send the entire digital product — 15-30 pages with full color art — to all supporters at the $3 level and above. Order of the Wizened was one of the earliest revised rewards packages. I take particular pride in that one since I had free reign to create the content from soup to nuts. Since then we’ve created a ton of content for Patreon supporters, and these products eventually make their way to Nerdarchy the Store. With the content available to everyone now, we thought it would be fun to revisit these earlier products and create some enhanced content for them right here on the site. So let’s get into it and create some special new feats for 5E D&D.
Eladrin Teleport Specialist Covers All the Bases for 5E D&D
Over on the Nerdarchy YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted took a deep dive into what I’ve long considered the No. 1 absolute best super power ever, teleportation. Flight, regeneration, invisibility, reading minds — they all pale in comparison and don’t even come close to the ability to instantly transport from one place to another. And with all the different ways a fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons character can teleport, creating a character who bamfs around as casually as walking is within our grasp!
Dungeons & Dragonborn: Three Horror Trope-Inspired 5D D&D Bards for Halloween
When it comes to bards in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons, they tend to get a rap for being the face of the party or the characters trying to get into everyone’s pants, but Charisma isn’t just about Persuasion, Deception and Performance. It’s about Intimidation, too. And Intimidation is all about instilling fear, whether through threats or presence. Lots of things are intimidating. Monsters and horrors are just a couple. Being that it’s the time for Halloween, I really wanted to try something weird, inspired by the All Bard D&D Party Composition: How to Play video from over on the YouTube channel.
D&D Adventurers League Witch Doctor Delivers Instant Funk
Of all the Adventurers League Character Build Guides we’ve done, this one might be my favorite. I should preface by letting you know I think this almost every time. What captures my attention more than anything in these guides are the character backgrounds and narratives we come up with for each one. Whether it’s a pure class 1-20 levels or a mashup of several classes, each choice from race to deciding between ability score improvements or feats and go-to spell loadouts make every character unique. The thing I love about the witch doctor is before Nerdarchists Dave and Ted get around to choosing their first class level, the character already has a rich story, fertile grounds for roleplaying and an impressive set of skills and knowledge.
To Roll, or Not To Roll?
A character’s ability scores in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons are arguably the most influential part of who they are. Ability scores determine what your character can and cannot do, and to what degree. They determine what roles your character will tend toward and where their weaknesses lie. In D&D 5E, the standard rule set for calculating ability scores is to roll 4d6 and drop the lowest. However, there’s an alternate rule called “Standard Array,” which grants the character scores of 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, and 8. These are assigned to the six ability scores. Then, there’s also the point-buy system.
With how important ability scores are in this game, I wondered why there are so many options for calculation. Then, I got to wondering if the way one calculates their ability scores would affect gameplay, outside of mechanics. What am I talking about? Culture.
D&D Feats 5e – Multiclassing without Multiclassing
Today’s video and transcription is all about multiclassing without actually taking levels in another character class. Instead we use feats from 5e D&D to give us that feel of having multiclassing levels.
D&D Feats 5e – Multiclassing without Multiclassing Video
D&D Feats 5e – Multiclassing without Multiclassing Video Transcription
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.
Become a Legend in a 5E D&D Spell Duelist Campaign
One of the most recent videos on the Nerdarchy YouTube channel is the Ultimate Spell Duelist 5E D&D character build. From the initial planning discussion all the way through the comments on the video, my imagination was firing on all cylinders. And based on the video comments, a lot of other people were too. Like all the recent 5E D&D character builds, we set out to create a character legal for Adventurers League play. This of course limits our character options, but that makes it a fun extra little challenge, plus it’s really rewarding to consider not just mechanical benefits but roleplaying opportunities for these characters as well. Outside of Adventurers League play is where this character really got our creative juices flowing, from chances for personal character moments and growth to campaign implications. So let’s get into it.
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.
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.
