Play Your Next 5E D&D Game as a Pride Warrior Leonin
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted feel the magic and hear the roar, discussing the best class for leonin in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. Leonin let loose on the 5E D&D scene by way of Mythic Odysseys of Theros, an exciting addition to the multiverse from the planes of Magic: The Gathering. Leonin are lionlike humanoids and in the lore of M:tG developed a culture strongly valuing honor and religion. The leonin of Theros developed differently in terms of culture, making a conscious effort to separate themselves from other races and largely abandoning deity worship. As the second and most recently catlike humanoid official 5E D&D race option it seems to me people gravitate towards leonin over tabaxi and all viewers of the video left lots of great comments with their own leonin character ideas. I got caught up in the fun too so I thought I’d share some of them here and create a very special leonin NPC you can drop right into your game too. So let’s get into it.
Play Your Next 5E D&D Game as the Strongest Character Ever!
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted do the heavy lifting during a discussion about carrying capacity and how much characters can push, drag or lift in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. This topic came about through a discussion at Nerdarchy the Discord about opportunities to put great physical Strength to use outside of dealing more damage with melee weapons along with a casual conversation about encumbrance in 5E D&D. Because I play in a lot of one shots and short campaigns I try out lots of different characters and make a point to explore everything they’ve got to offer during play. Since I recently played a very strong goliath character (an Extreme Adventurer!) I was ready to Hulk out on this topic and we had a lot of fun crunching the numbers for the strongest adventurers in the multiverse. Let’s get into what you can do with such immense power in 5E D&D.
Play Your Next 5E D&D Game as a Path of the Dragon Barbarian
Hey folks! The concept of racial feats and potential racial subclasses are great ways to add flavor and texture to a fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons campaign world. Special techniques, tricks and traits not only add to the depth of fantasy races and cultures but also allow for expansion of the themes of the various races by building off of distinguishing characteristics and traits. In my own campaign dragonborn are experiencing their own dark age where the dragons who stood as leaders and gods for their society have been stripped from the world by neighboring kingdoms. For these dragonborn barbarian is a great fit for a character class and to this end I created a Primal Path for the 5E D&D barbarian drawing upon the draconic spirituality and ancestry of the dragonborn.
5E D&D Feats for the Future from Unearthed Arcana
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted take a closer look at some new ways for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons characters to gain mastery in one of their capabilities or discover the ability to do something completely new. In other words they’re talking about 5E D&D feats and in particular the recently released Unearthed Arcana 2020 — Feats playtest document. This Unearthed Arcana presents 16 new feats to add new twists to characters whether through magic, martial prowess or mastery of new techniques. You can check out these playtest feats here and hear what Dave and Ted had to say below while I take a look at some other practical applications and do a bit of speculation. So let’s get into it.
Play Your Next 5E D&D Game with a Quintessential Gnoll Playable Race and Racial Feats
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted bite into creating a new character option for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons with the gnoll. Gnolls occupy an unusual space among humanoid races of the Material Plane. Their demonic origins as mutated hyenas transformed in the wake of the demon lord Yeenoghu’s rampages puts them closer to fiends than humanoids and indeed the 5E D&D team expressed as much not too long ago. But it’s not difficult at all to reimagine these classic creatures whether as regular humanoids with traces of demonic blood in a fraction of their population like in Eberron or simply as hyenalike humanoids without any connection to demonic influence. At any rate you can check out Dave and Ted’s discussion and find their take on gnolls as a playable race for 5E D&D and for a bonus a couple of gnoll racial feats if you want to play the quintessential gnoll character in your next game.
Play Your Next 5E D&D Game with Flair in This New Wizard Arcane Tradition
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted spread their wings and come up with a new Arcane Tradition for wizards in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. Order of the Peacock began with a funny meme and Dave came to our video planning meeting pitch in hand for a new subclass. Nerdarchy’s experience at D&D In A Castle 2019 already gave us a head start with all the research we did for our triple connected epic campaign, so let’s get into it and show off the plumage of this Order of the Peacock wizard subclass for 5E D&D.
Play Your Next 5E D&D Game with a Primal Draconic New Playable Race
Hey folks! The idea of a draconic playable race for Dungeons & Dragons has been favorite of mine since the days when Dragonlance introduced me to draconians (which we could not play). There were also weredragons, half dragons, and even a race of dragon centaurs my friends and I made. Comic books and science fiction also presented many concepts of the dragon man. Dragonborn finally codified this idea into a playable race for characters in fourth edition D&D and finally we had something in official rules to allow players to engage the fantasy of playing some sort of dragon. Two articles in Dragon #182 and #183 introduced young me to the concept of the primal, elemental, nasty linnorm, based not on the more fairy tale versions of dragons we see commonly in D&D but on the sorts of draconic beasts from Scandinavian tales. It is from these very different dragons I developed the wyrmkyne for 5E D&D.
Play Your Next 5E D&D Game with a Crafty Vulpin New Playable Race
So, what does the fox say? Actually, we’re not going there. Today we’re coming at you with a new idea for a playable race in your fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons games, regardless of setting. You know how you just wish you had some help whenever you lose something, whether it’s your keys, your work badge or possibly yourself after you took that wrong turn? Wouldn’t it be cool if there were some sort of planar race to help you out? Now there is! Let’s meet the vulpin, a humanoid fox race for 5E D&D.
Play Your Next 5E D&D Game with a Friendly Octopod New Playable Race and Feats
Hey folks! With my current fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons campaign being an island hopping nautical adventure I got to thinking of new character options. I also love squid and octopus and all manner of cephalopods so naturally I decided to design a humanoid octopus playable race for 5E D&D. The oomquar present the opportunity to play a character with a very alien vibe and many built in roleplaying options. As one of these tentacled denizens of the deep your character faces the fear of aberrations and other strange monsters while having the opportunity to dispel these prejudices and preconceptions. Oomquar easily fit into any coastal or nautical campaign and can even venture further afield though they will be uncomfortable and cranky (roleplay!).
RPG Guide to Practical Character Optimization — Part 3
Part 1 of this guide to character optimization for tabletop roleplaying games goes over some general guidelines and touches on a few key points of the practical optimization process. You can check that out here. In Part 2 we covered optimizing your RPG characters for combat, a significant part of many games. You can find that part here. In this last part I’ll share general tips and tricks for approaching optimizing while maintaining a well balanced character for both in the game and your fellow players.
RPG Guide to Practical Character Optimization — Part 2
Part 1 of this guide to character optimization for tabletop roleplaying games goes over some general guidelines and touches on a few key points of the practical optimization process. You can check that out here. Now we’ll dive headfirst into combat.
RPG Guide to Practical Character Optimization — Part 1
Hail and well met! I thought I’d share with you all something that’s been on my mind for a while and that’s the concept of character optimization in tabletop roleplaying games. I’ll occasionally refer to third edition (v. 3.5) Dungeons & Dragons because it’s one of the systems I’m the most familiar with (it’s also the system I’ve been using for most of the games I run nowadays). My intention is for this guide’s content to include such systems as GURPS, old or new World of Darkness, Rolemaster and so on. There are so many great systems out there it’ll make your head spin. Anyway, onto the show and the first of three parts of my collected thoughts on what it means to optimize in RPGs.
Adventure Beneath the Waves With This New Aquatic Race for 5E D&D
Salutations, nerds! Today, rather than my usual babble I have a playable race for you that should be compatible with Wizard’s Wake, one of the titles over at Nerdarchy the Store or really any other seafaring kind of adventure for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. So without further ado, I present to you, the Thylocanthus, an new playable aquatic race for 5E D&D characters. These seafolk would fit right into the tropical Gylathacean Isles where the magical wreckage of Wizard’s Wake rests amid gorgeous tropical islands or any aquatic underwater adventures. Perhaps they could work with the Order of the Golden Quill or immerse themselves in the goings on around Saltmarsh.
Holiest 5E D&D Character? Mythic Odysseys of Theros Says Hold My Kykeon
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted channel divinity to come up with the holiest character in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons to answer a community request. We returned to the Character Build Guide series we haven’t created for in a while and developed the Holy Paragon, a 5E D&D character leaning all the way into their divine nature. But now Mythic Odysseys of Theros released digitally and if you really want to play a character devoted to the gods, look no further. I’ve been incredibly excited about MOoT since we stumbled upon the release prior to the announcement and I looked through the whole hotly anticipated book this morning. I’m blown away.
Suffuse Your 5E D&D Campaign with 5 Color Mana Spellcasting
When Fil Kearney saw Wizards of the Coast creating settings and material for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons straight from the planes of Magic: The Gathering like many other players he anticipated the classic five color mana system wouldn’t be far behind. But after six Plane Shift releases plus Guildmasters Guide to Ravnica officially incorporating the worlds of M:TG to 5E D&D magic in the two games remains distinct without any crossover. So like any creative gamer Fil set out to develop his own 5 Color Mana system. Tap Untap Burn is a robust system for incorporating Magic’s classic color wheel into 5E D&D and Fil poured a tremendous amount of work into this to excite longtime Magic fans as well as 5E D&D players without any knowledge of the seminal trading card game. So let’s get into it and see what you can add to your games.
