Adventures for 0th Level Characters in 5E D&D
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted take on a community request for how to run 0th level characters and adventures for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. During the early playtest stages of 5E D&D when it was called D&D Next I recall a starter adventure designed with decision points and prompts. This gives me some ideas to start from and explore another way to structure a 0th level adventure for 5E D&D, so let’s get into it.
Get Pumped for the 5E D&D Muscle Wizard
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted get swole with the Muscle Mage, a quirky character concept for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. The concept of a wizard more into physical fitness than academic research sounds like a blast to explore during play and makes me think of two different ways to represent this idea as a 5E D&D character. Things might get weird here but we’re talking about a wizard more inclined to punch monsters in the face than stand in the back casting fireball so we’re starting from an unusual place anyway. Time to flex my imagination and get into it with two versions of a 5E D&D muscle wizard.
Roleplaying Your Dump Stat in 5E D&D
Salutations, nerds! Today we’re coming at fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons from a player’s perspective looking specifically at how to play to your dump stat in a way that doesn’t ruin your fun. If we’re doing standard array for ability scores everybody has an 8 they must put somewhere. If we’re doing point buy it’s totally possible to have no dump stat at all but I’ve found in my experience more often than not you end up with more dump stats than you would have otherwise because people will sacrifice points out of more things to get those sweet 18’s out of the gate. The thing is, very rarely do you actually see people playing to the ability score they’ve dumped. I’m sure you’ve seen this too, where someone takes 8 in Intelligence and Wisdom so they can have good Strength and Dexterity but they never show the drawbacks of those low ability score in action. So today we’re going to talk about little ways you can show your 5E D&D dump stat through your roleplaying. Ready? Buckle up, let’s go.
Prepare for Extreme Adventurers League with this 5E D&D Character Build
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel we create a lot of video content. There’s thousands of videos celebrating our passion for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons and other tabletop roleplaying games. (But yes, mostly D&D. We love the game!) One of our favorite videos to make are the Adventurers League Character Build Guides. We come up with a character concept and put it together soup to nuts. Along the way we explain why particular choices get made, building a character from 1st-20th level. Mechanical elements certainly factor heavily into decision making but practical reasoning and roleplaying share equal importance. For a little inside baseball it is almost always the latter ideas where a CBG begins. At the moment we’ve got 32 CBGs over at Dungeon Masters Guild, all pay what you want. Nine of them have achieved copper bestseller or better status, and there’s also four other PWYW products over there, which are encounters or adventures you can drop right into your 5E D&D game. Today I’m here to share one of my favorite CBGs, one I’ve been playing in a wonderfully fun game run by Esper the Bard on his YouTube channel.
Top 10 5E D&D Homebrew Paladin Sacred Oaths by a Factor of Three
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted get back to basics and discuss the paladin class for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. In the video they look across all of the 5E D&D books with paladin content. There are paladin 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 Sacred Oaths created by players all over the world. We’ve created one recently for our April early access Patreon rewards. The Oath of Vanity included with Hairable Ideas as a follow up to 2019’s popular Beardomancy will hit the store next month but you can get it now along with all our other supporters at the $2 level plus get immediate access to years worth of previous rewards. Check it out here. Over at Dungeon Master’s Guild there’s currently 681 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 600 Sacred Oaths for 5E D&D paladins. Let’s get into it and take a closer look at some!
Entangle Your 5E D&D Characters with New Beardomantic Feats
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted discuss how wizards can make meaningful choices for feats in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. in 5E D&D wizards for the most part rely on a single ability score — Intelligence — for their features and abilities, including their spellcasting. So when a wizard character reaches 4th, 8th, 12th, 16th and 19th levels and earns an Ability Score Improvement, once the character hits that sweet 20 Intelligence the option to choose a feat becomes tremendously appealing. And of course a human variant character can choose a feat right at 1st level. In the video Dave and Ted go over several groups of feats a wizard can take to increase effectiveness in combat, lean into their scholarly side or enhance their already impressive spellcasting potential. Over here on the website we thought it would be fun to create a new feat or two designed with wizards in mind. And since we’re giving away three free digital Adventures & Supplements we’ll tie them into Beardomancy, one of our most popular products that’s getting a follow up in just a few days from now.
Top 10 5E D&D Homebrew Druid Circles by a Factor of Three
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted circle back to the basics and discuss the druid class for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. In the video they look at all of the 5E D&D books with druid content. There are subclasses in the Player’s Handbook, Xanathar’s Guide to Everything and Guildmaster’s Guide to Ravnica and Dave and Ted look over the character class as a whole plus weigh in with their personal gaming experiences. Outside of official sources there are countless Circles created by players all over the world. We’ve created at least one ourselves and there’s more from the D&D design team included in Unearthed Arcana playtest documents as well as terrific third party products containing new options for druid players. Over at Dungeon Master’s Guild there’s currently 625 products tagged as 5E D&D character options with druid 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 291 Circles for druids. Let’s get into it and look at the best ones from three different perspectives.
Enhance Your 5E D&D Character — Join the Vargarian Collective Today!
In the annals of Nerdarchy’s content creation vaults for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons I recently discovered a document Nerdarchist Ted created about two years ago called Warforged Components. Originally created to swell ranks with steel soldiers, since the days of the Last War these creatures of wood, metal and magic became recognized as a new species who now seek their purpose beyond fighting in others’ conflicts. Warforged as a fan favorite character race and in 5E D&D the definitive official version appears in Eberron: Rising from the Last War. In Nerdarchy’s own campaign setting a similar but very different species pursues a much more concrete goal — total domination of the multiverse. Vargarians are a bio-organic species and like the warforged they are created, except the Collective fashions their kind by subjugating populations and absorbing individuals, grafting arcanomechanical parts and subsuming their minds. But why should they get all the wonderful toys?
New 5E D&D Roguish Archetype — The Enforcer
Recently while talking, we at Nerdarchy realized fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons rogues just haven’t gotten as much love and attention from all of us as we would like, especially in the realm of homebrew content and subclasses. That’s a real shame too, because the rogue is one of the staple classes of the fantasy genre on the whole. As a class, I find it interesting that rogues are sort of disenfranchised. Even the definition for the word rogue implies someone who doesn’t travel the beaten path. Rogues are usually the tricksters, those who argue for pragmatism, usually devoid of morality and other such inconveniences. I’ve often wondered why there was never an enforcer rogue. We’re familiar with stories of criminals employing some muscle to intimidate their enemies. Why isn’t that a thing we can do in 5E D&D? Well, now we can… as an Enforcer Roguish Archetype.
Stealth 101 — 5E D&D 5E Skills and Skill Checks
Fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons revolves around ability scores (physical and mental character traits) and how those scores apply to proficiencies (what you’re good at). Both are represented numerically, with modifiers to any number you roll on a d20 whenever you make a skill check. Ability checks are written like this: Ability (proficiency). For example, your Dungeon Master might call for a Dexterity (Stealth) check. The reason for this is Dexterity is the applicable ability score, while your Stealth proficiency allows you to further modify the skill check. Quick disclaimer: any 5E D&D DM can require or allow any ability check or skill proficiency check for any reason, even outside this purview. This article is meant as a guide for new players and DMs to explain how skill checks work and what they look like, narratively.
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!
Dragon Stew is the Perfect Recipe for Cooking in 5E D&D
I suppose you could say I’m a foodie. I love trying new cuisine and flavors. Helping my girlfriend, a national food publication editor, in the kitchen is a lot of fun and I frequently make cooking analogies to help explain lots of things. So when I saw an announcement for Dragon Stew: a 5th Edition Cooking Supplemental I started counting the days until the Kickstarter went live. No joke! You can check out the tweet for yourself. I wasn’t the only one looking forward to Dragon Stew with great anticipation either. The project funded in 45 minutes and it’s nearly 500% funded at the moment. Any time I see new content for 5E D&D with unusual twists like this I become very intrigued and with cooking and culinary skills taking the forefront in this project I am absolutely thrilled. So let’s get into it and see what Dragon Stew brings to the table when it comes to cooking in 5E D&D.
New Arcane Tradition Beardomancy was Only the Beginning
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted share a video inspired by Beardomancy from Chance’s D&D Spellbook. In the video within the video Chance creates an animated short and goes over a homebrew spell for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons, the wizard cantrip beard whip from our Beardomancy product. Ted and I worked on the project together for our April Patreon rewards in 2019. We wanted to do something fun to celebrate April Fool’s Day and over the years no small number of people proposed we come up with some beard related content. Beardomancy grew from these sentiments. It got unruly at times but with proper care we tamed the tangle of content and came up with a new Arcane Tradition and school of magic and replete with magical lore and mundane enrichment for beardomancers ready to drop right into your game.
Turn Up the Heat in 5E D&D with a Go To Artificer Spell
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted continue the series on go to spells for spellcasters in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. This time they’re discussing the artificer, the first official new class for 5E D&D since the Player’s Handbook. In particular Dave and Ted take a closer look at tier 2 artificer spells. During this tier of play from 5th-10th level artificers gain access to 2nd and 3rd level spells. They also gain two Artificer Specialist features, Tool Expertise, Flash of Genius, an Ability Score Improvement and Magic Item Adept. It’s those two Artificer Specialist features I’ve got my arcane eye on and I’m curious if there’s any interesting interactions between 2nd-3rd level artificer spells and their specialties. So let’s get into it and see how much magical energy we can squeeze out of the 5E D&D artificer through their Artificer Specialist choices.
Play a Support Character Like a Healbot for 5E D&D
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube Channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted discussed the idea of a healbot character for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. The term healbot comes from the world of Massively Multiplayer Online video games and refers to a character whose primary goal is monitoring the health of the party and keeping their hit points up. In 5E D&D or other tabletop roleplaying games this role doesn’t exist in quite the same way but essentially a support character who heals and buffs the party could be considered a healbot. Certainly characters and adventures in 5E D&D are much more immersed into the campaign setting and there’s more to adventuring that clicking buttons on cooldown. At the same time being the party healbot or support character can be immensely satisfying and rewarding in several ways. So let’s get into it.
