Monstrous Humanoids in 5E D&D
Over the years Dungeons & Dragons has offered many different races for players to choose from. I know that some Dungeon Masters are very much against anything that does not look normal. Let’s forget the dragonborn and tielfing and play with humans, dwarves, elves, gnomes and halflings. With those races there are plenty of options even without all the subrace choices. But if you are like me you enjoy all the choices and you want to play the things that are bizarre and interesting. If you happen to look around this site you will see many different monstrous humanoids I statted out for 5E D&D and even made up some of my own, so feel free to poke around. I’ve had a fondness for monstrous humanoid races from the beginning of my roleplaying days. The Complete Book of Humanoids was always my favorite, with races like the wemic, the ogre mage and of course the dino people — saurials. I used this book over and over again playing second edition AD&D. And now Deck of Many has an free PDF designed for anyone who enjoys anthropomorphic characters for 5E D&D.
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.
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.
A D&D Encounter for Your Game Night
We recently built a D&D encounter around the miniature sent to us by channel sponsor Pacesetter Games & Simulations. As a side note, right now there is a staynerdy15 promo code over at Pacesetters that you can use to save 15 percent off your purchases. Not to mention there is plenty of free stuff to download on their site. The paints to paint the mini were supplied by Vallejo Paints. There is also currently a give-a-way to win the painted mini, unpainted mini, and paints to go with it here. The mini is a sculpt of Baphomet from the Pacesetter’s Demons and Devils miniature line.
Hag’s Apprentice — a 5E D&D Halloween Encounter
Halloween came and went, and with it lots of awesome ideas out there for running Halloween adventures for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. The Nerdarchy crew weighed in on the festivities too, with a spooky, kooky 5E D&D Halloween encounter. While we were planning a different video, the Roper Wrangler encounter, the idea for our Hag’s Apprentice encounter developed. In the Roper Wrangler the concept was a creature who hit creatures with another creature. In that case, a fomorian used a roper as a weapon to capture adventurers and use them for food on its roper farm, where a dastardly trio of duergar siblings built a spectator sports around captives’ desperate attempts to escape. Taking the idea a step further, in the Hag’s Apprentice we’ve got creatures wearing other creatures as adornment. And with Halloween coming up, we revisited the idea to create a dynamic, creepy encounter ready to deploy in your 5E D&D games.
Introduction of Transgender Narratives in 5E D&D
I’ve been discussing the inclusion of trans narratives in 5E D&D games via NPCs with people for a while now, and there are a few points that come up very frequently in discussions with Dungeon Masters. Many of them are very willing to include trans people but are not sure how to go about doing it — How do you include trans identities into lore and worldbuilding? I’d like to discuss some of the most common questions and thought processes DMs have that may be preventing them from tackling trans narratives, as well as providing some solutions as a starting point. This is a topic that has a lot of elements to it, so I won’t be able to cover everything in just one article, even if I tried, so please don’t expect this to be comprehensive and complete. It’s only intended to be a start.
D&D Treasure — When Gold Isn’t Enough
When it comes to rewarding players in Dungeons & Dragons, there is gold and silver coins, magic items, titles, and more. But what if that isn't enough or your player's characters don't care about that? This is an an issue that came up in a...
D&D-izing He-Man’s Power Sword for 5E D&D
At Nerdarchy, we get requests to D&D-ize characters from movies, TV, comics and literature fairly regularly. There’s a whole playlist on the Nerdarchy YouTube channel for D&D-ized fictional characters, which I’ve included for your convenience below. And my very first assignment as a contributing writer here on the site was to D&D-ize the Sword of Omens from the Thundercats mythos. (I’d written a few columns before but that was an assignment from Nerdarchist Dave.) I spent quite a few hours researching, referencing the Dungeon Master’s Guide for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons, writing and refining that particular artifact. More recently, we had a request via the Nerdarchy Facebook page to D&D-ize another legendary cartoon weapon — the Power Sword from the Masters of the Universe mythology. This will be my fourth go around with D&D-izing something. I also have our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man under my belt, as well as collaborating with Professor Bill from Comic Book University on my two favorite comic book characters, Mister Miracle and Big Barda. So let’s get to it and create He-Man’s legendary weapon that makes him the most powerful man in the universe, for 5E D&D.
