Magic of Dungeons & Dragons: Getting the Most from Your Spells
As Nerdarchists Dave and Ted discussed in their recent video about the magic of Dungeons & Dragons, a big chunk of getting the most from your spells as either a cleric or wizard comes from diversifying your spell selection. As they talked about, that involves selecting spells for different purposes (utility, healing, defense, damage, buffs) and that do different types of damage and that are opposed by different saving throws. It does little good to show up to a fight against a red dragon with all fire spells, and it is far from optimal to try and get past an evading quickling with nothing but spells requiring Dexterity saving throws. They also mention action economy, and how it’s wise to make certain you’re in a position to take advantage of actions, bonus actions, and reactions as a spellcaster.
Casting D&D Spells with Extra Flair
Maybe you aren’t familiar with Deck of Many and their fine products. Here is a primer. The Deck of Many is a series of 5E reference cards. It is a tool used to assist Game Masters in their roleplaying campaigns, freeing them from traditional reference books and allowing them to only bring the references they need. Each card features original artwork and easy to reference information. Guest artists include: Peter Mohrbacher, Jason Engle, Steve Argyle, Thomas Baxa, Tom Babbey, Aaron Miller, Jeff Miracola, and Leesha Hanigan
D&D Planar Adventures Are For Everyone — Start Your Planar Campaigns Today!
I love planar adventures in Dungeons & Dragons. And I’m not alone, based on the huge number of people out there with affection for the Planescape campaign setting first introduced in second edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. Typically, travel and adventure in planes of existence beyond the prime material plane of D&D is the purview of higher-level adventurers. Getting to these planes is often a challenge by itself, and surviving the dangerous environments found there can be very difficult. The laws of physics and magic are often different, and simply being there at all can be a hazard to a character’s life. But you can forget all that, and take adventures across the multiverse of dimensions and create planar campaigns right from the get-go if you want.
Giving Players Chores at the Table to Keep D&D Running More Smoothly
Salutations, nerds! I want to talk about the division of labor at the table during a Dungeons & Dragons game! Now, I know you may be saying, “The Dungeon Master is doing most of the work, the players are just playing their characters, right?” But that’s not always the case. As the DM, giving players chores at the table is sometimes the prudent choice. A lot of the upkeep can be done by the players to keep the DM’s brain power free to keep the game rolling. So today I’m going to go down a list of chores you can give to your players to keep D&D running more smoothly.
Creating a D&D Menu Generator with New Chartopia Editor
Chartopia’s new editor has undergone a refresh and includes new features that make it even easier to create and modify your random tables. Auto-saving, multiple chart editing on the same page, and testing how the rolled result will look are now possible. The improved layout also helps you to focus on your charts without all the unnecessary clutter.
Let’s explore the new user interface by creating a medieval menu generator suitable for your Dungeons & Dragons campaign, because everyone loves food and medieval cuisine is somewhat similar to a fantasy food feast. After reading this tutorial, head over to Chartopia and create your own amazing menu generator of fantasy food.
The Dungeons and the Dragons of Dungeons & Dragons: Green Dragon Lairs
There are many concepts and values I find important to playing Dungeons & Dragons. This may shock you, but two things high on that list are dungeons and dragons. I like taking the dragons listed in the Monster Manual (and even beyond) and creating their D&D dragon lairs, sprawling dungeons with varying levels of complexity. This segment we’ll head back to the Monster Manual proper and take a look at the green dragon. What makes this dragon so unique and it’s lair deadly in it’s own right? Let’s explore introducing a dragon and green dragon lairs, together.
D&D Character Optimization Really Miscasts My Cantrips
Within the Dungeons & Dragons circles the conversation about optimizing, min-maxing, and power gaming is always in a perpetual spiral. I’m here to lay out the case that a focus on mechanical advantages does not benefit play or the party. A focus on D&D character optimization can reduce focus on an interesting character, most certainly leads to grabbing more than your fair share of spotlight, and piles work onto your Dungeon Master’s lap. This argument is not intended to stop you from playing your way. If this is fun for you, I’m not coming to your table and knocking your minis off the battlemat.
Make Combat More Interesting with Monster Abilities for D&D Creatures and NPCs
Hey nerds! I’ve been playing Diablo 3 recently and that has inspired me to create about a dozen new special monster abilities to add your D&D creatures and NPCs in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. These abilities are designed to make combat more interesting and probably harder. I have not done any playtesting of these, so feel free to send me a message on Twitter with your thoughts.
Running a D&D Game with a Go-To Adventure
As Dungeon Masters in any Dungeons & Dragons campaign it is our responsibility to guide the story and assist in the entertainment and fun of everyone at the table when running a D&D game. If you ask around, a lot of people say they are daunted by the amount of work that can go into being a DM or Game Master. And for some that may be true. Today I wanted to talk about having a go-to adventure that can twist and change with a few or more variables, which you can pull out of your pocket when you are unexpectedly called to run a game. It could be you are hanging out with friends on a non-RPG night or you might be at a convention hangout and you decide to get your game on.
Getting Started with Dungeons & Dragons
Hail and well met! I am your host Dungeon Master Kenneth, and without further ado let’s sink our teeth into this post aimed to help with getting started with Dungeons & Dragons. I’ll be addressing one of the most common questions I’ve personally received since becoming a full-time Dungeon Master.
When is D&D no longer Dungeons & Dragons?
I’ve been playing Dungeons & Dragons for some time now and until D&D 5E, the number of people playing has never been higher. The landscape of the community has also changed quite a bit. With live stream games and actual play series like Critical Role, and online play, the hobby is vastly altered. All these aspects make for a wider and better hobby. But it does bring up questions in my mind. I’m seeing more D&D playstyles than I ever have in the past and often the games I watch at other tables is much different than the game at my table. This leads to the question: when is D&D no longer Dungeons & Dragons?
Secrets of the Secrets of the Vault: Mage Forge
Part of my self-appointed tasks as nerditor-in-chief for Nerdarchy is organizing content. Cleaning up all the categories and tags here on the website, creating and maintaining the publication budget and schedule for posts, and putting together our products like Fantastical Mounts and From Hit Dice to Heroics all share something in common — exposure to the vast library of archived content produced by Nerdarchy over the last few years. When we decided to try our hand at product creation in 2018, I thought about all the comments I’ve read from Nerdarchy fans curious about the homebrew campaign setting of Ulthe-Ganya. That’s how Secrets of the Vault: Mage Forge Vol. 1 developed. I realized a lot of what people ask for is already out there. Let’s open up the Vault, see what’s inside, how it came to be, and ultimately went full circle by becoming an incredible new D&D artifact itself.
Competitive D&D Play: Combat Tactics in Dungeons & Dragons
The role of combat in Dungeons & Dragons varies from campaign to campaign. In certain campaigns, it may hardly be used at all. In others, it takes center stage. My own games run the gamut, with one campaign consisting of sessions that comprise arena-style scenarios, where assortments of characters are pitted against monsters and traps calibrated to be on the deadlier end of the spectrum. With ideas of competitive D&D play being floated around the D&D community of late, with many of us wondering in particular what D&D might look like as an esport in light of a recent interview with the CEO of Hasbro (Wizards of the Coast’s parent company) where he discussed such a possibility, it occurred to me just how much I learned about the rules from diving into a combat-heavy game, where character death was frequent, and where a competitive atmosphere existed, not between players or even between players and DMs, but between the characters and the harsh world of combat in which they had found themselves.
Nerd Travel — D&D in a Castle
I got some nerd travel in this summer for the ultimate D&D vacation. Nerdarchy got invited to Chateau Challain in France as guest player at D&D in a Castle. Four days of gaming at an exotic location. Two sessions of D&D a day.
Dungeons & Dragons Tavern Menus and Fantasy Culinary Culture
Salutations, nerds! Today I want to talk about Dungeons & Dragons taverns and things you can acquire in them. Specifically, let’s talk about the tavern menus. Are you the kind of Dungeon Master who likes to give your players a handout of a menu that’s prefabricated or do you prefer to make it up on the spot? Either way, there are useful things to consider when it comes to your taverns and the food that is available in them.
