D&D Ideas — Shadow
Hello! Each week in the Nerdarchy Newsletter, we send updates and announcements along with some ideas that didn’t make it into a video. Signing up for the newsletter gives you access to the Nerdarchy ringtone, instructions on how to get a chance to game with us, and makes you a 1st-level Nerdarchist. So that’s cool. For those who aren’t interested in the newsletter, but still curious about some of these off camera ideas, enjoy.
Need D&D Battle Maps for Your Game
Since the inception of D&D maps have played a huge part of the game. But that makes a lot of sense when you consider the origin of the game. Since Dungeons & Dragons was born of Chain Mail, a tabletop miniatures war game. From the earliest day of Dungeons & Dragons it has been played both in the theater of the mind as well as with D&D battle maps and miniatures. Theater of the mind is a style of play that doesn’t use miniatures or battle maps. Many tabletop roleplaying games have come along since the beginning of Dungeons & Dragons. Some favor theater of the mind while others lean heavily towards using minis and battle maps.
D&D Monsters — Kobolds Mounted for Combat
Kobolds are insanely popular D&D monsters. So much so that players want to adopt them as henchmen and followers. Others want to play them as player character races. They’ve gone under bit of a transformation from the kobold from Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. In 3.5 D&D they went from being a combination of rat, dog, and lizard to little dragonmen claiming to be the descendants of dragons. Not too long ago we did a video pairing up D&D monsters. Kobolds mounted on other monsters seemed like a lot of fun. We even put together a pay what you want product over on the Dungeon Masters Guild — Kobold Cavalry Encounter. Grab it here.
D&D Ideas — Legends
Hello! Each week in the Nerdarchy Newsletter, we send updates and announcements along with some ideas that didn’t make it into a video. Signing up for the newsletter gives you access to the Nerdarchy ringtone, instructions on how to get a chance to game with us, and makes you a 1st-level Nerdarchist. So that’s cool. For those who aren’t interested in the newsletter, but still curious about some of these off camera ideas, enjoy.
D&D Sorcerer or Warlock Out of the Chaos
Time to slip into some Nerdarchy home brew D&D lore. With this piece of lore we’ve got some ideas for creating either a 5E D&D sorcerer or warlock subclass. Maybe even both, but for starters we throw it to the Nerdarchy community. We start off by discussing the land and monsters that spawn our concepts. Whether we go with a D&D warlock or sorcerer they will be steeped in chaos. We took our inspiration from the chaos giant miniature from Pacesetter Games & Simulations. We had former intern Jake paint them with some Vallejo Paints. You can find pictures below.
D&D Ideas — Traps
Hello! Each week in the Nerdarchy Newsletter, we send updates and announcements along with some ideas that didn’t make it into a video. Signing up for the newsletter gives you access to the Nerdarchy ringtone, instructions on how to get a chance to game with us, and makes you a 1st-level Nerdarchist. So that’s cool. For those who aren’t interested in the newsletter, but still curious about some of these off camera ideas, enjoy.
New 5E D&D Magic Items for Dungeon Masters and Players
What would be a Dungeons & Dragons game without magic items? Players love them, the Dungeon Master loves giving them out. Magic items have always been a huge part of the Dungeons & Dragons game. 5E D&D magic items are no different. They can completely make, and in some cases break, a Dungeons & Dragons game. How many stories have I heard of a new excited Dungeon Master who’s broken their game by giving out to many magical goodies too soon. Speaking of magic items, right now on Kickstarter you can find the Tome of Magical Mystery. It’s a new book full of over 200+ magic items for 5E. Check out the Kickstarter here.
D&D Ideas — Dragon’s Breath
Hello! Each week in the Nerdarchy Newsletter, we send updates and announcements along with some ideas that didn’t make it into a video. Signing up for the newsletter gives you access to the Nerdarchy ringtone, instructions on how to get a chance to game with us, and makes you a 1st-level Nerdarchist. So that’s cool. For those who aren’t interested in the newsletter, but still curious about some of these off camera ideas, enjoy.
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.
Kobold Press Dares You to Quest Through 12 Peculiar Towers for 5E D&D
As a follow up to getting Midgard Sagas, another package arrived recently and inside was another terrific book from Kobold Press — 12 Peculiar Towers. This collection of adventures contains quests for characters of 1st through 13th level with each featuring a tower of some sort. But I suppose you probably guessed that from the title of the book. Adding new adventures to my collection is always welcome, and it should be no surprise to anyone that Kobold Press produces a lot of my favorite content for my fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons games. So naturally, these peculiar tower adventures will find their ways into my 5E D&D campaigns. (One of them already has!) Let’s get into it and traverse these towers bottom to top.
4 Ways D&D Enthusiasts Can Run a Business 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 listed four great businesses that are ideal for D&D enthusiasts to run in their spare time.
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.
5E D&D Villains: Social Villains
Salutations, nerds! We’ve reached the end of my list of kinds of villains to talk about finally, and we’re bringing it to a close with social villains. These are going to be best if you’re playing something that leans more toward political intrigue, like Houses of the Blooded or Vampire: the Masquerade, but they can add some spice to any social heavy situation whether it’s 5E D&D or whatever tabletop roleplaying game suits your fancy.
D&D Barbarian 5E — Path of the Frost Wyrm
Nerdarchy has teamed up with Pacesetter Games & Simulations as well as Vallejo Paints to put together something special in our opinion, but we might be a bit biased. For one, both companies are sponsoring this article, video, and contest. So, disclaimer out of the way if you care about such things. Inspired by the Frost Wyrm miniature by Pacesetters Games & Simulations we came up with the concept of the Frost Wyrm barbarian tribe. As well as a brand new D&D barbarian primal path for 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons. For some extra inspiration we had our former intern Jake Kosman work his magic with Vallejo Paints.
5E D&D Traps — Nord Games is Making Them Treacherous
Our friends over at Nord Games asked us to help get out the word about their latest D&D Kickstarter — Treacherous Traps for 5th Edition! This is a sponsored article by Nord Games if you care about such things. For me the Holy Trinity of third party publishers is Kobold Press, Nord Games, and Frog God games. I feel you can generally drop any of the D&D content these folks are making right in your fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons game with no problem.
