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Dungeons & Dragons

Nerdarchy > Dungeons & Dragons (Page 137)

Dungeons and Dragons – Descriptive Combat Using Real World Fighting Techniques

dungeons and dragonsHello again my loyal Nerdarchists.  As I have mentioned on numerous videos I have done years worth of combat with the historical fighting style of the German Longsword. Having knowledge of how an actual sword fight can go can make describing combat scenes and maneuvers far more interesting and realistic.

Over the years of study I have used several historic manuals.  You can use the Knightly Art of the Sword by Ringeck.  This is a great book that not only has the text with corresponding artwork showing the sword-work in motion, but it also has the original German so you can see how it translated.  And if you are fluent in German you can read it as it was originally written.

How do You Use Descriptive Combat in Dungeons and Dragons?

witch hunter dungeons and dragons

Witch Hunter, The Movie, The Nerdarchy Game and the Backstory

Witch Hunter Fear not loyal Nerdarchist there will be no spoilers here- I haven’t even had a chance to see the movie yet!  Then what, pray tell is this article about you ask?  Tomorrow night at (or around) 10:30 EST, Halloween, Nerdarchist Dave’s running an eerie Dungeons and Dragons Witch Hunter game live on Google Hangout for myself, Nate the Nerdarch, as well as friend, and frequent guest poster, Art Wood.

Our characters were created using the Witch Hunter (click link to download PDF of the class!) custom character class written by Critical Role’s Matthew Mercer.  It’s a full 20 levels of a character class with three distinct orders to choose from, The Orders of the Ghostslayer, Profane Soul, and the Mutant.  The three of us will be playing each of the orders as 15th level characters.  Our intrepid Dungeon Master Dave has given us a 30 point stat buy and 6,000 gp to spend on starting equipment using the gold costs out of the Dungeon Master’s Guide for magic items.

Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition- Witch Hunter Class

Yours truly will be playing a dwarf following the Order of the Mutant.  Below is the backstory for Egrec Rune Hammer:

Multi-Class Character Builds in Dungeons & Dragons 5e (The Bard)

BardHello fellow Nerdarchests, Art here. I’m back with the second installment of my series Multi-Class Character Builds in Dungeons & Dragons 5e. If you missed my previous article on the Barbarian just click HERE!

Today we are going to be singing along with… The Bard

Allot of you may think of the Bard as a musical little nuisance at the game table from previous D&D editions. In 5th Edition the Bard has taken quite a dramatic turn. They have become both a healer as well as one of the highest damage dealers at lower levels. They are in my opinion the most versatile class in the game by far.

How do You Play a Bard?

5th edition

Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition – Custom Race – Rodent-kin

dungeons and dragonsHello fellow Nerdarchists.  Ted here and it has been a while since I made a custom race for Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition.  So today I wanted to make one for you.

So I present you with one race with two cool and distinctive sub-races.  The rodent-kin are small around the size of Gnomes and Halflings.  Some believe that these creatures have ancestry in lycanthropy, but others believe that they came out of the deep Feywild.  However they came to be they are here and their curiosity about the bigger folk is certain.

Will You Play a Rodent-kin in D&D 5th Edition

Multi-Class Character Builds in Dungeons & Dragons 5e (The Barbarian)

Dungeons & DragonsHello fellow Nerdarchists, some of you might know me from the Nerdarchy YouTube channel, my name is Art Wood. I’ve been privileged enough to have been asked by the guys to write a few articles for you regarding multi-class character builds in Dungeons & Dragons 5e.

Now, I don’t claim to be an expert by any means, but I do know what’s worked for me as far as helping my friends build awesome characters and other players as well. I’m going to address this series by doing one article at a time focusing on each character class one by one as they appear in the Player’s Guide. I also want to point out I will not be focusing on character race or backgrounds, as I feel those are more for a “role-play” choice, however I do know that some races lend themselves to be a bit more potent with certain builds. Backgrounds however are mostly a player and role-play decision.

So, let’s get started with… The Barbarian

Dungeons and Dragons

Afraid you’re a bad Dungeon Master? Do it anyway

dungeon mastersSo, you’ve run a couple of Dungeons & Dragons games as dungeon master, but you’re not feeling great about it. The sessions seemed to drag. You felt like you were always flipping through the Player’s Handbook.

A couple of characters bickered and you couldn’t do anything about it. Maybe there were even technical issues if you gamed online, or if you were at a table, maybe the chips tasted stale and the soft drinks flat. Maybe, dread of all dreads, a total-party-kill took place. Against flumphs.

In other words, the games sucked, and you feel like you’re to blame for all of it.

Dungeons and Dragons – Player Tips – Preparing Your Background

D&D Zombie Attack

Zombie Atttack!

5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons makes making background choices easy.  But the thing to remember is that characters are more than the mechanics on a character sheet.

In order to make your character enjoyable during the game you need to make them feel real.  If your group is doing a session zero you can figure out what everyone is playing and you can begin linking your stories together.

Whats Your Backstory in Dungeons and Dragons

Dungeons and Dragons Player Tips – Playing Your Flaws

Dungeons and DragonsHello Fellow Nerdarchists.  When you break down and look at character concepts 5th edition not only has the system in place that each character has in their traits a flaw as well as the standard stat array has a low stat.

These features can be considered by many a problem to avoid, while others see these as awesome role playing situations and awesome parts of the story to make the session memorable.

Player Tips  – Play up Your Flaws as much as You do Your Strengths

dungeons & dragons

Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition Optional Warforged Builds

warforgedMost people I have spoken with feel that the warforged presented in the Unearthed Arcana: Eberron is lacking.  So you can choose of of these options with your Dungeon masters approval of course.   I think  each of these grants a little extra flavor to the race and balances them  nicely in comparison to the other races  in the players handbook.  A big thank you to Art Wood for coming up with these for us.

Optional Warforged Types…

Mithral Body (Warforged Only): Your body is composed of Mithral plating and wood Making them light and agile. You gain +1 to your Dexterity.

Multi-Classing in Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition, Should I or Shouldn’t I?

multi-classingThe important thing to look  at is role playing has nothing to do with the mechanical character sheet that you use to track your progress through the game of Dungeons and Dragons.  5th Edition presents very good reasons for multi-classing but also makes  it simple enough to make happen.

The question you have to ask yourself when you are considering multi-classing  is it a character choice or a player choice.  Sometimes the lines get blurry when classes are similar.  Take your martial classes, fighter, paladin, barbarian, ranger or rogue.  With limited or no casting ability dipping into these is easy.  Fighter is the easiest of the lot as it just represents more martial training.

Multi-classing – to be or not be?

Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition – Mounted Combat

mounted CombatWith the feat  “Mounted Combat” you gain advantage on attack rolls when attacking targets smaller than your mount (including on a charge). Not  just the damage, but being knocked prone is a huge disadvantage  when fighting mounted combatants as they can knock their foes prone almost at will.

Prone targets (p.190-191 PHB) must spend their movement action to stand up and only move half their movement  after they stand. Also, attacking a prone target gives you advantage on the attack  roll to anyone attacking them.

Mounted Combat in Dungeons and Dragons

D&D Character Builds

Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition – Dark Myth a Custom Campaign Setting

dungeons and dragonsHello, my name is Art Wood. Some of you may know me from the Nerdarchy YouTube groups. Dark Myth is my first endeavor to create a role-playing game all my own. Currently I have taken the core story and theme mechanics and transferred it over to Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition rule set.

Before that I had spent about three years off and on working on the game mechanics using a percentile based rule system all my own. I had included  crafting as well as a unique system of “Corruption” dealing with the Darkness in my world slowly trying to corrupt
and change the inhabitants into demonic and twisted monstrosities.

Dark Myth a Custom Campaign Setting

Dungeons and Dragons – Dungeons & What they Mean to Me – Part 2

Dungeon and DragonsNelson of Infinite RolePlay here to bring you part 2.

Now when I design a dungeon those are the 2 rules that keep it on track for me. As long as I can stay true to those 2 things, then I have made a dungeon. Easy enough right? I mean with that sort of curriculum just about anything can be a dungeon! Well, yes and no

Take this launching station & space elevator for example. It has quite a large a number of large spaces. You definitely wouldn’t feel that a 60 foot wide room would make for much of a dungeon & you would be totally right. The reason, or rather the narrative behind the creation of this particular dungeon map, is that the large open spaces are primarily for freight.

Having a large area filled with stacks upon stack of crates, pallets, barrels etc.  get that large space feeling claustrophobic really quickly. The varying levels of height and possible straightaways in there begin instilling the essence of a dungeon. . . . FEAR!

How Scary is your Dungeon in your Dungeons and Dragons Game

Dungeons and Dragons – Dungeons & What they Mean to Me – Part 1

Dungeons and DragonsNelson of Infinite RolePlay here.

Spiked pit traps to impale the wreck-less adventurer, sharp steel saw blades spinning out from a wall waist high to cut you an half and acid, bubbly bubbly acid . . . . poor Aeofel.

Those and much more can be found in one place and one place only. The dungeon! Dungeons across the scope or RPG’s everywhere & so are the plentiful pitfalls and traps that fill them. It may just be me but I’ve been feeling that dungeons are so much more than just a place to put simple “run of the mill” traps.

Even the more elaborate  traps that fill dungeons are something  that I just don’t connect with. To me it’s always fealt that the approach to dungeons  was simply to have a place to put these pit traps, flying blades, giant rolling stone sphere’s  and whatnot. Now don’t get me wrong, I enjoy those traps, to a degree but they are overused & often, at least to me, the focus of the dungeon.

O.k., lets take a step back and look at some of the actual definitions for the word “dungeon”.

How do You Use Dungeons in Your Dungeons and Dragons Game

Ecology of the Blitzorn – Fast and Dirty Monsters – 5th Edition

BltzornThe Blitzorn, sorry Dave you spelled it wrong in the video below, is the primal hunter on the para-elemental planes.  Agrar the hunter claims the Blitzorn is what would happen if a tiger mated with a thunderstorm.  A beast as large as a mighty tiger but made entirely out  of a thunder cloud.  So let me present you this monster for Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition.

Fast and Dirty Monsters – D&D 5th Edition

The markings that you would see on a tiger are made of actual lightning arcing through the cloud that is their being.  These creatures though native to the elemental plane of lightning at time a storm draws energy from the elemental plane an it can draw these creatures from their home to hunt and stalk here on the prime.