Grognard’s Fifth
Your stalwart old lady grognard finished her first fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons campaign last night! And my character survived!
First, a little backstory. A little more than a year ago, I read about Nerdarchy on Facebook and watched some of their videos. I learned they were right across the river in New Jersey! At the time, I hadn’t played (as a player) a D&D game in decades, and I’d never played 5E D&D. However, the popularity (it seemed everyone was playing it) and my desire to play D&D again caused me to reach out to the Nerdarchy guys. But how to make myself stand out from the thousands of emails, comments and fan mail they received each day? Hmmm. I know! I’ll rattle off my gaming resume! (TSR, GW, etc.) And they responded!
Creating Folklore Monsters for 5E D&D
Over at Nerdarhcy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted shot a video response to Making Enemies in 5E Witchery from Zee Bashew. The idea is taking the way monsters and monster hunting are presented in the world of The Witcher and apply the concepts to 5E D&D. What I really dig about this approach is how it encompasses several components to help players create more engaging and exciting stories together with the Dungeon Master. Since we started playing a Nerdarchy team campaign last week with a fresh party of 1st level characters I thought it would be fun and useful to use the Witcher style monsters discussed in the videos by Zee Bashew and our own Dave and Ted to create a terrifying monster for the Adventurers of Adventure to face off against. So let’s get into it, lay down the ground rules and create a Witcher style monster for 5E D&D.
Performance 101 – 5E D&D Skills and Skill Checks
Fifth edition D&D revolves around ability checks and the proficiency bonus. When it comes to skill checks as ability checks, the check is written like this: Charisma (Performance). The reason for this is Charisma is the applicable ability score, and the Performance proficiency allows further modification of the ability check. Quick Disclaimer: a 5E D&D Dungeon Master can allow or require any ability check or skill proficiency, even outside this purview. This article is meant to act as a guide for new players and DMs to explain how skill checks work and what they look like narratively.
D&D Ideas — Media
Welcome once again to the Nerdarchy Newsletter. This week’s topic is media, which we discussed in the exclusive Patreon live chat we do every Monday evening at 8 p.m. EST with Patreon supporters to talk about D&D, RPGs, gaming, life and whatever nerdy stuff comes up. You can get the Nerdarchy Newsletter delivered to your inbox each week, along with updates and info on how to game with Nerdarchy, by signing up here.
Learning the Secret History of Giants
Browsing around Amazon recently I saw a recommendation for The Secret History of Giants, by Ari Berk. The compelling cover art and design caught my attention and I'm a sucker for folklore and kitschy monster stuff so I ordered a copy. Turns out the book...
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.
Perception 101 — 5E D&D Skills and Skill Checks
Fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons revolves around ability checks and the proficiency bonus. When it comes to skill checks as ability checks, the check is written like this: Wisdom (Perception). The reason for this is Wisdom is the applicable ability score, and the Perception proficiency allows further modification of the ability check. Quick Disclaimer: a 5E D&D Dungeon Master can allow or require any ability check or skill proficiency, even outside this purview. This article is meant to act as a guide for new players and DMs to explain how skill checks work and what they look like narratively.
WizKids 4D Settings: Homestead and Medieval Farmer Spin Adventure from Humble Beginnings
When creating low level games for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons there are tropes for where the adventure is going to go. Down on the farm there is something happening with the animals. Or down on the farm things are going missing. Yeah there are a lot of them, but the things happening on the farm is common among early quest goals. If you want to wow your players from session one you can pick up the awesome WizKids 4D Settings: Medieval Farmer and WizKids 4D Settings: Homestead sets of scatter or terrain for your 5E D&D or favorite tabletop roleplaying game put out by our friends over at WizKids.
Mythology of a 5E D&D Dwarven Artificer Specialist
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted tinker with ideas for playing an artificer in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. A while back we did a video series about the best race to play each 5E D&D class and with the artificer being the only new official class since the Player’s Handbook we were compelled to add a new title to the series. The discussion on YouTube brought up some intriguing ideas and if I’m honest the artificer class itself didn’t really captivate me until I was watching the video. One of the races they mention for potential best artificer doesn’t make the final cut for them but for me it shot to the top of the list and remained there like mountain bedrock. At least for my own growing campaign setting the best artificers are dwarves.
A Group of Fighters is Called a Club
Salutations, nerds! Today we’re going to be talking about fighters in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons and honestly I feel like this is going to be the most difficult one because as far as all the 5E D&D classes go, I feel like fighters have the least cohesive class identity. So let’s see what we can coax out of this one. Fighters…fight things. And that’s pretty much the unifying feature. Some of them cast spells, some of them are just straight up masters of weaponry, some of them are ranged and some of them are melee. It’s not even a more interesting word than that, it’s just ‘fighters fight’ because that’s what they do. But there’s something to be said about simplistic melee, and something else entirely to be said for groups of fighters, especially when they’re trying to keep up with classes like wizards and rogues. There’s a trope, the badass normal, and that’s what I think of when I think of a straight up fighter. Someone who is just good because they’re good and not because of any magic or special trick they use. They keep up, and they keep up with people who should be way over their heads, and that alone is worth the effort.
Nature 101 – 5E D&D Skills and Skill Checks
Fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons mechanics revolve around the ability checks and the proficiency bonus. When it comes to skill checks as ability checks, the check is written like this (for example): Intelligence (Nature). The reason for this is Intelligence is the applicable ability score, and the Nature proficiency allows further modification of the ability check. Quick Disclaimer: a 5E D&D Dungeon Master can allow or require any ability check or skill proficiency, even outside this purview. This article is meant to act as a guide for new players and DMs to explain how skill checks work and what they look like narratively.
Taking Morality, Duty and Obligation from a Galaxy Far, Far Away for 5E D&D
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted bring some ideas from a galaxy far, far away to the fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons table. They take inspiration from a mechanic from Fantasy Flight Games Star Wars Roleplaying and talk about how they’d implement a similar device in 5E D&D. In Star Wars RPG part of a character is your Morality, Duty or Obligation. These narrative mechanics are tied to Force and Destiny, Age of Rebellion and Edge of the Empire respectively. If I’m honest I’m not very familiar with FFG’s Star Wars RPG so when we were planning the video I wasn’t much help. But now that I’ve heard what Dave and Ted have to say, I’m certainly intrigued to explore this idea more and think about how Morality, Duty and Obligation can be a terrific tool for 5E D&D Dungeon Masters and players alike.
D&D Ideas — Patrons
Welcome once again to the weekly newsletter. This week's topic is patrons, which we discussed in our exclusive Patreon live chat. We hangout every Monday evening at 8 p.m. EST with Patreon supporters and talk about D&D, RPGs, gaming, life and whatever nerdy stuff comes...
Catching up with DMs Guild and D&D Community Creators
My collection of content from Dungeon Masters Guild continues to grow! There are so many amazing creators in the D&D community and keeping up with all the fantastic new material is challenging to say the least. Thankfully the DMs Guild newsletter delivers a great summary of new content along with special deals to save you money on great new content for your fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons games. In addition I appreciate whenever creators reach out to share news about their own new and upcoming material for 5E D&D available through the DMs Guild. Also, how about a shout out for Lysa Penrose, recently named brand manager for DMs Guild! Congratulations to Lysa, she is a tireless advocate for great gaming and positive D&D community building. (She’s also a guest creator for our Out of the Box book, and her Crones and their Cravings encounter is one of my favorites of the 55 encounters.)
D&D Party Composition — Playing an All Wizard Party
Over on the Nerdarchy YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted explore the idea of an all wizard party for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. We get a kick out of making this video series people seem to dig it, and I’m having a blast with the concept here on the website. Playing an all wizard party in 5E D&D more than anything raises concerns about squishiness, something many of the video comments touch upon. Dave and Ted can share their insights into 5E D&D party composition and over here we’re continuing to build the scenario we started way back when with the all bard party — a campaign setting of academia for each particular character class. So let’s get into it and put on our pointy hats for an all wizard party composition in a 5E D&D academic setting.
