Crafting New Randomized Beholders for D&D
Over two years ago we had one of our writers make a fun way to look at beholders in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons in a different way. What if their eye rays and central eye were different spell options than what is listed in the book? It is a great post and I have played around with it for sure. You can check out the original D&D Beholder — Randomized! post here. With the world in a state of pandemic I have been doing a lot more crafting and I have gone in many directions. However, today I found inspiration to make a D&D beholder even though I had actually just finished a pretty kick ass beholder last weekend. But who am I to argue with inspiration?
D&D Ideas — Chaos
Welcome once again to the weekly newsletter. This week’s topic is chaos, which we discussed in our live chat. We hangout every Monday evening at 8 p.m. EST and talk about D&D, RPGs, gaming, life and whatever nerdy stuff comes up. Speaking of chaos, whenever you roll the bones you never know how things will turn out. In Taking Chances we’ve got a ton of minigames you can drop in your games for players and characters to engage with along with new items, tool sets, character options and an adventure. Check it out here. 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. Visit us over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel here and hit that notification bell so you don’t miss these live chats on Mondays at 8 p.m. eastern, plus our regular three videos each week where we talk about D&D and other RPGs.
With the COVID-19 pandemic situation we want to assure everyone we’re following all the guidelines and regulations, and practicing safety and preventative measures like social distancing, and we strongly urge everyone to do the same. Our partners and employees health is our No. 1 priority. Visit Coronavirus.gov for the latest news, updates and developments.
5E D&D Exploration is All Around You — More Than You Think!
Recently I saw a poll online about the pillars of play for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons — combat, exploration and social interaction — introduced in the Player’s Handbook right in the Introduction. The poll refers to exploration as the forgotten third pillar and asks respondents what this part of 5E D&D means to them and why they love or hate it, with answer choices of More Exploration, Pointless or I’m Not Sure. The attached conversation delved deep and answers varied all over the place. Overwhelmingly the poll calls for more exploration (73%). If I’m honest this discussion always bewilders me. Two of the pillars — combat and social interaction (why isn’t it called communication by the way?) — seem clear to players. You’re fighting creatures or talking with them. It stands to reason the rest of the time you’re exploring. As the PHB states, character activities fall into one of the three pillars so when you’re not in combat or conversation it seems pretty obvious the rest of the time you’re exploring, right?
Top 10 5E D&D Homebrew Force Spells by a Factor of Three
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted feel compelled by force majeure to take a look at fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons spells involving force. The list of possibilities includes not only 5E D&D spells dealing force damage but also magic that creates a force of some kind as described in the spell description. Out of 521 official spells in 5E D&D narrowing this down was a bit trickier than similar research. Thanks to D&D Beyond we could easily filter spells dealing force damage. For the additional ones we used the search feature and patience. Speaking of DDB there’s another source of spells and that’s what I’m looking at today. Using the tools there, players have created a whopping 1345 homebrew spells dealing force damage. That’s a tremendous amount and since our secondary search method won’t work for homebrew content at DDB we’ll stick with those and see how the force shakes out among 5E D&D players who ranked, rated and added these homebrew spells to their collections. So let’s get into it.
Charm Adventurers with Charms for 5E D&D
Charms
Items of power infused with magical energy, charms can take a variety of forms from articles of clothing to pieces of jewelry. Charms are consumable magic items. Any creature holding or wearing the item can use an action to activate the magic of the charm. Once activated, the charm takes effect immediately and lasts until the next sunrise unless otherwise noted. The item then becomes a nonmagical object.
Making an Elaborate Character Backstory Work for Your D&D Campaign
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted answer a GM 911 for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. One of the players in their game keeps trying to over impose their backstory into the campaign without considering the party or the ongoing story. The disruptive player adds things on the fly about their backstory and other players feel this hinders the rest of the party. They’re already followed the best advice — a respectful conversation — but it didn’t work and the Game Master doesn’t want to essentially destroy this other character by ignoring an important part of their makeup. In the video Dave and Ted touch on several suggestions and for my 2 cp the best solution isn’t to work on ways to move around or past this scenario. Instead, this seems like a great opportunity to expand on a bit of valuable player advice and rather than avoid this, lean into it.
Salvaging a Tropical Vacation Means Exploring Haunted Shipwreck for D&D Adventurers
Salutations, nerds! April is starting to wind down and that means it’s time for May. We’re heading to the beach to discover a tropical island cove and the denizens living there in our upcoming Patreon rewards. Every month supporters at the $2 level and above receive early access to digital products bound for Nerdarchy the Store. Wizard’s Wake serves as the centerpiece for this Fifth Edition supplement. This non-euclidean shipwreck holds loads of interesting booty inside. There are five new magic items, four new monsters and a couple of new player races inspired by some of the creatures of the Galapagos Islands. Clerics can put their faith in the Travel Domain and the Circle of the Sea lures druids with powers inspired by the enigmatic anglerfish.
D&D Party Composition — Playing an All Fighter Party
Over on the Nerdarchy YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted battle with the idea of an all fighter party for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. We’ve had a lot of fun exploring this popular video series and here on the website I’m sharing my take on the concept of single party composition. An all fighter party in 5E D&D covers combat with aplomb. You might think party composition like this lacks diversity outside a fight though, but you’d be mistaken. Because fighters focus primarily on pure combat this leaves plenty of creative space to round out your fighter with diverse skills and features. In a D&D campaign setting of academia for each particular character class, students at Martial Archetypes receive certified training in combat technique but there’s a wide array of electives to help shape hearts and minds for more than fighting. So let’s get into it.
Prepare for Extreme Adventurers League with this 5E D&D Character Build
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel we create a lot of video content. There’s thousands of videos celebrating our passion for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons and other tabletop roleplaying games. (But yes, mostly D&D. We love the game!) One of our favorite videos to make are the Adventurers League Character Build Guides. We come up with a character concept and put it together soup to nuts. Along the way we explain why particular choices get made, building a character from 1st-20th level. Mechanical elements certainly factor heavily into decision making but practical reasoning and roleplaying share equal importance. For a little inside baseball it is almost always the latter ideas where a CBG begins. At the moment we’ve got 32 CBGs over at Dungeon Masters Guild, all pay what you want. Nine of them have achieved copper bestseller or better status, and there’s also four other PWYW products over there, which are encounters or adventures you can drop right into your 5E D&D game. Today I’m here to share one of my favorite CBGs, one I’ve been playing in a wonderfully fun game run by Esper the Bard on his YouTube channel.
D&D Ideas — Law
Welcome once again to the weekly newsletter. This week’s topic is law, which we discussed in our live chat. We hangout every Monday evening at 8 p.m. EST and talk about D&D, RPGs, gaming, life and whatever nerdy stuff comes up. Speaking of law, the clever kobolds in the free Seizing the Means encounter we created take the laws of magic and genetics into their own hands to control the evolution of their tribe. You can check that out here. 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. Visit us over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel here and hit that notification bell so you don’t miss these live chats on Mondays at 8 p.m. eastern, plus our regular three videos each week where we talk about D&D and other RPGs.
With the COVID-19 pandemic situation we want to assure everyone we’re following all the guidelines and regulations, and practicing safety and preventative measures like social distancing, and we strongly urge everyone to do the same. Our partners and employees health is our No. 1 priority. Visit Coronavirus.gov for the latest news, updates and developments.
With This 5E D&D Human Racial Feat, You Got This!
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted compare and contrast racial feats for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. Elemental Evil Player’s Companion introduced racial feats to 5E D&D with Svirfneblin Magic, a remarkable feat for one of my personal favorite character options in D&D. Deep gnomes rock y’all and you could do a lot worse than a svirfneblin Abjuration wizard with the Svirfneblin Magic feat. Protip: Pretty awesome for a deep gnome Circle of Spores druid too. It’s a great feat and you’ll note in the video makes the list with Dave and Ted too. But they cover all the ins and outs and ups and downs of racial feats in 5E D&D. My curiosity piqued after noticing of the 17 racial feats divided up among nine races (plus one with a racial size prerequisite) only one of those races meets the criteria for just a single feat. Being human fulfills the prerequisite for Prodigy — another well regarded one in the discussion — and no more. I think we ought to remedy this and create a new 5E D&D feat just for humans. So let’s get into it.
5 Tips to Make Your Games Grittier and More Dangerous | Exploring Grimdark in your RPG
Sure, your party just dethroned the tyrant, but is the person they put in his place really any better? Is there a good option among the solutions to your party’s current problem? These and many other questions lead to themes explored in grimdark. Grimdark seems to be a staple of fiction at present. Audiences love exploring the viscera of violence, the corruption of political systems, fluid morality and the consequences of actions — even those traditionally deemed heroic. We can look to things like A Game of Thrones, The Witcher and others for examples of dark fantasy settings with grimdark themes.
Beware the Werefrogs of Muckwuggle, the Frog God for 5E D&D
[caption id="attachment_64454" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] Some werefrogs have allegiance to no one, and may have been descended from spawn of Ramenos or some other frog power. Many current day werefrogs are linked to Muckwuggle. They are known as the Batrachians. [Art by Ashkan Ghanbari][/caption] Werefrog Medium humanoid, neutral...
Top 10 5E D&D Homebrew Paladin Sacred Oaths by a Factor of Three
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted get back to basics and discuss the paladin class for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. In the video they look across all of the 5E D&D books with paladin content. There are paladin subclasses in the Player’s Handbook, Sword Coast Adventurers Guide and Xanathar’s Guide to Everything and Dave and Ted share an overview of the character class plus weigh in on their personal gaming experiences. Outside of official sources there are countless Sacred Oaths created by players all over the world. We’ve created one recently for our April early access Patreon rewards. The Oath of Vanity included with Hairable Ideas as a follow up to 2019’s popular Beardomancy will hit the store next month but you can get it now along with all our other supporters at the $2 level plus get immediate access to years worth of previous rewards. Check it out here. Over at Dungeon Master’s Guild there’s currently 681 products tagged as character options with warlock content too. But there is another source of homebrew content I’m looking at today — D&D Beyond, where people have used the homebrew tools there to create 600 Sacred Oaths for 5E D&D paladins. Let’s get into it and take a closer look at some!
3 Ways to Add Unearthed Arcana Spells and Magic Tattoos to your 5E D&D Game
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted share their arcane research into Unearthed Arcana 2020 — Spells and Magic Tattoos. It’s been a while since we’ve seen Unearthed Arcana present something other than subclasses. We saw Class Feature Variants last November, a couple of takes on the artificer around spring 2019 and Sidekicks in Dec. 2018. It’s a terrific treat to see something different! Don’t get me wrong, I love seeing new subclasses (almost as much as designing them) but expanding what fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons can do beyond character class features gives us more tools to explore our worlds as we tell stories of fighting monsters and finding treasure as they progress in power. In the case of \this latest playtest material I’m thinking about interesting ways to add content from the Unearthed Arcana document into 5E D&D campaigns.
