Creating a Beholder Lair and Bringing Beholders to Life in D&D
Monster talks at Nerdarchy?! I’m there. Illithids and beholders in Dungeons & Dragons are super iconic and really weird foes for your players to be pitted against. Both of these creatures tend to be Underdark denizens, but its not unheard of for beholders to create lairs closer to the surface or in some instances, near or within cities. I have quite a bit of experience with beholders, so I’d like to walk you through my method for bringing D&D beholders to life and making their alien nature really shine through creating a beholder lair that its mere existence is a puzzle for the players to deal with.
Frog God Games and Friends Humble RPG Bundle Up Dungeons, Hordes & Horrors
I’m not one to use published adventures. Often preferring to write my own content, infrequently making minor exceptions. A new Humble RPG Bundle has been launched by the very generous Frog God Games and their creative friends at Kobold Press and Troll Lord Games. This one is all about 5E adventure modules and has a slight lean towards spooky going-ons and monsters. I’ve read through most of these modules in the bundle and they are up to the incredible quality standard Frog God Games has always shown. While I’ll probably never run one of these modules start to end, I will have so much content to comb through, pick out and repurpose that these products will likely give me hundreds of hours in enjoyment. Let’s hop into these Frog God Games adventures and I’ll pull out some of my favorites I think everyone will find useful.
Warlocks in D&D miscast my cantrips
I heard some rumblings here and there for awhile, but a recent video by Dawnforgedcast has forced me to sit down and contemplate on the weird class that is the fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons warlock. In the video he presents the issue that the reliance many warlocks have on eldritch blast is repetitive and even boring, purposing a fix action to raise other warlock cantrips a little higher on the effectiveness scale, to give a bit more incentive to use them. After my viewing of the video, sitting in contemplation and paying special attention to warlocks at my table, I believe I’ve come to a conclusion. Eldritch blast did nothing wrong. Hear me out, maybe these one-hit wonders are working just as intended.
Is a Pacifist Character in D&D Fun or a Drag?
Nerdarchists Dave and Ted are talking about playing a pacifist character in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons and if you know me, I’m not one to shut up during a divisive conversation. While they’re tackling the question of how to play a non-damage wizard head on, I’ll be going into why you would, should you and dabble a bit on what I believe can be an engaging way to be a less direct spellcaster. It’s not all fireballs after all.
Top 5 Reasons to Live Stream Your D&D Game
The Nerdarchy live stream fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons Spelljammer game Ingest Quest campaign wrapped up the other day. Episode 12 “Something New” came to a close and we bid bon voyage to the culinary explorers traveling the crystal sphereverse in search of the most exotic cuisine. The characters were weird and met equally unusual entities along the way. They fought some monsters, visited some other dimensions and consumed — and prepared — heaping helpings of extraordinary food. It was my first time running a live stream game. I had some observations and thought I’d share my top 5 reasons you should live stream your D&D game. If you’re on the fence or considering your own live stream RPG show, maybe it’ll convince you to give it a shot.
Krafty Kobold Encounters in your D&D Games
The Nerdarchists are at it again but this time they’re talking about something that I truly love — kobolds in Dungeons & Dragons. Nerdarchists Dave and Ted take a mechanical bend, talking about negative effects and conditions you can place on your player characters to make fights tactically harder. I enjoyed that angle, but I want to talk about what D&D kobolds mean to me and how I use kobold encounters. In doing this, I hope to convert those who don’t see the joy of kobold dungeons and maybe inspire those that already do.
Delving Deep on D&D Dwarves with Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes
The Nerdarchists are back into Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes and we’re talking about those bearded cannonballs, dwarves of Dungeons & Dragons. If you read my elven article, you know I prefer my humanoids to be very alien compared to humans and dwarves are no exception. What do you get when you combine long-lived, stout, stubborn, and beardy? Well, I’m not sure about you, but let’s dive into D&D dwarves and see what I get.
5E Dungeons, Hordes & Horrors Humble RPG Bundle
Any funny-shaped dice enthusiast can’t get enough tabletop roleplaying game material on your bookshelves, right? And if those bookshelves are digital you don’t even need to worry about space. Although you miss out on those extra screws, nuts and bolts after assembling your new Ikea bookcase. Frog God Games has partnered up with Kobold Press and Troll Lord Games to expand your RPG collection with the 5E Dungeons, Hordes & Horrors Humble Bundle. Running until June 22, 2018, you can get over $381 of ebooks including adventures and campaign guides for as little a $1 and contribute to charity at the same time.
Unearthed Arcana – D&D Giant Soul Sorcerer
Another month, another Unearthed Arcana for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons and while I’m often “meh” about most of them, I am particularly pumped about the D&D Giant Soul Sorcerer. I’ve never really cared to much about the sorcerer either direction. It’s a fine class, it just doesn’t really interest me. Now my mind is racing with possibilities and I’m ready to get big. I imagine if you’re reading this you’ve already read it so I’ll leave the rules narration to the other guys. Let’s jump right into the juicy character stuff with the D&D giant soul sorcerer!
Critical Role Announces Exciting New Ventures
On June 18, the team from Critical Role shared a video and blog post on their official new site CritRole.com announcing some big changes. No, the megapopular live stream D&D show isn’t going away, calm down Critters. Quite the opposite, the show — and brand itself — are evolving and growing! Discussed briefly on Talks Machina recently, the cast of Critical Role have taken ownership of the brand through the launch of a creator-owned company. In addition to its own official website, several other changes are coming including a new studio and Critical Role YouTube and Twitch channels.
Colosseum of Weird — D&D Extraplanar Adventure Seeds
The Nerdarchists are talking about adventures beyond the material plane. I will admit, I don’t care much for D&D extraplanar adventure. I tend to run a much lower fantasy. Not the lowest of fantasy, but beings from other dimensions and dimensional travel are things almost unheard of and fraught with danger. However, after re-watching some Thor: Ragnarok and watching Nerdarchists Dave and Ted get into the topic, I’m here to throw in some extra ideas that you might want to use in your upcoming adventures.
The Nosey Tavern Owner – Top 5 D&D Things I Saw Today
Hi, I’m Drew, professional Game Master and amateur opinionated guy. I see lots of things posted online and I want to get involved in discussions on all of them, but I don’t have the time to think about reasoned responses to everything. So instead, I’m going to respond to the top 5 D&D related things in my Facebook news feed and see where this take me. Should the GM be trying to kill the characters? Can the world survive a Superman vampire? Read on…
Kickstarter Korner for June 2018, Week 3
Each week during the Quests & Adventures live chat, Saturday at 2 p.m. eastern, Nerdarchists Dave and Ted and Nate the Nerdarch hang out live with fans from the Nerdarchy YouTube channel. It’s a chance to share announcements and news, answer questions from the live chat and generally just hang out and talk nerdy with the Nerdarchy community.
In the description of each weekly video, Nerdarchist Ted compiles a list and links to all the videos and website content from the week. But he also shares a selection of cool Kickstarter campaigns. As an avid Kickstarter supporter, he’s happy to share his favorite RPG and gaming-related Kickstarters with you, the Nerdarchy community. Enjoy!
Building a D&D Character Soup to Nuts From Farmer to Folk Hero
Today’s D&D focuses a lot on one shots or West Marches or Adventurers League, and these are fine. However, this can sometimes leave characters with an empty void where once would be story and personality creating a delightful persona. Today I want to borrow some of your time to help you correct this. Let’s focus on bringing a D&D character to life and look at how I recommend building a D&D character. Whether a first-time player or a veteran, I find this method makes a good platform for an evolving character, something that can grow, change and shape itself as you play it.
Blade Dancer – Dexterity Based Barbarian with Gas in the D&D Tank
The gentlemen at Nerdarchy have been pouring over books and crunching the numbers in their effort to find the most effective fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons tank build. Myself, while I appreciate numbers and that search for the best, I’m not really a build kinda guy. I’m a team player though, so I’m going to put forward my hopefully unique dexterity based barbarian character concept that can be used in the spirit of the tank, while still bringing all manner of interesting flair to the combat scene.
