D&D Ideas — Halloween
Welcome once again to the weekly newsletter. This week’s topic is Halloween, which we discussed in our live chat. We hangout every Monday evening at 8 p.m. EST on Nerdarchy Live 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. Speaking of Halloween we treat our awesome Patreon supporters with treats throughout the month including automatic entry into giveaways for RPG swag. We package up $50 or more in games and accessories every month, not just in October. No tricks! Patreon supporters also receive exclusive magic item cards and maps, digital books with content for Game Masters and players alike, opportunities to game with Nerdarchy and more. Check us out and discover the tier that fits best for you here.
Creating 5E D&D Bytopia Kobolds Through Worldbuilding
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted look closer at the craven reptilian humanoids that worship evil dragons as demigods and serve them as minions and toadies in fifth edition Dungeons & dragons. Kobolds remain a staple of D&D from the very beginning and while their appearance changed over the decades from rat-dog humanoids into a more draconic form they’re still small, crafty and dangerous in large numbers. Volo’s Guide to Monsters punches these little buggers with lots of lore and rich material to strengthen their position in the 5E D&D multiverse and Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything all but guarantees a surge in popularity so I’d better get to work reimagining kobolds for players and Dungeon Masters alike with some razzle dazzle.
Scare the Heck Out of Your 5E D&D Halloween Game with David S. Pumpkins
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted do their own thang and come up with a fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons version of David S. Pumpkins, a bizarre character created for a Halloween sketch on Saturday Night Live in 2016 and revisited for the David S. Pumpkins Halloween Special in 2017. In the video they discuss the powers and abilities of the “Santa Claus for Halloween” in terms of player character options along with creating a character sheet for the absurd character played by Tom Hanks. But David S. Pumpkins is about as far from a 5E D&D character as they come and I’m not so sure he’d even work as a 5E D&D monster or NPC stat block either. The Halloween icon is his own thing after all. So let’s get into it.
Play Your Next 5E D&D Game Without Rolling Dice
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted discuss tips for players who suffer the curse of bad dice rolling. We delved into all the various fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons class features available to players whose funny shaped dice simply refuse to cooperate with them a couple of years ago through an examination of the support style of play, which you can check out here. Today I’m going to plumb our own 5E D&D content to see all the options we’ve come up with to assist those unfortunate folks whose dice never seem to work in their favor. So let’s get into it.
D&D Ideas — Starting a Campaign
Welcome once again to the weekly newsletter. This week’s topic is starting a campaign, which we discussed in our live chat. We hangout every Monday evening at 8 p.m. EST on Nerdarchy Live 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. Speaking of starting a campaign our Dark Paths starts down a new path for our monthly rewards and presents a new being of malediction each month to exert their malignment on your Fifth Edition worlds. Each of these entry points can kick off a new campaign or creep into your existing adventures. It’s been a blast developing this new content and playing these adventures in our monthly one shots with Patreon supporters who get exclusive sneak peeks and playtest opportunities prior to receiving their rewards and before they’re available to anyone else through Nerdarchy the Store. Become part of the Nerdarchy community and get early access to new products, live chats and gameplays, our exclusive Discord channel, giveaways and more right here.
Play Your Next 5E D&D Game as a Deadshot Archer Sniper
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted take aim at a longtime audience request for an expert archer Character Build Guide for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. Long range mobile specialists focused on archery is a personal favorite combat strategy of mine so this CBG holds a special place in my heart. The 5E D&D Deadshot Sniper CBG hits the bullseye with all the resources in their quiver from character creation to 20th level. And the special NPC or creature version inspired by the character build for Dungeon Masters ready to drop right into your game incorporates a bit of flair from one of my most beloved character types from a previous edition, which was a lot of fun to develop for 5E D&D. So let’s get into it.
Threaten Your 5E D&D World with Horror Monsters If You Dare
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted dismiss the abstraction of hit points and delve deeper into monsters who don’t care how tough your character is in combat and other dangerous situations. Instead these threats target something much more precious — and difficult to recover. Monsters causing ability score damage, loss or reduction in 5E D&D are few and far between and thankfully so since recovering from these effects ain’t no walk in the park. At the same time they represent a different kind of horror and a campaign highlighting these awful creatures might just make players never look at things the same way ever again. So let’s get into it.
Play Your Next 5E D&D Game as a Blood Magic Expert
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted tap into blood magic and discuss whether the concept is evil by its very nature when it comes to fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. Also Ted crushes one of the best video intros to date, so it’s worth a watch for this alone. But did you know Nerdarchy already put together our ideas for a 5E D&D blood magic expert? In fact there’s more than one iteration of blood magic floating around. So let’s get into it.
Discover Dreams of Fire by Council of Geeks’ Nathaniel Wayne
What do you get when you mash elemental magic and a tale of escape and intrigue? Suppose you combined a world of electropunk technology with whimsical faeire dangers? What you get when these things collide is the novel Dreams of Fire. Dreams of Fire is an upcoming electropunk fey novel of intrigue and self discovery by Council of Geeks YouTube sensation and debut novelist Nathaniel Wayne. I had the privilege of interviewing Nathaniel about their upcoming work over on my YouTube channel. What’s more, beyond this interview, Nathaniel graciously agreed to answer a few more questions in the form of text, and I’ve included that interview below.
Move Over, Armor Class — This 5E D&D Magic Armor Brings the Razzle Dazzle
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted pile on the Armor Class for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons — but is it all in vain? Whenever we create video content about Armor Class in 5E D&D we noticed it gets a ton of engagement so we asked ourselves why and tried to come up with an answer. The best we came up with is Armor Class represents a quantifiable part of a character that players can exert some modicum of control over. But for my money I’m looking to get a lot more out of my characters’ armor than merely an impenetrable Armor Class. That’s where magic armor with razzle dazzle comes into play.
D&D Ideas — Hordes and Hoards
Welcome once again to the weekly newsletter. This week’s topic is hordes and hoards, which we discussed in our live chat. We hangout every Monday evening at 8 p.m. EST on Nerdarchy Live to talk about D&D, RPGs, gaming, life and whatever nerdy stuff comes up. Speaking of hordes and hoards Friend in Need includes a hoard even the greediest adventurers may not dare to claim while Devil’s Hospitality puts a hoard of diabolical creatures between the party and eternal damnation in Out of the Box. These and 53 other dynamic encounters ready to drop right into your game continue flying off the shelves and out of the warehouse. We love seeing people showing off their copies and sharing awesome stories from their gaming tables so keep it up! Check it out and add Out of the Box to your collection of awesome RPG stuff here.
Never Let Them See Your 5E D&D Mobile Archer Coming
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted reveal the secrets to challenging various highly specialized and powerful fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons character builds. Like so many RPG players we’ve been brainstorming and theorycrafting character builds for years and years because frankly it’s fun to talk about these things with fellow nerds. In the video Dave and Ted cover five different 5E D&D character build concepts with tips for Dungeon Masters on how to provide adequate challenges for these characters to overcome. But the one left on the planning room floor is the one I’m most interested in exploring so yay for me! Let’s get into what it means to be a long range mobile archer.
Play Your Next 5E D&D Game as a Broken Pact Warlock
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted pick up on a conversation started during a live chat about the concept of fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons warlocks with broken pacts between their Otherworldly Patrons. The three ways Dave and Ted approached the idea of a Broken Pact warlock represent very different and very cool perspectives for this discussion. If they’d stuck with just one of them and developed the single idea more then I’d be taking what they said and polishing it up here as an Otherworldly Patron for 5E D&D you could drop right into your game. But since they had to be all ambitious and come up with three distinct paths I’m gonna leave all those ideas in the video and instead give you my own take. And yes, I’ll break it down with specific class features so you can play your next 5E D&D game as a Broken Pact warlock. So let’s get into it.
5 Favorite 5E D&D Characters
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted take a cue from a fellow YouTuber and share tales of adventurers — and more specifically adventurers — past. It’s indulgent, it’s fun and it’s introspectively interesting to take a long view back at all the fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons characters who’ve solved puzzles, talked with other characters, battled fantastic monsters and discovered fabulous magic items and other treasure. And since they got to do it in the video I’m gonna do the same thing right here. A huge roster of 5E D&D characters took up the adventuring life in the last six years and from the group I culled my top five favorites, hopefully each with a little nugget of usefulness to you but certainly a hefty load for me. So let’s get into it.
Put some Oomph in Your Flumph for Your Next 5E D&D Game
We receive requests fairly regularly around the ol’ Nerdarchy offices and we’re happy to oblige whether they’re character builds for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons, Game Master advice or in this case an appeal for more flumph! Over on our Facebook page we were asked, “Could you do an article about the flumph? They are the red headed step child of the aberration family.” Flumphs have been a part of D&D since 1981’s Fiend Folio, a sourcebook of monsters for first edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and appear in every edition since. In 5E D&D flumphs appear in the Monster Manual and several adventures. In my own homebrew setting they exist canonically on the shores of the Undersea of Fallen Stars where they were encountered by the cast and crew of Ingest Quest, the 5E D&D Spelljammer campaign over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel. Like so many D&D nerds out there I think flumphs are pretty cool but if I’m honest I don’t know a whole lot about these aberrations. So let’s get into it.
