Two New 5E D&D Feats for Grung
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted hop into One Grung Above to examine the grung as a playable race for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. D&D players from all over (myself included) fell in love with these small humanoid frogs who made their 5E D&D debut in Volo’s Guide to Monsters. Despite their monster entry showing grung as neutral evil slavers, the accompanying art portrays them as cute and the One Grung Above one shot from 2017’s Stream of Annihilation showcased how fun a party of grung adventurers can be. The stats and features for grung player characters have been around for a couple of years through the Dungeon Master’s Guild and were recently added to D&D Beyond to the delight of an army of grung aficionados, with all monies Wizards of the Coast would receive from sales of the product donated to Extra Life. But all that is only prologue to what I’m interested in exploring — creating some special grung feats for 5E D&D characters. So let’s get into it.
Top 10 5E D&D Homebrew Illusion Spells by a Factor of Three
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted dive into the School of Illusion magic for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. More than any other school of magic, illusions in 5E D&D rely heavily on the Dungeon Master. There are 33 illusion spells across the official sources of 5E D&D and of course countless homebrew and third party creations. Browsing through the homebrew illusion spells at D&D Beyond I see there’s currently 1,433 of them! If we limit these lists to illusion spells for wizards we only lose 1 official spell (silence) but a whole bunch of homebrew ones, bringing the number down to 904. Since the nature of illusions in 5E D&D depends largely on how the DM reacts to them, it’s up to you and your group to determine how much versatility and power (or lack thereof) illusion magic holds. So let’s instead look at the homebrew illusion spells for wizards at D&D Beyond the way we looked at homebrew magic items for rogues and see what mystifying magic we discover.
D&D Ideas — Tropes
Welcome once again to the weekly Nerdarchy Newsletter. This week’s topic is tropes, 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 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. The last days for Out of the Box: Encounters for Fifth Edition Pledge Manager are nigh! We’re in the final push before sending everything off to the printing press. We just received a huge number of gorgeous illustrations from Kim Van Deun and evocative maps from Darryl T. Jones, and we gave the text an additional level of editing from Matt Click. Speaking of tropes, in Girl with the Dragon SNAFU adventurers might meet in a tavern but it’s anything but just another night at the bar! Check out the Pledge Manager here.
Top 10 5E D&D Homebrew Magic Items for Rogues by a Factor of Three
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted carefully consider the best magic items for a rogue in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. In some respects this is an unusual conversation topic. Characters rarely get an opportunity to choose magic items. But it’s worthwhile to have goals and keep an eye out for particular magic items during the course of adventures. There’s two other situations I can think of when players have control over their characters’ magic items. In Adventurers League play items can be traded on a one-for-one basis for items with the same rarity. Making a trade costs each player involved 15 downtime days unless they’re playing at the same table. The other scenario is games beginning beyond 1st level. In our own monthly fan one shots we give players an option to choose magic item(s) for their characters this way, and I’ve played in many games with the same guidelines. Protip: for a tier 1 adventure or campaign try letting players choose one rare magic item to start and see what happens. For now, I had so much fun looking through homebrew Otherworldly Patrons on D&D Beyond that I’m going to do the same thing here and see what interesting magic items I can find for 5E D&D rogues.
D&D Ideas — Challenge
Welcome once again to the weekly Nerdarchy Newsletter. This week’s topic is challenge, 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 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. The Out of the Box: Encounters for Fifth Edition Pledge Manager remains open, but only for a short time. Production on the book continues smoothly and we’re giving it an additional level of editing while the few remaining pieces of incredible art from Kim Van Deun and maps from Darryl T. Jones come. Speaking of challenge, in All That Remains adventurers are faced with the worst kind of challenge — deciding between treasure and monster fighting! Check out the Pledge Manager here.
Dragon Age’s Thedas is My Middle Earth for the Fantasy Genre
For many, The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien is their quintessential introduction into the fantasy genre, but that isn’t how it went with me. Today, I’m getting personal and sharing my own introduction into the fantasy genre, a world that few would expect: Thedas, the lands where the stories of Dragon Age take place. However, before I explain how Thedas is my Middle Earth, I need to provide some context. So, please indulge as I share some of my personal history.
Top 10 5E D&D Homebrew Warlock Otherworldly Patrons by a Factor of Three
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted get back to basics and discuss the warlock class for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. In the video they look across all of the 5E D&D books with warlock content. There are warlock 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 Otherworldly Patrons created by players all over the world. We’ve created quite a few ourselves in our products, newsletter and posts here on the website. There’s more from the D&D design team included in various Unearthed Arcana playtest documents, and lots of terrific third party products contain new options for warlock players. Over at Dungeon Master’s Guild there’s currently 840 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 755 Otherworldly Patrons for 5E D&D warlocks. Let’s get into it and take a closer look at some!
Wringing Special Abilities from the Find Familiar Spell in 5E D&D
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted help get you extra familiar with the find familiar spell for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. Part of the video includes a breakdown and brief summary of a spellcaster’s different options for the spirit that takes an animal form you choose. The celestial, fey, or fiend can take the form of a bat, cat, crab, frog (toad), hawk, lizard, octopus, owl, poisonous snake, fish (quipper), rat, raven, sea horse, spider, or weasel. Warlocks who make a Pact of the Chain at 3rd level gain a few more options in the form of imp, pseudodragons, quasit or sprite. Some monsters like the gazer in Volo’s Guide to Monsters explicitly call out possibility for becoming a familiar and in fact any character can potentially gain the service of a familiar. In our Out of the Box book, Fibble’s Fantastic Familiars presents an opportunity for characters to acquire new and strange familiars too. Familiars come in very handy in so many situations in 5E D&D, but if I’m honest there’s something I miss from earlier editions of the find familiar spell, which at one point wasn’t a spell at all and granted special abilities to its master when the master and familiar are within 1 mile of each other.
Expanding the Spell Lists for 5E D&D Beast Master and Hunter Rangers
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted finish up the video series on go to spells for spellcasting classes for tiers 1 and 2 with the ranger for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. During this tier of play from 5th-10th level rangers gain access to 2nd and 3rd level spells. If you are playing a Gloom Stalker, Horizon Walker or Monster Slayer ranger one of your Ranger Archetype features is Magic, and you learn an additional spell when you reach certain levels in the class. The spell counts as a ranger spell for you, but it doesn’t count against the number of ranger spells you know. Features like these across different classes typically include spells not normally found on the class spell list, so in addition to having these additional spells in your repertoire, you get some nifty new options other rangers do not. But what about the original Ranger Archetypes? Let’s create Beast Master Magic and Hunter Magic features for those two Ranger Archetypes!
D&D Ideas — Plants
Welcome once again to the weekly Nerdarchy Newsletter. This week’s topic is plants, 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 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. The Pledge Manager for Out of the Box: Encounters for Fifth Edition remains open, but not for much longer. Production on the book has been in full swing, with almost all the incredible art from Kim Van Deun and maps from Darryl T. Jones received. We’re giving everything an additional level of quality control to put our best foot forward when we deliver these products. Speaking of plants, in Menagerie a very powerful plant creates an unusual scenario within a deep forest glade that isn’t even close to what it looks like! Check out the Pledge Manager here.
What Do Your Unearthed Arcana Subclasses Say About Your 5E D&D Character? Part 2
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted take a look at Unearthed Arcana 2020, Subclasses Part 2. The playtest document from the fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons team presents new subclasses for bards, clerics and sorcerers. Once again we were in the midst of our weekly video planning meeting when a new Unearthed Arcana showed up via social media, but it turns out this was a leak! Someone took an educated guess at the URL for a follow up to Unearthed Arcana 2020, Subclasses Part 1 and they were right, sort of. There was a playtest document but it was not a version Wizards of the Coast planned to release. So Dave and Ted headed back to the set to film a new discussion about the College of Creation, Unity Domain and Clockwork Soul. And since we dig themed series of things around here, I’m curious what sort of characters represent these exciting new subclass options. So let’s get into it.
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.
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.
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.
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.
