Top 10 5E D&D Homebrew Magic Items for Exploration by a Factor of Three
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted carefully analyze the best magic items for a exploration in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. This is another unusual conversation topic, like the one on magic items for 5E D&D rogues. Players rarely get an opportunity to choose their character’s magic items. But it’s worthwhile to 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. So let’s get into it and look at homebrew magic items for exploration from D&D Beyond.
Top 10 5E D&D Homebrew Druid Circles by a Factor of Three
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted circle back to the basics and discuss the druid class for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. In the video they look at all of the 5E D&D books with druid content. There are subclasses in the Player’s Handbook, Xanathar’s Guide to Everything and Guildmaster’s Guide to Ravnica and Dave and Ted look over the character class as a whole plus weigh in with their personal gaming experiences. Outside of official sources there are countless Circles created by players all over the world. We’ve created at least one ourselves and there’s more from the D&D design team included in Unearthed Arcana playtest documents as well as terrific third party products containing new options for druid players. Over at Dungeon Master’s Guild there’s currently 625 products tagged as 5E D&D character options with druid 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 291 Circles for druids. Let’s get into it and look at the best ones from three different perspectives.
D&D Ideas — Food
Welcome once again to the weekly Nerdarchy Newsletter. This week’s topic is food, 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 website for Nerdarchy the Convention is live! Our first annual event takes place Halloween weekend 2020 at the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center. Halloween candy could be considered food, so there’s your bridge to the newsletter topic. As the site continues to grow we’ll be updating regularly with new guests, events and announcements up until it’s time to let the games commence. Discover more info about Nerdarchy the Convention here.
Hooked on Adventure — Reversal of Fortune
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted roll some funny shaped dice and talk about all the ways a fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons character can become a dice master. Between the halfling Lucky trait, Lucky and Bountiful Luck feats and a slew of class features the probability of creating a fun, effective dice master character for 5E D&D is quite high. These characters step beyond inexplicable good fortune to begin actively manipulating chance. Call it fate, destiny, karma or kismet the dice master character sees the cascade of cause and effect and inserts themselves into the process. Pretty heady stuff! Dungeon Masters can certainly get in on the action too, and odds bending creatures, areas or magic items can be weal for DMs and woe for adventurers. In Fat of the Land a Rural Pig Sty became a low level adventure for 5E D&D giving adventurers a chance to investigate strange goings on leading back to a small family farm. In this encounter unusual behavior spreads through a town to the misfortune of all.
What Do Your Unearthed Arcana Subclasses Say About Your 5E D&D Character? Part 3
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted discuss Unearthed Arcana 2020, Subclasses Part 3. The latest playtest document for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons includes new subclasses for the artificer, druid and ranger. During our look through of this Unearthed Arcana it was the Circle of the Stars druid’s Starry Form feature that sparked a thought leading to uncovering the upcoming Mythic Odysseys of Theros book several days before the title leaked and was then officially announced. I wonder what the next leak will reveal? Until then, while Dave and Ted go over the Armorer, Circle of the Stars and Fey Wanderer in the video, over here we’ll continue looking at these 5E D&D playtest subclasses with curiosity about what sort of characters they might represent. So let’s get into it.
5E D&D Quarterstaff Not So Simple After All
Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted examine what it means to fight with a quarterstaff in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. Our theorycrafting videos like this one differ from our Character Build Guides in terms of specifics. We’ve been talking about roleplaying games with our friends for decades and turning on the camera invites other nerds into the conversation without tying down ideas to technical details. This video topic emerged while we were talking about the shillelagh spell and expanded into quarterstaves including wielding one in each hand or a quarterstaff in one hand and a longsword in the other like Gandalf is seen doing in the Lord of the Rings films.
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!
