Flavour Shots: Demon Portals
A Flavour Shot is a short description of game artefacts and phenomena for use by Dungeon Masters, Game Masters and Storytellers in their games. Feel free to drag and drop these into your own games, and modify to suit. Let us know if you end up using them. Some will be portals to other realms, some will be magic items, others will be monster encounters. This time, it’s…
Flavour Shots: Light Fey Portals
A Flavour Shot is a short description of game artefacts and phenomena for use by Dungeon Masters, Game Masters and Storytellers in their games. Feel free to drag and drop these into your own games, and modify to suit. Let us know if you end up using them. Some will be portals to other realms, some will be magic items, others will be monster encounters. This time, it’s…
Creating Winged, Wild and Fierce Elves for 5E D&D
Between the time this article was written (Sunday 11.12.2017 afternoon), sent to editor (Sunday 11.12.2017 evening), and scheduled to appear in front of you (scheduled for release 11.14.2017) Wizards of the Coast released Unearthed Arcana update (11.13.2017) that is of near identical nature, offering new subrace options for elves. It is not my place to claim mine is better, and I do highly encourage checking out the WotC version and using both versions as you, and your table, see fit. Thus you would achieve a more thorough play-test when time for the survey comes around.
The Wizards of the Coast Unearthed Arcana: Elf Subraces can be found here
In my gaming group I got into a big discussion about things we wished would be brought from older editions of Dungeons & Dragons to fifth edition. This lead to the two older gamers in our group discussing the most varied classic player race we could think of, elves.
We began to describe the wild elves, and the most elusive of elves, the Lythari. Let me bring you these subraces, and my quick versions of them. As always these are in no way official or the limits of these subraces but are merely meant to get you started bringing these elves into your world.
D&D Flavour Shot: Dark Fey Portals
A Flavour Shot is a short description of game artefacts and phenomena for use by Dungeon Masters, Game Masters and Storytellers in their roleplaying games. Feel free to drag and drop these into your own games, and modify to suit. Let us know if you end up using them. Some will be portals to other realms, some will be magic items, others will be monster encounters. This time, it’s…
D&D Flavour Shot: Druid Portals
Any Dungeon Master will be able to tell you how hectic running a fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons session can get, especially when your players go in a totally unexpected direction and you start having to make stuff up on the fly to accommodate them. To make life a little easier, I’m putting together the Flavour Shot series. They are descriptions you can drag and drop into your D&D campaigns to quickly introduce mechanics for players to make use of.
D&D Creature to Character Conversion: Darklings
A few times in the past, I've written articles about elements of the fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons homebrew world I'm building (which I'm temporarily calling Gladius). One of my earlier D&D creations was the aatier, a half-tiefling half-aasimar race. Not to long ago, I...
D&D Ranger Beast Master: Beast and Ranger are One
The video above from the Nerdarchy You Tube channel is part of the ongoing series “New Ways to Use Recovery Dice in D&D.” In each installment, Nerdarchists Dave and Ted and Nate the Nerdarch discuss alternative uses for hit dice, presenting class-specific options. Focusing on each character class as they appear in the fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons Player’s Handbook, the options are designed to provide one use for the class in general, plus an additional use specific to each archetype.
One of the class archetypes for the D&D ranger, which is a point of contention among many players, is the Beast Master. A few Nerdarchy staff writers and i recently discussed the Beast Master archetype, and part of our conversation dovetailed with the alternative hit die option in the video.
Geek and Sundry GM Tips with Satine Phoenix…and Nerdarchy!
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztH7NtxVl2M[/embed] Thanks to so many awesome Nerdarchy fans and supporters, Nerdarchists Dave and Ted were able to make it out to Los Angeles earlier this year to appear on GM Tips with Satine Phoenix. The Geek and Sundry program features different Game Masters each week tackling...
Constructing Fantasy Weapons for 5E D&D Races
Fantasy Weapons and Equipment for d&d 5e races
So over the years, I have written various bits of lore that pertain to the d&d 5e races as well as several campaigns.
mithrodin sword by rstovall CC -BY-ND 3.0 License.
That being said, the part that I see missing from Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition is the specific equipment that each race has at its disposal.
To this end, I did a bit of thinking and propose the following items and racial trait for your campaign. Now one could ask why one would even need or want more choices when choosing a weapon for your character.
The reason is that it adds a depth and flavor to the world, enhances roleplay, and adds mechanics to back the craftsmanship that is spoken of so often in lore.
From fine Elven blades to sturdy Dwarven axes and brutal Orcish weaponry these weapons are famous and iconic when one thinks of these d&d 5th edition races.
D&D Spelljammer Warlock: Stars are Right
The Owl looking appropriately star warlock-y. [Art by Jesse Ochse from ArtStation]
There is a balance to the encroaching Void in my home campaign of D&D taking place in a Spelljammer-esque setting. A warlock can strike a bargain with a star drake in the same fashion as with a void dragon. The Illumination Pact warlock acts as a counterpoint to the Void Pact. In both situations, excellent material from Kobold Press does the heavy lifting. For the Illumination warlock, Deep Magic: Illumination Magic is the source material.
Star drakes and void dragons both appear in the Tome of Beasts. Both of these amazing creatures fired my imagination on all cylinders when I began conceptualizing the Spelljammer elements introduced to a traditional D&D campaign early on. I won’t reveal too much about the specifics here, since my players read these articles. But as more is revealed to them through our gameplay sessions those details will be shared.
This material is an evolving work in progress stemming from my home game. Although it’s inspired by the Spelljammer setting, it can be adapted for any D&D campaign.
D&D Fluff and Mechanics Make the RPG Go ‘Round
Debates swirl around the various forums and subreddits in the Dungeons & Dragons community; they’re chief among the interactions we have with each other. These debates often vary in their complexity, but a lot of the disagreement with how to even proceed with the debate itself is based on a misunderstanding some have about what the debate is even about. Is this a ‘flavour’ issue or a ‘rules’ issue? What’s the difference? Does it matter?
In this article, we’ll be delving into what ‘mechanics’ are, what ‘fluff’ is and how changing either can change your D&D game, for good or ill. The hope is that after reading, you should feel a bit more confident in your ability to discuss things, possibly even change things, in your games.
Shedding Light on Dark Arts Player’s Companion for 5E D&D
Normally I don’t like third party content, especially for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons, but this week I found something not only amazingly well made, but well balanced for the most part.
Specifically I found the Dark Arts Player’s Companion presented by Jonoman3000. This product for D&D, found here, is something that hits a special place in my heart.
Specifically I have always loved the likes of Blade, Spawn, and Ghost Rider who meet the darkness head on with its own weapons in hand. So, if thee be not afraid, come and join me in the dark side with the Dark Arts Player’s Companion.
Nerdarchy Arcana: D&D Rogue Archetype – Jester
Arcane Trickster
Ever since I picked up my copy of the fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons Player’s Handbook, I’ve been annoyed with the arcane trickster. I’ve always felt it was a waste of an opportunity, like they wanted to have an arcane rogue archetype, but they didn’t know what to do.
So they just slapped a limited stock of wizard spells in there because enchantment and illusion spells are rogue-ish. Perhaps they felt that because D&D rogues rely on Intelligence for investigation for looking for traps or identifying locks, they should just stick with the sole Intelligence spellcaster.
A D&D rogue archetype with chutzpah
However, rogues can also rely on Charisma. Using just the Player’s Handbook, the assassin’s Imposter ability uses Charisma, and that doesn’t even include the mastermind or the swashbuckler, two class archetypes that include Charisma skills, but not Intelligence ones.
D&D Spelljammer Warlock: Into the Void
In a past article I mentioned customized warlock pacts in my fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons Spelljammer campaign.
It came up again during a live chat with Nate the Nerdarch.
With my feet now held to the eldritch fire by publicly mentioning it twice, I’d better put money where my pact-making mouth is and get into it.
This material is an evolving work in progress stemming from my home game.
Although it’s inspired by the Spelljammer setting, it can be adapted for any D&D campaign.
Homebrew RPG Gaming Tips
Well, today is a day of heat and sweat here in Washington, but I am still riding the high of an amazing gaming session last night.
The thing is we ended up having to wing a lot of thing to make the game as immersive and fun as possible. This got the old grey matter working – how can I pass on a few homebrewed solutions I have learned with experience and innovation?
A list of as many things as I can think of seems like a good place to start. After all, what is Nerdarchy but a place that is not just entertainment but for information of all kinds. Some of these will be no-brainers but some are actually pretty interesting, or at least I think so.
