Repurposing the 5E D&D Blood Hunter Class Features
Over on Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted discussed the best race to play a blood hunter in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. If I’m honest the blood hunter class confuses me. I get the gist of it, and it certainly captures the flavor of both The Last Witch Hunter movie and The Witcher stories that inspired and inform the class features and flavor. Blood hunters got a lot going on with their rites, curses and Orders. This 5E D&D character class designed by Critical Role’s Matt Mercer combines martial prowess with blood magic creating a risk vs. reward scenario for characters who can push the limits of their own safety to increase the power of their class features. But I’m not here to dissect the blood hunter or even puzzle out this noodly character class. Instead I’m looking through the material and imagining all the ways I can swipe from this collection of class features to create new things for my own 5E D&D campaign. So let’s get into it.
An Olde Gaming Story
Gaming was far different in the era before the internet. A person needed to actually be in the same room to play an roleplaying game or card game. There were play by mail games (Diplomacy was huge for this) but many players didn’t want to wait a week to hear the result of a move.
The gaming business was also vastly different. When I joined the gaming industry in 1991 there was a three-tier distribution system (I think it still sort of is, but I don’t know). Manufacturers would sell their games to distributors and the distributors would then sell them to the retail shops as well as the few mail order outlets. The stores would call distributors who would ship them their orders. When I started with Chessex Game Distributors in ’91, there were also still traveling reps who would go from store to store selling games on behalf of a distributor, but they were becoming a dying breed.
Whispers in the Dark Roars onto the 5E Scene with Investigative Horror Roleplaying
Fans of investigative horror roleplaying and fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons rejoice! Whispers in the Dark released over the weekend at DriveThru RPG and the well-crafted adaptation of the 5E system for this particular genre already sits at No. 5 on the bestseller list. Among the most popular titles under $5 Whispers in the Dark sits pretty at No. 1 and overall the digital product already claims silver bestseller status. The design team of Matt Corley and newly named Dungeon Masters Guild Adept M.T. Black produced the product under the Saturday Morning Scenarios banner, which takes the flexible 5E system in a new direction. I received an advance copy of the material before finalized layout and got a chance to lob some questions at Matt, so let’s get into it.
D&D Ideas — Holiday Adventures
Random Tables are a New Game Master’s Best Friend
Over on Nerdarchy the YouTube channel, Nerdarchists Dave and Ted along with me hosted our final live chat of 2019. It was the end of the year and for now, an end of the Quests & Adventures live chat. Nerdarchy has kept up with this weekly chat for nearly three years, but it is going on hiatus heading into 2020 while we focus on creating better products and making sure Nerdarchy the Convention exceeds all expectations. Our exclusive Patreon chat continues every Monday evening at 8 p.m. eastern, and anyone is welcome to email nerdarchy@gmail.com with GM 911 in the subject so when we tackle your question we’ll send you an invite to the private chat. All this aside, there were two questions from our year end Quests & Adventures chat I enjoyed quite a bit. One came from a new Game Master, which we always make a point to address. The other question was about using random tables in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. From my perspective the answer to the second question covered both, so let’s get into it.
A Ragtag Crew in a World of Scum and Villainy like The Mandalorian in 5E D&D
I ate up The Mandalorian every week until the final episode of season one dropped this past Friday. The Disney+ show hooked me immediately and the series takes the top spot for Star Wars productions in my book. I enjoy the show so much I started running a bounty hunter campaign for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons inspired by the show after the first episode. I know there’s a Star Wars RPG, several of them in fact but 5E D&D suits my needs just fine. The final episode of The Mandalorian takes the series protagonist full circle from where his most important job began, so it’s only fair to wrap up this bounty hunter campaign walkthrough the same way. Bounty hunting is a complicated profession, no need to further complicate things. When I prepped for the first session of our 5E D&D bounty hunter campaign I took a lot of inspiration from Ultimate NPCs: Skulduggery from Nord Games. Here at the end of the journey it’s got plenty of juice to help finish off the campaign. Let’s get into it.
D&D Ideas — Alliances
Welcome once again to the weekly newsletter. This week’s topic is alliances, and we’ve got a promo code to go along with this week’s Product Spotlight from Nerdarchy the Store, plus an update on our end of the year mega giveaway and changes coming to our 2020 schedule. 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 alliances the image below is from our wildly successful Out of the Box: Encounters for 5th Edition Kickstarter. In Dinner Party, alliances between adventurers themselves get put to the test. The Out of the Box Pledge Manager reamins open for late pledges. You can get your hands on the book and all the add-ons including presale badges for Nerdarchy the Convention, or upgrade your badge to Legendary or Artifact level. There’s also a FREE encounter Seizing the Means you can download for a sneak peek at the sort of content you’ll find in the book. Check it out here.
What You Do and How You Do It Are Two Different Things in RPGs
Over the holiday break I received a very exciting email from Free League Publishing. Backers of their recent Kickstarter got a great surprise with an Alpha PDF of the Vaesen – Nordic Horror Roleplaying core rulebook. Notwithstanding my Dungeons & Dragons advocacy the evocative art drew me into this game, something Free League accomplished for me already with Tales from the Loop. Those two Free League games share another similarity. Both games clearly define what you do when you play them. D&D will always be my favorite game, and folding elements from different genres into the swords and sorcery setting is as much a part of the D&D tradition as armor class and hit points. But the way stories are told through different game systems with tighter frameworks is fertile ground for exploration. A couple of cliches come to mind when the ubiquitous nature of D&D intersects other tabletop roleplaying games, so I thought it might be useful to consider them and maybe broaden the horizon for both camps.
WizKids 4D Settings Miniatures Spotted at PAX Unplugged
I know that some of you out there turn to us when it comes to getting new information about miniatures. Perhaps like myself you look fondly upon all these great pieces of plastic and gain delight at the the thought of how this is going to be used on the gaming table. Perhaps you enjoy having the options, or perhaps you delight in getting new miniatures to showcase the amazing collection you have on display. Whatever your reason I am glad you stopped by and I hope these teases are fun and give you a delight as you look forward to the great things WizKids has in the lineup for future miniatures entering into 2020.
Holiday Season, First Edition Dungeons & Dragons Style
Twas the week of Christmas/Hanukkah and all through the… Oh, Hell, I can’t think of a fun rhyme. In any case, this time of year many gamers have visions of dice rolling through their heads. Hopefully you all avoid rolling 1’s (unless you’re playing Squad Leader).
My spouse is not a gamer, so my holidays were practically game free. As I’m an old grognard, I was around for first edition Dungeons & Dragons and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons by TSR. One Christmas I received an amazing (for me) Christmas gift I didn’t expect. This is that story, so gather around the fire with your eggnog or whatever (I’ll have a Glenmorangie, please) and I’ll tell it.
Hero Forge’s Adventure Calendar Presents Presents for the Holidays
Hello all you fine and lovely people out there. If you missed part one of this article you can check it out here. This is the second part talking about all the great new developments Hero Forge makes available in December with their Adventure Calendar. Hero Forge is an amazing custom miniature creation company. You get to design the miniature exactly as you want. As stated previously I have been getting their miniatures for years and I have watched the catalog of races, poses and options continue to grow.
Centaur Knights and Fantasy Cultures in 5E D&D
Over on Nerdarchy the YouTube channel, Nerdarchists Dave and Ted came up with ideas for a classic fantasy character concept, a centaur knight. The image of an half human, half horse warrior in shining armor captivated me since I was a little kid and after helping plan this video, watching it and putting the Character Build Guide together I’m thinking about how awesome this concept is all over again. This got me thinking how there’s not a whole lot of centaur action going on in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons, at least not in my experience. Centaurs get a bump in Guildmasters Guide to Ravnica, there’s a centaur mummy in Tales from the Yawning Portal’s Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan and the terrifically named Centaur of Attention encounter in Dragons of Icespire Peak. And that’s about it in beyond the Monster Manual entry. Never a better time like the present to take a closer look at centaurs and by extension fantasy cultures for our 5E D&D campaign settings.
Following Leads and Finding Jobs like The Mandalorian in 5E D&D
If you’ve been following along with this series on creating a bounty hunter campaign inspired by The Mandalorian for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons you’ll notice I’ve mentioned a book called Remarkable Inns several times. This nearly 90 page resource details 8 distinct taverns and inns with wonderful detail along with tips and options for developing your own memorable establishments and everything that goes on within. When I prepped for the first session of our 5E D&D bounty hunter campaign, Remarkable Inns became an important tool for worldbuilding and providing an avenue to two very different paths the bounty hunting characters could take to begin their first contract. Let’s get into it.
Worldbuilding through Language in 5E D&D
Worldbuilding is a passion for many fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Masters and many players. Part of what drives this passion is a desire to make a place, a nation, a people or a culture feel alive and turns things like the simple concept of an orc or goblin that player characters sweep aside with swords and spells into cultures deserving of a deeper look. One deeper look to make the world feel more alive is the concept of culture and language to help define a people. Some cultures have a deep understanding of a written language, and others a verbal tradition. They may have customs and beliefs different from ours, but plausible within their own environment. How a people communicate can define how they behave. Their collective understanding of themselves and the world abroad defines itself through language.
