D&D Ideas Experts

D&D Ideas Experts

October 16, 2022

Dungeons & Dragons/ Editorial/ Game Master Tips

Welcome once again to the weekly newsletter. This week’s topic is experts, which we discussed in our weekly live chat. We hangout every Monday evening at 8 p.m. EST at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel talk about D&D, RPGs, gaming, life and whatever nerdy stuff comes up. Speaking of classes our Character Build Guides have been described as essentially custom classes, which we think is a pretty awesome description. We’ve got 70+ modules over at the DM’s Guild, all for pay what you want and including both the player guide and a DM version inspired by the character.

Spotlight

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Delving Dave’s Dungeon

Experts are crucial to TTRPGs whether you’re playing D&D, Monster of the Week, or some other role-playing game. They help fill in the gaps for the characters in the game. In addition to filling in the gaps in expertise and skills the player’s characters lack, they also create opportunities. In D&D terminology experts can create social interactions, a way to explore the world, or even become quest givers that lead to combat encounters.

Just getting to an expert could be a quest in itself. The players may need to discover who they are, where they are, and what it’ll take to get them to cooperate with the players. They might not accept simple payments of gold and silver. They might require the player to perform some sort of task. Or perhaps the expert doesn’t have what the players need or can’t make the mcguffin that they need without special hard to acquire ingredients.

These experts could become recurring NPCs that the players become fond of. They can then be used to spur further adventures when they need the player’s help with other matters. Or perhaps their expertise is wanted by others that aren’t willing to take no for an answer and will need rescuing.

NPCs tie the players deeper to your game world. They can help your players explore the rich world you’ve created. These experts will give your players windows into specific parts of your world.

Don’t be afraid to expose your player’s characters to problems they aren’t currently equipped to solve. Part of the fun is finding the solutions that might just be wrapped up in an interesting NPC. They may or may not become a recurring NPC in your games.

Experts could also be a way to help alleviate your players of some of that burdensome gold and silver.

Some ideas for experts:

Alchemist that can make items from the PHB and more. You can have fun with creating single use items that players can buy. Introduce the items slowly and in limited quantities. This way they won’t disrupt your game too much. You can also rotate out their stock to make every visit unique. Create temporary versions of existing magical or spells for starters.

Cartographer that has maps to all of the surrounding regions and more. In addition to that they have the blueprints to nearly every building in the city in a secret stash only for a select clientele.

Museum Curator that runs the city’s only museum. They are experts in ancient artifacts both magical and mundane. They are also masters at spotting and creating fakes and replicas. That fact isn’t common knowledge and only available for special guests of the museum. They also know how to move unsavory artifacts.

Tailor that can make fancy clothes. They make some extra gold by altering clothes to conceal weapons and more. They also know who’s who and for a price could be an available source of information.

From Ted’s Head

I have fallen in love with expertise in 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons. Being awesome at something is the basis for a level of confidence, something that I feel is necessary to be a successful adventurer. Based on being an expert we have a number of character builds that we have done over on the DMs guild that are all experts at something.

The Master Thinker can be found here. This guide is for those characters that are looking to be the supreme of the mental game.

The know it all character can be found here. This is one of my favorite builds and it allows you to not only learn every skill in the game but get expertise in a majority of the skills making you a supreme expert in many fields of study. People from miles around could seek you out for the abilities and knowledge that you possess.

But mentals alone are not the only way one can become an expert. If you want the ultimate duelist, you can find that here. If you are seeking to be one with the blade and truly be a weapon master this character build is the one for you.

We did not just make a weapon master, we have the extreme Brawler right here. If you want to set aside any of the cool stuff that monks do and just be a badass brawler then this is the character guide for you.

You can find many other character build guides over on the Dungeon Master Guild. With over 60 options of pay what you want build guides available from us, you might call us experts at it. But that is for you to decide.

When it comes to playing the expert at the table you can play them anywhere from super confident with the skills to back it up or neurotic about your expertise and have to be forced into employing the skill set that you are so good with.

A prime example of the expert view with confidence would be Travis Willingham of Critical Role in season 3 with Chetney and his ability to work with wood. He says from almost moment 1 that he is a Master Craftsman. His confidence in his trade, from a viewers standpoint, makes the character more appealing to me.

My first 5e character was an expert because the knowledge domain cleric gets 2 skills and expertise right away. It was a lot of fun to play a character that was so knowledgeable and able to help out with a number of problems due to that knowledge. My current character in Dave’s game is a sorcerer and has a magic item that always grants him advantage on persuasion checks. Advantage, proficiency and a high charisma means that he is very persuasive. You can’t always talk your way out of a situation but when you can it is very helpful. So how do you play an expert from a mechanical or role playing view point?

Trip to the Planar Zoo

A trip to the planar zoo is no walk through the park when you wake up as part of the exhibit! Will the characters learn the truth of their captivity, or will the zookeepers’ perfectly constructed habitat keep even the sharpest adventurers in the dark?