Uphold your Sacred Oath Through Paladin Oath Spells
Over on Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted discussed the 5 best D&D Paladin Spells for Tier 2. Check out the video below and hear what they share. Paladins can access some nifty spells in between laying the smack down with Divine Smite. Since they cover the best all around paladin spells, it might be worthwhile to take a closer look at the different Sacred Oath options and the associated Oath Spells to see how they match up. Let’s get into it.
A Group of Bards is Called a Troupe
Salutations, nerds! I’m going to keep this ball rolling right into back into bards in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons this time around. Troubadours! Thespians. Minstrels. All those fun words for people who know how to pluck a lute or give a mad soliloquy. From people busking along the side of the road to the most renowned acting troupes with real theaters to perform in, they (likely like your party) know how to make a spectacle of themselves in 5E D&D.
How to Play a Vampire or Werewolf Character in 5E D&D
One of the awesome people from the Nerdarchy community recently sent us a GM 911 question we were happy to help them answer. We discussed the topic during our Monday Patreon live chat, and we invited the questioner to join us while we talked about it and hung out with the rest of the viewers. I’m happy to report they were more than happy with the ideas we shared, thanked us for the help and became a Patreon supporter themselves. So, a win all around! It was a great question and one I think a lot of players and Dungeon Masters in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons grow curious about at some point in their D&D experiences. How do we approach the idea of playing a vampire or a werewolf in 5E D&D?
Black Pages Book Series by Danny Bell Explores Urban Fantasy with a Twist
Black Pages is a series from best selling author Danny Bell. I’m going to do my best to give you a taste of the Black Pages series without spoiling it for anyone. Book One is Empty Threat and I just finished reading Book Two, Warning Call. After book one I’d certainly have called the genre urban fantasy, but by the end of book two, I’m having second thoughts. There is a lot of genre-mashing going on in this series. The stories in this series unfold around our protagonist, a young woman in her 20’s named Elana Black. Elana is a nerdy young woman with anxiety issues who works in a book store. When her tale begins she has a very special and unique ability — the power to walk between worlds. Specifically her world, which happens to be modern day Los Angeles. It’s kind of unique. While reading books she finds an opening into these stories where she can enter them, becoming fictional.
Locathah and Tortle Explore Fish Out of Water Adventure for 5E D&D
Over on Nerdarchy the YouTube channel, Nerdarchists Dave and Ted discussed the best classes to play for locathah and tortle characters in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. Both of these aquatic adjacent races were introduced to 5E D&D through DMs Guild products where all the monies Wizards of the Coast receives from sales of the PDFs are donated to Extra Life. Since its inception in 2008, Extra Life has raised more than $30 million for sick and injured kids. Maybe it’s the single class party composition series we’ve been doing or the Hell & High Water expansion for 1985 Games’ Dungeon Craft product line, but adventuring parties sharing a common element have been on my mind lately.
Orcs Invade Hero Forge!
Hero Forge offer loads of options for use in creating miniatures for your favorite tabletop roleplaying games like fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons and Pathfinder. Whether you use it to make your player characters, your special NPCs or your mighty villains, no other miniature service out there is able to give you the variety or flexibility as Hero Forge. With their newest release we are seeing a direction offeing players some cool options and giving Game Masters out there supreme customization with humanoids. They now have orcs available on the site. So if you want a killer Orc Headhunter as a player character or a mighty chieftain for the adventurers to fight or take down, we now have the capability to craft and print this amazing staple in tabletop gaming.
D&D Ideas — Puzzles
Welcome once again to the weekly Nerdarchy Newsletter. This week we discuss puzzles in D&D. 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. In case you missed it the Pledge Manager is open and you can claim your Kickstarter rewards if you backed Out of the Box: Encounters for 5th Edition. Or you can pledge late if you missed it the first time around. Get the info here.
Dangerous Combat Like the Mandalorian in 5E D&D
When season one of The Mandalorian ends following chapter 8, I’ll be a sad Disney+ viewer. I subscribed to the new streaming service only to watch this show. Incidentally The World According to Jeff Goldblum keeps me coming back, too. Even though I’ve got to wait one long week between chapters of The Mandalorian, I’ve been keeping the bounty hunt going at the gaming table. Right around the time the show premiered I’d gotten a copy of Ultimate NPCs: Skulduggery from Nord Games. Never a greater wretched hive of scum and villainy had I come across for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. A 5E D&D campaign immediately formed. The players loved it, I loved running it and we’re keeping it going. Nord Games helped created the seedy underworld with Skulduggery and engage the players through interesting encounters with Wandering Monsters. After Chapter 3: The Sin, I think Critical Hit Tables for Players and Critical Fail Tables fit the tone for this dangerous and complicated, Mandalorian inspired bounty hunter campaign. (Still no spoilers.)
Ways for the D&D Community to Help Kids Through Extra Life at DMs Guild
The cute little green creature won our hearts with their expressive oversized ears and adorable attitude in the world of scum of villainy all around. And the clever way Emi Tanji, along with Adam Lee and Chris Lindsay packaged them up with fun children’s activities plus a fantastic way to introduce fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons to kids is, like it says on the tin, design genius. I’m talking of course about Adventure with Muk. The 44-page PDF over at the Dungeon Masters Guild caught my attention with the cover featuring Muk the goblin. Like many DMs Guild products from Wizards of the Coast all monies received from sales of this Adventure with Muk are donated to Extra Life. It makes me proud to be part of the D&D community and see these and other creators providing us opportunities like this to give. For the record, I’m just as smitten with baby Yoda as you.
5E D&D Death House — Great Starter Adventure or Greatest Starter Adventure?
Curse of Strahd is widely considered one of the best Dungeons & Dragons adventures of all time. And nestled in the back of the book, Death House is an optional mini-adventure designed for 1st-level characters to introduce them to Barovia and advance them to 3rd level. I’ve run Death House a few times myself, and played it several more. Most recently I played in a pick-up game proposed by DM Elise on Twitter. The experience was inspiring, and after a lengthy conversation with a friend I started to wonder, is Death House a great 5E D&D starter adventure, or the greatest starter adventure? Let’s get into it and don’t worry — only the mildest of spoilers ahead.
D&D Party Composition — Playing an All Cleric Party
Over on the Nerdarchy YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted explore the idea of an all cleric party for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. With a couple of these videos in the can now we’re seeing lots of people enjoying them and asking for more. Requests for one character class in particular comes up quite a bit. Playing an all cleric party in 5E D&D pop up more than any other. This video series is a lot of fun but for me the real juice is here on the website. Dave and Ted can give you the insights into 5E D&D party composition and over here we’re continuing to build the scenario we started with the all bard party — a campaign setting of academia for each particular character class. So let’s get into it and consider what an all cleric party composition in a 5E D&D academic setting could look like.
Are You Ready to Assimilate the Vargarian Collective in 5E D&D?
Eberron: Rising from the Last War released! For those who aren’t familiar, Eberron is an arcanepunk setting with a brand new book for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. Arcanepunk as a genre focuses on magic with a twist. In the case of Eberron, the twist is magical technology, AKA magitech! Magitech is an amazing way to inspire fantastical wonder and alien mystery into your world. By assimilating (no pun intended) elements of science fiction into our fantasy we build something new, something… more intense that hits the grandiosity of fantasy while still amping up the science fiction suspense. However, there’s something else I want to talk about when it comes to 5E D&D narrative, but rather than introduce it in the traditional sense, indulge me while I make a point through narration.
Exhaustion Saving Throws in 5E D&D
There is one rule in most roleplaying games that is especially true in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. There’s a check or saving throw for everything. Does a character want to jump across the chasm? Athletics check, please. Does a character want to avoid falling over a cliff? Dexterity saving throw, please. This applies to special abilities or spells characters or monsters may have as well. in 5E D&D conditions generated by these spells or abilities have ability checks or saving throws attached to them.
What do 5E D&D Paladin Spells Say About the Class and Yes, There’s More than Just Divine Smite!
Over on Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted discussed five essential spells for tier 1 paladins in fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons. This cover 1st level spells only. Since there’s only 16 of them total (Unearthed Arcana — Class Feature Variants doesn’t add any either) and I help plan the videos, what else do I have to say about it? In the video comments there’s several “what about <spell>?” My thoughts on these are same as any other time: what about them? We looked at the list and made our choices. My curiosity about tier one 5E D&D paladin spells isn’t so much determining the best or essential ones. Instead I’m wondering what do 1st level paladin spells tell us about the character class, particularly from 1st-4th level?
A Group of Rogues is Called a Thieves Guild
Salutations, nerds! Today we’re going to talk about a fantasy staple: the thieves guild. A group of stylish rogues with a secret code language who are much of the time the best organized and most numerous group of people in the city. You see those street urchins playing over there? They’re informing for the Guild Master. The guy at the bazaar who sells terrible bread you never actually see anybody buying? I mean, you had to know he was a fence.
I’ve got a soft spot for a good heist story and I’ve always kind of wanted to run a fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons game where the entire party are rogues and center it around the inner dealings of the thieves guild. So often my home town party ends up going off on tangent of stealing things anyway, after all, so why not cut out the middle man? Which got me wondering…why do people end up doing crimes so often in 5E D&D anyway?
