Annabelle's Nerdy D&D Blog — DnD Explained

Spell slots are how Dungeons and Dragons represent the energy needed to cast a spell. They are a resource used to cast magic, a measurement of magical stamina if you will.   Smaller spells take less energy to cast so use lower level spell slots. Larger spells take a bit more oomph, and so need a proportionately higher level spell slot. When a character casts a spell in D&D, a spell slot of the appropriate level is then used up to show that energy is spent.   Spellcasters can only channel so much magic before they need a rest to recuperate so...

  Armor class (AC) is the measure of how hard it is for an attacker to hit you when rolling to attack. The higher your armor class, the harder it is to hit you. AC is really important in Dungeons and Dragons because if an enemy attack misses, you don’t take damage. There are a fair few factors that are used to calculate armor class including natural defense, armor worn, dexterity modifier, shields, spells, magic items and more. Calculating a characters armor class can get a bit confusing so I’ve broken it down into a step by step approach.  ...

  The Challenge Rating (CR) system in Dungeons and Dragons is essentially like levels in a video game. A CR 2 encounter is meant to be “of medium difficulty” for a party of level 2 adventurers.   Nine times out of ten the party will be able to walk away from an encounter of that challenge rating with no casualties beyond expended resources. A party can usually handle around six to eight encounters with the same challenge rating as themselves within a day. Assuming the party is able to take a couple of short rests of course!   This system...

  Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) is a co-operative story-telling game. Players play as their characters, going on adventures in a world narrated by the Dungeon Master (DM). Each Player Character has their own unique set of skills and abilities, determined by their race and class. The party work together as a team to complete quests. The DM plays the game in a different way to the rest of the players. Their role is to guide the story and controls the non-player characters (NPCs).   In many ways, playing in a weekly campaign is much watching an episode of your favourite show with...

  Combat and time sensitive moments in D&D 5e are split into turns ordered in rounds for ease of running. A DnD round of combat take 6 seconds to complete. During one round of combat we assume each person is acting and moving concurrently. We split the round so each player and opponent gets a turn. Then, everyone rolls a dexterity based check called Initiative to see what order they take their turns in.   In this post I’ll be breaking 5e D&D turns down into their individual parts, and explaining what options and limits you have for each.     So how do DnD turns work?   Each turn lasts six...