Annabelle's Nerdy D&D Blog — Blog

Hullo all! As you probably know, I really love having modular terrain that I can use and re-use. What I love even more is having modular terrain that doesn't look modular :P In todays guide I'm going to show you how to make your tiles look even more realistic by adding a mixture of flock and sand between the surface flagstones. I would rate this tutorial as "a bit harder". It's not too hard (most of it is sponge work after all!) but it is a bit more involved than say the lava painting guide. But totally worth the extra...

Note: 12th September 2026  This blog post was written mid 2023. It's since become out of date, though perhaps still useful. Also, since then, some quite pressing problems with AI have since come to light.  In other news, I have joined a real life faction! It's called Pause AI. We are a grassroots movement helping to bring about an international treaty to pause the development of Superintelligence. Superintelligence is not just a very good Chat GPT. They are trying to "summon the demon" here, and we need to stop them before it's too late. An international treaty is the way...

Hello all! Today I'm going to take you through painting your Modular Realms "cracked stone" dungeon tiles to have a lava-like feel. I like to use it as traps (whoops! You got dropped into a room where THE FLOOR IS LAVA!) or as whole areas when the party travels to hell or the halls of the Fire Giants. It's a surprisingly easy effect to paint and, like my "Old Stone" effect, can achieved without ever needing to pick up a paint brush. I'm big on painting cool effects with minimal skills required - makes it much easier for me! I would rate painting...

  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.  ...

Creating fun, interesting and balanced combat encounters can be a real struggle for Dungeon Masters. It can be hard to gage whether your going too easy or too hard on your party - especially at the beginning. Add in trying to manage initiative order, stat-blocks, environmental changes and remembering extras like reactions or legendary actions ... it's no wonder it gets a little overwhelming at times! I'm a big fan of using Dungeon Master tools to make DMing easier and I find the D&D Beyond Encounter Builder genuinely does make running combat much easier for me.   What is the D&D...