Do you have any books not made by WotC that you personally like, has gained regular use at your table, you just think is really interesting?
Books I like: Adventures in Middle-Earth Player's Guide and Loremaster's Guide by Cubicle Seven. It is set after The Hobbit, but before The Lord of the Rings, in the lands from the Misty Mountains to the Lonely Mountain. I love the journey system for handling travel and random encounters and I use it in my regular D&D game now.
Books I use: Tome of Beasts and Book of Lairs by Kobold Press. So many neat monsters and having D&D stats for Lovecraft critters is always a plus for me.
Book I find interesting: Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting by Critical Role. I love the Blood Hunter class and pretty much everything else Matt Mercer has put out on the DM's Guild, but as good of a read it is I don't know if I'd ever run a game in his setting.
For me, the current favorite 3rd party book is Scarred Lands Player's Guide. It's kind of an all-in-one as it has setting info, new player options for races, sub-classes, feats and the like, as well as having an appendix of monsters from the setting. It doesn't cover all the stuff that the Scarred Lands setting had back when it was previously being published, but it does give plenty enough to get a campaign up and running.
Tome of Beasts is something I use constantly. I would love it if DDB were able to work with Kobold Press and get it on here, I would happily purchase it again to have it integrated with everything else I have on DDB. For now I'll just enter them for myself privately... But honestly, at my table we treat Tome of Beasts as a core book.
For me, the current favorite 3rd party book is Scarred Lands Player's Guide. It's kind of an all-in-one as it has setting info, new player options for races, sub-classes, feats and the like, as well as having an appendix of monsters from the setting. It doesn't cover all the stuff that the Scarred Lands setting had back when it was previously being published, but it does give plenty enough to get a campaign up and running.
REJOICE! The Blood Sea 5e book has now been released, Creature Collection 5e just had a successful Kickstarter (and will soon be available on Backerkit, then in retail stores), and there is much more coming for Scarred Lands in 2020!
I'm actively using Matt Colville's Strongholds and Followers book, while also dabbling with the Tome of Beasts. I've based my entire campaign world on CR's Tal'Dorei Campagin Setting but then made it entirely my own. I've obviously also kickstarted Kingdoms and Warfare (which as of the moment of this post is still running for around 2 weeks) and expect to be making extensive use of it once it comes out.
Other than that I sometimes use a few of about a dozen or so third party books as reference material for my own stuff.
I really like Frog God Games' 5th Edition output in general, and am looking forward to the Lost Lands campaign book.
I can vouch for Scarred Lands by Onyx Path Publishing and Adventures in Middle Earth by Cubicle 7 as being real good as well. AiME has an amazing section on terrain hazards that I've found invaluable.
I'm really intrigued by the Humblewood book coming out this month...
Yeah, the Humblewood material looks fantastic with character races that really capture aspects of the creatures they're meant to represent. I'm really excited to play in this setting.
Does anyone else have recommendations? On a similar woodland theme, has anyone tried the "tales of the old margreve" adventures?
There's a book called the monsters know what they're doing. It gives combat strategies to monsters. I read it and it was pretty eye-opening, changed how I ran a lot of combat. Ah, I've run so many TPKs with it...
Just wanted to chime in that Humblewood is a super cool setting, folks are easily distracted by the Humblefolk/Birdfolk species, but there's so much more to the setting in terms of character options, pantheon, the world setting, monsters. It's pretty cool, and in my experience really easy to put into D&D Beyond Homebrew. I dug it enough when I picked up the boxed set, that I wound up backing the kickstarter for it's followup Humblewood Adventures. I believe it's going to printers shortly, probably in stores by Fall? There's an adventure anthology, but the book also has a meaty section of character option contents (new Druid circle, a Wizard school focused on Leylines, which is basically the geomancy flavor a lot of folks are looking for in the Wizard class, some feats and character options pertaining to a secret society characters can join and gain faction benefits from). I don't use the Humblewood book a lot, though I have ported some stuff from it into my regular D&D games, but it was definitely up there in play through and campaign setting value and looking forward to returning to it.
I just got my copy of Druids: Secrets of the Primal Circle by Matthew Yaro, so have been spending some time with it and I'm really liking it. In addition to some additional druid circles, there's a whole new class The Dire Druid, a bunch of new Druid magic, and a setting designed for a Druid centered campaign, and a setting that wouldn't be too hard to port into a "traditional" D&D world like the FR.
As for the third party book I used the most, it's a DMsGuild work Codex of Infinite Planes. It's basically a guide to outer planes and the spaces between them, and filled with DM inspiring lore snippets, locations, and straight up adventure hook ideas. The writer has a player option book and a bestiary as well. Your mileage may vary on those, but the Codex of Infinite Planes I feel is a must get for someone who wants a lot of planar lore, set to 5e, and figures Planescape will be as diluted as Spelljammer was. Codex is built upon a lot of D&D planar lore, sometimes it's hard to distinguish what's been ported from old lore and what's new content. But it's very much written in a gives a DM enough idea to run with than some sort of planar orthodoxy thing.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Codex of the Infinite Planes sounds really interesting, but I thought from the way you described it that it was a single supplement. Am I seeing correctly that each of the planes is an independent product, or am I looking at something different? I do see there are a few bundles as well.
Does Dungeons of Drakkenheim lend itself fairly easily to being dropped into any high fantasy world? I love the videos the Dungeon Dudes put together and would be happy to support them.
Alkanders Almanac of All Things by the Dungeon Coach gets plenty of use from me. So many great mods, tweaks, and all round great ideas. Like running super quick combat elements by having each player roll a d20 and then narrating how it goes based on their rolls.
The Uncaged series contains a number of fun female first and troupe upending adventures. Honourable mention to She is the Ancient for similar reasons.
Monster Manual Expanded series is pretty awesome too for adding variation to many of the standard monsters. Keeps players on their toes.
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Do you have any books not made by WotC that you personally like, has gained regular use at your table, you just think is really interesting?
Books I like: Adventures in Middle-Earth Player's Guide and Loremaster's Guide by Cubicle Seven. It is set after The Hobbit, but before The Lord of the Rings, in the lands from the Misty Mountains to the Lonely Mountain. I love the journey system for handling travel and random encounters and I use it in my regular D&D game now.
Books I use: Tome of Beasts and Book of Lairs by Kobold Press. So many neat monsters and having D&D stats for Lovecraft critters is always a plus for me.
Book I find interesting: Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting by Critical Role. I love the Blood Hunter class and pretty much everything else Matt Mercer has put out on the DM's Guild, but as good of a read it is I don't know if I'd ever run a game in his setting.
I really want to check.out AiME, I like the idea of magic items that use inspiration
I love tome of beasts, easily my most used 5e book.
Book of lairs fantastic adventures, and total party kill handbook are great mini adventures.
Rogue comet just published gamemasters codex and I've used that a lot at my last session.
For me, the current favorite 3rd party book is Scarred Lands Player's Guide. It's kind of an all-in-one as it has setting info, new player options for races, sub-classes, feats and the like, as well as having an appendix of monsters from the setting. It doesn't cover all the stuff that the Scarred Lands setting had back when it was previously being published, but it does give plenty enough to get a campaign up and running.
Tome of Beasts is something I use constantly. I would love it if DDB were able to work with Kobold Press and get it on here, I would happily purchase it again to have it integrated with everything else I have on DDB. For now I'll just enter them for myself privately... But honestly, at my table we treat Tome of Beasts as a core book.
REJOICE! The Blood Sea 5e book has now been released, Creature Collection 5e just had a successful Kickstarter (and will soon be available on Backerkit, then in retail stores), and there is much more coming for Scarred Lands in 2020!
I make stuff on DMs Guild, DriveThruRPG, & Storytellers Vault. I stream things on Twitch.
I'm really intrigued by the Humblewood book coming out this month...
I'm actively using Matt Colville's Strongholds and Followers book, while also dabbling with the Tome of Beasts. I've based my entire campaign world on CR's Tal'Dorei Campagin Setting but then made it entirely my own. I've obviously also kickstarted Kingdoms and Warfare (which as of the moment of this post is still running for around 2 weeks) and expect to be making extensive use of it once it comes out.
Other than that I sometimes use a few of about a dozen or so third party books as reference material for my own stuff.
I really like Frog God Games' 5th Edition output in general, and am looking forward to the Lost Lands campaign book.
I can vouch for Scarred Lands by Onyx Path Publishing and Adventures in Middle Earth by Cubicle 7 as being real good as well. AiME has an amazing section on terrain hazards that I've found invaluable.
Yeah, the Humblewood material looks fantastic with character races that really capture aspects of the creatures they're meant to represent. I'm really excited to play in this setting.
Does anyone else have recommendations? On a similar woodland theme, has anyone tried the "tales of the old margreve" adventures?
There's a book called the monsters know what they're doing. It gives combat strategies to monsters. I read it and it was pretty eye-opening, changed how I ran a lot of combat. Ah, I've run so many TPKs with it...
Quokkas are objectively the best animal, anyone who disagrees needs a psychiatric evaluation
As someone who has purchased the vast majority of it: the Humblewood campaign setting as a whole is really well done and worth a look in my mind.
Coming in with another vote for Kobold Press' monster books. The Tome of Beasts books and the Creature Codex are all fantastic.
Just wanted to chime in that Humblewood is a super cool setting, folks are easily distracted by the Humblefolk/Birdfolk species, but there's so much more to the setting in terms of character options, pantheon, the world setting, monsters. It's pretty cool, and in my experience really easy to put into D&D Beyond Homebrew. I dug it enough when I picked up the boxed set, that I wound up backing the kickstarter for it's followup Humblewood Adventures. I believe it's going to printers shortly, probably in stores by Fall? There's an adventure anthology, but the book also has a meaty section of character option contents (new Druid circle, a Wizard school focused on Leylines, which is basically the geomancy flavor a lot of folks are looking for in the Wizard class, some feats and character options pertaining to a secret society characters can join and gain faction benefits from). I don't use the Humblewood book a lot, though I have ported some stuff from it into my regular D&D games, but it was definitely up there in play through and campaign setting value and looking forward to returning to it.
I just got my copy of Druids: Secrets of the Primal Circle by Matthew Yaro, so have been spending some time with it and I'm really liking it. In addition to some additional druid circles, there's a whole new class The Dire Druid, a bunch of new Druid magic, and a setting designed for a Druid centered campaign, and a setting that wouldn't be too hard to port into a "traditional" D&D world like the FR.
As for the third party book I used the most, it's a DMsGuild work Codex of Infinite Planes. It's basically a guide to outer planes and the spaces between them, and filled with DM inspiring lore snippets, locations, and straight up adventure hook ideas. The writer has a player option book and a bestiary as well. Your mileage may vary on those, but the Codex of Infinite Planes I feel is a must get for someone who wants a lot of planar lore, set to 5e, and figures Planescape will be as diluted as Spelljammer was. Codex is built upon a lot of D&D planar lore, sometimes it's hard to distinguish what's been ported from old lore and what's new content. But it's very much written in a gives a DM enough idea to run with than some sort of planar orthodoxy thing.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Codex of the Infinite Planes sounds really interesting, but I thought from the way you described it that it was a single supplement. Am I seeing correctly that each of the planes is an independent product, or am I looking at something different? I do see there are a few bundles as well.https://www.dmsguild.com/product/228229/Codex-of-the-Infinite-Planes-Vol-01-Plane-of-Fire?term=codex of infi Never mind, I found what you were referring to.
https://www.dmsguild.com/product/332387/Codex-of-the-Infinite-Planes
The Compendium of Forgotten Secrets: Awakening, Genuine Fantasy Press LLC
playing since 1986
Grim Hollow.Very much a fan of its setting.
so i see mostly favorite setting/sourcebooks, which is awesome.
what about favorite 3rd party adventure modules that are 5e compatible?
Dungeons of Drakkenheim.
Does Dungeons of Drakkenheim lend itself fairly easily to being dropped into any high fantasy world? I love the videos the Dungeon Dudes put together and would be happy to support them.
Alkanders Almanac of All Things by the Dungeon Coach gets plenty of use from me. So many great mods, tweaks, and all round great ideas. Like running super quick combat elements by having each player roll a d20 and then narrating how it goes based on their rolls.
The Uncaged series contains a number of fun female first and troupe upending adventures. Honourable mention to She is the Ancient for similar reasons.
Monster Manual Expanded series is pretty awesome too for adding variation to many of the standard monsters. Keeps players on their toes.