D&D 5E Advice on Books?

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Also a dndbeyond dm subscription allows the dm to share what he’s purchased with his players

Yeah, I knew I was forgetting something. It makes a very good deal for a group committed to doing 5E digitally.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

One of the games in which I play is coming from PF1 and PF2 and is planning to try out D&D 5e. There are a lot of D&D 5e books. If I wanted to only look at books that involved rules and character options, and avoid books that focused on settings and adventures, what books would you recommend? Or, I guess what I'm asking is what do you recommend for a Pathfinder 2 refugee?

If you’ve a friend with all the books on DnDBeyond, they can send you a campaign link, and let you make a character with everything.

Barring that, I’d say PHB+Xanathars Guide will get you most options. If you are gonna do an Eberron game, and can wait, it’s book comes out in November and has a ton of new options too.

But honestly, 5e runs really well from just the PHB.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Yeah, I knew I was forgetting something. It makes a very good deal for a group committed to doing 5E digitally.

Hell, my group also likes books and we still find it to be an incredible value.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Basically what @S'mon and @dave2008 have said.

In addition, Volo's and Mordenkainen's also contain character options, as they have player races.
If you're going for D&D Beyond, you could buy these options individually iirc.

- The PHB has the Path of the Berserker, and Path of the Totem Warrior barbarians; the College of Lore, and College of Valor bards; the Knowledge, Life, Light, Nature, Tempest, Trickery, War domain clerics; the Circle of the Land, and the Circle of the Moon druids; the Champion, Battle Master, and Eldritch Knight fighters; the Way of the Open Hand, the Way of the Shadow, and the Way of the Four Elements monks; the Oath of Devotion, the Oath of the Ancients, and Oath of Vengeance paladins; the Hunter, and Beast Master rangers; the Thief, Arcane Trickster, and Assassin rogues; the Draconic Bloodline, and Wild Magic sorcerers; the Archfey, Archfiend, and Great Old One warlocks; the Abjuration, Conjuration, Divination, Enchantment, Evocation, Illusion, Necromancy, and Transmutation wizard traditions.

- Curse of Strahd has the Haunted One background.

- Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica has the Order domain cleric; the Circle of Spores druid; the loxodon, minotaur, simic hybrid, and vedalken races; and the ten guilds as character backgrounds. These guild backgrounds also give guild spells that are added on to PCs with spellcasting capabilities.

- Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes has Tiefling subraces; Elf subraces - seasonal eldarin, sea elf, shadar-kai; the Duergar dwarven race; the Githyanki, and Githzerai races.

- The Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide has the Path of the Battlerager, and the Path of the Totem Warrior barbarians; the Arcana domain cleric; the Purple Dragon Knight fighter; the Way of the Long Death, and the Way of the Sun Soul monks; the Oath of the Crown paladin; the Mastermind, and Swashbuckler rogues; the Storm Bloodline sorcerer; the Bladesinger wizard tradition.

- Tomb of Annihilation has the Anthropologist, and Archaeologist backgrounds.

- Volo's Guide to Monsters has the aasimar, firbolg, goliath, kenku, lizardfolk, tabaxi, triton races, as well as a smattering of monstrous races.

- Xanathar's Guide to Everything has the Path of the Ancestral Guardian, the Path of the Storm Herald, and the Path of the Zealot barbarians; the College of Glamor, College of Swords, and College of Whispers bards; the Forge, and the Grave domain clerics; the Circle of Dreams, and Circle of the Shepherd druids; the Arcane Archer, Cavalier, and Samurai fighters; the Way of the Drunken Fist, the Way of the Kensei, and the Way of the Sun Soul monks; the Oath of Conquest, and the Oath of Redemption paladins; the Gloom Stalker, Horizon Walker, and Monster Slayer rangers; the Inquisitive, Mastermind, Scout, and Swashbuckler rogues; the Divine Soul, Shadow Magic, and Storm Bloodline sorcerers, the Celestial, and the Hexblade warlocks; the War Magic wizard tradition; and a smattering of other character options. In particular the "This Is Your Life" character creation tool is excellent.

Hope some of that is helpful.

If no one has added, don’t forget that Wayfinders Guide to Eberron has shifters, warforged, changelings, Kalashtar, dragonmarked subraces, and will have the Artificer in November.

 

[zztong]

First thing to consider, assuming you and/or a bunch of your players are used to more things being digital than physical, while there are no legally released PDFs of the 5E books, there is DNDBeyond, a digital platform where you can buy the books, and also read them offline, but I am not sure the details on doing that. The other benefit to using DNDBeyond is you can buy books piecemeal, so the few pages of player material in the non-core books can be bought digitally for just a dollar or two, instead of spending big money one a book you may hardly use otherwise. And if you hit a sale or get a discount code, you can also get a good deal on full books.

Yes, D&D Beyond is part of the 5e appeal. We used Hero Lab (Classic) for PF1 and were quite happy. Hero Lab Online wasn't up to speed and we were suffering from the lack of DM features.

 

[dave2008]

Yes, D&D Beyond is part of the 5e appeal. We used Hero Lab (Classic) for PF1 and were quite happy. Hero Lab Online wasn't up to speed and we were suffering from the lack of DM features.

If you are looking at D&D Beyond I am pretty sure you can buy just character content for the players from each book, so you could get all the character options that way.

 

[Ancalagon]

PHB + Xanathar's Guide to Everything.

I completely agree with this, and furthermore you could do pretty OK with just the PHB.

ADVICE IN GENERAL:

- Read the background chapter in the Player's Handbok. It looks like roleplaying fluff, but your background gives you mechanical perks (usually 2 skills + one perk), and it allows you to customize your character. If you take a fighter with the criminal background for example, it's almost as if you multi-classed into rogue. I had one player ignore this chapter entirely!

- Skip on multiclassing. The between class balance is solid, but if you multiclass "poorly" you can hider your character. Instead, take a background that matches your idea (see above), or take a subclass that is multi-classy a bit (like eldrich knight).

- Almost everyting in the PHB is well balanced, but the ranger beastmaster subclass and the monk of the element subclass are ... not so great. fighter champion is a little mediocre too. I'm not sure if there are things to avoid in Xanathar.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I completely agree with this, and furthermore you could do pretty OK with just the PHB.

ADVICE IN GENERAL:

- Read the background chapter in the Player's Handbok. It looks like roleplaying fluff, but your background gives you mechanical perks (usually 2 skills + one perk), and it allows you to customize your character. If you take a fighter with the criminal background for example, it's almost as if you multi-classed into rogue. I had one player ignore this chapter entirely!

- Skip on multiclassing. The between class balance is solid, but if you multiclass "poorly" you can hider your character. Instead, take a background that matches your idea (see above), or take a subclass that is multi-classy a bit (like eldrich knight).

- Almost everyting in the PHB is well balanced, but the ranger beastmaster subclass and the monk of the element subclass are ... not so great. fighter champion is a little mediocre too. I'm not sure if there are things to avoid in Xanathar.

I would add to this, that the Beast Master and 4 Elements Monk are very easy to fix.

4Elements: decrease all Ki costs by 1. Give the subclass 2 Elemental control cantrips from the elemental evil player companion pdf, or Xanathar’s.

Beast Master: replace the subclass with the the one from the revised ranger UA, and delete it’s level 5 feature.

Done.

 

[BlivetWidget]

Some good replies here, but I'd like to just add:

If you're not the DM and aren't 100% certain about switching game systems, the free Basic Rules from the official site here should be enough to get you going. As I recall, they are less of a truncated rules set and more of a selected rule set, if that makes any sense (so instead of 8 wizard subclasses, you get 1, but that subclass is described in full). In other words, you're not getting the "baby" rules like many basic rules sets, more of a curated selection.

Try making a character with the free Basic Rules. If you like what you see but want more, get the Player's Handbook. If you like what you see but want more, get Xanathar's Guide to Everything. If you want to run a game (or want better system mastery), get the Dungeon Master's Guide.

Honestly those three books (PHB, XGE, DMG) are likely all you'll ever need. There are bits and bobs scattered throughout other publications, but not everybody uses the other material (sometimes because it's more work/expense for the DM, sometimes because of balance issues such as other books introducing player races that can fly at first level). But you can usually count on everyone using, or at least being very familiar with, those three.

 

[Oofta]

Some good replies here, but I'd like to just add:

If you're not the DM and aren't 100% certain about switching game systems, the free Basic Rules from the official site here should be enough to get you going. As I recall, they are less of a truncated rules set and more of a selected rule set, if that makes any sense (so instead of 8 wizard subclasses, you get 1, but that subclass is described in full). In other words, you're not getting the "baby" rules like many basic rules sets, more of a curated selection.

Try making a character with the free Basic Rules. If you like what you see but want more, get the Player's Handbook. If you like what you see but want more, get Xanathar's Guide to Everything. If you want to run a game (or want better system mastery), get the Dungeon Master's Guide.

Honestly those three books (PHB, XGE, DMG) are likely all you'll ever need. There are bits and bobs scattered throughout other publications, but not everybody uses the other material (sometimes because it's more work/expense for the DM, sometimes because of balance issues such as other books introducing player races that can fly at first level). But you can usually count on everyone using, or at least being very familiar with, those three.

They are complete rules sans some additional features like various subclasses, feats, races and optional rules. You could run an entire campaign going from level 1-20 based on just the basic rules.