D&D 5E Do you ACTUALLY use 3rd Party Books?

[AdmundfortGeographer]

Yup. A PC currently runs a Titanheart Sorcerer from an Arcadia issue. The characters made abundant use of stronghold and retainer rules from Strongholds and Followers.

I’ve customized magic items nearly every loot trove with magic items that have “+”s using some 3rd party magic item customization tools. One PC has an ancestral weapon from another product.

To add, I also use Worlds Without Number’s DM tools to help build out setting areas because those DM tools for region development are many levels more useful than the WotC stuff.

I ran Goodman Games’ The Lost City campaign conversion.

 

[jmartkdr2]

For me it’s technically yes since I have played in a game with a Blood Hunter. But that’s the only costs-money-3pp I’m aware of using.

In practice I’ve found the official stuff is good enough for most characters with homebrew magic items, and just looking at what people shared on Reddit seems to cover the rest.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Heck yes! Most of my 3pp is from ENPub, Mage Hand Press, and Kobold Press, but I have a lot of other stuff too. I've been slowly moving away from using WotC products for the last couple years.

 

[Maxperson]

I've used monsters, classes, feats, subclasses, equipment, magic items, traps, maps, curses, poisons, taverns, places of interest and spells. That list is 3e and 5e both. And I'm probably forgetting a few things.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

In the one group, only monsters, magic items, and fluff details like taverns and whatnot. If a monster is broken, it has much less of an impact than if an entire subclass or feat is borked. In the other group, no. It started as an open table and as a result, I set the expectation that only official content would be used, to make life easier on me. I've stuck by that ever since.

 

[Bagpuss]

No, I don't use any third-party D&D 5e stuff. Sometimes I'll get OSR adventures and convert them.

That sounds like a Yes then as OSR is third party content. Or at the least a Yes but only monsters.

What's with all these post saying "No but..." then listing a load of 3PP stuff that they have used.

 

[iserith]

That sounds like a Yes then as OSR is third party content. Or at the least a Yes but only monsters.

It's a D&D 5e thread related to 3PP and I don't buy any of those as stated. That's how I read it anyway. What I buy tend to be decent location-based adventures run on some niche system that I convert myself to D&D 5e. Sometimes those authors will also publish a D&D 5e version of those adventures, but I find people in those spaces aren't actually very good with D&D 5e, so I'd rather just have what they originally designed it for and I'll convert it myself.

 

[Cadence]

I clicked "Yes but only monsters" because I assumed you were referring to D&D. My 13yo and his friends don't have exposure to 3PP much, and it didn't come up in the last 5e game I ran for adults or played in.

In the last 13th Age campaign I was in we were able to use the non-Pelgrane Dark Alleys & Twisted Paths. (Is that 4PP?).

 

[Riley]

No poll option for me, either.
In 5e, I've used 3rd party adventures and worldbooks, including monsters (mostly Kobold Press and Goodman).
In BX, I've used OGL 1.0a OSE rules and adventures (which this OGL 1.1 nonsense has suddenly lumped in with 5e OGL stuff).

 

[Scottius]

Before we quit 5e recently I was using more 3rd party content than WOTC stuff. I quit allowing player facing material after Xanathar's.

But I use a ton of Kobold Press stuff both monsters and player stuff.

Also stuff from Nord Games and Cawood Publishing's monster books. And I've got all of Goodman Games OAR books and reran Keep on the Borderlands with it.