D&D General How did you pay total for your PHB? How much did you pay for a D&D book?

[LordEntrails]

@jasper Good idea starting this, thx

USA, FG versions, no tax, no shipping, prices USD;

• Dragon Heist, $24.99, 9-19-2018
• Mad Mage, $24.99, 11-9-2018
• MToF, $17.99, 7-6-2019
• SCAG, $17.99, 7-6-2019
• Divine Contention, $4.99, 12-27-2019
• Storm Lord's Wrath, $4.99, 12-27-2019
• Sleeping Dragon's Wake, $4.99, 12-27-2019
• Wildemount, $17.99, 6-22-2020
• Mythic oo Theros, $22.49, 11-27-2020
• MM, $49.99, 6-4-20115
• PHB, $49.99, 6-4-20115
• DMG, $?, 12-17-2016 (*)
• LMoP, $13.99, 6-152015
• Volo's, $49.99, 12-17-2016
• ToA, $24.99, 908-2017
• Xanathar's, $29.99, 11-26-2017
• STK, $21.24, 11-26-2017

* order history shows a price of $0, but that doesn't make sense.
Note that older products were full MSRP, since August 2018? prices are 40% MSRP or less (sales, bundle discounts, etc)

 

[Zardnaar]

I live in New Zealand.

PHB $75 NZD or so. Approx 53.75 USD.

Bought 3 of them, 3rd one due to broken spine.

 

[LordEntrails]

I live in New Zealand.

PHB $75 NZD or so. Approx 53.75 USD.

Bought 3 of them, 3rd one due to broken spine.

please take this with the humor is it meant to be!
My PHB doesn't have a spine to get broken, pages don't wear either. And every time errata gets published, mine magically updates too!

 

[MoonSong]

If I remember well, these are the costs I've paid for the different books:

Starter Set $15.00 - close to launch
MM $20.00 - close to launch
PHB $17.50 (it was an amazon day discount back in 2013, Today it is $36 because it is Cyber Monday and averages $50)
Xanathar's $30.00 (close to launch, it costs $40 today)
Tasha's $38.00

I don't have the DMG, but it costs $29 today, it'll be $39 after cyber monday

Not bad. It helps that I'm just one border away and books are sales tax free in my country. Amazon also used to heavily discount them, and the closest store selling D&D has very competitive pricing -or at least used to have, they are very bad at customer service and they are more than an hour away-.

 

[Mannahnin]

Either received as gifts (my players bought me a copy of Xanathar's) or full MSRP for the US, with no sales tax (I'm in NH). I pay full because I like to support my FLGS, it's only 5 minutes down the street, and I buy the books infrequently enough that the cost savings on Amazon wouldn't be a big deal for me anyway.

I'm debating on Tasha's, because I really love the variant cover, though I haven't had any interest in paying extra for the previous variant covers.

 

[TheSword]

So around about $50 US dollars max. So not bad going on the whole. With most other books being less than that for normal copies. I’m still interested to see if someone gets to the mythical $200 figure that was quoted in the other thread.

 

[MoonSong]

So around about $50 US dollars max. So not bad going on the whole. With most other books being less than that for normal copies. I’m still interested to see if someone gets to the mythical $200 figure that was quoted in the other thread.

Well, $50 used to be one month of minimum wage in here. Even today, it is the wage of over a week of work. Not a trivial expense for the majority of the population.

 

[CleverNickName]

Before the pandemic, I bought all of my 5E D&D books at Guardian Games, Portland OR, USA for the cover price. I would also buy older, out-of-print books for market value (like my copy of the 3rd Edition DMG for $15.)

Now, in the middle of the pandemic, I buy my books digitally over Roll20. The only "shelf copy" of a D&D book that I've bought (so far) has been "Explorer's Guide to Wildemount," which I preordered from Powell's City of Books (here in Portland) for the cover price as well, with free shipping to my door.

I get older, out-of-print D&D books from online bookstores and eBay, but they are getting prohibitively expensive. I picked up a near-mint copy of the Rules Cyclopedia for $60 a few months ago, and I'm still looking for a good-condition boxed set of the D&D Expert Rules (which I would pay up to $100 for, if I could ever find one).

 

[TheSword]

Well, $50 used to be one month of minimum wage in here. Even today, it is the wage of over a week of work. Not a trivial expense for the majority of the population.

WOC didn’t create the exchange rate system, neither did it value your currency.

If $50 dollars is minimum wage for a month then how much should they sell it for. Minimum wage in the UK is 25 x that. So should they be selling the books for $2?

It must be frustrating, but maybe people in that situation either lobby libraries to buy books, buy as a group or use the D&D basic rules and homebrew the rest. Or even more sensibly play a game with more free online resources like Pathfinder.

 

[MoonSong]

WOC didn’t create the exchange rate system, neither did it value your currency.

If $50 dollars is minimum wage for a month then how much should they sell it for. Minimum wage in the UK is 25 x that. So should they be selling the books for $2?

It must be frustrating, but maybe people in that situation either lobby libraries to buy books, buy as a group or use the D&D basic rules and homebrew the rest. Or even more sensibly play a game with more free online resources like Pathfinder.

Nah, it doesn't work that way. Roleplayers here are scarce and shrouded in myth. Even the average friki reacts in awe when witnessing a group roleplaying. And well, fantasy isn't as popular in here to begin with. Call it a cultural thing. So D&D groups are a rarity among the already fairly rare roleplaying groups.

(Like I said somewhere else, if you can afford it, you very likely can read English. I'm lucky to be able to afford it. If you can't afford it, you most likely don't even know it exists to begin with)