D&D 5E Must have 3rd party products?

[MoonSong]

The question is pretty transparent, which are the best third party supplements, adventures and add-ons to buy? (And I'm not exactly talking official things like the GF9 spellcards) Any good finds? good suggestions?

 

[Morrus]

There are very few! Necromancer Games' three books, four short adventures from Goodman Games, and a handful of PDF adventures on DTRPG.

 

[Jester David]

As [MENTION=1]Morrus[/MENTION] said, there's what Necormancer Games is doing. Kobold Press has some monsters on their site. ENWorld has a good forum of homebrew stuff, and there's some attempts at a complilation.

I'm also doing my own stuff on my blog.

 

[MoonSong]

Not to be ungrateful or something, but I was asking for more specific suggestions on which of these should I buy. Like this adventure is very good, or x book will shift the way you play, things like that. The reviews are sparse and buying blindly doesn't sit too well with me.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Not to be ungrateful or something, but I was asking for more specific suggestions on which of these should I buy. Like this adventure is very good, or x book will shift the way you play, things like that. The reviews are sparse and buying blindly doesn't sit too well with me.

It's hard to say without knowing what kind of content you're looking for. Do you want DM aids or cool stuff to give to your players? If I had to pick just one book, I'd pick the Book of Lost Spells as the most potentially transformative 3rd party option out there: it can give a lot of the AD&D flavor back to 5E. (Check out Death Bringer, for example, as a spell which is worthless for PCs but potentially game-changing for villains. There's also lots of cool AD&D-like spells like Change Water to Dust and its reverse, Spirit Blast, and Unfasten.) But you may or may not be looking for transformative options, because they do change the game if you use them. If you just want to save yourself some work, I'd recommend Quests of Doom for some neat little adventures, and Fifth Edition Foes for monsters that are better (i.e. harder) than most of what's in the MM. However, I rate the Book of Lost Spells highest because it's the one that would be hardest to recreate on your own--there was obviously a ton of work that went into selecting spells from prior editions and updating them to fit 5E.

 

[Zardnaar]

We haveplayed 4/12 adventures in Quests of Doom (I am a DM) with a 5th about to start. Going to buy Quests of Doom pt 2 as well next week.

 

[MoonSong]

Thanks for the good advice, quests of doom looks interesting. Anybody who has bought some of the smaller ones and found a hidden jewel?

 

[redrick]

I have gotten a lot of mileage out of Fifth Edition Foes. It provides a very different sent of monsters from what the (excellent) Monster Manual provides, which makes it good for filling out those weird, pulpy adventures, or just giving you a variant type of monster when you want to surprise your players with something they've never seen before. I've managed to get 6 or 7 into direct confrontation with my player characters so far, and I have a bunch of others who have just been waiting in the wings.

Some of my best "oh ****" moments have come from monsters from this book, especially because 2 of my players also GM and are pretty familiar with the contents of the Monster Manual. One of my players will even "remind" me of features that I am forgetting or mis-reading. I can still put the fear of God into them with a room-full of wraiths, but there's something great about that first time you see a new monster and realize, "oh my God, it does that!? run away!"

Quests of Doom seems like a solid product and is definitely great bang for your buck. If you're interested in short adventures a la dungeon magazine, grabbing Vol 1 is a bit like picking up 3 or 4 issues of Dungeon. On the other hand, I've only run one adventure so far (The Noble Rot) and found it to be only so-so at our table. I've written a somewhat tedious account of it on this forum.

We might have a wizard joining our group soon, and I've thought about picking up Lost Spells to use as treasure items to be found.