D&D 5E What's on your 5E 3rd Party Essential List?

[Reynard]

What 3rd Party, nonWotC 5E books do you consider essential and pull out for use whenever you run 5E?

Has that changed at all with 2024 5E?

Are there 3rd party 5E books you are looking forward to adding to that list?

 

[TwoSix]

Kibbles Compendium of Craft and Creation: Primarily for the Inventor class and the magical item creation rules.

Valda’s Spire of Secrets: Several classes I consider essential in my “normal” D&D settings, such as warmage and witch.

 

[delericho]

Nothing is essential, but the "Tome of Beasts" and "Monster Manual Expanded" series of monster books were really nice, and saw regular use at my table. I don't think I used anything else.

I haven't moved to the new books.

 

[Weiley31]

Off the top of my head:

Class DLC:
-Illrigger (Updated)
-Blood Hunter (Updated)
-Talent
-Beastheart
-Theruge (Deep Magic 1)
-Witch (Deep Magic 2).
-Vampire (Nightfell)
-Werebeast (Nightfell:Children of The Moon).
-The Firebrand (Nations and Cannons)


Low Level/Max level 10 gameplay
-Everyday Heroes+The Vault Rules Compendium
-Free League's Lord of The Rings 5E

Keith Baker
-Exploring Eberron
-Chronicles of Eberron
-Frontiers of Eberron:Quickstone

Mercer
-Taldorei Reborn
-Martial Archetype: Gunslinger+firearm rules

Animal Characters
-Humblewood
-Animal Adventures+Faraway Seas


Mods
Single Player/Duet Style of 5E
-Beowulf: Age of Heroes(Followers subsystem)

Exploration/Traveling
-Uncharted Journeys (Cubicle 7).

Soulslike 5E/Fromsoft DND Edition
-Dark Souls (The "Base" rules)
-Ryoko's Guide to the Yokai Realms (Sekiro's Prosthetic Arm rules)
-Iron Kingdoms Requiem 5E (Lies of P)
-Dungeons of Drakkenheim(Demon's Souls)
-Steinhardt's Guide to the Eldritch Hunt (Bloodborne+Trick Weapons)

Tabaxi Lore
-Monarchies of Mau 1E

5E Asian Adventures
-Adventures in Rokugan
-Kamon
-Mists of Akuma
-Undying Corruption Player's Guide

Playable 5E Half Dragons
-Legacy of The Dragons: Draconic Player Races and Other Content

Monsters
-Flee, Mortals!
-Monster Manual Expanded Vols 1-3
-Deadly Denizens
-Tome of Beasts Vols 1-3

Everything else
-Kobold Press


That's, so far, everything off the top of my head

 

[TheSword]

Honestly none.

However I find many 3pp adventure paths to be excellent so I often have a 3pp book out.

Highlights that I have personal experience of

• Scarlet Citadel
• Dungeons of Drakkenheim
• Odyssey of the Dragonlords
• Kingmaker 5e
• Tales of the Old Margrave
• Rappan Athuk
• Slumbering Tsar

I’ve either DMd or played at least half but in most cases all the campaign of the above.

 

[Shardstone]

• "So You Want to be a Better Game Master?" by Justin Alexander. This book provides a huge amount of tools usable in every genre of game, including ways to run a player-orchestrated raid, great advice for clues and investigations, and more.
• "Forge of Foes" by SlyFlourish. Tied for best 3PP monster book ever released, and gives you tools to make and edit monsters very easy.
• "Flee, Mortals!" by MCDM, the other best monster book. Comes with villainous parties that for every tier, and great monsters that will make your game sing. I promise that of all the books on this list, this is absolutely the most useful one. The monsters are great.
• "Valda's Spire of Secrets" by Mage Hand Press. Comes with 8 new balanced classes that are innovative, fun, and can fit just about any Fantasy world. Also comes with new spells and feats, all of which are balanced. Great material to use beside 2024 if just for the spells, magic items, and variant rules alone.
• Anything by Laserllama, all of which is free. His classes work with 2024, but are remakes of the original 12, but he also has new classes. More importantly, he has a massive book of like 300 spells that IMO really help the game play better.

I'm not going to list setting books or adventures, because those are dependent on the game I'm running. I might pop out "A Deadman's Guide to Dragongrin" by Absolute Tabletop if I'm doing Dark Fantasy, or Adventures in Rokugan if I want Anime-flavored stuff. But those books above IMO are useful for EVERY GAME and absolutely make 5E into a top-tier RPG experience.

 

[Stormonu]

These aren't books I use at every session, but I do incorporate a lot into game:

• Monster Manual I-III Expanded, Tome of Beasts I-III, Creature Codex, Dragonix's Deadly Denizens, Tome of Horrors
• Tome of Heroes
• Vault of Magic, Griffon's Saddlebag
• Local Legends: Taverns
• Game Master's Book of NPCs

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

Flee Mortals! for improvements to standard monsters

Ruins of Symbaroum for a low magic 5e I always wanted.

 

[Weiley31]

Odyssey of the Dragonlords

I have to get both this AND Raiders of The Serpent Seas. I have both the physical Players Guides. Beowulf: Age of Heroes would probably work great with Raiders for that 5E Viking feel.

My one bud, whose a BIG Greek Mythology fan, would probably love playing Odyssey of The Dragon Lords. So, I have to eventually get the AP.

Again: thank goodness for the Follow subsystem in Beowulf for both objectives.

 

[Weiley31]

Ruins of Symbaroum for a low magic 5e I always wanted.

I KNEW I was forgetting something in my first post.