Dungeons & Dragons first hit tabletops in 1974. Since then, the game has evolved and shifted in many ways, leading us to the current 5e edition (or 5.5e, as of 2024, if you want to be a rules lawyer about it).
The 5th edition has been around for more than a decade, but that doesn't mean that Wizards of the Coast isn't constantly finding new ways to add magic to campaigns. Third party creatives are doing their fair share, too.
And while all you really need to get a campaign of the ground is a Game Master, a handful of adventurers, a Player's Handbook, a Dungeon Master's Guide, and your imagination, there are a lot of resources that make the experience run more smoothly.
From ready-made NPCs to war-torn campaign settings, here are eight of the best supplemental D&D books!
Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of The Multiverse
An essential for any GM, this book will help you craft extra exciting encounters.
Compiling a huge array of creatures—including updated versions of those once featured in Volo's Guide to Monsters and Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes—this resource provides entries that fall under every imaginable alignment.
Beyond monsters, this book also includes 33 incredible playable races.
Dungeons & Drawings
If you're a GM who has a table full of experienced players, then you know that homebrew is the best way to catch adventurers off guard.
When you've wrung every last bit of inspiration from Monsters of The Multiverse, dive into this third-party supplement—an illustrated encyclopedia of monsters.
The beasts, spirits, demons, and aliens featured in this book are inspired by folktales from around the world. Along with full-color illustrations and a simplified stat block, each entry is complete with folkloric history and any scientific phenomena that may have lended to its creation.
Xanathar's Guide to Everything
If you've mastered D&D basics, then it's time to shake things up with Xanathar's Guide to Everything.
This supplement includes lore about adventures and clever ways to beat them. Along with GM tools like expanded rules for traps, magic items, and leisure activities, this book also offers more options for player characters.
Making Enemies
So you have official D&D monster manuals. You have third-party monster manuals.
But what if you want to create your own beasts from scratch?
This helpful guide will help you turn the baddies in your head into usable encounters, providing guidance and tips on creature sizes, the number of creatures per encounter, the challenge rating, monster habitats, monster, motivations, magic, and even the metaphors behind monsters.
An essential tool for D&D 5e, this guide can also be used with Pathfinder 2E, Shadowdark, the Cypher System, and Call of Cthulhu 7E.
Tasha's Cauldron of Everything
Tasha's Cauldron of Everything imparts much-coveted secrets! The lore concealed within this text expands and modifies the game for a fresh, improved, and exciting experience.
Included in this text are expanded subclasses, a new array of class features and feats, modified racial traits, group patrons, new spells, artifacts, and magic tattoos, plus new rules options for sidekicks, environments, hazards, and more.
The Game Master's Book of Non-Player Characters
Every GM has been there: your session is running along smoothly, when all of the sudden, your players want to veer off course and visit a new town. But oop! You don't have any NPCs ready…
This vital book helps GMs think fast on their feet and cover all the bases, delivering more than 500 premade NPCs.
It also aids in adding depth and motivation to NPCs the GM has created but hasn't fully developed yet.
The Game Master's Book of Traps, Puzzles and Dungeons
Fear not, GMs, gone are the days of toiling endlessly crafting a nuanced puzzle, only for your adventurers to solve it in 30 seconds.
This helpful third-party supplement provides an exciting selection of difficult riddles, puzzles, and nefarious traps to challenge even the cleverest of players.
With a few rolls of your dice, you can populate a fully functional dungeon—or choose to keep it simple by throwing in standalone traps into random encounters.
This book includes 60 puzzles, 60 traps, 50 modular dungeon chambers, and even comes with three one-shot adventures as bonus content.
Eberron: Rising from The Last War
Eberron: Rising from The Last War fleshes out a nuanced and exciting campaign setting.
Eberron is a war-torn world that runs on magic-infused technology. Amongst airships and lightning trains, gritty noir mysteries entangle with swashbuckling excitement.
Beyond gripping lore and breathtaking locations, this book introduces a new class: the artificer.
You can also explore 16 new race and subrace options, as well as monsters born of the product of war.
Featured image: Steve Johnson/Unsplash
