Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I have some experience of 3.5E D&D from years ago and am considering getting into the latest version. However, there seem to be a lot of different books available and I am struggling to tell what is what. I am interested in anything that provides more character options (classes, subclasses, races, spells) and not really interested in lore or books that take you through an actual adventure or setting.

In terms of Core books there is the player guide, DM guide and basic monster manual, so I am pretty sure I want all of those.

For supplements, my understanding is that the Tasha and Xanathar books have lots of subclasses and spells, so that sounds good to me. However, Mordenkainen and Voldo are pretty much just extra monsters? If I already have one full book dedicated to monsters then that seems like overkill.

As far as I can tell, everything else is either campaign books or slightly more general books to help with adventures in a specific area. Are there any of these that contain significant amounts of extra character-building goodies?

For 3.5E I had separate compendiums of extra spells and magic items. It seems like 5E does not really have any equivalents?

Thanks for any guidance

Yeah you've basically got it right. Core is PHB, Monster Manual and DMG. If you want more players options you've got Tasha's and Xanathars. Also the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide, though some of the design in that book is thoroughly mediocre.

Volos and Mordenkainens are mostly a few extra monsters and a lot of FR focused background material that is pretty low quality. I like monster books but I've pretty much never used Mordenkainens after I bought it and won't buy any more books of this sort from WOTC because the quality of the background writing is too low for me personally. Volos is a bit more useful, but YMMV. If you really like FR elf lore, then you'll enjoy Mordenkainens more than me, I personally find it all completely insipid. Volos has some extra playable races though.

If you're playing in Eberron or Ravnica those books contain some setting specific stuff like Artificers, Dragonmarks and so on. But probably not worth the price if you're not gonna use them.

Overall 5e publishes less player facing material and mostly publishes adventures set on the Sword Coast of the Forgotten Realms with a couple of exceptions. It's not really comparable to 3e or 4e for the number of player facing books released.

Awesome, thank a lot for the information. Really helpful

Artificers seem cool so it would be a shame to miss out on them, but I'm not buying a whole book just for that

Artificers are also in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything.

5e books in general are pretty thin on player stuff, and there is a bizarre amount of overlap.

Unless you want something really specific, a player is absolutely fine with PHB, Tasha and Xanathar. And even the latter two are optional.

As a long term player (and sometime DM long ago) from 1e and the BECMI box sets, 5e's release model is baffling. It's like they don't even want customers or sales.