Dungeons and Dragons is doing a lot to celebrate its 50th anniversary this year, and apparently one of those things is a sale on DnD books. As of May 31, digital marketplace D&DBeyond is currently offering discounts of up to 50%. Getting a new sourcebook can be exciting (especially if it’s a bargain), but not every TTRPG title is equal. To save you a bit of time, I’ve summarized the winners and losers of this sale.
Also, since this is only a digital sale of DnD books, I’ve also thrown in a few Amazon links. This is for anyone who might prefer to buy a physical copy – these often crop up online with discounts, too.
Loser: Player’s Handbook and Dungeon Master’s Guide
If you’ve got the real-life version of the Alert feat, you’ll already know that Dungeons and Dragons is releasing new core rulebooks this year. We’ve watched them go through rigorous playtesting under the One DnD codename, and their debut is only a few months away on the 2024 DnD release schedule. So now might not be the time to buy the 2014 versions of the same books.
If you’re learning how to play Dungeons and Dragons for the first time, you don’t need to wait until September to do so. The basic rules are widely and freely available, and the internet is brimming with resources that can help you learn to create your first character – or even how to be a DM. (You can read my advice on all this here on Wargamer, cough cough hint hint.)
Winner: Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse
The 2024 rulebooks may be outmoding the old Player’s Handbook and DM’s Guide, but everything else in fifth edition remains cross-compatible. Monsters of the Multiverse offers one key thing you can’t get in the core books (past and present), and that’s a wider range of DnD races. It’s also useful for Dungeon Masters, who gain access to an extended bestiary.
Winner: Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything
If you want to expand your character options, I also recommend grabbing Tasha’s Cauldron of everything. This book introduces a new roster of DnD subclasses, many of which are firm favorites at my table (shout out to the Rune Knight Fighter and the Circle of Spores Druid).
A heap of excellent DnD feats and 5e magic items are also available. Plus, this is the book that introduced Custom Origin Rules to the base races, allowing you to customize DnD stats for your standard Elf or Dwarf characters.
Loser: Spelljammer: Adventures in Space
I put out a Spelljammer: Adventures in Space review back in 2022, and I wasn’t overly impressed. Wizards of the Coast returned to one of its most vibrant and memorable settings, but they stripped out a lot of the mechanics that made it interesting. In addition to subpar Spelljamming rules, the accompanying adventure was uninspired, leaving the three-book trilogy feeling paper-thin.
Winner: Curse of Strahd
Curse of Strahd may have come out eight years ago, but it remains one of the best official DnD campaigns. The grim, gothic setting is like few others in D&D canon, and the adventure does an excellent job building up anticipation for your final confrontation with the Big Bad Evil, legendary vampire Strahd von Zarovich.
Curse of Strahd is a sandbox campaign with a surprising amount of replay value. I’m over a year into my current Strahd game, and I remain obsessed.
Loser: Princes of the Apocalypse
2015’s Princes of the Apocalypse is one of the weakest first-party campaigns there is. It’s another sandbox adventure, but the majority of the content is repetitive, dull, and vague. The poor organization of the book itself can also make this an unnecessary challenge for Dungeon Masters.
Winner: The Wild Beyond the Witchlight
The Wild Beyond the Witchlight takes players to another unique DnD setting, the fairy-filled Feywild. This adventure is filled with magical moments that balance heavy and light themes with skill.
It’s not a high-level adventure, and it’s easy to talk your way into a campaign that lacks combat, but the story is compelling – and comes with some of my favorite opening plot hooks from a first-party campaign. The Wild Beyond the Witchlight is good at making you care about why your characters are on the adventure at all.
For more tabletop RPG updates, be sure to follow Wargamer on Google News. We can also walk you through the DnD character creator process right here on the website, advising on everything from DnD classes to DnD character sheets. Or, if you want to see the full list of books on sale, here’s D&DBeyond.