Looking to elevate your Dungeons & Dragons game, or just trying to fill your library? These 5E sourcebooks offer the best bang for your buck.

For new Dungeons & Dragons players, the sea of supplemental materials can seem daunting. Of course, the three core rulebooks—the Players’ Handbook, the Dungeon Master’s Guide, and the Monster Manual—are the essential supplies any group needs to play the game. Maybe you also own a Starter Set, and have run through a mini-campaign like “The Lost Mines of Phandelver.” But where do you go from there?

With the game’s current iteration approaching its tenth anniversary, there’s a wealth of 5E Sourcebooks to help you expand your ongoing or upcoming campaign (and that’s not even including the wider world of independent and/or fan-made content available through sources like Dungeon Master’s Guild).

To help you navigate the options, we’ve collected a list of the best 5E sourcebooks to expand your fledgling D&D library, or fill any gaps for older players.

5) Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide

The realm of Faerûn, more commonly known as the Forgotten Realms, is one of Dungeons & Dragons’ quintessential locations, often used as its default setting. Most popular D&D adaptations or off-shoots—from R.A. Salvatore’s The Legend of Drizzt books to Baldur’s Gate 3, to even the eponymous movie starring Chris Pine—are based on this intriguing plane of high fantasy. Chances are, you’ll play at least one adventure on this familiar plane at some point in your tabletop RPG career.

So, the Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide ranks as one of the most useful 5E sourcebooks for DMs and players alike. Packed with lore on iconic locations (Baldur’s Gate, Waterdeep, Neverwinter, Candlekeep, Menzoberranzan, and so on), it’s a handy reference guide for preparing campaigns, or even fetching info quickly when someone makes a good History check.

Likewise, there’s information to help ground characters in the existing lore of the realm, either with the premade backgrounds included or getting inspiration from the text. The class options also help add that Faerûnian flavor with some variant features or subclasses. It may not be the most robust of the 5E sourcebooks so far, but the frequent opportunities to call upon it make it worthwhile (unless you actively avoid using this setting).

4) Critical Role: Call of the Netherdeep

About half of the 5E sourcebooks to date are premade adventures, either in piecemeal form like the excellent Tales From The Yawning Portal or full-blown campaigns like the exemplary Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen. However, I’d contend that if you’re going to own one published adventure, it should be Critical Role: Call of the Neverdeep.

As the title suggests, this is a collaboration with the popular live-play series Critical Role, co-written by Dungeon Master Matthew Mercer and set in the world of Exandria. Its events are technically concurrent with the show’s second campaign (the Mighty Nein), but can be adjusted to your group’s needs, and in retrospect, makes a great companion to its current third campaign (Bell’s Hells).

Call of the Netherdeep incorporates and expands the rival system introduced in Strixhaven: Curriculum of Chaos, and features a handful of sublimely-crafted monsters like you might see in the show. It makes a great transition point for people who love Critical Role and haven’t played D&D before, yet can be enjoyed by those who have never watched/heard a second of it. With its epic scope and rich plot seeds, there are few officially published adventures better to hone your craft as the game runner.

3) Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse

One of the timeless struggles for DMs is keeping a campaign’s encounters fresh and interesting. Bestiary tomes like this, therefore, are some of the most invaluable tools in a DM’s library of 5E sourcebooks.

There’s nothing like a big book of monster stat blocks to help spark some level-appropriate inspiration. One part lore, one part monster race options for players, and one big part bestiary, Volo’s Guide to Monsters is an ideal tool for either prepping encounters or making things up on the fly. The beasties on offer are a solid cross-section of species and challenge ratings, as well.

This release is the best of the 5E sourcebooks to follow in the Monster Manual’s footsteps, as it essentially replaces two earlier releases: Volo’s Guide to Monsters and Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes. Both older options are still technically valid, but not as up to date with the current state of the game, so it’s better to start with the 2022 release.

2) Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything

Reading Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything when it came out in late 2020 felt like the start of a new era in D&D. Back in Fourth Edition, there were follow-ups to the Player’s Handbook—Player’s Handbook 2, etc—which expanded class options, spell lists, and so on. While 5E sourcebooks get more creative with their naming conventions, the spirit is the same; Tasha’s Cauldron is effectively the Player’s Handbook 3, and as vital as that name would imply.

Each class in the game gets a couple new subclasses, like the Druid’s Circle of Spores or the Monk’s Way of the Astral Self, while the Artificer is brought into the main body of rulebooks after initially debuting in Eberron: Rising From the Last War. All receive a set of new Optional Class Features which retool the classes without totally rewriting or retconning them (as was done with the bestiary books mentioned above). Depending on the class, these allow players to replace certain skills or expand their spell lists.

There are also nifty references and inspiration for puzzles, but what I’ve always appreciated about this release is that it codifies some best practices for DMs that have come about since the earliest 5E sourcebooks were published. Customizing Origins to escape some of the more culturally inappropriate conventions baked into RPGs, planning a Session Zero, even advice on how to navigate changing players’ subclasses—Tasha’s Cauldron is not just character options for players, but an essential training manual for DMs.

1) Xanathar’s Guide to Everything

Like Tasha’s Cauldron, Xanathar’s Guide to Everything marked the first major expansion to the 5E’s playing field; it would be the Player’s Handbook 2 of 5E sourcebooks. This time around, Xanathar’s Guide offers a plethora of subclasses that really open up the options (including my favorite for Warlocks, the Hexblade). But, what’s arguably more useful is the way the book coaches players to breathe life into their characters.

Each class gets a handful of tables for generating unique traits. Does your Warlock have any distinguishing physical characteristics that give away the source of their power? What is your Bard’s defining work? Who is your Rogue’s biggest adversary? The tables are meager suggestions, but they can inspire a player to really lean into the role-playing aspect and think of ways to bring the character sheet to life. The approach continues into a “This Is Your Life” section, using even more charts to help make difficult backstory decisions.

The back half is a toolkit for DMs, once again codifying some unwritten concepts of the job. There are clarifications on some trickier rule concepts, and systems to entertain the party during downtime. Plus, random encounter charts! And who doesn’t need more magic item and spell ideas?

Truth be told, both Xanathar’s Guide to Everything and Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything are must-own 5E sourcebooks. Make them a top priority after the Core Rulebooks, and they’ll be an indispensable resource whether you’re running premade adventures or homebrewing.

Hopefully these suggestions grant you advantage on your Wisdom checks as you peruse the vast library of 5E sourcebooks, and guide you to good investments. Dungeons & Dragons thrives when there are more options at all levels of the game, and these mighty tomes offer the best options for both sides of the campaign. In the meantime, stay tuned to CGMagazine for more coverage of the game’s exciting fall lineup of 5E sourcebooks, starting with Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants.