Wizards of the Coast Xanathar's Guide to Everything

I was quite shocked and surprised to find so many mixed reviews for this product. Some are rated down for what are clear packaging and shipping issues and have nothing to do with the product itself!I’m an older gamer and a DM. I cut my teeth on the second edition, but spent most of my youth playing AD&D 2nd Edition. I’ve played every edition since, except for fourth, quite extensively. And I have a lot of experience with other game systems like Star Wars, DC Heroes, MERP, GURPS, Rifts, and so on.Xanathar’s guide is functionally a compendium of all the “more” that’s been accumulating since the first major waves of books for 5th Edition D&D was released. My book came in great condition. The artwork and quality are excellent. Here are some of the most heavily featured sections of the book.Chapter 1: Character OptionsThis section details the additional subclasses that have been steadily coming out via Unearthed Arcana. They have been cleaned up and balanced (though not all are perfect) for release in this single compendium. Many of the options include some revised takes on older class variations (like the Samurai and Swashbuckler), some new attempts at previously tried themes (A more evil-ish Paladin in the Oath of Conquest, or the Arcane Archer), and some completely new (to my knowledge) subclasses like the Horizon Walker, a ranger of the planes who moves through the multiverse.At the end of the chapter are some new, optional racial feats. Most of these are most interesting when used on some of the “weirder” races like the Dragonborn. Many of the changes and options in this whole chapter put a greater emphasis on role-playing centered classes and class options. Our group is more into the role-playing than the roll-playing. So that’s a plus. Combat-focused gamers may find some of the new classes underwhelming.Chapter 2: Dungeon Master’s ToolsAs a DM, this section is fantastic. It leads with some rules clarification and additional options if the DM wants to make things more interesting. There are also some visual helps regarding area of affect and how they are presented on grid-systems. Also included here is a much needed thorough breakdown of “fair” encounter building with tables and suggestions for DM’s.My favorite part of this section is the random encounter tables. They finally include tables for random encounters that are broken out by level and type of environment. And there is quite a collection. Pages and pages. And the tables all have really cool, interesting things your players could run into. Really, really fun and excited to try.Following that is some really good, thorough help regarding traps and how to make them more interesting, some ideas for down time and after that there is a nice collection of new magic items. Nerd candy to read. Also included are some ways to make magic items and their creation more interesting.Chapter 3: SpellsNew spells. Always nice. And at the end, multiple pages of names for quick name generation.If I had to say something negative, I’d say it’s a smaller book and it doesn’t anything super new like a completely new class or magic system. Another criticism is I wouldn’t recommend this to new players who are not going to DM. There’s a lot of “spoiler” information in here that may kill off the wow-factor of springing something new on a party that DM’s love to have.This is a fantastic book. I would say if I had to recommend three books to fans of 5e. 1 and 2 would of course be the Players Handbook and then the Dungeon Master’s guide. This would be number 3. It’s more of everything. More character choice, more race choices, more rules choices, more tables, more spells and more variety. And especially to DM’s this will be incredibly useful. It’s a book that I’ll have out in front of me every time I run a game. A great addition.

All six books, all three core, all three bad game supplements are on sale right now for about 20 bucks each on amazon this month, absolutely worth the price of admission!Now you could, like I, solely use apps like Fantasy Grounds (Steam client) and or free PDFs, But nothing replaces the feeling and ease of use of having physical copies of each guide in hand. Plus as a fun bonus they looks stunning in my bookshelf. Make you look even more professional as a DM in person. Lastly, all six together give you an extreme launching pad for designing, running and modifying premade or homemade campaigns!For 20 a pop, what is normally a $300 purchase turns into a $120 steal, never will you ever get a better deal on these books brand new.My only regret was getting the one book I did have before this sale but ce n'est pas grave.Now onto the book itself. I want to start by saying two things. One very unpopular thing, this is in my humble opinion a super mixed bag of a supplement book for which we only have the three and then of course all the many campaign idea books. It’s not a bad book but Volo has so much more in it, that I personally find more useful for modifying campaign creation complexity followed by Tome of Foes for the similar reasons, Xanathar’s Guide to Everything is not a bad book, I’m glad I bought it, I enjoy reading it, some things are useful in it, but it really does seem to be the most insulary of the three supplement books. Why? Because if the book never got made what would we be missing?Additional content for classes which is the big one. Nothing to sneeze at, but even there some of what it adds is awesome others puzzling. Many DMs I know avoid this book entirely. Too many other factors to now keep up with while running the campaign. There is a reason somethings stayed back in the 3.5 edition. I might not completely agree I think if your group is willing to do the extra work and you can (life responsibilities withstanding) you should too. It’s just not super needed, it truly is supplemental. It also goes on to further clarify or as some people see modify core rules. Which once again, depending on how you see it might be awesomely helpful for the DM or terriblely restrictive for the players.Now for what I think is awesome is the new spell list. Once again your opinion of them might be different then my own but I think that is literally what this books biggest selling point is, handsdown. In fact, it’s why Tome of Foes often gets put lower on the list for most people. Personally the halfling section of Tome of Foes makes that rating impossible for me, as it genuinely makes me belly laugh out loud reading that entire section lolEither way, as you can see, I still bought it, I still love aspects of it, I just strongly caution that if not on sale (which it was when I got it, at 20 dollars) and instead of Volo and or Tome of Foes, God forbid before Player’s Handbook (which is ALWAYS your first purchase here) you might be a litte disappointed as it’s also physically the smallest of all six books size wise but exactly the same price, irregaurdless.