Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition Books

As Wizards of the Coast learned their lessons with the 3.5 and 4th editions of Dungeons and Dragons, the release rate of books for the fifth edition has been substantially slower. This has had three benefits and one drawback of concern to the players who aren't obsessives who hoover up every single product of their favorite flavor of RPG like an air recirculator on a nuclear submarine.

The first benefit is that Wizards' senior editorial staff and game designers, namely Mike Mearls, Christopher Perkins, Jeremy Crawford, and the editorial core of the Seattle office of Wizards of the Coast, write every major publication themselves after the mess of Princes of the Apocalypse. That, in turn, means that the people who wrote each and every rule have final veto on whether or not material enters the canon of tabletop rulings and stats, and so it doesn't feel like it was designed by committee like later 3.5 materials clearly were. The second is that the financial cost of keeping current on the adventures, splats, rules, and optional setting material is far lower than with 3.5's torrent of material. The third is that the rules of the core game do not change, and that therefore there are rarely, if ever, causes for DMs and players to argue over the contents and design of the rules, since the rules aren't spread over a dozen books and fifty errata articles (looking at you, 4th edition).

The obvious drawback is that groups that chew through official material have got a LONG time to wait between modules. The release schedule of official 5e adventures, especially Adventurers' League canon adventure paths, is easily outpaced by a brisk group. There are a few exceptions, like how Waterdeep: Dragon Heist and Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage can easily run a campaign for well over a year even with rapid levelling, given the sheer SIZE of Undermountain, but that is scarce. There are alternatives, of course, like homebrew material, and of course the expansions to the official modules sold on DM's Guild, but the near-total lack of replaybility on every 5e hardback except the aforementioned Dragon Heist (thanks to having four mutually-exclusive villains you can plug into the campaign to compete with the party) means that homebrewing filler adventures is all but mandatory for parties.

Here is a list of all hard-copy publications of Fifth Edition. There are well over a hundred smaller adventure bundles on DM's Guild, plus the CCC-x modules that are only runnable at conventions, which we're not going to even try listing here.

Title	Description	Date	Pages	Type
Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set	A set of basic rules, some dice, five basic characters and the campaign Lost Mine of Phandelver, a, well, basic adventure that teaches new players the game.	July 15, 2014	32 / 64	Starter Set (Lost Mine of Phandelver, Levels 1-5)
Player's Handbook	Classes, Races, Equipment, Backgrounds, oh my! You know what this is.	August 19, 2014	316	Core Rulebook
Hoard of the Dragon Queen	A tour-de-force through the Sword Coast of the Forgotten Realms, attempting to stop a widespread dragon cult.	August 19, 2014	96	Adventure Module (Levels 1-7)
Monster Manual	How to manually manipulate monstrous menaces. Notably, DnD Beyond has quite a few of the most common monster available for free, so you may not even need this one.	September 17, 2014	352	Core Rulebook
The Rise of Tiamat	Sequel to Hoard of the Dragon Queen, a certain dragon goddess is moving upwards and the players must stomp on all five of her heads.	October 21, 2014	94	Adventure Module (Levels 8-15)
Dungeon Master's Guide	How to be an evil overlord, version 5.0. Has all the treasures, a new subclass, guides to how to do anything from making settings, running encounters, creating adventures and much more.	December 9, 2014	320	Core Rulebook
Elemental Evil Player's Companion	Contains the Genasi, Aarakocra and Goliath races.	March 10, 2015	24	Free PDF only Splatbook
Princes of the Apocalypse	A primordial threat is emerging, plunging existence into peril. The world is ending and I'm not fine.	April 7, 2015	256	Adventure Module (Levels 1-15)
Out of the Abyss	The players find themselves in the Underdark, where a city will be invaded by demons soon enough. Filled with cool details about playing in the Underdark.	September 15, 2015	254	Adventure Module (Levels 1-15)
Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide	Adds a whole shitton of new subclasses, subraces and backgrounds susable in all settings, though the book focuses on the Sword Coast of the Forgotten Realms.	November 3, 2015	159	Splatbook/Setting Guide
Curse of Strahd	Dark, gothic horror adventure in the dread realm of Mr. Strahd, Cruel Overlord and Middling Romantic of much renown. One of the most popular modules in this edition.	March 15, 2016	256	Adventure module (Levels 1-10)
Storm King's Thunder	FOH FIH FUH FUM, GIANTS COME KILL EVERYTHING. Kind of needs you to know about the Forgotten Realms to work.	September 6, 2016	256	Adventure module (Levels 1-11)
Volo's Guide to Monsters	Monster PC options everywhere and a whole load of new monsters for your games.	November 15, 2016	224	Splatbook related to monsters
Tales From the Yawning Portal	Seven old school dungeons updated to 5th edition, with a token plot connecting them - though only just.	April 4, 2017	248	Adventure Module (Levels 1-11+)
Tomb of Annihilation	Tomb of Horror but not quite as horrible. It will still kill you if you relax.	September 19, 2017	256	Adventure Module (Levels 1-11)
Xanathar's Guide to Everything	More subclasses, feats, magic items and spells, along with a bunch of additional cool stuff for the DM.	November 21, 2017	192	Splatbook related to characters and DM tactics
Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes	A lot of monsters. Like, a lot. Also variant tieflings. And shadar kai.	May 29, 2018	256	Splatbook related to villains
Wayfinder's Guide to Eberron	First book on Eberron; gives some information on how to go have Indiana Jones adventures as a wooden robot.	July 23, 2018	175	Splatbook/Setting Guide
Waterdeep: Dragon Heist	The players wanna carry out a heist while the big movers of Waterdeep moves to snatch it from them. Unique in that it has four "seasons", which decides what group is trying to stop the players.	September 18, 2018	256	Adventure Module (Levels 1-5)
Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage	A huge fucking dungeon crawl for those among us that miss the days of trucking through graph-paper complexes for days on end.	November 20, 2018	320	Adventure Module (Levels 5-20)
Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica	Ever wanted to play DnD in the Magic: The Gathering universe? Na, me neither but hey it's an option.	November 20, 2018	256	Splatbook/Setting Guide
Stranger Things Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set	Cashing in on the popularity of DnD coming from Stranger Things.	May 1, 2019	44 / 32	Boxed Set (Hunt For The Thessalhydra, Levels 1-3)
Ghosts of Saltmarsh	A combined, nautically themed adventure made from old dungeons and adventures, set in Greyhawk of all places.	May 21, 2019	256	Adventure Module (Levels 1-12)
Acquisitions Incorporated	Created by Penny Arcade, this is a goofy compilation of magic items, spells, backgrounds and more.	June 16, 2019	224	Splatbook related to setting up an AI franchise/Adventure Module (Levels 1-6)
Essentials Kit	A new starter set plus a DM screen and a new campaign also set in the area around Phandelver, where players attempt to save the countryside from a roaming white dragon.	September 17, 2019	64 / 64	Boxed Set (Dragon of Icespire Peak, Levels 1-6)
Baldur's Gate: Descent Into Avernus	Zariel literally yeeted Baldur's Gate into the top level of the Nine Hells, and the players went with it.	September 17, 2019	256	Adventure Module (Levels 1-13)
Dungeons & Dragons vs Rick and Morty	Because of course there's an official Rick and Morty DnD product.	November 19, 2019	64 / 44	Boxed Set (The Lost Dungeon of Rickedness: Big Rick Energy, Levels 1-3)
Eberron: Rising from the Last War	The Eberron splatbook, attempt nr. 2. Adds the Artificer class and a bunch of unique races to the Eberron setting.	November 19, 2019	320	Splatbook/Setting Guide
Mordenkainen's Fiendish Folio, Volume 1: Monsters Malevolent and Benign	A few monsters for your DnD Beyond account.	December 03, 2019	21	Splatbook related to monsters
Explorer's Guide to Wildemount	Matt Mercer's five year pilgrimage to become a part of the DnD pantheon finally pays of. Splatbook for playing in Mercer's own setting, though only on the continent of Wildemount.	March 17, 2020	304	Splatbook/Setting Guide
Mythic Odysseys of Theros	Is it Greek Myth time? I think it's Greek Myth time! Adds Legendary + 1 mobs, a few races, subclasses and options to have divine connections.	June 2, 2020	180	Splatbook/Setting Guide
Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden	It's about to get cold in here. We don't know much yet.	September 15, 2020	320	Adventure Module (Levels 1-12)