What's beyond the PHB?

[Dimers]

I'm going to take part in a 5e campaign starting soon. I'd like to find out what options -- both for players and for default rules -- are not in the PHB, and where to find them.

Also, does anyone have recommendations on where to buy a PHB? I prefer to have both paper and PDF versions and I don't mind paying more for the privilege.

[Rhaegar14]

The big thing is the Elemental Evil Players' Guide as far as PLAYER options go. There are also the Unearthed Arcana articles, though those aren't quite official material. Both you can find online.

Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide comes out next month and has a bunch of new subclasses and Backgrounds by the look of things. Dungeon Master's Guide has the Death Domain Cleric and Oathbreaker Paladin.

[Daishain]

The Dungeon Master's Guide has two additional races and two additional subclasses. Your DM is likely to have a copy of the DMG, so you can ask them about it.

Eladrin (elf subclass, can teleport) Aasimar (the angelic version of the PHB's tiefling). Oathbreaker (paladin who has aligned with the forces of evil), and Death domain (for clerics that are more into laying waste than shielding the faithful)

The elemental evil player's companion is free online and contains some good stuff, including a large number of races and spells.

The Unearthed Arcana articles also contain player options. However, this is playtest material, is not considered officially ready for public play, and should only be considered for use with prior DM approval. Bear in mind, multiple balance issues exist with the UA stuff, tweaking the power level up or down in order to meet par is recommended if you are going to use it at all.



If your DM is willing to go for such, there is also the possibility of homebrew. Creating new classes is perhaps out of reach, but balancing subclasses and races is not out of the question, and there's a LOT of material from previous editions waiting to be ported in. Quite a bit of homebrew already on this site, though I'll just say it straight up that a lot of it is junk, usually by being OP.

[steppedonad4]

So far it looks as if options are being presented primarily in adventure campaign books. The only exception so far is the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide, however that is really only expanding the current staple and background of the previous adventure campaign books. It's more of an extension of those than a true sourcebook or stand-alone rule's book.

[Falcon X]

Unearthed Arcana comes out every month.

Find it here, just change Narrow By Type to Unearthed Arcana

[Demonic Spoon]

I'm going to take part in a 5e campaign starting soon. I'd like to find out what options -- both for players and for default rules -- are not in the PHB, and where to find them.

Also, does anyone have recommendations on where to buy a PHB? I prefer to have both paper and PDF versions and I don't mind paying more for the privilege.

You should ask your DM what materials are allowed. By default it's just the PHB, though the EEPC is fairly polished and so many would allow it also.

Unearthed Arcana is playtest content and some of it is terrible - I would be very surprised if a DM allowed anything in UA.

[Inevitability]

HotDQ and OotA have a few (mostly adventure-specific) background features. There's also a PDF with some more backgrounds floating around somewhere.

[Vogonjeltz]

I'd like to find out what options -- both for players and for default rules -- are not in the PHB, and where to find them.

The DMG has a substantial number of variants and options, many are located in Chapter 9: Dungeon Master's Workshop. The most prominent for players would be the extra suggestions for Action Options, which include: Climb onto a Bigger Creature, Disarm, Mark, Overrun, Shove Aside, and Tumble.

[Dimers]

Thanks, y'all. Good answers on what's available -- and I can talk to my DM about the maneuvers, any race/class stuff, and whether there's anything in UA he wants to introduce.