Third Party Recommendations

[Yora]

People are allowed to release their own content for 5th Edition, and I believe Wizards has also given some special licenses for the conversion and use of some older copyrighted material to other companies.

I am very familiar with the material that people have created for AD&D and B/X over the last decade, and some of it is really outstandingly good. But I don't know anything about the material that has been released for 5th Edition so far.

Which ones have you read and used and would recommend to other GMs?

[Ronnocius]

People are allowed to release their own content for 5th Edition, and I believe Wizards has also given some special licenses for the conversion and use of some older copyrighted material to other companies.

I am very familiar with the material that people have created for AD&D and B/X over the last decade, and some of it is really outstandingly good. But I don't know anything about the material that has been released for 5th Edition so far.

Which ones have you read and used and would recommend to other GMs?

I would recommend the Tome of Beasts and Creature Codex by Kobold Press if you are looking for more monsters. I have found that it is hard to surprise veteran players with the Monster Manual alone (the Volo's Guide to Monsters and Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes definitely help in that regard) but the Kobold Press material does not contain any 'lore' like those two supplements, instead containing only monsters.

There was a lot of concern about the CR balance in the two books. I haven't used too many creatures from the supplements, but the ones I used were not unbalanced. I have also heard that most of the unbalanced creatures were stronger than the Monster Manual creatures because the Monster Manual creatures were not made using the monster creation guidelines, but this could be mistaken. At any rate I would make sure to look closely at the monsters and decide for yourself if they are too powerful before using them.

The Tome of Beasts included a lot of new fey and archfey, demon lords, Lovecraftian monsters, and undead (personal favorite being the civilized ghouls).

The Creature Codex included many more demons/devils, some new fey, Lovecraftian monsters, undead, oozes, and 'mythological creatures' (ahuizotl, wendigo, chupacabra etc)

Here are some online reviews:
http://www.5mwd.com/archives/5079
http://www.5mwd.com/archives/3606

[iTreeby]

I think tome of beasts had lots of things that could inflict the poisoned condition, which is super nasty and basically missing from the monster manual.

[Sariel Vailo]

Middle finger of vecna lots of homebrewed material and classes most of which have been altered and tested.
But by putting up this thread beware you may be targeted by the high priest of the wizards of the coast. He despises fun in all of its forms.

[Jophiel]

There is a PDF "book" bundle on Humble Bundle (https://www.humblebundle.com/books/5e-fantasy-dragons-dungeons-maps) right now made up of 3rd party modules, maps and sourcebooks by Troll Lord, Nord, and Frog God games -- plus I think one or two others. A pretty cheap way to get a feel for what some of the more prominent 3rd party publishers are fielding and if you like the writing quality, ideas and layout. There's a $1, $8 and $15 tier. I thought the top tier was worth it just for the Ultimate Bestiary: Revenge of the Horde book, a guide to variants of critters like gnolls, orcs, kobolds, etc. You can click on each of the titles and get a preview of what it's like as well.

I have nothing to do with any of the companies involved or HB; just figured it was helpful for the thread.