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Xanathar’s Guide to Everything from Wizards of the Coast is the first dedicated book of expansion rules for Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition. As a rule book it presents many game-enhancing options for players—character subclasses, spells, magic items—and tools for dungeon masters—trap design, encounter building, area-of-affect adjudication. Among the new subclasses (those path-of-specialization choices made by everyone somewhere between 1st and 3rd level) it’s the Bard College of Whispers, Samurai (Fighter), and Scout (Rogue) that most attract me. However, every one provides a unique path for players to explore, some magical, some martial, some mystical.
The rules section, though, that I see most enhancing my game has to be the one on tool proficiencies. It provides some great ideas on how to use a piece of the game that in my experience is not well understood, and therefore mostly ignored. For example, it describes what use to make of a disguise kit, gaming set, and thieves’ tools. It also explains how to view a task that might benefit from both a skill proficiency and a tool proficiency, and what specific additional insights a character with both might realize.
But with all that, what really distinguishes Xanathar’s Guide is its focus on providing options to enhance the game’s story. That is, it’s more than just a book of mechanical rule options. Yes, you’ll find in it cool powers for your characters but more importantly, you’ll find in it ideas for cool backstories. The book has tables of suggestions for family history, rivals, mentors, personal keepsakes, life tragedies, and even a “weird stuff” list. Xanathar’s Guide also provides new feats specific to the various races and tables of character names by race and human-historical culture. As well, there’s a whole section on things that characters might do during their between-dungeon downtime, such as gambling, training, carousing, research, crafting, and more—and how a dungeon master might evaluate their success.
Now, I’m not going to say it does these things perfectly. The little sidebar notes from Xanathar, a well-known beholder out of the Forgotten Realms, I found just silly, though they’re small and easy to ignore. And the tables of random encounters, I thought were a wasted opportunity, pretty much listing groups of monsters, where there could have been more ideas for interesting locations, traveling groups, or even monsters with specific goals.
Nevertheless, Xanathar’s Guide to Everything is definitely one of the better and more inspiring RPG books I’ve encountered.
Xanathar’s Guide to Everything hit the shelves of local game stores today and can be found in general retail November 21st. The suggested retail price in $49.95.
A complimentary copy of Xanathar’s Guide to Everything was provided by Wizards of the Coast for review. Actually two, but we gave one away earlier this week.
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