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Dungeons & Dragons, 5th Edition

Xanathar's Guide to Everything

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Explore a wealth of fantastic new rules options for both players and Dungeon Masters in this supplement for the world’s greatest roleplaying game.

Assembled here for the first time is new information on adventurers of every stripe. In addition, you’ll find and valuable advice for those of nefarious intent who must deal with such meddling do-gooders, including the Xanathar’s personal thoughts on how to dispatch anyone foolish enough to interfere with his business dealings. Alongside observations on “heroes” themselves, the beholder fills the pages of this tome with his personal thoughts on tricks, traps, and even treasures and how they can be put to villainous use.

Complete rules for more than twenty new subclasses for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragons, including the cavalier, the inquisitive, the horizon walker, and many more.

Dozens of new feats and spells, and a system to give your character a unique, randomized backstory.

A variety of systems and tools that provide Dungeon Masters new ways to personalize their home games, while also expanding the ways players can engage in organized play and shared world campaigns.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but evil is in its heart!

The Xanathar…
Waterdeep’s most infamous crime lord, and a beholder to boot…
You’d be shocked to discover just how much he knows about you…
Yes, you… adventurers.

192 pages, Hardcover

First published November 21, 2017

141 people are currently reading
1703 people want to read

About the author

Wizards of the Coast

423 books416 followers
Wizards of the Coast LLC (often referred to as WotC /ˈwɒtˌsiː/ or simply Wizards) is an American publisher of games, primarily based on fantasy and science fiction themes, and formerly an operator of retail stores for games. Originally a basement-run role-playing game publisher, the company popularized the collectible card game genre with Magic: The Gathering in the mid-1990s, acquired the popular Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game by purchasing the failing company TSR, and experienced tremendous success by publishing the licensed Pokémon Trading Card Game. The company's corporate headquarters are located in Renton, Washington in the United States.[1]

Wizards of the Coast publishes role-playing games, board games, and collectible card games. They have received numerous awards, including several Origins Awards. The company has been a subsidiary of Hasbro since 1999. All Wizards of the Coast stores were closed in 2004.

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5 stars
2,102 (58%)
4 stars
1,131 (31%)
3 stars
302 (8%)
2 stars
33 (<1%)
1 star
10 (<1%)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 156 reviews
Profile Image for Stewart Tame.
2,455 reviews116 followers
December 21, 2022
Yes, it's an RPG source book. And yes, I read it straight through–skimmed a bit on the tables. It was fun!

That said, anyone without an interest in Dungeons & Dragons will probably want to give this a miss. And, if you're unfamiliar with D&D, you're better off starting with the Player's Handbook. Xanathar's is a supplemental volume, suggesting additional character classes and magic among other goodies. It's designed to be used with the 5th Edition rules (the current standard, as of this writing), though specific familiarity with them isn't mandatory. Just a general knowledge of tabletop RPGs should be sufficient. My personal D&D experience is pretty much all 1st edition–old school gamer here–but I had no trouble getting into the text.

My favorite bit was probably the Wizard spell, Steel Wind Strike. It seems to be inspired by anime, and allows the character to brandish a blade, vanish from sight, attack up to five enemies within range, and then appear next to one of them. It's a very cool move to contemplate.

If you desire to add some extra flavor to your AD&D 5e game, this book has some great ideas in it. Recommended!
Profile Image for Dan Schwent.
3,186 reviews10.8k followers
December 30, 2022
Similar to Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, this is a collection of bells and whistles for D&D 5e players and dungeon masters alike. There are more subclasses, more spells, more magic items, and more DM tools. Some 2e kits made their way back into the game as subclasses, like the blade option from the Complete Book of Bards to the Kensei from whatever book that was in. There are also more ways to flesh out backgrounds and quirks. The DM tools are good too, from the collections of traps to tables for generating random names. I'm going to read this again but it feels more useful than the Tasha's book to me.
Profile Image for Adam Cleaver.
273 reviews2 followers
May 12, 2021
Not really a story so hard to give it a star review, however, as an expansion to the D&D rules this is a really good addition to the main rule books. I like the idea of fleshing out the characters backgrounds in the game and being able to use new additional abilities. For me the character design is a major part of the fun of D&D and this just makes this part more enjoyable and really does let you make a more detailed and a more umique type of character. - So if you are looking for more player options give this a read.
Profile Image for Lena.
1,205 reviews331 followers
August 19, 2022
Roll for adventure, no preplanning needed! The encounter tables are awesome! There are even downtime tables. Are you a low, middle, or upper class carouser? Life’s great questions, lol.

This is where you find Path of the Zealot, which doesn’t look a tenth as cool as whatever homebrew made Yasha from Campaign Two of Critical Role.

Infernal Constitution was the most useful find.
Profile Image for Jason.
276 reviews
November 22, 2017
Truly an epic addition to 5e DnD. This makes generating a character for a first time player (or veteran) even easier. The layout of the book and the charts are just well placed and though out. Allowing players to create a well rounded character via dice rolls if they want. This provides a much faster path to filling in a characters back story or at least provides you with enough starting points to round them out with greater ease.

It even has a section that helps you generate a freaking name for your character! Add to that the new charts and game creating help it provides for DM's, this book is a fantastic tool for both players and DM's.

Having toyed around with several of the new character class options already in actual game play I can honestly say..these options are wonderful. They add a nice bit of flavor to the standard character archetypes (honestly Cleric of the Forge is how you make your healer the tank of your party).

I can't recommend this book enough for both new and returning DnD players.
Profile Image for Diz.
1,842 reviews128 followers
June 15, 2018
This is worth picking up for players and DMs for the additional character options. The additional spells and and magic items are nice to have as well.
Profile Image for Shadowdenizen.
829 reviews43 followers
June 22, 2018
4.5 stars. The D&D 5E line continues to impress. This book expands substanstially on the core rules, but manages to (mostly) avoid power-creep, and feels useful as a great supplement/ add-on to most campaigns.

And I enjoy the snarky asides from the titular character sprinkled throughout the book.
1,158 reviews7 followers
December 17, 2017
A major expansion for the Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition game, Xanathar's Guide to Everything has a ton of new options for players and Dungeon Masters to use in their campaigns. Similar to 5E itself, much of the material in Xanathar's was publicly playtested at length before being published, as part of the Unearthed Arcana column on the D&D web site. Similar to Volo's Guide to Monsters, this book has the conceit of being narrated by the Xanathar, a beholder crime lord from the Forgotten Realms setting. (The Xanathar isn't nearly as entertaining as Volo and Elminster were in Volo's, however.) After a brief introduction (that includes something of a rules FAQ), there are three chapters in the book: one for player options, one for DM options, and one for new spells. There are also two appendices.

Let's go through this section by section.



Xanathar's is a great choice for players, and extremely useful for Dungeon Masters. It's not perfect, but the issues I see are fairly minor, and others may see things differently. (For example, the reprinted material is one of those minor issues... but it's also handy to have all this stuff in one place.) Overall, this book is highly recommended. (A)
43 reviews
April 10, 2023
This is definitely a sourcebook for Dungeon Masters. It’s filled with a lot of tools to spice up adventures as a DM but the actual player options are pretty thin. Funnily enough though it does have significantly more additional spells than Tasha’s cauldron of everything which I felt should thematically be the opposite but that’s a minor nitpick. If you are running games this is a great supplement, if you are a player you can probably skip this one.
Profile Image for Becky.
866 reviews76 followers
November 24, 2022
This is a really great resource, and has some of my favourite class expansions.
24 reviews1 follower
June 26, 2020
Best 5e suppliment so far
Profile Image for Ivan.
397 reviews66 followers
January 11, 2018
Ono što se zove role playing games igram od čini mi se devete godine, dakle od neke '89. a Advanced Dungeons & Dragons od '95. Tri godine kasnije, prešao sam na Skills & Powers i potpuno preskočio 3.x ediciju pravila, sve do Pathfindera 2008. ili beše 2009. Dvadeset godina nakon što sam prvi put bio game master.

Danas je moj omiljeni sistem zapravo moja teška modifikacija Pathfindera, koju grupa kolega kojima trenutno vodim od milja zove Nightfinder. Međutim, jasno mi se ukazuju pismena na zidu, osećam u koju stranu vetar duva i shvatam da je budućnost D&D 5e, makar što se tiče mog igranja, ako već ne vođenja u tom sistemu.

Govoreći strogo u svoje ime i bez pretenzija da dajem ikakav objektivan sud, 5e je odveć jednostavan, preterano uprošćen sitem i uštrojen u svemu što ne predstavlja čist combat encounter, iako smanjena matematika i suspregnuti power creep predstavljaju neizmernu prednost.

To rekavši, Xanathar's Guide To Everything uvodi solidan broj mehanika koje meni ovu igru čine zanimljivijom i nadahnjuju me da pravim likove i razmišljam o njima u granicama ovog sistema (umesto nekog drugog). Međutim, u delovima kada XGtE pokušava da pokrije makar neke situacije koje su komplikovaniji sistemi kakav je Pathfinder odavno izgustirali, kao što je jednostavno padanje s velike visine ili vezivanje čvorova, pokazuje se krajnje priprostim i kilavim, u nedostatku boljeg izraza.

Deo koji mi je izmamio osmeh ispod brka zapravo je spell-list (iako me nervira što u opisu spellova ne stoji kojoj su klasi namenjene), koji sadrži i neke stare znance sa sve njihovim punim imenima (Melf's Minute Meteors mi prvi padaju na pamet).

Premda i dalje držim da je za ambicioznije i dugovečnije kampanje, koje imaju želju da prerastu hack & slash element RPGa potreban ozbiljniji sistem, D&D 5e polako poprima obrise solidne igre, a XGtE predstavlja krupan iskorak u tom smeru.

Prava je šteta što WotC ne koriste talas popkulturnog hajpa na kojem je 5e sada jezdi, ali je tokom prethodne godine svetlost knjižara i tableta ugledalo nekoliko izvanrednih 3pp dodataka ovom sistemu, što u vidu settinga, odnosno igraćih svetova, što u vidu dodatne mehanike, koja po pravilu u manjoj ili većoj meri prati te svetove.

Xanathar's Guide To Everything se utoliko manje dojmi kao nezavisna publikacija, a više kao vezivno tkivo između Player's Handbooka i Dungeon Master's Guidea i tih 3pp publikacija, pomalo popunjavajući mesom i dalje relativno ogoljeni kostur D&D 5e-a.

Sve u svemu, ipak solidan proizvod za sve pasionirane igrače i rekao bih nezaobilazan dodatak svetom trojstvu D&D pravila.
Profile Image for Andrew Nguyen.
122 reviews5 followers
December 21, 2017
As a player, I mostly wanted a compendium of new spells and sweet new classes. This book offers some thoughtful lower level spells and additions for some of the more boring classes (i.e. fighter)

I find a lot of the book’s additions such as a list of minor magical items and role playing ideas to not be as interesting to me.
Profile Image for D.
1,051 reviews11 followers
December 24, 2023
This is a wonderful addition to the core rule books. It offers some really great choices for new subclasses and I love the optional new Dungeon Master rules. There the good selection of new spells and magic items too.

The only thing that didn't work for me at all is the ridiculous list of names at the end. For example, the German names listed are sometimes listed on the wrong gender or are not German at all. Some of the names are weirdly old-fashioned in the sense that nobody these days would be called that but at the same time those names aren't old enough to count as ancient. They're grandma names.
Profile Image for Brian.
69 reviews3 followers
February 6, 2021
My favorite supplemental book for 5e. This is a great resource for players as well as DMs. Players have several new subclasses with added tidbits unique to each class. For those needing help with backstories, there are a ton of charts to inspire or random roll to get you going.

DMs have plenty of options from random encounter tables by type, to additional rules for falling, sleeping, traps, and downtime. Common items are added to the magic items from the DM Guide and handy charts breaking down those items into Minor and Major and then sorted by rarity.

Xanathar brings more spells to the table, many of which where brought over from Princes of the Apocalypse and rebalanced.

The book includes several hundred names to again inspire or randomly roll. There are 100 names for every race in the Player's Handbook, split between female and male names. The Human options are categorized by sample nation from Mezo-American to the far East to ancient Roman and Greek names.

This book should be in every player's collection and is just as important as the Holy Trinity of the PHB, DMG, and MM.
Profile Image for Colin.
261 reviews10 followers
December 29, 2017
A slightly random grabbag of improvements to 5e. A lot of the new subclasses are seem very fun, and definitely things that I'd want to play. The really useful parts of this, however, are definitely the DM improvements. There are lots of improvements to rules that I've worried about: how to allocate magic items without just using the random tables, and rules for tool proficiencies, which otherwise seem to do almost nothing for most of the game.
Profile Image for Robin.
Author 18 books14 followers
December 11, 2017
There isn't much of a coherent theme to this supplement — it's a grab bag of new character options and optional rules for the Dungeon Master, much like the old Best of Dragon Magazine books — but there's probably something here to appeal to everybody. Production values are high and the color commentary from the eponymous Xanathar is amusing.
Profile Image for Kit.
92 reviews3 followers
December 22, 2017
The jokes are bad, but that's not why you read this book. :P
Profile Image for Eskil.
374 reviews5 followers
July 26, 2018
Siden en av de viktigste medspillerne mine er på den andre siden av Atlanteren er det vanskelig å få til noe mye døndzjenkrååling, så da er det vel ikke noe anna å gjøre enn å lese en regelbok fra perm til perm. Eller to, for den saks skyld.

"Xanathar's Guide to Everything" er et systemsupplement til spillerhåndboka og Dungeon Master-håndboka. Den forutsetter også sånn halvveis at du har de to pluss monstermanualen, men siden jeg er litt gnien har jeg ikke dem, oops. I "Xanathar" finnes to til fire ekstra underklasser for hver klasse, samt nye rasebonuser og lange tabeller man kan bruke til å fylle ut bakhistorien til karakteren sin, fra fødsel til yrkesutøvelse. Det utgjør omtrent en tredjedel av boka.

Den andre tredjedelen er full av verktøy som virker veldig nyttige for både nye og mer erfarne Dungeon Mastere. Den inneholder regler, forslag til hvordan man kan gjøre diverse aspekter av spillet mer interessant og nyttig, flere feller man kan fange karakterene i (inkludert hvor mye XP de bør få, flere måter fellen kan løses på, pluss, pluss) og har tjue sider med tabeller man kan bruke til å rulle tilfeldige vanskelige situasjoner heltene kan havne i. I tillegg er det over ti sider med forslag til hvordan spillere og DMer kan samarbeide for å gi karakterene deres noe å drive på innimellom eventyr for å gi både dem og verdenen en mer virkelighetsnær smak. Det var også en seksjon om magiske gjenstander som gjorde meg oppmerksom på at gruppa mi har fått alt for få magiske gjenstander så langt.

Siste tredjedel er delt mellom en liste over de nye trylleformlene boka introduserer og lister over mulige navn man kan bruke på karakterene sine og skapningene de møter i løpet av eventyrene sine. I klassisk D&D-tradisjon er navna delt inn i "ikke-mennesklige navn" (seks sider) og "mennesklige navn" (12 sider, sortert etter kulturen de tok dem fra (f.eks. "japansk, meso-amerikansk, niger-kongo, norrønt").) Det er alltid vanskeligere å komme på navn til ikke-mennesker, så jeg gir dem bare vanlige navn uansett siden jeg synes det er litt pinlig å bruke for mange fantasy-ord. Derimot er det nok mange som kunne tenkt seg litt flere navn å piffe opp ikke-menneskene sine med.

Som supplement til de tre kjernebøkene (spillerhåndboka, DM-boka og monstermanualen) funker boka kjempegodt. Det var flere ting jeg ikke kunne slå opp i de to sistnevnte siden jeg bare har "Xanathar" og spillerhåndboka, men jeg syntes likevel at jeg fikk mye ut av boka. Den bruker litt mer humor enn for eksempel spillerhåndboka, og jeg koste meg med tabeller som "Upper-Class Carousing Complications" og "Crime".
Profile Image for Henry Z F2.
38 reviews
August 9, 2021
(It's a little difficult to write a review since this is more of a guide than novel, but I'll try my best. Don't expect any fancy language tho. Also, sorry, this review might be a little confusing if you haven't played dungeons and dragons, it's really hard to explain what I like in normal people words.)
I was extremely impressed by the presentation of this book, all the pages were well pressed and cut, it had think, colored pages, and the hardcover art was beautiful. Even the back had two different textures, a matte black and a glossy.
I also think the new subclasses for the game (dungeons and dragons) were really creative and interesting. Some of them were a little weak, but nothing a talk with your dungeon master can't fix. These are my favorite new additions: Horizon Walker Ranger, College of Swords Bard, Samurai Fighter, and Storm Sorcery Sorcerer.
I also enjoyed the section about adamantine weapons.
This is a really good book, it's great for any dnd collection, and will help your party for years and years to come.
Profile Image for Mack.
127 reviews4 followers
January 1, 2021
Excellent addition to Dungeons & Dragons 5e, but also a lot of really helpful tables that could work with any D&D edition and fantasy-based table RPG. The tables are supremely helpful, both for idea generation to fit specific parameters or for randomly generating characters and encounters quickly. Love it!
Profile Image for Jessica.
89 reviews
January 18, 2023
A super helpful expansion to the encounter design guidance. And all the fun subclasses!!

Is it too much to ask for a consolidated set of rules / spells / items / subclasses / notes, though? Reading through 4 books at once because they all cross-reference each other instead of duplicating text is aggravating. An unexpected outcome of reading this straight through is the resolve to reflect and refine my own professional writing so documents and their addendums and appendices can be understood in isolation.
240 reviews6 followers
March 17, 2025
Xanathar's Guide to Everything is a supplementary rulebook for Dungeons and Dragons. It includes loads of new subclasses and spells, as well as a bunch of new magical items. It also has suggestions and inspiration for several aspects of the game, such as traps and encounters.

Pretty cool. There is no story whatsoever, this is just a bunch of new rules. It works.
Balancing between 3 and 4 stars, but some of the subclasses are really cool so I'll bump it up to 4.
Profile Image for Riley.
201 reviews12 followers
April 8, 2024
One of the better sourse books for 5e i think
Profile Image for Carlos Gutiérrez.
30 reviews1 follower
August 22, 2022
Pues la verdad es que salvo el primer capítulo, con nuevas subclases, no le encuentro mayor interés al manual. Personalmente me quedo con Tasha.
90 reviews3 followers
November 26, 2020
I like that you get access to subclasses, more background stories, and spells with other goodies, but my favorite by far is downtime activities and ideas for such rulesets. It took some time to digest the tables for the encounters and such, but overall a very helpful book to aid your DND journey.
Profile Image for Eric.
190 reviews2 followers
March 4, 2018
NNEEEERRRRRDDD!!

'Tis true.
7 reviews
February 25, 2018
Not needed to play or run a good story. But has some neat Archetypes and other things for creating characters
Profile Image for Daniel A..
301 reviews
December 24, 2017
I've said before that the fifth edition of Dungeons & Dragons has greatly benefited from the Wizards RPG Team's having released a comparative minimum of new rulebooks for D&D, particularly, as compared with fourth edition, and third and 3.5 to a lesser extent. To that effect, Xanathar's Guide To Everything—amazingly enough, only the third book of new rules in at least as many years—fulfills the adage that less is more, insofar as the new rules provided therein bolster and supplement those in the Player's Handbook.

Xanathar's Guide to Everything is divided into two sections—one for PCs, and one for DMs—and this accounts for the bulk of its value as a new rule book; certainly, compared with Volo's Guide to Monsters (the only part of which I can use being that on monster PCs), Xanathar's Guide is a vast improvement. The fact that several of the new builds for the "core" PC classes intrigue me, arguably more than some of the original builds in some cases, is an argument in Xanathar's Guide's favor, and that the main portion of the information for DMs consists of elaborations on information already provided in the Player's Handbook is equally so. Moreover, those parts of the second section that aren't so geared supplement the PHB without being absolutely vital, and the tables for generating character names is an added nice touch, even if the tables for generating human names based on real-world ethnic groups has a tinge of cultural appropriation.

That being said, Xanathar's Guide to Everything mostly works, both on its own level and as part of a larger D&D continuity of sorts. That 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons is playable even without this volume, and that this volume contributes to that playability (rather than, say, 4th edition's having limited actual playability absent Player's Handbook 2 and 3), makes Xanathar's Guide to Everything all the more worth it.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 156 reviews

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