The Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide and Volo’s Guide to Monsters were very satisfying to Dungeon Masters making campaigns and to players making characters, but even so, their hunger for new content returns. More so for the players who were more accustomed to regular releases of new content of the previous two editions. Enter Xanathar’s Guide to Everything. Xanathar’s Guide to Everything wasn’t just a new collection of supplements. It was the culmination of months and months of diligent playtesting and survey taking on the part of the players. Wizards of the Coast, the owners of the D&D brand, had been allowing players to test early drafts of their upcoming content and receiving player feedback. This was a brilliant move, allowing Wizards to improve the product and players to get a taste of things to come. But despite it all, can this collaborative product provide the flavor, crunch, and portions fans were craving?

Xanathar’s Guide to Everything, much like Volo’s Guide to Everything, includes the implication and footnotes of the Xanathar. Another character from the Forgotten Realms, the Xanathar is a title for a crime lord in the city of Waterdeep. The Xanathar is a monster known as a beholder, which is a floating, fleshy sphere with a mouth, one giant eye, and numerous eyestalks on its head. Beholders are classic and dangerous monsters, though this one has taken to penning his opinion on numerous things, namely the more uncommon types of adventurers, every-day magic items, and admiring his beloved goldfish. Its comments, like with Volo’s, add a dash of humor to the book that is always welcome. As for the tasty story materials, each class includes text and tables to guide a player to fitting story beats for their characters. For example, suggesting that a warrior might carry a banner of their own into battle, the songs a bard might have written before adventuring, what materials the wizard’s spellbook is actually made of, etc. These might not seem like much, but these small details help make each character more distinct and memorable. In addition, a whole section goes into some specifics about how your character gained his class and even his background, things that might have had little to no thought put into them. All of which was done for all twelve classes and each of the backgrounds in the Player’s Handbook and all of it brings out the flavor of each.

With the taste buds buzzing from the various options, what can be said about their actual substance? Just how crunchy are they? Each subclass presents a new fantasy archetype for its respective class. Of note, the Arcane Archer and Inquisitive. The Arcane Archer is a Fighter subclass, one revolving around enchanting arrows as they are fired. Initially, a character of this subclass only knows a few tricks for his arrows, but gains more as he grows stronger. From exploding to seeking a target to passing through multiple targets and more, an Arcane Archer lives up to the name. The Inquisitive is a Rogue subclass all about deducing and detecting things. They gain abilities related to analyzing enemies, picking up on things others might miss, and discerning deceptions of all kinds, magical and mundane. No other class is more perfect for playing up a detective. What’s more, the other subclasses are just as detailed and reflective of their archetypes as these. They are as solid as solid can be.

It tastes great, it has a magnificent crunch, but does Xanathar’s Guide to Everything really have enough portions to satisfy? In total, it includes support for the 12 classes (at least one new subclass each, with most getting more), support for the backgrounds, new ways for a Dungeon Master to create combat encounters, new traps, new hazards, new uses for the previously very useless tools, new rules for downtime activities (thing a character can do between adventures), new every-day magic items, new spells, and new names for the various races. That last bit might not sound like much, but many people spend more time deciding a name than anything else about their character. This is as much of an all you can eat buffet of content as one can get!

With the flavor bold, the crunch solid, and the portions packed to the breaking point, Xanathar’s Guide to Everything lives up to its title. The hard work of both game developers and players everywhere paid off and then some. Xanathar’s Guide to Everything is an excellent addition to 5th Edition and a highly, highly recommended book. A+.

-The_Clark_Side