Which D&D 4e Books Are Right for You?
A Beginner’s Guide
A question that pops up in comments over and over is, “how can I get started in 4th edition?” More specifically, folks want to know which books would I recommend for someone trying to learn about the system.
It would be easy for me to send everyone to the core rulebooks, but that is not always the right answer for everyone. Each individual has a different reason for wanting to try 4th edition. You might be brand new to D&D and are starting from scratch (you picked a great version to get started with). Or you might have a ton of experience with another edition and want to see for yourself if what you’ve heard about 4e is true. Or maybe you love another edition of D&D and want to know if 4e could bring anything to your game.
I have you covered.
Let’s review the best books1 to get you started in 4e no matter what your goals are.
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Unsure About 4th Edition, but Want to Try It
TTRPGs are a notoriously expensive hobby. It can be hard to buy even a PDF if you are not sure that you will enjoy the game. Fortunately, 4th edition makes this really easy by offering the starter set for free.
Keep on the Shadowfell was released in May of 2008. It was the first 4e content to hit the shelves. The download from DriveThruRPG includes the basic rules, 5 pre-generated characters, 6 digital maps, and a full adventure to get your characters through 3rd level. And it costs you nothing!
This set has everything you need to help you decide if 4e is right for you. The quick-start rules cover everything you need to play the adventure. The characters offer a good mix of the different roles. (Cleric, Fighter, Paladin, Rogue, Wizard) The digital maps are great if you are playing on Roll20. And the adventure is a great mix of roleplaying, exploration, and combat. It is a classic dungeon crawl to get you started.
If you are curious about 4e, this is, by far, the best place to start. It has everything you need and you cannot beat the price.
Dungeon Master Excellence
You’ve flipped through Keep on the Shadowfell and decide that 4th edition is just what you have been looking for. Now you have a choice to make. Are you a player or a dungeon master? The next set of books you seek will depend on your answer.
If you are purely a player, then you can skip to the next section if you desire.
But, if you are a Dungeon Master like me and enjoy building encounters and adventures and running games, then 4e has what I think are hands-down the two best Dungeon Masters Guides ever written.
A Dungeon Master’s Guide should be a tool to help the dungeon master prepare and run the game. That is exactly what this book does. You get guidance on managing a table and the different types of players. It goes into depth on creating encounters that work for your table and tells you how to create monsters and traps and hazards. How do you determine treasure? Got it. How do you build a full campaign? It is all in this book. And to top it all off, it even has a small adventure in the back to get you started.
I could talk forever about how wonderful the 4th edition Dungeon Master’s Guide is, but the Dungeon Master’s Guide 2 is actually even better. Here you get more depth on creating campaigns. It has entire sections about building a story and complex encounters and custom monsters and skill challenges. The amazing thing about this book is that while it has a lot of content for 4th edition, much of what you will find is not specific to these mechanics. You can get a ton of value from this book no matter what TTRPG you play.
These two books are possibly my two favorite D&D books of all time.
Core Player Options
Keep on the Shadowfell got your hooked, but you are itching to create your own characters. This is where 4th edition really shines. There is a mountain of options available to you.
The Player’s Handbook is where you want to start. It contains the full rules plus the core magic items and everything else you need to build a character. It is well structured and will likely be the book you use the most. I have multiple copies for just that reason.
Races: Dragonborn, Dwarf, Eladrin, Elf, Half-Elf, Halfling, Human, Tiefling
Classes: Cleric, Fighter, Paladin, Ranger, Rogue, Warlock, Warlord, Wizard
Which player’s books you get next will vary depending on what you want.
Races: Deva, Gnome, Goliath, Half-Orc, Shifter
Classes: Avenger, Barbarian, Bard, Druid, Invoker, Shaman, Sorcerer, and Warden
Races: Githzerai, Minotaur, Shardmind, and Wilden
Classes: Ardent, Battlemind, Monk, Psion, Runepriest, and Seeker
This book also contains two other special features…
Hybrid Classes These are an amped up extension of the core multi-classing rules.
Psionic Powers Those who know will know that psionics is one of the most amazing things ever. 4th edition does not disappoint.
Power Supplements
The Player’s Handbooks contain a ton of content, but something that makes 4e great is how it allows for an almost unlimited amount of customization. A total of six additional powers books were released.
As you might expect, each book features additional power options for the different classes based on the source of their power. The books also include additional feats and rituals and epic destinies to further customize your characters.
If you like to experiment with multiple character options, these books will have you covered.
Best of the Rest
By this point you are fully immersed in the world of 4th edition. You’ve created amazing characters. You’ve built incredible encounters. You are using epic powers. What else could there possibly be? Well, there are so many excellent books in 4e, I could not really do them all justice. Here are some highlights of some other great options.
Monster Manuals
I covered all these wonderful books and hadn’t even gotten to the monster manuals. 4th edition monsters are particularly well thought out. Monster roles help you when building your encounters and the stat blocks are super easy to use. There are three monster manuals to choose from and all of them are very good. If you had to pick one, I would choose the first Monster Manual because it has most of the core monsters you would want—though it is a little light on dragons. Monster Manual 3 is also a good option because they updated the stat blocks a little and the new format is very nice.
Adventures
Keep on the Shadowfell is the first part of a trilogy. To continue the adventure, you would get Thunderspire Labyrinth and Pyramid of Shadows. These will get the characters all the way through the Herioc Tier.
Dungeon Delve is also an excellent book. It has multiple encounters for every single level of the game. If you need a one-shot or side quest, it is a great resource to have.
In this post, I have called out 19 books to get you deep into 4th edition. That just scratches the surface. There were a total of 76 books published for 4e, not counting the Dungeon Magazine content and one-offs like free RPG day sets.
If you determine that 4e is just what you’ve been looking for, you have plenty of options.
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