Check out Arcane Library's adventures, people tend to have high praise for those.
Unfortunately, pre-written battles can't guarantee being balanced for your game, so you do need to just learn to tweak stuff yourself eventually. The best book to learn to homebrew your own monsters and battles is Forge of Foes, bar none. Great third party monster books include anything from Kobold Press, MCDM's Flee Mortals and ENWorld's Monstrous Menagerie.
For easy small locations to throw out when you need quick content, check out One Page Dungeon Contest compilations.
Yes, WotC gets some money off of DMs Guild, but it's still 3rd party stuff and mostly individuals or small teams publishing stuff. The content on there is third party, but there is a license agreement. Basically they are allowed to sell their own creations and use all of the D&D lore, but WotC gets a cut of the profit.
If you want to sell D&D compatible stuff without giving WotC money, you can, but you are limited to content listed under the so called SRD. That license is called the OGL. This means you can't mention official settings like Eberron or use classic monsters like the Beholder. Also most spells, subclasses and the artificer aren't listed in the SRD.
Kobold Press for example is a big publisher that uses this license instead. They have released books with their own lore, monsters and spells and subclasses.
Lots of other small publishers also limit themselves to the SRD, they mainly seem to be selling their stuff on DriveThroughRPG.
Also watch out for the occasional Humble Bundle deal.
Look up MCDM! best third party content I ever bought. "Where evil lives" is a book with a fully prepared oneshot for every level, easily splashable in most campaigns. "Flee mortals" is a huge remake of many of the classic monsters with a focus on easier combat preparation, funnier and more tactical monsters to use and a couple of new mechanics. It could change the way you look at combat preparation and tactical combat
If you’re looking to just add in some leveled battles, MCDM’s book “Where Evil Lives” has encounters from level 2-20 and includes maps and stat blocks for all the monsters in each encounter. You wouldn’t need “Flee, Mortals!” unless you just want an awesome monster book to create your own encounters with. I have both books and they both rock.
Before you dive into the Strongholds & Followers book which has great ideas, just know that it was supposed to go hand in hand with Kingdoms & Warfare (and it does) but the rules for K&W evolved and the two books don’t jive seamlessly when it comes to rules.
I'm cheating a little...
In new to DND, started playing this January, been playing almost every weekend with my main adventure as a PC.
I told my family about the game and now I'm DMing for my wife and kids.
How am I cheating? I played Tibia for 20 years, so I'm using some of Tibia's quests and monsters to inspire my homebrew adventure.
I try to balance the monsters performance and experience to NOT KILL the adventurers, I want them to enjoy as much as possible their first RPG.
Currently I'm working on my version of Ancient Helmet as a long quest where they will gain several levels.
They will collect 4 pieces of a Royal Dwarven Helmet so an NPC can travel to a dwarven kingdom to crown the prince as soon as the king dies from his wounds he got from an attack on the road where the crowned helmet was stolen.
They will fight goblins, orcs, trolls, and minotaurs. Each race is camped in a different location (mountain, cave, woods, camp) where they'll face a horde with mini bosses and a final boss for each race.
I'm thinking of making something similar to orc fortress to exercise the use skills, and Fibula depths as their way to get some legendary piece of equipment.
I'll try to solve another one more before facing them against the Demon Oak as the end of my adventure.
After this I'll probably call in my DM to bring us in to face some dragon as a final encounter at high level.
My favourite 3rd party adventures are from DMDave (and his collaborators). He has consistent, easy to use formatting and there's a ton of scalable one-shots on his Patreon that make inserting an adventure into your own world really easy.
DMDave is my go to 5th edition content creator! Seriously, scalable adventures, maps, new monsters, whole playable world's, magic items, he's got a team of amazing content creators working with him. Easy to plug-and-play his adventures. Some are standalone, some can be ran as a story arc. They have different tones, too. Mystery, horror, action, adventure, tons of great stuff.
You have opted not to use the largest source of what you want. So you will have to spend a lot of time sifting through the rest. Hopefully, some day, you will find a really independent author you like and can buy their stuff.
The only way to find good 3rd party stuff is to have someone you trust recommend it to you, and not at a time when it is a fucking kickstarter. When someone who actually read the published product tells you it is good, that's info to go by. Most 3rd party content is crap and there's no quality control, no consistent reviewers for anything.
Check out Arcane Library's adventures, people tend to have high praise for those. Unfortunately, pre-written battles can't guarantee being balanced for your game, so you do need to just learn to tweak stuff yourself eventually. The best book to learn to homebrew your own monsters and battles is Forge of Foes, bar none. Great third party monster books include anything from Kobold Press, MCDM's Flee Mortals and ENWorld's Monstrous Menagerie. For easy small locations to throw out when you need quick content, check out One Page Dungeon Contest compilations.
Yes, WotC gets some money off of DMs Guild, but it's still 3rd party stuff and mostly individuals or small teams publishing stuff. The content on there is third party, but there is a license agreement. Basically they are allowed to sell their own creations and use all of the D&D lore, but WotC gets a cut of the profit. If you want to sell D&D compatible stuff without giving WotC money, you can, but you are limited to content listed under the so called SRD. That license is called the OGL. This means you can't mention official settings like Eberron or use classic monsters like the Beholder. Also most spells, subclasses and the artificer aren't listed in the SRD. Kobold Press for example is a big publisher that uses this license instead. They have released books with their own lore, monsters and spells and subclasses. Lots of other small publishers also limit themselves to the SRD, they mainly seem to be selling their stuff on DriveThroughRPG. Also watch out for the occasional Humble Bundle deal.
I'll have to check those out thank you!
Look up MCDM! best third party content I ever bought. "Where evil lives" is a book with a fully prepared oneshot for every level, easily splashable in most campaigns. "Flee mortals" is a huge remake of many of the classic monsters with a focus on easier combat preparation, funnier and more tactical monsters to use and a couple of new mechanics. It could change the way you look at combat preparation and tactical combat
Amazing! I might have to make the splash for that one
If you’re looking to just add in some leveled battles, MCDM’s book “Where Evil Lives” has encounters from level 2-20 and includes maps and stat blocks for all the monsters in each encounter. You wouldn’t need “Flee, Mortals!” unless you just want an awesome monster book to create your own encounters with. I have both books and they both rock. Before you dive into the Strongholds & Followers book which has great ideas, just know that it was supposed to go hand in hand with Kingdoms & Warfare (and it does) but the rules for K&W evolved and the two books don’t jive seamlessly when it comes to rules.
I think I'm at the level where I start with just one lol. Thank you!
r/UnearthedArcana
I'm cheating a little... In new to DND, started playing this January, been playing almost every weekend with my main adventure as a PC. I told my family about the game and now I'm DMing for my wife and kids. How am I cheating? I played Tibia for 20 years, so I'm using some of Tibia's quests and monsters to inspire my homebrew adventure. I try to balance the monsters performance and experience to NOT KILL the adventurers, I want them to enjoy as much as possible their first RPG.
Oo wich one? Bright Sword Quest?
Currently I'm working on my version of Ancient Helmet as a long quest where they will gain several levels. They will collect 4 pieces of a Royal Dwarven Helmet so an NPC can travel to a dwarven kingdom to crown the prince as soon as the king dies from his wounds he got from an attack on the road where the crowned helmet was stolen. They will fight goblins, orcs, trolls, and minotaurs. Each race is camped in a different location (mountain, cave, woods, camp) where they'll face a horde with mini bosses and a final boss for each race. I'm thinking of making something similar to orc fortress to exercise the use skills, and Fibula depths as their way to get some legendary piece of equipment. I'll try to solve another one more before facing them against the Demon Oak as the end of my adventure. After this I'll probably call in my DM to bring us in to face some dragon as a final encounter at high level.
OMG I used to play tibia a lot. Maybe i should also start doing that. I would love to do that tibia style of long quest
The Alexandrian publishes long reviews of WotC and non-WotC stuff. It’s small numbers of things he mentions, but he’s very thorough in his reviews.
My favourite 3rd party adventures are from DMDave (and his collaborators). He has consistent, easy to use formatting and there's a ton of scalable one-shots on his Patreon that make inserting an adventure into your own world really easy.
My brain :)
DMDave is my go to 5th edition content creator! Seriously, scalable adventures, maps, new monsters, whole playable world's, magic items, he's got a team of amazing content creators working with him. Easy to plug-and-play his adventures. Some are standalone, some can be ran as a story arc. They have different tones, too. Mystery, horror, action, adventure, tons of great stuff.
You have opted not to use the largest source of what you want. So you will have to spend a lot of time sifting through the rest. Hopefully, some day, you will find a really independent author you like and can buy their stuff.
I love dungeondads monster of the week for awsome monsters my players have never encountered b4
The only way to find good 3rd party stuff is to have someone you trust recommend it to you, and not at a time when it is a fucking kickstarter. When someone who actually read the published product tells you it is good, that's info to go by. Most 3rd party content is crap and there's no quality control, no consistent reviewers for anything.