My absolute favorite book, and one that I believe everyone here that runs 5E should own, is Valda's Spire of Secrets, by Mage Hand Press. For those of you who don't know, Mage Hand Press got started like a decade ago and put out wild, but usually unbalanced or undercooked, homebrew. When this book hit KS 2~ years ago, I wrote it off because of this.
What a mistake.
They have sharpened their skills and created an assortment of amazing classes, subclasses, magic items, and spells that I personally think is some of the BEST expansion material for 5E. I do not say that lightly.
In addition to the new classes and subclasses, the book comes with hundreds of new subclasses for your typical 5E classes. These are a mixture of sily and serious, but all of them are fun. Standouts, oddly enough, is a spider-man Rogue with webslinging that I really want to play, and a Fighter that does battle with two giant mage hands. Generally, these subcasses are more for expanding the mechanical fun of a vanilla 5E class, and not all of them hit the "thematic" element so hard.
This is an idea I spent years working on only to realize Mage Hand Press beat me to it. Essentially, there are one-level classes like "Sellsword" or "Beast Tamer" that you can multiclass into. They come with 1-3 simple features, proficiencies, and their own hit die. These are basically what Backgrounds wish they were. The amount of these and how they're designed means that any class, valda's or vanilla, will benefit from introducing these ideas. And while we don't always need mechanics for our fluff, being able to take an auxiliary level in "Sellsword" is fire.
This is what pushed me from calling this one of my class expansions to my favorite 5E expansion, period. The book has tons of new weapons, weapon tags, Bloodborne-style switch weapons, exotic weapons, firearms by era, and tons of magic items to go with all of this. These weapons are super cool and they actually make me excited to use weapons again.
But the spells, man. While most of the spells are straightforward, the actual concepts of them are just great -- and, tbh, a lot more engaging then vanilla 5E spells. A lot of these work great for giving to villains as powers too. One 7th level spell, Abduct, lets you instantly kidnap a creature you know the location of within 1 mile, and when it teleports to you, you decide how it is bound and what position you are in. Another 9th level spell, Heart of Darkness, creates an army of 100 undead that lasts forever (or until the heart is destroyed), and you can issue them commands every 24 hours. Simple stuff, but stuff that once you start playing with application really opens up the "fantasy" nature of D&D.
Valda's Spire of Secrets introduces 10 new amazing subclasses, several of which I promise will resonate with you. On top of that, you get 150+ new subclasses, a BUNCH of magic items and weapons, and a huge number of spells and cantrips. With feats and auxiliary levels added in, you have everything you need with this book to evolve your 5E game without having to change the rules. It will def be my most-used supplement in the years to come.
Mod Edit: Language, please.
100% agree. It's just hundreds and hundreds of pages of top-tier design. I've used several MHP classes in my games over the years, and have found them all to be excellently balanced. There's just so much in the book you're bound to find multiple concepts you want to try.
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I am in no way affiliated with Mage Hand Press.
My absolute favorite book, and one that I believe everyone here that runs 5E should own, is Valda's Spire of Secrets, by Mage Hand Press. For those of you who don't know, Mage Hand Press got started like a decade ago and put out wild, but usually unbalanced or undercooked, homebrew. When this book hit KS 2~ years ago, I wrote it off because of this.
What a mistake.
They have sharpened their skills and created an assortment of amazing classes, subclasses, magic items, and spells that I personally think is some of the BEST expansion material for 5E. I do not say that lightly.
In addition to the new classes and subclasses, the book comes with hundreds of new subclasses for your typical 5E classes. These are a mixture of sily and serious, but all of them are fun. Standouts, oddly enough, is a spider-man Rogue with webslinging that I really want to play, and a Fighter that does battle with two giant mage hands. Generally, these subcasses are more for expanding the mechanical fun of a vanilla 5E class, and not all of them hit the "thematic" element so hard.
This is an idea I spent years working on only to realize Mage Hand Press beat me to it. Essentially, there are one-level classes like "Sellsword" or "Beast Tamer" that you can multiclass into. They come with 1-3 simple features, proficiencies, and their own hit die. These are basically what Backgrounds wish they were. The amount of these and how they're designed means that any class, valda's or vanilla, will benefit from introducing these ideas. And while we don't always need mechanics for our fluff, being able to take an auxiliary level in "Sellsword" is fire.
This is what pushed me from calling this one of my class expansions to my favorite 5E expansion, period. The book has tons of new weapons, weapon tags, Bloodborne-style switch weapons, exotic weapons, firearms by era, and tons of magic items to go with all of this. These weapons are super cool and they actually make me excited to use weapons again.
But the spells, man. While most of the spells are straightforward, the actual concepts of them are just great -- and, tbh, a lot more engaging then vanilla 5E spells. A lot of these work great for giving to villains as powers too. One 7th level spell, Abduct, lets you instantly kidnap a creature you know the location of within 1 mile, and when it teleports to you, you decide how it is bound and what position you are in. Another 9th level spell, Heart of Darkness, creates an army of 100 undead that lasts forever (or until the heart is destroyed), and you can issue them commands every 24 hours. Simple stuff, but stuff that once you start playing with application really opens up the "fantasy" nature of D&D.
Valda's Spire of Secrets introduces 10 new amazing subclasses, several of which I promise will resonate with you. On top of that, you get 150+ new subclasses, a fuckton of magic items and weapons, and a huge number of spells and cantrips. With feats and auxiliary levels added in, you have everything you need with this book to evolve your 5E game without having to change the rules. It will def be my most-used supplement in the years to come.
Me and my group have been following Mage Hand Press for years, and love the heck out of Valda's! I would also highly recommend their Dark Matter 5e science fantasy setting.
