52
Why do D&D books have to be so expensive?
(hexbear.net)
Tabletop, DnD, board games, and minecraft. Also Animal Crossing.
3rd International Volunteer Brigade (Hexbear gaming discord)
Rules
No you need to pirate books to do so
I have trouble navigating the PDFs but it’s looking like I don’t have a choice. I don’t have that kind of money.
The physical books can be had on secondhand bookstores for significantly less, albeit they're still sold for more than they aught to be, usually. Thriftbooks is an online reseller that has them for around $25 USD but local thrift stores and library book sales have them sometimes and will sell them for next to nothing.
There are some inexpensive/free programs/websites that exist to automate and simplify basically everything in the game. IME the only advantages the manuals have over the apps is that the manuals convey the bigger picture of how the game works.
5etools is your friend