D&D (2024) WotC Fireside Chat: Revised 2024 Player’s Handbook

In this video about the upcoming revised Player’s Handnook, WotC’s Jeremy Crawford and Chris Perkins reveal a few new tidbits.

• The books are near final and almost ready to go to print
• Psionic subclasses such as the Soulknife and Psi Warrior will appear in the core books
• Named spells have art depicting their creators.
• There are new species in the PHB.

​

 

[TwoSix]

Only on this board. People who even looked at 3.5 psionics are niche in today's D&D landscape. Possibly it's putting me in a niche of a niche - but those thinking that 5e doesn't have psionic support are in a smaller niche than I'm in.

Any position referencing material prior to 5e is a niche of a niche in today's landscape. Those of us with any D&D experience prior to 5e are a minority.

 

[mamba]

Telepathy and interconnectedness are fundamental to the concept of being "psychic". One "senses" things via interconnectedness. One influences things (such as telekinetically) because ones own mind is in some way also present at the remote location.

so you are saying the psychic ability requires an interconnectedness to exist for it to function, it isn’t just an ability the way a sorcerer spell is. Now I understand how you see this as a version of animism in D&D

 

[Micah Sweet]

I've been advocating for a warrior class who has supernatural abilities from low level. One who calls on quasi-magical power to long jump 30 ft or who can manifest dragon wings for a minute. Sort of a martial sorcerer meets a blood hunter. But people are fixated on having Boromir being the iconic low level fighter, so we're stuck doing normal things while our magical buddies get to do the cool stuff.

I would seriously love to see that class.

 

[Oofta]

This is the Crux of the argument. Either:

* You raise the power of fighters by giving them supernatural abilities to bypass mortal means.

* You significantly nerf magic in ways that would allow nonmagical characters to have equality.

* You destroy versimilitude and just accept anyone can do whatever as long as the rules say it's balanced with no eye to explanation.

* You accept nonmagical characters will always be the inferior to their magical colleagues.

Your not going to get agreement on this, but these are basically your options.

Or ... you take magic into account when planning and set up scenarios where casters don't totally control the narrative. Accept that having a different role doesn't mean inferior.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Poor phrasing on my part, I should have said it depends what you consider magic. Not everything that exceeds mundanity must necessarily be magical in a fantasy setting.

Not spell-like, certainly, but anything beyond what an Earth human can accomplish without aid counts as supernatural to me, because it is beyond natural. Many people paint supernatural and spell-like with the same, "magical" brush.

 

[Steampunkette]

The issue of course is while a certain amount of niche protection is healthy, D&D is terrible because magic just allows you to bypass mundane to the point it becomes the default answer. A 30 ft gap is impossible for a human fighter to cross without aid, but his friends can all cross with ease due to access to flight, teleporting, shape changing, etc. and the game isn't supposed to leave the fighter behind to guard camp as a role. So either the fighter figures out some way to get over that gap (preferably without relying on the DM having the foresight to give him a magic item prior), the DM is carried by his magical allies like an inferior, or the ability to make that gap should be harder for a lot more of his allies by making that kind of magic harder or more expensive.

Rope + Grappling Hook. Fighter is Across.

DM writes the far side as lower than the near side. Fighter does a cool running jump. Fighter is Across.

DM doesn't write in a 30ft gap. Problem solved.

And, of course...


Statue/Tree/Whatever makes a bridge. Fighter is across.

Also: the Rogue, the Ranger, the Paladin, the Barbarian, and the Monk are ALL on the same side as the Fighter, too. None of them get a 30ft Teleport or Fly or anything of the sort.

Casters should be good at some things (Overcoming environmental obstacles is a good option) where Martials should be good at overcoming others (Beating up baddies).

 

[Micah Sweet]

But why? What archetype is the fighter that isn't filled by rangers, paladins, barbarians, monks and even rogues (for that swashbuckler type)? Just calling something the "fighter" is meaningless. What does it represent that isn't covered by other martial classes that is so essential?

Or, to phrase it a better way: why aren't rangers, paladins, barbarians and monks just fighter subclasses?

They were in 2e. You can solidly blame WotC for that change.

 

[MoonSong]

& agree & It's tea leaf reading, but I'd like to think that the comment Krannik(?) ended the video on about how they are going to talk about the phb for hours is an effort to suggest that wotc knows that problem exists & needs work on their part to correct.

No half-elf no sell.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think that was more complex than they wanted to go in 5e. But, like, fundamentally such things all still exist within the setting, the rules just don’t care as much about the differences between those categories and so don’t specifically define them.

That is the problem to my mind. The rules should care.

 

[Charlaquin]

Not spell-like, certainly, but anything beyond what an Earth human can accomplish without aid counts as supernatural to me, because it is beyond natural. Many people paint supernatural and spell-like with the same, "magical" brush.

But supernatural doesn’t have to be magical, particularly in a setting where magic is defined so specifically as manipulating an energy field called the weave by means of somatic, material, and verbal components.