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.

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[EzekielRaiden]

we know it is not a reprint, at a minimum (ignoring the playtest) yesterday’s video told us that not even the Tasha subclasses are straight reprints, so I am not sure why you insist on us not knowing that

As to the rest, I understood what you were saying, my point was that unless you are ok with losing / not having the parts that were not included, the new ‘reprint’ would not even help with that

Certainly the Warlock is not going to be just a reprint, and it's almost what I actually wanted, at least based on the P7 version. I wish they had put more into fixing the "WAY too few short rests" problem, but at this point I'm desperate and will take what I can get.

You have context:
5=very easy
10=easy
15=moderate
20=hard
25=very hard
30=nigh impossible

It is inherent in the system -- a system that does NOT scale DCs, and that reigns in numbrs bloat intentionally.

Saying you don't have "context" to tell you what your +8 to Athletics means is nonsense.

You have just shared part of the procedure.

The thing you described above was that the player knows NOTHING AT ALL except:

1. DM describes a scene
2. Player declares what they wish to do within that context.
3. DM tells them what to do.
4. Player does that.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Knowing a table of DCs, and having the DM actually communicate this and use it (which, incidentally, many DMs do not do, or at least do exceptionally poorly, much to the detriment of 5e's skill system) is already more information than the thing you described at the beginning, which is the procedural black box.

And before you come at me with calling that a ridiculous extreme, real people on ENworld right now genuinely believe that D&D would be better if that's how it always worked, if players never even saw any rules AT ALL and ONLY had purely qualitative DM descriptions to work with.

 

[Minigiant]

I mean, they weren't going to make a new version of the PHB and not include the classics in it. And they did include new stuff (dance, seas, world tree) and tried and few that the community rejected (ardling, brawler). My issue is that they mostly pulled from Tasha and not Xanathar, which needed more work to keep it compatible. Storm sorcery needs more TLC than clockwork did.

That's my issue.

They are giving us the reprints of the newest stuff that barely needs updates.

 

[Cadence]

You have context:
5=very easy
10=easy
15=moderate
20=hard
25=very hard
30=nigh impossible

It is inherent in the system -- a system that does NOT scale DCs, and that reigns in numbrs bloat intentionally.

Saying you don't have "context" to tell you what your +8 to Athletics means is nonsense.

As a DM I sometimes like to know what goes with some of those difficulties in different common situations. Climbing an old brick wall? A new brick wall? A cliff that leans out a bit? Breaking down a locked wooden door? One with a bar holding it? A reinforced one? etc ... And as a player it feels like that is good for gauging what those words mean.

On the other hand I sometimes don't want to be bothered to take the time away from play to look them up and don't want PF 1e levels of description.

 

[Queer Venger]

Im curious to know when pre-order for the digital contents go on sale? I heard that FLGS are going to drop the book 2 weeks earlier but haven't heard anything from DnD Beyond

 

[Reynard]

As a DM I sometimes like to know what goes with some of those difficulties in different common situations. Climbing an old brick wall? A new brick wall? A cliff that leans out a bit? Breaking down a locked wooden door? One with a bar holding it? A reinforced one? etc ... And as a player it feels like that is good for gauging what those words mean.

On the other hand I sometimes don't want to be bothered to take the time away from play to look them up and don't want PF 1e levels of description.

My point was that as a playr, you are fully aware of the difficulty scale in the game and fully aware of your bonuses and penalties. Therefore, you know how "good" you are at stuff. That was a statement to counter the @EzekielRaiden argument that you must know the DC of an action to know how good you are. That's nonsense. You need a DC to know how likely you are to succeed, but that's a different thing and not necessary to make an informed choice.

Again, we had a whole thread for this argument. We can go have it again if you like, but this thread doesn't seem the right place.

 

[Staffan]

I’m not sure if I really like the addition of Psi-SubClasses as of yet. Can somebody remind me how psionic powers work in D&D? Are they significantly different from the normal magic systems?

In 5e, there's no separate psionics system. There are just some subclasses with a psionic theme. This is how they work in 5.0:

The Aberrant Soul sorcerer gets some extra spells that are either telepathic-ish in nature or creepy aberration stuff (arms of Hadar, hunger of Hadar, Evard's black tentacles, summon aberration). These can eventually be swapped out for divination/enchantment spells from the sorcerer, warlock, or wizard lists. The cost for casting these spells using sorcery points is lower, and when you do you do so without components (unless they have a cost).

More offensively, for those of us who don't like our psionics to be all Far Realmsy, at 14th level they get "Revelation in Flesh" which allows them to spend sorcery points to transform themselves in various aberrant ways, gaining various abilities. And at 18th, they can do some space-warping stuff for short-range teleports.

There's also the Great Old One warlock, which is basically a warlock with some aberration-flavored spells and telepathy.

The Psi Knight fighter basically gets telekinetic-flavored special maneuvers they can do, and the Soulknife can conjure "blades of psychic energy" which they can use in both melee and at medium range. They also have a small reservoir of psychic power they can use to boost skill checks, speak telepathically with a number of allies, and at higher levels do short-range teleportation, boost attack checks, and eventually stun people.

I really don't get why they are so intent on making the main psi-caster classes so tied to aberrations. I do not believe that's what most psionics fans want. Psionics fans likely want either Dark Sun, where psionics is super common and considered "clean", or Eberron where some psionics are aberrant-tied but others have connections to dream creatures, and in general have much more to do with crystals than with mucus and tentacles.

 

[Micah Sweet]

That ship has not (for certain) sailed.

We had 10 years of D&D 5E, we might just get another 10 years of the 2024 rules. Plenty of time for WotC to crack that nut.

What is disheartening to me is that I haven't found a decent fan created Psion class for 5E, one that works well and invokes the spirit of the classic psionics rules.

@Steampunkette 's Paranormal Power for Level Up does the job for me, and EN Publishing are releasing their own psionic class in the upcoming Voidrunner's Codex.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Not every players needs or wants the revisions that other players have been clamoring a decade for (and now are going to get). If (general) you have been perfectly fine with how the 4 Elements Monk has played, never had a problem adjudicating stealth, and don't design encounters via formula and challenge rating... there might be nothing in these revisions worth getting. And that's great! WotC is happy for you! It means their first swing of the bat was a home run. Why would they have an issue with you sticking with what works?

They would have an issue because they're not getting money from you.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Making subclasses is easier said than done. It takes some pretty decent knowledge of game design to create something which fits with 5e and is balanced.

Pretty much 99% of homebrew subclasses I see are either wildly unbalanced, ignore 5e design conventions, or use language which doesn't fit with official 5e. Usually all of the above.

Balance is subjective, and I don't see any particular value in following WotC's design conventions or language, so I don't see anything to object to here.

 

[AnotherGuy]

As a DM I sometimes like to know what goes with some of those difficulties in different common situations. Climbing an old brick wall? A new brick wall? A cliff that leans out a bit? Breaking down a locked wooden door? One with a bar holding it? A reinforced one? etc ... And as a player it feels like that is good for gauging what those words mean.

On the other hand I sometimes don't want to be bothered to take the time away from play to look them up and don't want PF 1e levels of description.

I know what you mean
3.x too fiddly with +a+b+c-d-etc
5e too simple with advantage/disadvantage
And both within a d20 system that is so random.