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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[Reynard]

How to make Casters and Martials equal in all respects:

Make a game in which they're equal.

That's literally it. If the Wizard can hit 4 people with Magic Missiles then the Fighter can hit 4 people with Normal Missiles. If the Wizard can roll Intelligence to open the magic force-door, the Fighter can roll Strength to open the magic force-door.

And then take it further so that the outcome is equal even if, narratively, the description is different.

The Wizard casts Fly to get to the parapet in 1 turn. The Fighter climbs to the parapet in the same turn. The Wizard neutralizes the poison in their food with a spell, the Fighter just muscles through it with high Constitution.

D&D, though, is bad for that because it was never meant to be balanced between classes.

That sounds dull by way of eliminating potential different roles.

 

[mamba]

That's literally it. If the Wizard can hit 4 people with Magic Missiles then the Fighter can hit 4 people with Normal Missiles. If the Wizard can roll Intelligence to open the magic force-door, the Fighter can roll Strength to open the magic force-door.

at that point you basically have one class with n different narrative flavors, I do not think it needs to be taken that far

 

[Micah Sweet]

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.

Agreed. I'm for option 1, after a certain point in development (level 10-ish would be my preference).

 

[Kobold Stew]

Why disappointed? You don't want them in your game don't put them in your game.

Their presence, whether part of my character or not, interferes with the type of fantasy I want to play. As a player, I don't choose to include them or not. As a DM, I am obliged to rule out something in the PHB, which I am otherwise unwilling to do.

Sure I can do so, but (for me) it sucks all round. Hence, disappointment.

 

[TrippyHippy]

I do think that the whole need to ‘balance’ magical and non magical classes is a bit overstated too really. Not everyone wants to play a super-powered character. Wasn’t it the case that some poll showed the most popular character Class is still the Champion-style Fighter? I would just prefer the choice between playing non-magical and magical character types to be more balanced.

 

[Older Beholder]

The rules may change, but the arguments always stay the same.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

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.

Old Shadowrun had you pick an A, B, C, D, and E for magical ability, species, gear, skills, and stats. Full casters would be an A, half casters a B, and non-casteres an E. Certain powerful species were B's, others lower tier. So an elf full caster used their A and B, and had less stats, skillls, and gear than say an orc non-caster. Cybernetics reduced your magic as well.

D&D half assed it with fighters getting a whopping ONE extra stat bump/feat for almost all games) and rogues a piddly skill bonus with expertise, but it could be done. Attunement could also interfere with magic for whatever flim flam reason you want.

 

[Charlaquin]

I'm not saying it doesn't. But magic can do things not-magic can't. If you insist on sticking with mundane, eventually there will come a point when you can't keep up and maintain verisimilitude IMO.

It depends on what you consider mundane. Cutting a mountain in half with a sword is certainly not possible under the laws of physics. But, in a fantasy setting, it is conceivably something that could be done by an “ordinary” person who is just that good at using swords. We can get pedantic about whether or not that’s “magic,” or we can skip all that and admit that fans of martial characters want their characters to be able to get to that point, and to not have to cast spells to do it.

 

[Kurotowa]

It depends on what you consider mundane. Cutting a mountain in half with a sword is certainly not possible under the laws of physics. But, in a fantasy setting, it is conceivably something that could be done by an “ordinary” person who is just that good at using swords. We can get pedantic about whether or not that’s “magic,” or we can skip all that and admit that fans of martial characters want their characters to be able to get to that point, and to not have to cast spells to do it.

Let's not overlook how this debate gets clouded in D&D spaces by how much "magic" is identified with Vancian derived spellcasting. And if you'll excuse me poking a can of dire worms with a stick and then trying to back away, but 4e showed that many players don't want their martial characters to operate in that manner. Like, it just completely ruins the character fantasy for them.

That's why, as I alluded to in the spin off thread, it would take a true new edition and related mechanical revamp to really carve out mechanical space for martial characters to grow into. As things stand now, there's very little room for "amazing talents of legendary warriors" that isn't spells with a light coat of paint.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Old Shadowrun had you pick an A, B, C, D, and E for magical ability, species, gear, skills, and stats. Full casters would be an A, half casters a B, and non-casteres an E. Certain powerful species were B's, others lower tier. So an elf full caster used their A and B, and had less stats, skillls, and gear than say an orc non-caster. Cybernetics reduced your magic as well.

I hated the shadow run method.
It often boils down to balance as in 2e.
Being a full caster is no fun for most parts of the game, until your spells are powerful enough to compensate for being worse at everything.
And then casting magic was also dangerous for yourself and you needed heavy system mastery to actually make it work.

D&D half assed it with fighters getting a whopping ONE extra stat bump/feat for almost all games) and rogues a piddly skill bonus with expertise, but it could be done.

It could indeed be a bit more and 2024 D&D will do a bit more.

Attunement could also interfere with magic for whatever flim flam reason you want.

I agree. You could at least have different numbers of attunement slots. Full Casters could be reduced to 2, half casters stay at 3. 1/3 casters get 4 and non-casters get 5.
Artificer's stay at 6 max.

Of course you need a rule for multiclass characters.
You can make it a function of which spell level you could theoretically have at level 20. If you can cast spells you are at 4 slot. At 3 if you can potentially cast 4th level or higher spells. spells and 2 if you can reach spells of level 6 or higher.

Another way of doing it would just give everyone 5 attunement slots and when reaching certain spell levels they lose them.