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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[Hussar]

Heh.

We can go back and forth on this until the cows come home. But, the truth is, we lost this argument LOOOOONG ago. Fighters will ever be mundane. Wizards will ever become gods in the game. That's just how D&D is and there is zero chance of this changing in my lifetime.

 

[Reynard]

Heh.

We can go back and forth on this until the cows come home. But, the truth is, we lost this argument LOOOOONG ago. Fighters will ever be mundane. Wizards will ever become gods in the game. That's just how D&D is and there is zero chance of this changing in my lifetime.

I'm still uncertain what the Fighter represents in the context of modern D&D. Or, rather, why modern D&D is trying to hold on to the Fighter as it is. We would not be having this debate constantly if the Fighter subclasses were Barbarian, Paladin, Ranger and Monk (plus a gish, I guess). In that scenario, the Fighter is your martial badass and that expresses itself through D&D's classic archetypes.

 

[Remathilis]

And there it is.

If you want a game where there are roles, you need the classes to be good at different things.

Which means that sometimes they've gotta be bad at different things.

Kill the powerful damage spells and make Wizards into exploration/control/support monsters. Let them do AoE at a lower level than a Fighter hits at and single target at a significantly lower level than a Rogue hits at.

And then you get 4e in spirit if not in mechanics.

The issue D&D has is LEGACY. Gygax and the others weren't huge on balance and wanted low level wizards to suck and high level wizards to pay off that low level suck by becoming gods.

Hence Melf's Meteors and the like.

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.

 

[Remathilis]

I'm still uncertain what the Fighter represents in the context of modern D&D. Or, rather, why modern D&D is trying to hold on to the Fighter as it is. We would not be having this debate constantly if the Fighter subclasses were Barbarian, Paladin, Ranger and Monk (plus a gish, I guess). In that scenario, the Fighter is your martial badass and that expresses itself through D&D's classic archetypes.

The same would be true if wizard's subclasses were sorcerer, warlock, psion, bard, and artificer. But I don't see that happening either.

 

[Reynard]

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.

Why is the fighter there?

Seriously, eliminate the class.

 

[Yaarel]

I am a huge Psionic fan. I love it because of its theme and its INNATE personal magic.

The magic of a Human mind is also the magic of any mind, even the "minds" features of nature, like mountains, rivers, storms, and so on. Psionic is the closest D&D has to animism. When we look at the Viking Norse, the American Indigenous, the Aborigines of Australia, and the Traditional Religions across regions of Africa, and so on, these translate best into D&D via Psionic. Minds interconnect including the minds of nature, such as Psionic mountains and Psionic rivers. The world is a community of neighbors with interpersonal relationships. Each person is a presence and an influence.

Each "soul" includes mind consciousness, ghostly spirit, and ki aura.


What I dont want from D&D is unsupportable unintegratable fringe mechanics. No more Psionic ghetto.

With regard to the Psion class it is a spellcaster. It is normal magic, but there are important mechanical requirements that are currently missing in 5e. Spell components must be deleted from the spell descriptions. Each class has its own method for casting spells. A Wizard requires material components including a wand. A Bard never requires them, and should only use Verbal, but a subclass might instead use a music instrument or Somatic dance. A Psion uses ones own mind. The spell description gets in the way. Each class does its own thing. Each class has its own method, including the Psion spell caster.

Psionic needs a few more new spells, such as better spells for low level telekinesis and low level teleportation, that are powerful and feel "psychic". But the spell system works well, and balances carefully to ensure the balance and stability of the 5e game engine.

When I look for a Psion class, I am looking for the D&D tradition of the 3e Psion, which is a full-on spellcaster. For a 5e version of it, the Warlock chassis with short rest spell points works best for mechanical feel and game balance. The chassis has powerful at-will abilities, energy-depleting spell capabilities, and high level novas. In place of Warlock Invocation are various adhoc Psion features that may or may not be spell-related and that a player can choose from.

The Psion class is fully a normal spellcaster. But other Psionic concepts dont refer to spells. It is ok that the Psi War and the "Soul" Knife lack spells. Their Psionic concepts are magic, but arent spells.

 

[Reynard]

The same would be true if wizard's subclasses were sorcerer, warlock, psion, bard, and artificer. But I don't see that happening either.

I mean, I think subclasses should be completely overhauled into meta-roles like scout or assassin or whatever: thing characters of many or even any class can be. But 5E has doubled down on ever more niche subclasses and almost always focusing on magical means to do it.

 

[Yaarel]

Why is the fighter there?

Seriously, eliminate the class.

The mundane Fighter can easily be a "prestige" class, with only 8 levels, that any character can multiclass into or out from.

 

[Remathilis]

Why is the fighter there?

Seriously, eliminate the class.

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.

 

[Cadence]

I mean, I think subclasses should be completely overhauled into meta-roles like scout or assassin or whatever: thing characters of many or even any class can be. But 5E has doubled down on ever more niche subclasses and almost always focusing on magical means to do it.

The balance was often a mess and some seemed really arbitrary, but I loved the plethora of archetypes, hybrids, and classes in PF 1e. If you couldn't find what you wanted, swapping a few things probably got you really close. (Even without multiclassing).