D&D (2024) 2024 Player's Handbook Reveal #1: "Everything You Need To Know!"

Each day this week, Wizards of the Coast will be releasing a new live-streamed preview video based on the upcoming Player's Handbook. The first is entitled Everything You Need To Know and you can watch it live below (or, if you missed it, you should be able to watch it from the start afterwards). The video focuses on weapon mastery and character origins.

​

There will be new videos on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday this week, focusing on the Fighter, the Paladin, and the Barbarian, with (presumably) more in the coming weeks.

 

[Yaarel]

5e switching from 4e attacks to saves instead, was a design decision. Math is the comparable either way.

The switch to saves sometimes has consequences that suck.

Including this 2024 Inspiration.

Inspiration must be more fair for caster players.

 

[mamba]

It was framed and discussed as purely an alternate slate, and both official and unofficial sources spoke of smoothly mixing and matching the parts.

you can do that, you can have a 2014 char alongside a 2024 one. Mixing and matching was not about taking half a subclass from 2014 and the other half from 2024.

 

[Scribe]

Inspiration must be more fair for caster players.

1. It doesnt.
2. Its likely a bit late.
3. Thankfully, the game is mutable at the table.

 

[Yaarel]

Advantage is worth roughly +2½. (Technically about +4, but its less useful when really needed for a high difficulty.)

If Inspiration allows the player to add +3 to the DC of a Spell, that would be fair.

Likewise, Fighters or any other class might spend the Inspiration to add +3 to the AC to defend against a specific attack.


But simpler is to impose a reroll against a targets Spell Save.

 

[mamba]

The expectation is that prior rules will be left behind. They can be brought forward, albeit with a meaningful effort of conversion, but there is little reason to do so in most cases unless you just have to have a subclass that hasn't been updated yet or the like.

in that case you just take the 2014 class and subclass as is, no conversion needed. That you play with the same core rules as everyone else is kind of a given…

 

[Blue]

I feel like they've been clear, consistent, and honest about what the new books were going to be from the start.

Yes. Which is why we've been pushing for them to call them the correct name.

I ALSO feel (unlike you) that the term "Edition" has never once been consistently used throughout TTRPG history, doesn't work very well, and is best left to rest.

Can you give an example? How is edition used wrong? Remember, there can be several correct ways, so one company going up a 0.5 and another going "revised" - both showing incremental changes as opposed to a whole new editon - is not "doing it wrong". I can give plenty of examples where it's used right, from AD&D to 7th Sea to Call of Cthulhu to what have you.

So... am I being dishonest too? Or does WotC and I just disagree with your assertions? Maybe, consider, that we just don't agree.

Boeing can disagree that a door blowing off their plane is a bad thing, that doesn't change that it was. We have a meaning for edition, even if it's not formalized, through decades of use. A company or individual disagreeing doesn't change that.

They're actively calling it "Fifth Edition Revised" and that's really as good a name as any.

And that's a just fine name. And a change from "Fifth Edition". If they had been calling it for the past two years we wouldn't be having this discussion at all.

You might prefer "5.5" or some other (IMO silly/wrong) name, but that doesn't make your choice better and my choice dishonest (rude) - it just makes them different.

I'm fine with "Fifth Edition Revised". Because it shows that it's not "Fifth Edition". A point we've been trying to get them to admit for two years. I'm glad to see that they are finally acknowledging that it's not Fifth Ed. It would have been a lot more honest if they didn't repeatly claim the opposite, and then proceeded to sell two years of books, many with character options that are aligned with the 2014 PHB.

We can even leave this part be - I acknowledge that they are now calling it "Fifth Edition Revised", because it's a fact, and you acknowlegde that they pushed that it was "all the same edition" until this year, which is also a fact.

Please though, you called 5.5 "wrong". Using the example from WotC of what a half increment edition change is, from 3ed to 3.5, please give specifics about why it's wrong. Get it to the "Net Wrong" side of the page, that there's more wrong with 5.5 than right.

 

[TwoSix]

What’s ironic to me is that the only actual inaccuracy is their statement that the new book really shouldn’t be used with the older material.

That’s purely a statement about possible concerns with balance; there’s no actual rules incompatibility that would prevent a player from playing a 2024 species and background with a 2014 class and a Tasha’s subclass.

The only thing that requires a “house rule” is saying that you can get a stat boost from a background or a race, but not both. And if they have a sidebar discussing already released species, it probably wouldn’t even be a house rule.

 

[mamba]

I wouldn't game with people that didn't choose fun over specific details.

sometimes one relies on the other rather than being opposing forces

Were telling stories about hero's saving the day and stealing mountains of gold from monsters who no doubt earned it legally. Let go from time to time and loosen up on the specific details.

if you do not want to deal with having a patron, do not pick a Warlock

 

[Minigiant]

Interesting Backgrounds are fixed. The Design-your-own Background ist now in the DMG instead of the Default from the Playtest.

What I never understood is why the just drop the Ability Score improvents and increase the base points/default array. That would be much easier.

Dice rolling Abilities loses out a few points.

Many people like rolling stats.

 

[Greg K]

In the fiction, yes. But unless you can point to a sentence or paragraph specifically detailing those things, you will have players arguing with you and rage quitting games if you try to impose them.

I will, happily, say "Bye!" to that player.