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.

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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.

 

[Micah Sweet]

So I'll explain why I dislike that. It comes from two factors: Ghostrider and Paladins.

First, I like the idea of a warlock going rogue. Challenging the entity you made your deal with. Fighting to get out of it. If the warlock's powers serve only at the whim of an entity, the warlock can never challenge his patron unless he multi classes and enjoys several dead levels.

Which leads me to part two: the DM decides what my character can do. The biggest problem with characters with otherworldly sugar daddies is that the first time the player does something the entity doesn't agree with, they are cut off from their class. That restriction would be fine if the warlock or cleric or paladin was far more powerful than the other classes (as in AD&D) but they aren't and that have to mind their manners less the DM decides to make them commoners.

How about we split the difference? No further advancement under that patron if you defy them, but you get to keep what got before the turn? Or would that be too complex for today's players, as some have indicated?

 

[Remathilis]

How about we split the difference? No further advancement under that patron if you defy them, but you get to keep what got before the turn? Or would that be too complex for today's players, as some have indicated?

Fine enough house rule. I am less interested in such a mechanic existing in the core rules, but to each their own.

 

[KYRON45]

Basically the same way as 5e. Lip service to making an exchange, but you actually don't owe anything in practice because the rules are all about the super-powers. I'm not happy about it there either

Fair enough. My argument is that a lot of players (including almost everyone I've ever gamed with in nearly 40 years) will balk, hard, on anything added to the game that makes things more difficult for their PCs in play. Many complain about such things in the actual rules, which IMO is why official D&D has become increasingly simpler and more "power fantasy/super hero" over time. Getting your powers from a being that actually wants something in return definitely falls into that category (clerics have the same issue), and quite frankly it bugs the heck out of me.

Have you considered playing another game that doesn’t have these problems?

 

[TwoSix]

The idea that making a pact with a godlike being for power might not be yet another path to kewl super-powers you get for free hurts people's feelings?

Seriously?

To me, it's simpler than that. For modern D&D, which is based on the idea of being character concept focused, I want any diegetic elements within a class to be, at best, a suggestion.

If I want to use warlock mechanics to represent a divine champion or an arcane student, I can do so. If I want the patron to be important, and create narrative complications, the DM and I will discuss how to implement that.

 

[A2Z]

I thought this thread would be a good place to find out what's been revealed about the new books. Unfortunately it appears to be just another place to complain about about them. So fun

 

[Aldarc]

So I'll explain why I dislike that. It comes from two factors: Ghostrider and Paladins.

First, I like the idea of a warlock going rogue. Challenging the entity you made your deal with. Fighting to get out of it. If the warlock's powers serve only at the whim of an entity, the warlock can never challenge his patron unless he multi classes and enjoys several dead levels.

Which leads me to part two: the DM decides what my character can do. The biggest problem with characters with otherworldly sugar daddies is that the first time the player does something the entity doesn't agree with, they are cut off from their class. That restriction would be fine if the warlock or cleric or paladin was far more powerful than the other classes (as in AD&D) but they aren't and that have to mind their manners less the DM decides to make them commoners.

FWIW, my own personal preference for a Warlock class would be more like John Constantine or the Goetic Mage in Invisible Sun. The Goetic Mage does not a make a pact with a single power; instead, they specialize in ritually summoning a variety of otherworldly entities (e.g., fiends, angels, spirits, eldritch horrors, etc.), with whom they bargain/bribe/trick/persuade/coerce for magical favors. So that would be the Warlock's specialty. They are the best at ritual summons, mostly out of combat, and bargaining with otherworldly entities. But it's active. It's something that you are doing all the time with your character. It's not offscreen. It's an onscreen process that the player engages in.

IME, the Goetic Mage does not run into the Ghostrider or Paladin problem.

 

[Umbran]

..., but you actually don't owe anything in practice because the rules are all about the super-powers.

No. That's not why you don't owe anything.

You don't owe anything because WotC wants to make a game that pretty much works out of the box. Balance that relies on GM-implementation of consequences in long term play does not provide that.

Additionally, "I chose this class, so everyone in the party is going to be forced into my personal plot every time my patron wants something" is something some parties may be okay with, but you can't rely on it broadly.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I thought this thread would be a good place to find out what's been revealed about the new books. Unfortunately it appears to be just another place to complain about about them. So fun

Well this thread has the first video and a list of all the known changes in handy bulletpoint form right on the first page.

 

[Zaukrie]

I thought this thread would be a good place to find out what's been revealed about the new books. Unfortunately it appears to be just another place to complain about about them. So fun

Truth.

 

[darjr]

Preview video for the 2024 DnD video just went live. New Fighter | 2024 Player's Handbook | D&D #dnd #dnd2024 #fighter