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.

 

[Micah Sweet]

This thread isn't really about compromising at a given table. It is about what's in the core rulebook.

Having something in the core as an optional rules vs. Having it as the default is a compromise.

 

[Micah Sweet]

And the biggest complaint I remember hearing about the paladin, from basically all sides, was back when they had a bunch of mechanical restrictions that supposedly made their power "worth it".

No, my concern is not about balance. It is about story. I just don't think a mechanical system is really going to have the bandwidth to cover the different stories. My GOOlock might have powers because I stole a star from the eye of Azathoth, while my Feylock might have powers because I woo'd and continue flirting with a Pixie Princess, while my Celestialock might have powers because I climbed the seven mountains and swore not eat apples. You can't cover that much conceptual space with anything specific, it would need to be very broad, and determined by the player who decided what their character's concept is.

See my post above. It can be done.

 

[MNblockhead]

Cool. I'm glad you like it. I can't really speak to it, as I haven't looked at WFRP, much less played it extensively.

I suppose I can ask, though - is that mechanic specific to one character type? How much power comes to the characters to whom it applies? And what kind of penalties apply if you fail to please?

Because, for a D&D Warlock (or Cleric or Druid), there's the issue that if the character really displeases the patron, you'd expect them to lose pretty much all their power, and become pretty much unplayable. While that's a gamestyle choice one can make, I am not sure it would be a great choice to make core for D&D.

So each cult has strictures, which are mix a small fluffy requirements to more restrictive requirements. There is no alignment in Warhammer, so the strictures are more related to the god's goals and area of dominion. Some strictures are very black and white and easy to determine whether you broke it or not ("never take up arms, a walking stick and courage will suffice") whereas other are open to much interpretation ("Shallya's work is never done, so turn not to self-indulgence."). The strictures vary greatly from one cult to another, so there are plenty of options for players to find one that works for them and, as a DM, I am fine with working together with the player to homebrew a cult and its strictures. When a character violates a stricture they will gain a number of sin points depending on the scale of the infraction (normally 1-3 sin points). Characters in careers that offer one or both of the Bless and Invoke talents, and the Pray skill, can call upon their god to enact a Blessing or Miracle. If they succeed in a pray test, the blessing or miracle occurs. If they roll well, they may have additional success levels that will give bonus effects. But, if your prayer roll results in a number less than or equal to your sin points, you suffer a roll on The Wrath of the Gods table. It usually results in a mechanical debuff or negative condition, but a very poor roll can lead to you losing the bless and invoke talents.

That's where penances come in. These are activities that can remove sin points. They can be things that you do on your downtime or they could be the subject of an entire side quest or adventure.

It is a bit more crunch than D&D, but not much more than a 5e wild magic sorcerer with its wild magic table.

The way I've brought this concept to 5e is that I'll come up with some strictures or penances for clerics, warlocks, and paladins. Often that isn't hard to do, as some settings like Forgotten Realms already have a lot of this written into the lore. I'm happy to create this with the player if they are into that. Instead of sin points, in my last campaign I worked it into the renown, infamy system and also used the concordance system from MCDMs Strongholds and Followers book. So if the PC isn't acting in accordance with the tenants and social norms of their religious order or cult, the negative consequences were mostly social. They would lose Concordance for the extra-special abilities it offered, but they wouldn't lose their class or ability to cast spells. My in-world reasoning for this was that maybe their god or patron was unhappy with them, but another entity may step in to given the character power and now the character is actually unwittingly acting in the interests of another power. A bit sloppy, but it worked and we had fun.

But now that I've been playing Warhammer, I would seriously consider bringing the idea of strictures, penances, sin points, and wrath of the gods to my D&D game. But only if the players were into it. Also, I alway play new rules RAW for a while before adding homebrew, so I expect I'll run the 2024 rules RAW in a first shorter campaign before discussing any changes or additions.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The general issue here is that restrictions on behavior were actual hindrances on behavior back in the dungeon crawling days of OD&D/AD&D 1e, when the focus of the game was exploring and defeating dungeons by any methods necessary. Being restricted in your types of hirelings, or only having 10 (10!) magic items, or not being able to use poison made the actual task of defeating dungeons harder and riskier, and thus justified giving strong benefits in exchange.

But in modern games, where the focus on "defeating dungeons" is at best secondary, and inhabiting a character is primary, there's a general expectation that every character is going to limit themselves to actions that fit within their character's methods. Paladins don't need hooks to do the "right thing", the player should be actively engaged in portraying the character as doing the right thing as part of their concept.

(Are there power fantasy games where players don't actually limit themselves to concepts, and just do whatever and don't roleplay ANY concept? Of course! But that type of play doesn't invalidate the actual standard of modern play.)

If you really want to invoke setting diegesis into your class mechanics, it should really be as a hook, not a restriction or a punishment mechanic. Players, in my experience, don't generally mind self-restricting, but they do chafe when the DM attempts to arbitrate their behavior against some assumed standard. (Like saying if a character is actually following their oath, or obeying their patron.)

I don't agree with so-called "modern players" on this issue, and I've run into many players that do the "whatever the rules let me get away with" thing you described; it is not IME going away as a thing. To me, "inhabiting your character" simply isn't the top priority of tabletop.

 

[MNblockhead]

I could be wrong, but I think that Warhammer tends to have very specific thematics for their otherworldly entities. Like, a total of six or seven "this is a supernatural force" groups. It makes it very easy then to say "well, out of these ten options, this is what Nurgle would want" and give a list of things.

The issue is that DnD warlocks are vastly, vastly more complicated. A fiend warlock could have made a deal with up to twelve different Archdevils who all have different goals and wants, without discussing the possibility of the eight or so Demon Princes, the three Yugoloth Lords, or some of the Demodads. And that is just the fiend, and without counting balors, pitfiends, erinyes, ect ect.

I'm not saying I don't like the idea of including a system, as an option. I think the Piety system or the Honor System give a good framework, but the conceptual space of what a pact could be is so vast, a system with very specific things doesn't make sense.

Kinda. There are a relatively small number of cults that get most of the attention and The Empire gets the lions share of the setting support. But there is mention of many different religions, gods, powers, etc. Only a few of them get mechanical writes up, but even those that do are quite a few if you collect all of them from across all their books. And if you look at a few of them you can see it is a very simple template that the DM and player can use to make their own.

I think the main different is that Warhammer mechanics are designed to support the setting, whereas D&D 5e design is meant to support many different settings. Different setting books in D&D may add new mechanics to support the flavor of that setting, but these don't belong in the core book.

A better example than the strictures, penances, and sin point mechanics in Warhammer are the Status mechanics. Status is very important in Warhammer and has mechanical and roleplaying weight. It wouldn't make sense to put something like this into core D&D because how a society is structured and its cultural norms are going very greatly from setting to setting in D&D.

As for the social/political complexity of D&D's celestial, infernal, abysmal, fey, etc. plans and powers, I think that varies greatly from setting to setting and table to table. In my experience, most tables are not building as complex a web as you portray, though, again, that doesn't mean some tables don't. But you are correct in that Warhammer works best when played in its default setting (IMHO). D&D needs to support far more settings, including homebrewed settings, so they are not going to get as mechanically crunchy in terms of how relationships between warlocks and their patrons and clerics/paladins and their gods work.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I'm curious about your views, as a brick-and-mortar store owner, about the alt covers. Do they make much of a difference? How profitable are the alt covers to B&M stores compared to early access? I'm assuming early access would be better.

Early access might be better, it's hard to tell, but we've been getting both again lately (they'd taken away early access for awhile. The main thing is, you can't buy the alt covers from Amazon. That's the biggest boon. Early access, I'm probably biased toward (because I like to read the books as early as possible) but it's also possible that it's more of a bribe. It can't be BAD, though!

For what it is worth, as a customer, I find the alt covers and store perks are what are most likely to get me to drive to a FLGS versus buying on Amazon.

Yeah, I think that's how it works out. We sell lots to our regular customers, but to have someone seek us out? That takes variants and early access - I'm not sure which is better, but I do like both!

Well...actually, the most effective way to get me to buy a book in a store versus online is to get me in the store. I seem preternaturally compelled to buy something when I'm in a game store, even if I won't go out of my way to go to a game store to buy something, if that makes sense.

It makes perfect sense. I see that a lot!

In the past decade, I think I've only bought books in a B&M store that has play space and events.

Yeah! I've got three tables. They're not used as well as I'd like them to be (I need someone who's better at organizing events than I've got - I'm happy to run a game, but I don't want to manage the tables - and my employee who is in charge of doing it is not actually good at that sort of thing (his usefulness lies elsewhere - for example, he's good at teaching miniature painting). But we muddle along, running games as often as we can.

 

[Chaosmancer]

The general issue here is that restrictions on behavior were actual hindrances on behavior back in the dungeon crawling days of OD&D/AD&D 1e, when the focus of the game was exploring and defeating dungeons by any methods necessary. Being restricted in your types of hirelings, or only having 10 (10!) magic items, or not being able to use poison made the actual task of defeating dungeons harder and riskier, and thus justified giving strong benefits in exchange.

But in modern games, where the focus on "defeating dungeons" is at best secondary, and inhabiting a character is primary, there's a general expectation that every character is going to limit themselves to actions that fit within their character's methods. Paladins don't need hooks to do the "right thing", the player should be actively engaged in portraying the character as doing the right thing as part of their concept.

(Are there power fantasy games where players don't actually limit themselves to concepts, and just do whatever and don't roleplay ANY concept? Of course! But that type of play doesn't invalidate the actual standard of modern play.)

If you really want to invoke setting diegesis into your class mechanics, it should really be as a hook, not a restriction or a punishment mechanic. Players, in my experience, don't generally mind self-restricting, but they do chafe when the DM attempts to arbitrate their behavior against some assumed standard. (Like saying if a character is actually following their oath, or obeying their patron.)

Yes. This!

Imposing behavior restrictions often feel like "I will punish you for not doing things in the manner I think they should be done" instead of rewarding a player for the play. Hooks and self-policing are much more effective, because anyone who isn't wanting to engage in that... would be even more belligerent if you tried to FORCE them to do it.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Tell that to DCC and their individual Spell Mishap Tables. It can be done, it sounds like you personally just don't think it's worth it.

And that's ok. It certainly "makes sense" to me.

How does a spell mishap table have anything at all to do with the goals of Tiberious the Immortal compared to Fiona, Lady of the Flowering Waters?

 

[Chaosmancer]

So each cult has strictures, which are mix a small fluffy requirements to more restrictive requirements. There is no alignment in Warhammer, so the strictures are more related to the god's goals and area of dominion. Some strictures are very black and white and easy to determine whether you broke it or not ("never take up arms, a walking stick and courage will suffice") whereas other are open to much interpretation ("Shallya's work is never done, so turn not to self-indulgence."). The strictures vary greatly from one cult to another, so there are plenty of options for players to find one that works for them and, as a DM, I am fine with working together with the player to homebrew a cult and its strictures. When a character violates a stricture they will gain a number of sin points depending on the scale of the infraction (normally 1-3 sin points). Characters in careers that offer one or both of the Bless and Invoke talents, and the Pray skill, can call upon their god to enact a Blessing or Miracle. If they succeed in a pray test, the blessing or miracle occurs. If they roll well, they may have additional success levels that will give bonus effects. But, if your prayer roll results in a number less than or equal to your sin points, you suffer a roll on The Wrath of the Gods table. It usually results in a mechanical debuff or negative condition, but a very poor roll can lead to you losing the bless and invoke talents.

That's where penances come in. These are activities that can remove sin points. They can be things that you do on your downtime or they could be the subject of an entire side quest or adventure.

It is a bit more crunch than D&D, but not much more than a 5e wild magic sorcerer with its wild magic table.

The way I've brought this concept to 5e is that I'll come up with some strictures or penances for clerics, warlocks, and paladins. Often that isn't hard to do, as some settings like Forgotten Realms already have a lot of this written into the lore. I'm happy to create this with the player if they are into that. Instead of sin points, in my last campaign I worked it into the renown, infamy system and also used the concordance system from MCDMs Strongholds and Followers book. So if the PC isn't acting in accordance with the tenants and social norms of their religious order or cult, the negative consequences were mostly social. They would lose Concordance for the extra-special abilities it offered, but they wouldn't lose their class or ability to cast spells. My in-world reasoning for this was that maybe their god or patron was unhappy with them, but another entity may step in to given the character power and now the character is actually unwittingly acting in the interests of another power. A bit sloppy, but it worked and we had fun.

But now that I've been playing Warhammer, I would seriously consider bringing the idea of strictures, penances, sin points, and wrath of the gods to my D&D game. But only if the players were into it. Also, I alway play new rules RAW for a while before adding homebrew, so I expect I'll run the 2024 rules RAW in a first shorter campaign before discussing any changes or additions.

So... how is this different than using the DnD piety rules that already exist?

 

[Chaosmancer]

As for the social/political complexity of D&D's celestial, infernal, abysmal, fey, etc. plans and powers, I think that varies greatly from setting to setting and table to table. In my experience, most tables are not building as complex a web as you portray, though, again, that doesn't mean some tables don't. But you are correct in that Warhammer works best when played in its default setting (IMHO). D&D needs to support far more settings, including homebrewed settings, so they are not going to get as mechanically crunchy in terms of how relationships between warlocks and their patrons and clerics/paladins and their gods work.

I'm not thinking of this politically, but more that it seemed like Micah was looking towards the Paladin Oaths as an inspiration. Which, in theory, is DnD's most famous attempt at this sort of binding promise type of mechanic, where if you violate the oath, you lose your powers.

But, while Paladin oaths kind of work... a Pact of the Fiend oath wouldn't. It couldn't. Not because players won't accept it or anything, but an Oath to Fierna is going to be different than an Oath to Mammon is going to be different than an Oath to Orcus is going to be different than an Oath to Graz'zt. Now, we did get Demon and Devil Cults in Mordenkainens' Tome, so maybe you could use that... but then you still haven't covered the Pit Fiend #3 or Erinyes #245 who could also be pact bearers.

And this is JUST the Fiend Pact, and WITHOUT getting into multiple settings. You would then need to do the same process for GOO, Fey, Celestial, Genie, Undying... you start getting to the point where having these sets of rules and pacts created and put into the rulebooks stretches out to be nearly a book on its own. And all designed with the sole purpose of removing a warlock's powers if they break one of these rules? It doesn't work.

Now, that isn't to say you can't have a far more generic system, like the piety or honor systems that do already exist. But since those are optional, and the details of the deal and restrictions would still need to be discussed with the player... we are back to where Micah doesn't want to be. Relying on the Player to come up with restrictions, instead of them being enforced by the system.