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]

No, I don't. We have details on the major players. We don't ALSO need every mid-tier player detailed to the point where there is no room to homebrew anything.

Look, I know you don't play 5e and just want to read encyclopedias, but some of us need this information to be actually useful at the table. Another entire book detailing every CR 10 or higher fiend, Fey, Elemental, Undead, Celestial and Genie in existence is not useful.

Then don't buy it.

 

[Aldarc]

As I recall, this was explicitly the case in 4e. I don't recall if it was cleric-specific or part of the divine power source in general, but at least clerics went through a process of being invested with divine authority, giving them the ability to use divine powers. I find this to be more interesting than the old style of being explicitly dependent on divine goodwill, because it means you can have turncoat clerics without their lack of magic being a telltale sign.

This was how clerics in 3e Eberron worked, which was also meant to explain things like LE Clerics of the LG Silver Flame. Considering the people involved in both 3e Eberron and 4e, I wouldn't be surprised if that idea carried through from one to the other.

Sounds a lot like the 3.5e Binder class. They would make short-lived pacts with otherworldly entities (not quite fiends or celestials, but weird) that would provide them with various benefits, and depending on how well they rolled to bargain they would also have to abide by certain restrictions.

I think they were a neat concept – basically being able to swap out class features much like a wizard swaps spells. But the main issue I saw was that getting a bunch of class features and proficiencies in 3.5e didn't do much for you unless you had other things to support them in the form of stats, feats, and most of all equipment. So I figure that in practice, most Binders would settle on a couple of vestiges to bind regularly and only deviate from their standard loadout in very particular circumstances.

Goetics are similar in the sense that they make pacts with otherwordly entities, but different. Your criticism seems more applicable to the Binder, which is fair and understandable, but it doesn't necessarily apply to the Goetic Mage in Invisible Sun. That said, I don't think that your criticism is entirely that different from a Battlemaster having their favored maneuvers, a Rune Knight having their favored runes, a Druid having preferred wild shapes, etc.

I recommend this link to read how Goetic's worked, but here is an overview:

How Goetics Use Magic​

The first step to the Goetics’ summoning magic is figuring out what you want out of deal. Summoned beings can offer one of thirteen different things: counsel, non-combat aid, guarding you from danger, spying, the answer to a query, some kind of theft, assailing one’s enemies, restoring the Goetic’s health, influencing another’s mind, creating things, glorifying the Goetic’s appearance, binding the entity into an item, or serving as a long-term ally. This means that Goetics can have armor with bound-demon strength, furnaces where fire-spirit allies live, an angel friend they can call for advice, and many other tricks up their sleeve. You start off with the first four available, then at the second degree you gain access to the next three, another three at the third degree, and then finally glorify, binding, and ally at the fourth degree.

Next up you take precautions you want to set up (protective circles, having bribes on hand, etc), then you pay Sorcery cost for the entity you want to summon. If you want a demon-general that’s going to take a lot more juice than calling up a little fire-imp. You can also call up specific entities if you know their name, which requires a Sorcery check. If you are just calling for whoever might answer or the specific entity you want is fine with answering then your summoning automatically works.

Once they show up, though, that’s only part of the story. You still have to convince them to help and that takes one of four different approaches. If your argument seems like a good deal or the entity might be happy to do it then you can try persuading them. If you don’t think it’ll be an easy sell then you can try bribery with something the same level as the summoned creature. A bribe could be a magic item or treasure, something to consume, a favor in return, or even a mortal’s soul (a good bribe for a demon). On the other hand you might be feeling gutsy and try coercion to threaten the entity. Lastly, there’s the roleplayer’s tried-and-true approach of using trickery to make it seem like something the entity would want to do, talk them into a wager, or some other underhanded means.

If your approach works and the entity is persuaded, bribed, coerced, or tricked then they do the thing! If not, though… well entities aren’t always happy to be pulled away from their own business. Their exact response depends on the desires and nature of the entity, as well as how brazen and demanding you were in your failed attempt to win them over. Summoned entities could attack, establish an unwanted influence over the Goetic’s mind, or just escapes into the area they were summoned to causing untold chaos. Needless to say, none of these is a great option for the poor mage doing the summoning.

I am aware that the Goetic could not work exactly as written for D&D. However, I would prefer to see the Warlock more along these lines, maybe not in mechanics but in story and play. I want something that enables this sort of class fantasy where the Warlock is actively summoning, bargaining, and pact-making with fey, celestials, fiends, spirits, djinn, etc. It's not just a one and done deal that the GM may or may not engage with. IMHO, the Warlock's single, off-screen patron approach feels a bit too milquetoast. I imagine that this would also get a fair number of people excited as well since that would also potentially enable a more summoner playstyle.

 

[Pedantic]

Sounds a lot like the 3.5e Binder class. They would make short-lived pacts with otherworldly entities (not quite fiends or celestials, but weird) that would provide them with various benefits, and depending on how well they rolled to bargain they would also have to abide by certain restrictions.

I think they were a neat concept – basically being able to swap out class features much like a wizard swaps spells. But the main issue I saw was that getting a bunch of class features and proficiencies in 3.5e didn't do much for you unless you had other things to support them in the form of stats, feats, and most of all equipment. So I figure that in practice, most Binders would settle on a couple of vestiges to bind regularly and only deviate from their standard loadout in very particular circumstances.

The whole sign and influence concept wasn't well executed, unfortunately. The check to avoid them swung from too hard to too trivial, and the impact of any particular vestige varied wildly from irrelevant to crippling, and they were weirdly binary. You made 1 check in the morning, and then either were influenced all day and showed some physical change, or you didn't. There was definitely room for iteration on the concept, making the drawbacks more integrated and interesting, and making the vestiges more generally useful, and less random packages of abilities.

I also noted that some of the 2024 material talk about warlocks as being about "occult lore". Perhaps their Patron serves more as a teacher than a power source? That would be more interesting to me.

This is the real meat of the problem. There's a flavor/mechanical mismatch, and it could be easily resolved by changing either the flavor or the mechanics. A set of proscribed/required behaviors, routine sacrifices or whatever would work to maintain the idea of bargained for powers, or you could make the warlock more about the forbidden/occult nature of their magical tradition, relying on different sources/kinds of magic than the wizard.

 

[Staffan]

This was how clerics in 3e Eberron worked, which was also meant to explain things like LE Clerics of the LG Silver Flame. Considering the people involved in both 3e Eberron and 4e, I wouldn't be surprised if that idea carried through from one to the other.

Eberron's slightly different, but it's along the same lines. At least in the 3e Eberron material, clerics still need faith in their god/gods/beliefs – it's just that they don't have any external source saying they're wrong. So the LE Silver Flame cleric works if they believe they are doing the Flame's work and just making the hard calls others won't, but they don't really work as a corrupt Borgia type. But that's a minor difference in the grand scheme of things.

Goetics are similar in the sense that they make pacts with otherwordly entities, but different. Your criticism seems more applicable to the Binder, which is fair and understandable, but it doesn't necessarily apply to the Goetic Mage in Invisible Sun. That said, I don't think that your criticism is entirely that different from a Battlemaster having their favored maneuvers, a Rune Knight having their favored runes, a Druid having preferred wild shapes, etc.

Well, a battlemaster with different maneuvers still use the same weapon to make those maneuvers, and still use the same class DC to resist them if applicable. So your "build" still works the same. But let's say you're a binder who has made a pact with Leraje, the Green Herald. This gives you a bonus to Hide, Low-light vision, the Precise Shot feat, proficiency with various bows, and the ability to deal damage to two targets adjacent to one another with a single ranged attack. But in order to get any use out of that stuff, you're going to need a decent Dexterity, a bow, and probably armor that won't penalize your skills. Fair enough. But the next day for some reason, you want to make a pact with Aym, Queen Avarice. She gives you Improved Sunder, Medium armor proficiency and the ability to ignore speed penalty from armor, fire resistance, double damage against objects, and a fire aura. To make use of those abilities, you need some Medium armor, and probably a good melee weapon because you want to be in melee to use your aura, and likely a decent Strength.

Basically, a D&D character's competence generally comes from a combination of ability scores, knowledge (feats and proficiency), and gear. The binder can swap around the knowledge part, but without the other two that's not going to do much good.

I recommend this link to read how Goetic's worked, but here is an overview:

That sounds pretty cool, but really involved. It seems more appropriate for a solo game, because it seems like the kind of thing that takes up a lot of time to get going.

I am aware that the Goetic could not work exactly as written for D&D. However, I would prefer to see the Warlock more along these lines, maybe not in mechanics but in story and play. I want something that enables this sort of class fantasy where the Warlock is actively summoning, bargaining, and pact-making with fey, celestials, fiends, spirits, djinn, etc. It's not just a one and done deal that the GM may or may not engage with. IMHO, the Warlock's single, off-screen patron approach feels a bit too milquetoast. I imagine that this would also get a fair number of people excited as well since that would also potentially enable a more summoner playstyle.

Agreed, it's a cool concept though it would need a lot of adaption to work with D&D.

 

[Staffan]

The whole sign and influence concept wasn't well executed, unfortunately. The check to avoid them swung from too hard to too trivial, and the impact of any particular vestige varied wildly from irrelevant to crippling, and they were weirdly binary. You made 1 check in the morning, and then either were influenced all day and showed some physical change, or you didn't. There was definitely room for iteration on the concept, making the drawbacks more integrated and interesting, and making the vestiges more generally useful, and less random packages of abilities.

I agree that there's definitely room for improvement regarding the binder, but from a flavor perspective I like that the vestiges are a bit idiosyncratic with strange combinations. Like, there's one vestige that in life first was a dragonslaying knight and later became a servant of Tiamat – so they get extra energy damage on attacks from the Tiamat part, and heavy armor proficiency and riding skill from the knight part. There's another one that lets you speak, understand, read, and write any language you hear spoken, but when you speak in a language you do not yourself know you can't lie. That's the kind of stuff I find cool.

 

[Hussar]

Binders are, bar none, my absolute favorite D&D class of all time.

 

[Aldarc]

The whole sign and influence concept wasn't well executed, unfortunately. The check to avoid them swung from too hard to too trivial, and the impact of any particular vestige varied wildly from irrelevant to crippling, and they were weirdly binary. You made 1 check in the morning, and then either were influenced all day and showed some physical change, or you didn't. There was definitely room for iteration on the concept, making the drawbacks more integrated and interesting, and making the vestiges more generally useful, and less random packages of abilities.

Yeah, like a lot of other experimental classes in 3e, the Binder suffered from "neat idea, horrible/boring execution." However, I would prefer prefer a greater shift away from "vestiges" to more familiar otherworldly powers: e.g., fiends, celestials, fey, elementals, spirits, etc. I think that the Warlock would be a good class to showcase the various powers of the D&D multiverse.

This is the real meat of the problem. There's a flavor/mechanical mismatch, and it could be easily resolved by changing either the flavor or the mechanics. A set of proscribed/required behaviors, routine sacrifices or whatever would work to maintain the idea of bargained for powers, or you could make the warlock more about the forbidden/occult nature of their magical tradition, relying on different sources/kinds of magic than the wizard.

As I mentioned above, part of my issue with the Warlock is that it is "bargained for powers" and not "bargaining for powers." It relegates a pretty big aspect of the Warlock's identity to an off-screen event. The GM may or may not involve the Patron at all. This is both good and bad in my opinion. It's good in that it's opt-in engagement, as the player and/or GM may not want to engage play with the Patron, but it's bad for the same reason. That said, I do agree that there is a weird sort of flavor/mechanical mismatch with the Warlock.

Basically, a D&D character's competence generally comes from a combination of ability scores, knowledge (feats and proficiency), and gear. The binder can swap around the knowledge part, but without the other two that's not going to do much good.

Sure, but I probably would not build a Warlock like the 3e Binder.

That sounds pretty cool, but really involved. It seems more appropriate for a solo game, because it seems like the kind of thing that takes up a lot of time to get going.

The Goetic is not a spell-slinger. They are ritual summoners. So there can be some time requirements in what they do. However, I would not say that it's more appropriate for a solo game. Invisible Sun is NOT a solo game.

Agreed, it's a cool concept though it would need a lot of adaption to work with D&D.

Yes and no, or to borrow one of my favorite words from the Germans, "jein." And I think that a Warlock in D&D could be built to accomodate this sort of thing with a little work, but I would put a lot of that summoning and bargaining in the out-of-combat Ritual spells. Expand these Rituals and make Warlocks (increasingly) better at these sort of summoning rituals or with summoning spells. The option to cast them in-combat would still exist with Pact Magic.

I think that Warlocks should be the best summoners and ritualists. They would still be relying on Cantrips/Weapons and Pact Magic. There could even be Invocations that let them interact with these otherworldly beings in different ways: e.g., ask X questions, advantage on Charisma rolls with certain beings, bind a being to an item, immunity to certain conditions, etc.

 

[Staffan]

The Goetic is not a spell-slinger. They are ritual summoners. So there can be some time requirements in what they do. However, I would not say that it's more appropriate for a solo game. Invisible Sun is NOT a solo game.

Right, but what I mean is that it sounds like the bargaining thing is eating up a lot of "screen time", since it sounds like a pretty involved activity.

In theory, a wizard preparing their spells in the morning also takes a fair bit of time – an hour or so. But what happens at the table is that the wizard player asks "Hey, we were going to explore the sunken temple today, right? Great, I'll swap out flaming sphere for alter self then." But it sounds like what's going on with the Goetic is significantly more involved than that.

 

[Aldarc]

Right, but what I mean is that it sounds like the bargaining thing is eating up a lot of "screen time", since it sounds like a pretty involved activity.

In theory, a wizard preparing their spells in the morning also takes a fair bit of time – an hour or so. But what happens at the table is that the wizard player asks "Hey, we were going to explore the sunken temple today, right? Great, I'll swap out flaming sphere for alter self then." But it sounds like what's going on with the Goetic is significantly more involved than that.

I don't think that these are equivalent processes. What I proposed is less akin to a Wizard preparing spells in the morning and more akin to when the Wizard decides to cast a ritual spell out of combat. I understand that some GMs just handwave that, but I am also on record for saying that rituals should be more interesting and not just a wandwavium spell cast out-of-combat to avoid using spell slots. I think that 5e rituals are kinda boring in that regard.

That said, the Goetic is a bit more involved, but it's not that complicated. So for example, a first level Goetic gets these abilities and few others.

Create a Protective Circle: We inscribe a protective barrier that offers +2 defense against spiritual entities of the realm we choose when we create the circle. The circle is large enough to accommodate us or perhaps one other person instead. Alternatively, if summoning an entity, we can create a protective circle and summon the being inside the circle. In this case, the circle is always large enough to accommodate the conjured being. Creating a circle requires ten minutes of work.

Summoning: We can summon beings of up to level 3. Once we successfully convince them to perform the desired task, they can move up to a mile away from us, and can take up to an hour to complete the task, if needed and appropriate. Summoning requires one round of time and the devotion of 1 Sorcery per level of the summoned being. There are thirteen types of summoning. To a 1st degree Goetic, only four are available: counsel, aid, guard, and spy.

The description here for summoning is not that complicated. We are given some of the terms and conditions: distance, duration, summoning level, etc. These apply to all summons. Summoning the being also only takes one round, though creating the optional Protective Circle requires ten minutes and obviously negotiations can take longer. In the magic book, there are rules and guidelines for Persuasion, Trickery, Bribery (equivalent cost per level), Coercion, as well as consequences for failure (i.e., Attack, Unwanted Influence, Escape).

IMHO, it should be a mini social encounter, which should suit the Warlock if they have high Charisma and social skills. However, I think that with anything else, it really depends on how much time that the table wants to spend on these scenes.

Maybe out of combat the Warlock says, I create a protective circle and summon a Level 2 devil because I want some information about the devil or whatever fiend that was with the cultists we just fought." The GM asks if they plan on using Persuade, Intimidate, Deception, or Bribe. The Warlock says, "I will Bribe the devil with the fresh carcasses of the cultists we killed." The GM says that instead the devil wants a valuable magic item that they were using. A deal is struck. The Warlock asks the questions and gets answers that the devil is a servant of a different lord of hell than the one they serve. But maybe the Warlock decides for Persuasion (they have advantage because they speak Infernal!) or Intimdiate (possibly using that magic item), and they have to make a skill check or two in order to get similar results.

This make take around the same time as a Wizard or Cleric casting a divination spell and negotiating with the GM about its effectiveness or answers.

But again, this is out of combat. It's not necessarily what the Warlock is doing in combat. In combat, they may just be eldritch blasting.

 

[NaturalZero]

The discussion about the Binder is the exact discussion I've been having with my gaming buddies on how I'd want to change up all of the DnD classes. I see was literally calling the warlock the "goetic" and saying it should be more of a summoner/binder style class. It's mechanically cool, but concept-wise I see the warlock as being a straight-up goetic that does everything through styles of summoning. The blaster we have ain't exactly on point.