D&D (2024) D&D 2024 Player's Handbook Reviews

On Thursday August 1st, the review embargo is lifted for those who were sent an early copy of the new Dungeons & Dragons Player's Handbook. In this post I intend to compile a handy list of those reviews as they arrive. If you know of a review, please let me know in the comments so that I can add it! I'll be updating this list as new reviews arrive, so do check back later to see what's been added!

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Review List

• The official EN World review -- "Make no mistake, this is a new edition."
• ComicBook.com -- "Dungeons & Dragons has improved upon its current ruleset, but the ruleset still feels very familiar to 5E veterans."
• Comic Book Resources -- "From magic upgrades to easier character building, D&D's 2024 Player's Handbook is the upgrade players and DMs didn't know they needed."
• Wargamer.com -- "The 2024 Player’s Handbook is bigger and more beginner-friendly than ever before. It still feels and plays like D&D fifth edition, but numerous quality-of-life tweaks have made the game more approachable and its player options more powerful. Its execution disappoints in a handful of places, and it’s too early to tell how the new rules will impact encounter balance, but this is an optimistic start to the new Dungeons and Dragons era."
• RPGBOT -- "A lot has changed in the 2024 DnD 5e rules. In this horrendously long article, we’ve dug into everything that has changed in excruciating detail. There’s a lot here."

Video Reviews
Note, a couple of these videos have been redacted or taken down following copyright claims by WotC.

• 2024 PHB Rules Changes D&D 5.24 (Treantmonk's Temple)
• Dungeons & Dragons Players Handbook 2024 Preview & Review | Key Takeaways and Comparisons with 2014 (Awesome Black)
• 10 Unexpected Changes in the D&D 5E 2024 Player's Handbook (This Effin' GM Games)
• Every Class and Subclass Change for 2024 (d4: Deep Dive)
• D&D Player's Handbook 2024 Winners & Losers! (The Character Sheet on ComicBook.com)
• 2024 Player's Handbook First Look Review (Dungeon Dudes)
• The 2024 Player's Handbook: Full Spoilers Review (DnD Shorts)
• Full Early Review! D&D 2024 Player's Handbook (JoeFudge)
• First Look at the 2024 Player's Handbook for Dungeons & Dragons (GameMasters)
• 2024 PHB Flip through (Jorphdan) [taken down]
• D&D New Player's Handbook, DM's Guide, Monster Manual, and Project Sigil Info (maturemindedgamers)
• 2024 Player's Handbook: Questions Answered! (Alphastream)
• D&D 2024 Player's Handbook Walkthrough (Sly Flourish) [redacted]

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Release timeline (i.e. when you can get it!)

• August 1st: Reviewers. Some reviewers have copies already, with their embargo lifting August 1st.
• August 1st-4th: Gen Con. There will be 3,000 copies for sale at Gen Con.
• September 3rd: US/Canada Hobby Stores. US/Canada hobby stores get it September 3rd.
• September 3rd: DDB 'Master' Pre-orders. Also on this date, D&D Beyond 'Master Subscribers' get the digital version.
• September 10th: DDB 'Hero' Pre-orders. On this date, D&D Beyond 'Hero Subscribers' get the digital version.
• September 17th: General Release. For the rest of us, the street date is September 17th.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Can't link it, but here is a screenshot of Colby's (D4 Deep Dive) announcement of his content for the 1st

 

[ECMO3]

Thanks for the rundown. I generally find discussions centering around rules minutia and powergaming not interesting, and rarely watch gaming videos at all, but some of these might be worth looking into.

Ginny Di almost never posts that stuff. Most of her stuff is about roleplaying or DMing for Roleplaying. When she does "character builds" it is how to bring out the "character" in terms of role playing it she focuses and not the mechanics.

She also does a lot of cosplay, songs and how to cosplay videos.

 

[Charlaquin]

Ginny.

To be fair I don’t watch “influencers” or whatever. Maybe a video here or there on a current topic but I don’t follow any.

Amusingly, Ginny is probably the closest to an “influencer” of anyone on that list. Not all social media content creators are influencers.

 

[Zuranthium]

Treatmonk thinks Wizard is still the best class because they have the 3 most powerful spells, which were already there in 5E and didn't get "fixed". Which 3 spells does everyone think he is referring to?

 

[mellored]

Treatmonk thinks Wizard is still the best class because they have the 3 most powerful spells, which were already there in 5E and didn't get "fixed". Which 3 spells does everyone think he is referring to?

Simulacrum, force cage, magic jar.
Maybe wall of force, maze, or contingency.

Arcane eye and passwall are really good exploration spells.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Forcecage/Wall of Force

Shield

Simulacrum

Edit: Based off his old video, which listed these outlier spells

• Animate Objects
• Conjure Animals, Conjure Woodland Beings
• Hypnotic Pattern
• Polymorph
• Shield
• Simulacrum
• Tiny Hut, Wall of Force

We know Polymorph and the Conjure spells got addressed,

 

[Mistwell]

And he said one of the spells can be obtained by a particular Sorcerer subclass but the other two could not.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Assuming you've heard of Treantmonk

D4 Deep Dive --> Mostly does build videos, focusing on a concept and building it out. He then mechanically checks the power, largely looking at spike damage potential. Seems like a cool dude in general. I don't watch him much.

Ginny Di --> I saw her originally for her cosplays, has delved into discussion topics a few times. Always seems thoughtful, but I don't watch a lot of her content.

Dungeon Dudes --> Pair of guys, I've mostly watched their ranking videos and similar content. Usually geared towards newer players, but sometimes their discussion gives me some insights. They have very different styles as players and as DMs, so it is always interesting to see them bounce off each other. They recently finished a series of "what if everyone in the party played the same class" looking at each class individually. It was some fun stuff.

Pointy Hat --> Mostly looks at lore and aesthetics, some of his biggest videos are the "DnD with a Twist" where he will take a thing in DnD and offer a twist to make in more interesting or a variation on them. He did halflings cursed with bad luck, he did hags that feed on various emotions. He also has a series called "Which Lich" where he makes a lich for each of the types of classes, which are Fascinating videos. Big thing to recommend him beyond his art (which is great) is that he offers free content alongside his videos. So, you want a copy of his Barbarian Lich, you can grab the Google Doc and look at it. He also is a game designer and has had some good insights into adventure and dungeon design.

Pact Tactics --> Least watched by me. He is a self-described power gamer, and focused on RAW, so I don't get a lot of his videos which seem to be a lot of "technically, per the rules, I can do this really broken thing." Also, I know it is bad, but his voice grates on me a bit. I don't know why and I know it is unfair, but it does. He generally knows is stuff though, and I'm certain his content is generally solid, I just bounced off of it.

I mostly like her singing.

 

[SlyFlourish]

There were actually two versions sent. Some received a digital version in late May that was under an NDA. Others were sent a physical version this week with a 1 August embargo. I am lucky enough to be one of the ones who got a physical version this week. I’m hoping to do a detailed stream and video Thursday. I got lots of questions from SF patrons to dive deep.

 

[Azzy]

Never mind me, I'm just enjoying the fact that we're up to 5 pages and we're still about a day out from any reviews being released into the wild.