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.

 

[fluffybunbunkittens]

It's weird that they included it but then did not use it in the Green Dragon stat block.

Yep. Just WotC things. Apparently Champion and Life Cleric do reference it, so maybe we'll get more of it going forwards.

 

[Reynard]

It doesn't work as well for 5e monsters if they only last 3 rounds. I imagine we will see it in some, but not a lot of monsters

Sure, but I would have thought it would have been attached to a "boss monster" like the dragon, even if limited to "the dragon takes an immediate reaction and also immediately recharges its breath weapon".

 

[Zaukrie]

Sure, but I would have thought it would have been attached to a "boss monster" like the dragon, even if limited to "the dragon takes an immediate reaction and also immediately recharges its breath weapon".

Agreed.

 

[dave2008]

Sure, but I would have thought it would have been attached to a "boss monster" like the dragon, even if limited to "the dragon takes an immediate reaction and also immediately recharges its breath weapon".

Sure, though breath weapon recharge was never going to be an option as it would seriously mess with the CR

 

[DarkCrisis]

So that is the guards perception noticing the rogue.
Once you are hidden then people can make checks to see if they notice you before that you clearly are not hidden.

You can have it both ways.

The Rogue fails but thinks he's hidden. Guard auto notices him.

Rogue makes sneak check. Guard walks in. Makes Perception check, notices the Rogue (or fails and keeps walking).

 

[Nikosandros]

I'm amused at the idea of a rogue repeatedly failing to hide when nobody is around.

That's a clear homage to 1e where first level thieves have a base 15% chance to Move Silently and a measly 10% to Hide in Shadows...

 

[R_J_K75]

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."

I picked this one to read, I read for about 5 mins, as soon I read that the text in book refers to the glossary, I was done. This is a joke, WotC congratulations you've done it again. I'm not dealing with yet another edition of page flipping. If one of their goals was to better organize the book, why they didn't put the explanation in the text where it belongs?

 

[DarkCrisis]

Wow at the Conjure spells. WTF happened there. Elementals are just stationary AOEs? Wow.

 

[fluffybunbunkittens]

Wow at the Conjure spells. WTF happened there. Elementals are just stationary AOEs? Wow.

Yeah, it was their brute force solution to people summoning 32 wolves. While I do not think anyone should be creating extra tokens with their own full pool of actions, these are flavorless and not fun when you just wanted to be like 'ANGELIC HORDES COME FORTH'.

 

[mellored]

Wow at the Conjure spells. WTF happened there. Elementals are just stationary AOEs? Wow.

"Conjuring" 8 creatures slowed the game down too much, so yea. They all got replaced, mostly with zones of some kind.

"Summon" spells will give you 1 creature to move around. Including summon elemental.