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.

 

[Mistwell]

Treantmonk's patreon has TWENTY videos released about this (for $3, which gives you access to all of it, and then you can cancel, and he specifies he doesn't care if you do that). TONS of high level text detail.

Weird things:

Find Traps still doesn't find traps!
Shield Spell was not nerfed (though there are things competing with it now)
Wall of Force was not nerfed, but Forcecage was
Simulacrum was nerfed, but still has a weird loophole to cast Wish to cast another Simulacrum even though you cannot now directly use the Simulacrum to cast Simulacrum.
True Strike is now a meaningful cantrip!
Confusion about casting two spells in one round has been cleared up

 

[TravDoc42]

Game Masters posted his video!

I'm just glad to see that cats have darkvision now!

 

[dave2008]

If ytou say so. I don't know how you can rely on "the math" though when the probability of breath recharge is so wild. I have had dragons recharge every round for 4 rounds in a row, and also never recharge once in a 10 round fight.

Also, if you dragon fight is only lasting 3 rounds and the dragon is bloodied in round 2, you probably should have picked a bigger dragon.

I'm just saying the math on how CR is calculated. Not a judgement on the quality of the calculation method.

 

[Scribe]

I heard they just completely stripped the PHB if flavour

?

 

[DarkCrisis]

?

old 5.0 PHB was scratch and smell. A lot of people didn't know this.

 

[Stalker0]

I'm just saying the math on how CR is calculated. Not a judgement on the quality of the calculation method.

also just oting there is an entire thread talking about the green dragon that we are discussing. Probably better to do it there

 

[R_J_K75]

I think it’s an excellent structure for the PHB.

You are entitled to your opinion. If I'm reading the PHB to understand how something works and I need to refer to the glossary that's a deal breaker for me. I expect the rules to be in the text of the book. I agree it's good for referencing quickly at the table but from a standpoint of reading to learn and digest the game, make a character etc, its not IMO.

What? The 18 page Rules Glossary is where are the rules are located.

See my above reply

 

[Osgood]

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?

Obviously, I don't have the book yet, but this doesn't actually sound that bad to me. Sure, it may disrupt the flow in that initial read, but in the countless other times you will reference the rules, I think it's good to have them all in one place. Plus, a lot of times a particular rule might get referenced multiple times, so rather than restate it again and again, it makes a lot of sense to have all the rules in a common spot. This may be a kneejerk reaction that turns out to be fine.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

You are entitled to your opinion. If I'm reading the PHB to understand how something works and I need to refer to the glossary that's a deal breaker for me.

Deal Breaker? Whu!? Why? Having the rules all together makes way more sense to me.

I expect the rules to be in the text of the book.

But... they are? The glossary is text that is in the book.

I agree it's good for referencing quickly at the table

Yeah, that's the point - but you'd want the rules to be listed twice?

but from a standpoint of reading to learn and digest the game, make a character etc, its not IMO.

Okay. I mean, I respect your opinion, but I really don't understand it.

 

[Mistwell]

You are entitled to your opinion. If I'm reading the PHB to understand how something works and I need to refer to the glossary that's a deal breaker for me. I expect the rules to be in the text of the book. I agree it's good for referencing quickly at the table but from a standpoint of reading to learn and digest the game, make a character etc, its not IMO.

See my above reply

Is it a deal breaker for you for real though? Will you now never read the 2024 PHB?