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.

 

[R_J_K75]

watching DNDShorts video and this sounds like absolute hell for a DM.

From what little of the playtest I did look at, and the posts here over the last few years, this is what I was worried about

 

[Corinnguard]

From what little of the playtest I did look at, and the posts here over the last few years, this is what I was worried about

Hopefully the 2024 DMG and the 2024 Monster Manual can turn that around for the DMs.

 

[Valetudo]

Anyone who played 3rd edition will recognize this as 3.5 or 3.24 if you like. I like this. I don't want a new edition, I want an update, which is what we got. Now having said this I still think I'm gonna use alot of 2014 feats and races, even ones that have .24 versions like gwm and mountain dwarves if my players want to use those instead. Now as the stealth change, I think it's fine for combat stealth, but is not needed for roleplaying stealth.

 

[fluffybunbunkittens]

I like how the book seems to have way more art in it. Even if much of it is much 'softer' than I'd prefer.

And I absolutely hate the Orc racial entry art. Now that they are no longer half-orcs, they are... even more like just soft humans with grey skin and pointy ears? uuuuuuuuuuggggh, it's ridiculous how they lost any orcness in this transition to player character-ness.

 

[darjr]

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Anyone who played 3rd edition will recognize this as 3.5 or 3.24 if you like.

Anyone who played 1E and 2E will recognise this as 2E by the same token. That said it's absolutely not a 2E > 3E, 3E > 4E, or 4E > 5E transition, and those are the majority of the history of D&D at this point.

And I absolutely hate the Orc racial entry art. Now that they are no longer half-orcs, they are... even more like just soft humans with grey skin and pointy ears? uuuuuuuuuuggggh, it's ridiculous how they lost any orcness in this transition to player character-ness.

D&D has pretty much never managed to have a consistent cross-book (rather than setting-specific) vision of what an "Orc" is, in literally any edition. So it's not surprising that they've basically become "grey humans". It is unfortunate though. They could have at the very least ripped off Delicious in Dungeon (which was itself not dissimilar to some other manga takes on D&D-ish Orcs).

WotC particularly messed up in 5E 2014 by inexplicably coming out with a super-racist-vibes take on Orcs in Volo's, and then having to backpedal extremely violently.

 

[SkidAce]

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'.

+1 for Angel Summoner and BMX Bandit Reference.

 

[R_J_K75]

Hopefully the 2024 DMG and the 2024 Monster Manual can turn that around for the DMs.

Im still open to giving at least the DMG a look, but my decision to buy into the 2024 revision was always predicated on…”do these books make 5E easier to run and make it better”? So Im open to looking at it. What I saw today of the phb says no, at least to me

 

[dave2008]

Like I've said before, I didn't pay much attention to the playtest so I didn't know exactly what to expect

You have been around these forums enough to know.

 

[dave2008]

watching DNDShorts video and this sounds like absolute hell for a DM.

In what way?