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.

 

[Hatmatter]

The game is more focused on combat, with exploration and social pillars taking up far less space in the book. I think this too is a rather large negative.

If this is true, it would be disappointing to me. I notice that much of the conversation both here and from Youtubers reviewing and discussing the revisions obsesses over combat and (often) optimization. If, when the book is in hand and being used at the table, the feel of the game is that it is even more based on combat than it has been...well, that would certainly be disappointing.

I tend to remember something similar happening in the transition from 3rd edition to 4th edition. The boards here were awash with criticism of how unbalanced 3rd edition options and various character builds were. At the time, it seemed to me like Wizards of the Coast then built a game that addressed those concerns...then the forums here were filled with people melting down because of THOSE changes. And, when I played 4th edition, it felt much more like a combat-only game. Although, admittedly, that might have been the group I played with at that time. But, man, did combat go on forever.

If the new books take it more in that direction...that would be a bummer. I am already concerned that I have heard no mention of Personality Traits, Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws. I know that Youtubers don't usually use those when discussing optimization and their builds, and they are rarely mentioned here, but I have found they were a useful set of concepts when introducing new players to role-playing. I assume they have been eliminated as the silence here is deafening. I was hoping that they were replaced with something. If not, that would, in my mind, tend to drive the game more to an emphasis on combat.

 

[KYRON45]

Is it weird that i make my players keep track of the effects they cause?
If Joes spell causes damage/affect on the snark for 3 rounds i tell them that its up to them to remind me each round to apply the affect.
Just like how when the snark causes an affect on a PC its up to me to adjudicate that.

 

[SlyFlourish]

THis is the point I was trying to make. That's not what the word means. Someone is an "influencer" from the perspective of a professional marketer. They are not an "influencer" from the perspective of their audience (save for the fact that we're all savvy now and recognize how many forms of online content today are monetized by leveraging the creator's position as an "influencer").

To us, they are Youtubers. Content creators. Critics. Designers. Writers. Cosplayers. Bloggers. Streamers. Entertainers. (Whatever). It's only to WotC Product Marketing that they are "influencers" - that's the value they provide to WotC. I don't go to them to be "influenced". I go to them to be entertained or informed.

WOTC now calls them content creators except they don’t mean like rpg products as content. They mean videos and shorts and stuff. I don’t know if bloggers count. During the summit they mentioned having trouble categorizing me because I’m both a publisher of rpg products and a deliverer of videos, podcasts, and blog articles.

 

[Corinnguard]

If this is true, it would be disappointing to me. I notice that much of the conversation both here and from Youtubers reviewing and discussing the revisions obsesses over combat and (often) optimization. If, when the book is in hand and being used at the table, the feel of the game is that it is even more based on combat than it has been...well, that would certainly be disappointing.

I tend to remember something similar happening in the transition from 3rd edition to 4th edition. The boards here were awash with criticism of how unbalanced 3rd edition options and various character builds were. At the time, it seemed to me like Wizards of the Coast then built a game that addressed those concerns...then the forums here were filled with people melting down because of THOSE changes. And, when I played 4th edition, it felt much more like a combat-only game. Although, admittedly, that might have been the group I played with at that time. But, man, did combat go on forever.

If the new books take it more in that direction...that would be a bummer.

There was some mention of Exploration and Social Interaction in the YouTube review I saw the other day. I didn't see much of either one though, especially within the character classes themselves.

 

[SlyFlourish]

sort of....YT is NOT his main source of income at all....

Not directly, no. About two thirds of my rpg income come from book sales and a third from patreon. But YouTube brings people to both.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Cleaner and clearer rules means less adjudication and easier to remember (i.e. exhaustion is -2 and -5' per level)
No longer needing to worry if the have magic weapons before you put in a wearwolf.
Better class balance makes encounter building and CR more consistent.
Reduced nova damage reduces the 5-minute work day.
Conjure spells have been replaced.

Not saying the difference will be big. But less time spent dealing with the player side is more time for the DM side.

But isn't that counterbalanced by all the extra stuff PCs can now do and keeping track of all of that? And the jury is out on how "cleaner and clearer" these new rules actually are. Witness the new stealth rules thread for an example.

 

[MerricB]

WOTC now calls them content creators except they don’t mean like rpg products as content. They mean videos and shorts and stuff. I don’t know if bloggers count. During the summit they mentioned having trouble categorizing me because I’m both a publisher of rpg products and a deliverer of videos, podcasts, and blog articles.

Master of superior content creation?

 

[Swarmkeeper]

The game is more focused on combat, with exploration and social pillars taking up far less space in the book.

For sure, there are more rules for combat in the books - both 2014 and 2024 - than for exploration or social interaction.

That said, at the table, the game is really only more focused on combat if that is how the DM chooses to run it. Amount of rules does not necessarily correlate to proportion of time at the table for any given session.

Further, the pillars of play need not be mutually exclusive. A scene can have social interaction during combat. Or combat during exploration. Or...

I'm not saying anything new here. In that vain, the rules are here to serve the DM not the other way around - says so right in the books.

 

[SlyFlourish]

I am not a huge fan of D&D Shorts, but I watched this video and at least he was up front about his intentions. Kudos, I suppose.

I also watch Bob World Builder's video, which I found more interesting and informative. I sometimes consider starting a YT channel just to help sell stuff I create but man it looks convoluted and like a PITA.

It takes a lot of work. It took me a while to have an audience that really brought attention to my other work. I probably spend about five hours a week on it and that’s being very efficient.

 

[Morrus]

It takes a lot of work. It took me a while to have an audience that really brought attention to my other work. I probably spend about five hours a week on it and that’s being very efficient.

It's basically the same situation we're in--EN World isn't the direct money-maker, but it is the audience builder. Plus it's a fully-owned 'home base' which isn't subject to the whims of the owners of a social media site!