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.

 

[Parmandur]

Thanks, Parmandur.

Sorry it wasn't better news: I like that stuff, too!

I don't feel that the 5E revision is more combat focused than before, though I think theybput effort into patching up weird corners of the combat system and making everything more clear.

 

[dave2008]

5E is clunky in layout, ability to find things, etc. I look at 5E as the successor to 3.5 but should've been 6E. 4E doesn't count. lets not go there, but from 3E to now the core chassis of the rules mechanics have not changed, and that's what I want and why Im not happy.

IM GOING TO SAY IT, WOTC PLAYED IT SAFE

This is quite funny. You seem to be bashing WotC for playing it "safe" right after lambasting them about 4e - when they didn't play it safe!

 

[dave2008]

, but from 3E to now the core chassis of the rules mechanics have not changed, and that's what I want and why Im not happy.

Also, I would argue the core chassis has been the same since 1e (HP, AC, saving throws, classes, ability scores, spell slots, alignment, etc.) and that is what makes it D&D. If you want a different core chassis, play a different game. There are many wonderful ones out there!

 

[Minigiant]

Teos’s video is fantastic and I agree with him about everything in it except that we should have a 6e. Nope, not for me. Certainly not now or in the near future. Lucky for me, I don’t think that’s going to be a problem.

I think there ultimately is a compatibility and sunken cost issue with 5e.

5e has some very clear issues that a noticeable amount of the community sees.

However fixing some of these would require changing core assumptions and mechanics which chucks out a lot of material. Many of the CONs reviewers are stating are due to the lack of time WOTC had to playtest the major changes they or the community wanted to high satisfaction levels

So 2024 5e is at a lull stage where people want certain changes but don't want to lose the content that those changes would remove.

This is why the "5e" alternative systems are thriving. But many of them are slowly bordering with incompatibility with each other. And this drives the desire for 6e more.

The speed we go from "I dont want 6e" to "I want 6e" will likely shock many.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Sounds overly complicated especially when the DM has to keep track of even more stuff now.

But to each their own. If you enjoy all that record keeping then more power to you.

It is no more complicated than any full caster team I have ever run for. I don't know why people seem to have never had more than one or two full casters in their game at any given time.

 

[Chaosmancer]

How is that a boon for the DM? It would literally be more complicated.

Because the ability for a martial character to impose disadvantage or push an enemy allows for more dynamic tactical play, and will prevent battlefields from becoming static slogs where everyone is getting bored because nothing is moving and changing and we are just waiting for hp to hit zero.

Again. I've run for entire parties with nothing but full casters. The fighter having topple isn't going to suddenly break me and leave me a sobbing mess on the floor as a DM. I dealt with three characters overlapping AOE spells, each with an at-will forced movement ability, which triggered all three spells every turn on the enemy. I'll be fine.

 

[Mirrorrorrim]

Sounds like you watched an entirely different video than I did

We as humans often perceive new information through our lenses of personal bias, whether positive or negative. For me, the new books are welcome, and the parts I don't like are drowned out by the parts I do like. Simple. For others, any parts they don't like might drown out the parts they do like.

If a person didn't want this slight update in the rules (whether they are happy with 5E as-is, or wanted something far more different, or they are just sick and tired of WotC fumbling the ball), they may not feel the need to buy new books, or even want to discuss them. But that is where the conversation is! If all the the community wants to talk about is the new big thing, that is where detractors have to go to engage the larger community. And if they have to engage people about stuff they didn't like or want, they can come off as negative.

I just hope that we stay constructive and not split the party. Let's be kind to each other in our criticisms of the product, and of each others' opinions, whether positive or negative. No more edition wars. All D&D is D&D.

 

[OB1]

Well, I was replying to how people were describing the working of stealth. I still don't like the rules, but at least they appear to be less nonsensical.

For sure. I quite like that hiding in combat requires a minimum DC to achieve, since presumably everyone is keeping their head on a swivel to track where all of their enemies are. I also like that in combat they require 3/4 cover or being heavily obscured. It would have been nice if they explicity said that you lose the invisible condistion if you walk out of cover, but it all seems pretty straighforward to me once you look at the rules for invisibility, which makes clear that you don't get the benefits if you can been seen or heard somehow (ie you charge towards an enemy from your hidden position).

 

[Chaosmancer]

I just...was it unfamiliarity?

When I ran it, I think that was the case. I was a new DM, running for the first time, and it felt like there were so many rules for how specific non-combat features should be run, that I kind of ended up panicking and avoiding them. By the time I was getting my feet under me, 5e was coming out, and the looser structure felt like it gave me more room to make mistakes.

I agree, 4e was well-designed for non-combat encounters, and the more I look back on it, the more I respect it, but the extra rules at the time made me shy away from using them.

 

[DarkCrisis]

It is no more complicated than any full caster team I have ever run for. I don't know why people seem to have never had more than one or two full casters in their game at any given time.

Because the ability for a martial character to impose disadvantage or push an enemy allows for more dynamic tactical play, and will prevent battlefields from becoming static slogs where everyone is getting bored because nothing is moving and changing and we are just waiting for hp to hit zero.

Again. I've run for entire parties with nothing but full casters. The fighter having topple isn't going to suddenly break me and leave me a sobbing mess on the floor as a DM. I dealt with three characters overlapping AOE spells, each with an at-will forced movement ability, which triggered all three spells every turn on the enemy. I'll be fine.

I mean, but not every DM is you who loves super busy mega combats.

5.5 seems to cater to you and other DMs like you, so congrats, I guess.