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.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Do you have any examples? Because I couldn't find any when I went looking. It was as though they'd scrubbed out everything they could, except the Feywild and Shadowfell, because those were too useful, and the Raven Queen, because she was too popular.

You've got him backwards. He meant the 4e lore was presented as optional during 4e (with which I disagree).

 

[Valetudo]

Yeah Pinkerton would show up to your house if you didn't use the lore.

 

[mellored]

These are all things you can use off turn, most use your reaction, some do not use your reaction but will still slow down the game with rerolls or similar off turn:

Retaliation

Not new.

Branches of the Tree

Mutually exclusive with retaliation.

Half the 2014 barbarian subclass had reactions.
Half the 2024 barbarian subclass had reactions.

No net new reactions.

Countercharm (changed, now a reaction, unlimited uses)

Unlimited uses makes it sound a lot worse than it will in game since it's still a bit niche.
Half a point.

Inspiring Movement (Reaction attack essentially at will for a use of a BI)
Cutting Words (more uses)

Again, mutually exclusive and half the bard subclasses in both books have reactions. So same net reactions.

Unbreakable Majesty

I didn't see the final result, but playtest looked the same as before.

Warding Flare (much more uses and usable on allies from level 3

Again, didn't see the final results but playtest was the same as 2014.

Beguiling Twist

Not new.

Protection (rarely saw this before now mechanically probably the best fighting style)

Didn't see the final version, but I'll give half a point.

Indomitable (more uses)

I'll give you half a point for that too.

Battlemasters get unlimited d8s for maneuvers at higher levels (presumably meaning unlimited reaction maneuvers)

I'll have to see the final wording, but if it remains "once per turn" then yea, that's one will be used off turn a lot.

Heroic Reroll (gives Heroic Inspiration every single round, unlimited use)

I expect you will use it to reroll a missed attack on your turn 90% of the time.

Deflect Attacks (works on all attacks, not just ranged, this is going to be used almost every turn)

Yup. Though that doesn't affect the DM.

Steps of the Fey

Misty Escape already exsisted.
And while you get more uses, most of those will be used on your turn.

Beguiling Defenses

Already existed.


So yes, there are a couple more. Though no where near the magnitude you are claiming.

And you still only get 1 reaction per turn. So it's not like these stack.

 

[pemerton]

Having a 5e campaign with 1-2 long drawn out fights per long rest emphatically does not work fine. Played in a campaign like that, it caused all kinds of problems. Completely messed up class balance as some classes are far better for two fights per long rest than others.

I've always been curious about how many people assume end of session = long rest. That's not an assumption I've made in my RPGing ever, as best I can recall. But it seems quite widespread.

 

[mellored]

I've always been curious about how many people assume end of session = long rest. That's not an assumption I've made in my RPGing ever, as best I can recall. But it seems quite widespread.

It's never been a hard rule for us.
But we will often play until there is a break in the story, which is often a good time to take a long rest.

So I'd say maybe 60%% of the time we long rest at the end of a session.
And probably 20% of the time it's a short rest.

 

[Iosue]

I've always been curious about how many people assume end of session = long rest. That's not an assumption I've made in my RPGing ever, as best I can recall. But it seems quite widespread.

I’ve never seen end of session = long rest, but calling the session quits at a long rest because it’s a good stopping point I’ve seen a lot of, across 3 or 4 different groups.

 

[pemerton]

I don't recall anything "optional" about that lore, or any lore prior to 5e Tasha's really, going back to the TSR days. The 4e stuff was just markedly different from what came before to greater degree, and it snapped my suspenders.

I can't recall what exactly the 4e DMG says, but this is from the Rules Compendium (pp 38, 54):

As mentioned in the introduction, the world of the DUNGEONS & DRAGONS game is a place of magic and monsters, of heroes and adventure. Place names, creatures’ origins, and other features of the game’s background depend on a few basic assumptions about the world in which adventures take place. . . .

The preceding sections sum up the basics of what the game assumes about the DUNGEONS & DRAGONS world. Within those general parameters, though, there’s a lot of room for the DM to fill in the details. Each published campaign setting describes a different world that adheres to some of those core assumptions, alters others, and then builds a world around them. Any DM can do the same to create a unique, personalized world.

Altering Core Assumptions One definition of speculative fiction (of which fantasy and science fiction are two branches) is that it starts with reality as we know it and asks, “What if some aspect of the world was different?” Most fantasy starts from the question “What if magic was real?”

The assumptions sketched out on these pages aren’t graven in stone. They make for an exciting world full of adventure, but they’re not the only set of assumptions that do so. Anyone can build an interesting campaign concept by altering one or more of those core assumptions, asking, “What if this wasn’t true in my world?”​

The book then goes on to present the Forgotten Realms, Dark Sun and Eberron as three published settings that depart from the default assumptions.

 

[Corinnguard]

I’ve never seen end of session = long rest, but calling the session quits at a long rest because it’s a good stopping point I’ve seen a lot of, across 3 or 4 different groups.

My group does this from time to time. But there have been a couple of times when my DM decided to end a session with a cliffhanger. Then we have to wait a week to find out how it will be resolved in the next session.

 

[Nikosandros]

I've always been curious about how many people assume end of session = long rest. That's not an assumption I've made in my RPGing ever, as best I can recall. But it seems quite widespread.

It was explicitly assumed as the default by the Mentzer Basic rules, but - personally - I've never used it.

 

[Zehnseiter]

I've always been curious about how many people assume end of session = long rest. That's not an assumption I've made in my RPGing ever, as best I can recall. But it seems quite widespread.

It easily explained: It is practical. Especially if you only play once a month or so with you group. You need to track a lot of stuff in D&D and after several weeks people just forget or lose their notes. So a Long Rest at the end of session it good stopping point that resets the game for the next secession.

When I was younger and I played every week it was unthinkable to do it like that. Now ? Its just practical.

But then 5E feel out of favour with me a long time ago. Its assumptions about attritional combat and number of combats just don't work with my limited game time.