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.

 

[dave2008]

But the actual books are out, if in a very limited availability way. How can it not be ok for people to show the books they own? They didn't post a pdf.

It very well may be ok. But he didn't purchase the book at gencon. He was given a preview copy that came with restrictions.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Certainly others with similar access did, well in advance of the NDA being lifted. Treantmonk had 20 videos all prepared and ready to go by 1st August, and he lays out those restrictions when he first starts posting rules content.

Wow, that's pretty impressive by Treantmonk!

 

[ECMO3]

Huh, well... that looks far less intimidating doesn't it? I mean, a single reaction for monk's, a single reaction for clerics. Ah, but silly me, it is just that there are so many NEW reactions, right? I'm sure if I look I'll find...

No, it looks to me like you have all those classes making reactions all the time, and remember that is not a comprehensive list of class and subclass abilities and does not include spells or feats. The shield spell is easier to get now, meaning it will be even more common and Defensive Duelist is now an awesome feat that many people are going to get and use.

Also Heroic Warrior is not general, it is a Champion ability that provides heroic inspiration every single round .... which means a reroll every single round.

Compare that list to what we have now and then consider the number of uses per day of the abilities that are similar.

Except, multiple people, myself included have come out and said... that this is exactly how they rule inspiration anyways. So it is only a change for some tables.

So you give inspiration out to playes every single round of combat? I've never seen a table that does that. And hey if you do then you have a lot more rerolls at your table than RAW 5E

Oh, but silly me, I need to account for things having more uses... for some reason... Why? I mean, any given character only has a single reaction per round.

Yes. some of those things require a reaction, some of them don't, but every single player does not use their reaction every round now, most don't use their reaction most rounds at all. They will be

I am not saying that is bad, I am not saying the abilities are bad. How this discussion started is I said one of the most frustrating things for me is players doing things off turn or changing the outcome of things off turn. That will be happening more now.

If it doesn't bother you fine, but that kind of thing is frustrating for me as a DM. TBH to me it is a lot more frustrating than having to look up stat blocks for creatures summoned, polymorphed or shapechanged.

If this is going to be "so much more complicated and difficult for DMs" then... why is being able to use it four times instead of three a big deal? It is still only once per round.

Most of them it is more like use it 8 times instead of 3, and a lot of it is unlimited and a lot of it

And, on to the point about them not being new, this is what I mean. Was anyone ringing alarm bells if they had a Feywarlock,

Ok. The old Fey Warlock could use Misty escape once per short rest, the new Fey Warlock is going to be able to do it Charisma bonus times per day plus they can do it with spell slots. To put this into context 5 times a day (with a 20 Charisma) is most of the time you take damage in a day and when you consider your spell slots it is probably almost every time you get hit for most players.

Beguiling Defense is completely different. The reaction used to be usable when someone tried to charm you, now you can use it when someone damages you. So it is going to go from something you might use once or twice in a campaign, now you are going to use it every day (unless you use Misty Escape).

Also I am not ringing alarm bells. I am saying this is going to slow down combat and it is going to be frustrating for me as a DM.

Fey Ranger, Ancestral Guardian Barbarian and a Lore bard on their team? Not really. No one ever really said "The bard using cutting words, the Barbarian using Spirit Shield, and the Feylock using Misty Escape... it is just too many reactions!!" \

I didn't say it is too many now. It is more now though. In 5E most of the reactions were spells and AOOs. Now all your characters are going to be using reactions regularly.

I mean sure, your initial list is big and scary, but since you only have four new reactions, and you didn't include AT LEAST five that I can think of off the top of my head... what's the big deal?

I may only have 4 new reactions, but Heroic Warrior is more rerolls in number than everything we have today combined.

So... you are mostly just going to see reactions more consistently, instead of it being limited to specific parties.

So you agree with me?

I mean, it isn't uncommon for me to see combats with people using 2 to 3 reactions per round already. So I don't get the panic.

Including enemy reactions and AOOs? Sure 2-3 per round, probably 3 per round actually right now.

Going forward that number will probably be more like 6-7 per round in a party with 6 players.

 

[Daztur]

No, they would definitely lose more players with a fully brand new edition.

Not to mention, the attrition rate is currently slower than the adoption rate.


I've been a retailer since 1993, so I've seen my share of new editions. They always sell great initially and then trickle off over time.

OTOH, 5e didn't grow over time for my store, though I believe it did for WotC (but that has to do with them finding more presence in B&N and Amazon and DDB) but sales didn't noticeably shrink either. They shrank a bit with the announcement of 2024 Core, but they didn't fall off a cliff like they did before when a new Edition was announced. (As an aside, a strange phenomenon is that an "old edition" dies when a new edition is announced, but makes a comeback after the new edition is released - I've seen it happen every time).

This time, I fully expect that the initial release of the 2024 Core will be slightly smaller than before (relatively - both the audience for D&D and my store are larger, so the actual numbers might be bigger but as a percentage of the market, I think smaller) but I don't expect it to slow down much. I think that most "holdouts" will pick it up over time, and all new players will just pick up the new books.

I could be wrong, but I haven't been in business for 30 years by being wrong about this sort of thing. We shall see.

From a business perspective WotC is absolutely correct to make 5.5e a conservative edition. Online discussion has a lot more veteran players and hardcore players and those people tend to want bigger changes and/or are more burnt out on 5e. As to what changes to 5e would've been most worthwhile from a business perspective I'm not sure, I'm so far out of the target market (I started in 1990) that my personal opinions don't mean much, I'm sure if WotC made all of the changes I'd want to make for a game that would please me personally it'd be a financial disaster.

But I'm REALLY not convinced that WotC is playing it smart with the specific changes they've made. I think the biggest blunder they've made is that a lot of the changes, while I think they'd be popular in isolation, are going to slow down combat when added all together. Having the monsters make saving throws to avoid getting Toppled every single round and the various ways that PCs have of manipulating the action economy, doing more things with reactions, and getting attacks that don't cost an action come at a cost and that cost is handling time. It might be a cost worth paying, but I don't think that there's really broad awareness that this is going to be a cost that's going to have to be paid. Looking at polling data that each of these individual changes are popular in isolation and each only slow down combat by a tiny amount seems to have made them lose sight of the big picture that people are going to get annoying with combat dragging.

This isn't MY biggest problem with 5.5e, it's just the one that I think is going to create the biggest backlash when people start actually playing the rules instead of reading them. But I might be wrong, like I said I'm waaaaaaaaaaaaaay outside the target market these days due to having started with Basic way back in the day.

 

[DarkCrisis]

Yep, and that is unfortunate to me. I am glad a lot more people can play because of online tools, but to me the in person experience is a big part of what makes D&D (or any RPG) so much fun.

Same. Having done both, in person is so much more fulfilling.

 

[WanderingMystic]

And yet his review, the least positive, is the one that's pulled. Hmm...

Just so people know according to other people under NDA Nerd Immersion there are still a few sections that you can not show the creature stat blocks and the index. By showing a page by page shot of the book including the pages that they were still under an NDA for he has broken his NDA and was probably slapped with a cease order to pull down the video.

 

[Clint_L]

You may be correct, but it seems from the reactions at least as of now, people are pretty divided on whether they will switch and if they think it's good or bad.

WotC has been pretty up front that they are not looking to have players update their books en masse like with an edition change, but instead want to maintain 5e's trajectory.

Most reviews that I've read are pretty positive. I don't take reactions on this forum as indicative of much; as I previously posted, there is a significant segment of posters here who are just generally negative about WotC and/or 5e. When someone who doesn't play or is constantly critical of 5e writes that they don't like the 2024 rules, I'm like /shrug.

 

[ECMO3]

Not new.

And

Mutually exclusive with retaliation.

So what? You have another reaaction you can use when you can't or down't want to use Retaliation

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

I don't know that only half the Barbarian subclasses have reactions. I only provided examples for half of them.

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

As opposed to no uses at all now as a reaction.

It is not particularly niche either. It is situational, but it applies to all saves to charm and frightened effects, so it is going to be used frequently. Not every combat, but probably every combat with an enemy throwing charmed or frightened .... which is a lot of enemies.

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

Not mutually exclusive, those are two different subclasses and it is not the same net reactions because they have more uses.

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

The new ability requires enemies to save the first time every round they hit you and if they fail they miss you instead. When this is active it is going to be affecting every single enemy that attacks you and retroactively changing the outcome of that attack.

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

As I put in the notes you can use it on allies from level 3 and you get more uses at level 6. And this is part of what I am talking about.

At 6th level plus in 2104 Warding Flare was used extensively on Clerics that got it. After 6th level a Cleric never went to bed with uses left unless they did not get in a fight. Back in 2014 a Cleric with a 20 Wisdom could use it 5 times, so that was 5 a day. Now it is 5 times a short rest ... so it is more or less just about every single round.

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

It is a lot more when you consider uses, and consider there are going to be more players coming to the table with spells and feats too.

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

Some things do not require a reaction, but even on the things that do, if players have reactions available they are going to use them and players are going to have more reactions available both because the features that offer them can universally be used more often and because there are just more available.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

And yet his review, the least positive, is the one that's pulled. Hmm...

I believe that the video that was pulled is one where he shows each page long enough that one could transcribe the book from his video. I believe that showing an entire work is a copyright violation.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

But the actual books are out, if in a very limited availability way. How can it not be ok for people to show the books they own? They didn't post a pdf.

Even owning the book does not allow one to post images of every page online.