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.

 

[Incenjucar]

If D&D focused on range, we'd need to use a zoomed out grid and teeny tiny miniatures.

 

[Vaalingrade]

yes you're all right players and DMs are too dumb to think on their own and need to be told explicitly what is and what isn't allowed instead of trying something.

Creativity often thrives with some level of structure doesn't matter if the people involved are dumb or not.

That's why we have rulebooks instead of Calvinball in the first place.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

Why would you want to?

Mostly because Melee PCs are often in greater danger of harm, and therefore the logic goes that there should be a reward for that. It certainly makes less sense to make ranged the more powerful of the two.

Edit: Seeing your later "but we invented ranged weapons for a reason". Sure, but that reason was not that they were more destructive than using melee weapons. A large club has always and will always do a lot more damage to a body than a sling will. The trick is, the sling can reach someone the club cannot, and if an animal faster than you is running away from you... then the sling will still reach them even as your club can not.

That pretty much sums up my argument against super-verisimilitude fans. The man on the street's view of verisimilitude doesn't typically match up with reality. It matches up with that person's view of reality. In an RPG, when their head canon bangs up against someone else's head canon (or even, actual reality!), discontent occurs.

 

[Micah Sweet]

D&D is not simulating our reality.

But it simulating a reality. It is also a game, and how much gamism you want in it is up to you.

 

[Micah Sweet]

That pretty much sums up my argument against super-verisimilitude fans. The man on the street's view of verisimilitude doesn't typically match up with reality. It matches up with that person's view of reality. In an RPG, when their head canon bangs up against someone else's head canon (or even, actual reality!), discontent occurs.

I do not believe in that argument personally. I will accept reality when it applies, whether it's to my advantage or not.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Battle of Agincourt's French heavily armored, melee based calvary and English longbow archers beg to disagree...

The French fought at Agincourt on foot and while the English Longbow men were important and a major part of English armies of the period there were several thousand English men at arms in full plate with pole arms and they did most of the killing of Frenchmen.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I don't know...bows and crossbows were a thing for a reason.

So was full plate and polearms, at the ranges D&D battles are fought melee weapons dominated. The English longbow men did not use their bows in melee, they used mauls.

 

[Micah Sweet]

So was full plate and polearms, at the ranges D&D battles are fought melee weapons dominated. The English longbow men did not use their bows in melee, they used mauls.

Fair enough. Tactically it's still better to kill your enemy from a distance when possible.

 

[gban007]

Fair enough. Tactically it's still better to kill your enemy from a distance when possible.

I agree with that - question is do the rules vary from that, or is it more situational? In a case when got clear terrain and can see advancing enemies approach, I think with D&D rules as is can make most of ranged weaponry / spells to kill from a distance, but in a lot of typical D&D situations people are in tight confines (Dungeons) where it isn't so possible, and thus melee should come to the fore more.

 

[Daztur]

If D&D focused on range, we'd need to use a zoomed out grid and teeny tiny miniatures.

Well if you want to bring realism in the effective range of longbows is surprisingly short. How far you can shoot an arrow and how far you can shoot an arrow and still kill a dude a very very different things: Collections: Archery, Distance and ‘Kiting’

Link is to a blog post by a military historian.