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.

 

[Corinnguard]

5 levels isn't a dip!

Let's see, 3 levels is a dip.

5 levels is a drop.

More than 5 levels is a serious commitment.

 

[Maxperson]

Minute always felt utterly absurd to me. You can get a lot done in a minute. That might be an entire fight scene in movie.
A person can run half a kilometre in a minute. There should be so much movement and back and forth actions in a minute, that is seems totally absurd as turn length.

There was.

1e DMG page 61

"One-minute rounds are devised to offer the maximum of choice with a minimum of complication. This allows the DM and the players the best of both worlds. The system assumes much activity during the course of each round. Envision, if you will, a fencing, boxing, or karate match. During the course of one minute of such competition there are numerous attacks which are unsuccessful, feints, maneuvering, and so forth. During a one minute melee round many attacks are made, but some ore mere feints, while some are blocked or parried. One, or possibly several, have the chance to actually score damage. For such chances, the dice are rolled, and if the "to hit" number is equaled or exceeded, the attack was successful, but otherwise it too was avoided, blocked, parried, or whatever."

 

[Maxperson]

This post shows on page 120! Heh.


I've played with 30 second rounds, and in the late 90's/early oughts I wrote a game that used a clock-like turn timer that was 12 turn-"bits" that were described as being roughly equal to a second each, so 12 second rounds.

Six is pretty darn fast, a minute is pretty darn long. I honestly think 12 or 20 seconds would be ideal (your average 3-round fight would take a minute, in the 20-second version, which I think is pretty apt.) I don't think that you'd have to change movement by much, if you assume that "normal" 30-foot movement is done slowly and carefully to avoid getting yourself killed, but you'd have to drastically increase top speed (and make it dangerous to do while threatened) to balance it out.

I preferred 10 second rounds to 6 seconds or a minute. Even though Gygax did say a lot happened in one minute, long fights were too long to be reasonable given the level of activity involved(exhaustion would set in sooner). If you want a lot to happen, 30 seconds is good for that. If you want just what happens in the round to happen, I went with 10 seconds, but 12-20 seems okay as well.

As for movement, I liked what 3e did with the 1x, 2x, 3x, 4x and 5x(with a feat). When I was much younger I had world class speed. I figured out at one point that I would need to add in a 6x or 7x move match what I could do in 6 seconds, but I didn't mind the game not being that detailed. 1x-5x worked very well.

 

[Maxperson]

I think that was the point of the one-minute rounds: to allow room for the back and forth, parry and riposte, etc.

Even so, I still felt that the rounds were too long. Re-heat something in the microwave for 30 seconds some time and stand there watching the seconds count down. It takes foreeeeeever. A lot of moving, attacking, blocking, etc. can still happen in that amount of time.

With 1 minute I felt that even a 1st level fighter would probably come up with more than one chance to hit someone and get a roll.

 

[Maxperson]

ALso personally I just do not give a naughty word if 'historically' how things actually works. Might as well say that 'in Wheel of Time' magic works such and such--Realism is just an aesthetic anyways, One I have nothing but scorn if that's the only goal one seeks.

That seems overly harsh. I get you not liking or wanting it, but why have scorn for what someone else does with his friends in a house 1000 miles away if they are all having fun doing it?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Even so, I still felt that the rounds were too long. Re-heat something in the microwave for 30 seconds some time and stand there watching the seconds count down. It takes foreeeeeever. A lot of moving, attacking, blocking, etc. can still happen in that amount of time.

With 1 minute I felt that even a 1st level fighter would probably come up with more than one chance to hit someone and get a roll.

The combat round should probably be abstracted to something up to a minute, but often less. That's my preference.

 

[Mannahnin]

I preferred 10 second rounds to 6 seconds or a minute. Even though Gygax did say a lot happened in one minute, long fights were too long to be reasonable given the level of activity involved(exhaustion would set in sooner).

I tried out soft kit (except for the helm) buhurt fighting recently and you're not kidding about the exhaustion. Certainly a significant portion was the full helm restricting breathing a bit, but a three minute round (in a boxing sense) is remarkably long and tiring if you're not trained for it.

Conditioning being a major factor also bears out when you watch buhurt/armored combat league fighting. Folks who don't have the conditioning wear out fast in all that armor and equipment.

 

[Maxperson]

This. Even back in 1st edition the 1 minute combat round was divided into 10 "segments".

Sure, but a 1st level fighter didn't get to make an attack roll every single segment. That made it significantly different from the 3e-5e with their ten 6 second rounds in 1 minute.

 

[Maxperson]

Must have done their crunches.

Gnomes getting more meat when they level is also why there are so few high level gnomes. Gygax knew this and set level limits to save the poor dears.

 

[pemerton]

I tried out soft kit (except for the helm) buhurt fighting recently and you're not kidding about the exhaustion. Certainly a significant portion was the full helm restricting breathing a bit, but a three minute round (in a boxing sense) is remarkably long and tiring if you're not trained for it.

Conditioning being a major factor also bears out when you watch buhurt/armored combat league fighting. Folks who don't have the conditioning wear out fast in all that armor and equipment.

But wouldn't we assume that D&D warriors are conditioned?