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.

 

[Steampunkette]

The amount of ad hoc ergo propter hoc is kind of jarring.

The narrative says one thing, the mechanics say another, so the narrative is bent out of shape in order to make it fit rather than dealing with the mechanics. Where it can't be bent, new narrative is invented, whole cloth, to make it make sense.

 

[Imaro]

The amount of ad hoc ergo propter hoc is kind of jarring.

The narrative says one thing, the mechanics say another,

But as shown by numerous posters... they don't.

so the narrative is bent out of shape in order to make it fit rather than dealing with the mechanics.

No you want the narrative to be this specific rigid thing... it's not that.

Where it can't be bent, new narrative is invented, whole cloth, to make it make sense.

See above...

 

[Imaro]

@Micah Sweet I asked this earlier but seeing as you are very familiar with A5e maybe I can get a direct answer from you... Does the concept of tiers of play exist in A5e?

 

[pemerton]

There is no oath for them to break at that point. Being committed to the path is not the same as having taken the oath. If they have not sworn the oath, they quite literally can never be an oath breaker with regard to that oath. Without being an oath breaker, they cannot be made to lose their powers. At least as that is written.

The paladin can do anything or act in any manner without losing the level 1 and 2 abilities. At least not unless he takes the 3rd level of paladin and takes the oath.

Nothing in the text that I'm reading states that the 3rd level Oath is the only oath or vow that is taken. In fact it implies the opposite:

Becoming a paladin involves taking vows that commit the paladin to the cause of righteousness, an active path of fighting wickedness. The final oath, taken when he or she reaches 3rd level, is the culmination of all the paladin’s training. Some characters with this class don’t consider themselves true paladins until they have reached 3rd level and made this oath. For others, the actual swearing of the oath is a formality, an official stamp on what has always been true in the paladin’s heart.​

It is the final oath, which "binds you as a paladin forever." Note the sole oath.

Paladins have magical abilities before they swear the Oath. Where's the lore of where those abilities come from? The Oath concept is pretty specific, and gives you specific abilities depending on the Oath. But you still have power before that, and the source of that power is very vague and, IMO, hand-wavey.

It seems pretty clear to me, at least on D&D Beyond:

The presence of strong evil registers on your senses like a noxious odor, and powerful good rings like heavenly music in your ears. . .

Your blessed touch can heal wounds. . . .

[Y]ou have learned to draw on divine magic through meditation and prayer to cast spells as a cleric does. . . . [and] when you hit a creature with a melee weapon attack, you can expend one spell slot to deal radiant damage to the target [a divine smite] . . .

the divine magic flowing through you makes you immune to disease.​

The character is channelling divine power. To quote some more from the same page,

Whatever their origin and their mission, paladins are united by their oaths to stand against the forces of evil. Whether sworn before a god’s altar and the witness of a priest, in a sacred glade before nature spirits and fey beings, or in a moment of desperation and grief with the dead as the only witness, a paladin’s oath is a powerful bond. It is a source of power that turns a devout warrior into a blessed champion. . . .

The most important aspect of a paladin character is the nature of his or her holy quest. Although the class features related to your oath don’t appear until you reach 3rd level, plan ahead for that choice by reading the oath descriptions at the end of the class. Are you a devoted servant of good, loyal to the gods of justice and honor, a holy knight in shining armor venturing forth to smite evil? Are you a glorious champion of the light, cherishing everything beautiful that stands against the shadow, a knight whose oath descends from traditions older than many of the gods? Or are you an embittered loner sworn to take vengeance on those who have done great evil, sent as an angel of death by the gods or driven by your need for revenge? The Gods of the Multiverse section lists many deities worshiped by paladins throughout the multiverse, such as Torm, Tyr, Heironeous, Paladine, Kiri-Jolith, Dol Arrah, the Silver Flame, Bahamut, Athena, Re-Horakhty, and Heimdall.

How did you experience your call to serve as a paladin? Did you hear a whisper from an unseen god or angel while you were at prayer? Did another paladin sense the potential within you and decide to train you as a squire? Or did some terrible event—the destruction of your home, perhaps—drive you to your quests? Perhaps you stumbled into a sacred grove or a hidden elven enclave and found yourself called to protect all such refuges of goodness and beauty. Or you might have known from your earliest memories that the paladin’s life was your calling, almost as if you had been sent into the world with that purpose stamped on your soul.​

Notice the references to gods, and to the paladin as "a devout warrior", "a devoted servant", "a glorious champion of the light", "an angel of death" who is "sent . . . by the gods", "a holy knight" undertaking a "holy quest", who may have been visited by a "god or angel while . . . at prayer", or in "a sacred grove".

Not to mention that the class features are replete with words like "divine" and "sacred".

Why the different approaches to the class fantasy and lore of the same class?

I don't know what you mean by "different approaches". There is one approach. To the extent that there is some equivocation over exactly what it means to be "in a preparatory stage, committed to the path but not yet sworn to it" I think that is because the text is deliberately leaving it open for a player and/or GM to adopt slightly different approaches to how a paladin is called and grows into their vocation.

That sort of open-ness is not surprising in a RPG intended to be sold to and played by a very diverse audience.

Despite it, I am not seeing the ambiguity or uncertainty that you are. I think the class is clear: the character is inspired by an encounter with, or at least a sense of, the divine and sacred; commits themself to that path; and in due course swears a final oath that makes their choice to journey along that path irrevocable. As a result of their commitment and inspiration, they are imbued with divine and sacred power.

You and @Maxperson seem to want to ignore the reference to a "final oath" and read it as if is the only oath. And you seem to want to read this passage - "a paladin’s oath is a powerful bond. It is a source of power that turns a devout warrior into a blessed champion" - not as a description of the paladin's path, but as a statement about the soul source of a paladin's power.

Of course no one else can control how you read a text, but my general view is that if there is a reading that produces nonsense, and another equally available or even more readily available reading that produces sense, the latter reading is to be preferred. And here, I think it's very clear.

 

[pemerton]

If you're working toward Oath of Vengeance, where are your powers coming from

Have you not read the class description?

"are you an embittered loner sworn to take vengeance on those who have done great evil, sent as an angel of death by the gods or driven by your need for revenge?"

 

[Micah Sweet]

@Micah Sweet I asked this earlier but seeing as you are very familiar with A5e maybe I can get a direct answer from you... Does the concept of tiers of play exist in A5e?

Yes. Page 21 of the Adventurer's Guide, under the heading, "The World and You", tiers of play are mentioned and described. The concept is also used extensively in the exploration section of the game, where regions are divided into tiers so a general level of difficulty can be determined when worldbuilding. Any type of region can be any tier, though certain regions are more commonly lower or higher than others.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Have you not read the class description?

"are you an embittered loner sworn to take vengeance on those who have done great evil, sent as an angel of death by the gods or driven by your need for revenge?"

Does being driven by your need for revenge give you super-powers?

 

[Imaro]

Does being driven by your need for revenge give you super-powers?

In a world where dancing and music can generate magic... why is it far fetched that determination, pain and will can.

 

[Imaro]

Yes. Page 21 of the Adventurer's Guide, under the heading, "The World and You", tiers of play are mentioned and described. The concept is also used extensively in the exploration section of the game, where regions are divided into tiers so a general level of difficulty can be determined when worldbuilding. Any type of region can be any tier, though certain regions are more commonly lower or higher than others.

Do they align with the tiers in 5th edition? Better yet what is a tier 1 adventurer described as?

 

[Micah Sweet]

In a world where dancing and music can generate magic... why is it far fetched that determination, pain and will can.

Then why doesn't everyone with those qualities get super-powers?