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.

 

[GobHag]

It depends on what you want. IMO it looks like a lot of people want to tell an exciting narrative with their game that showcases awesome characters doing awesome things in ways that look dangerous, but often aren't, and don't much care if it sometimes doesn't make logical sense. I see this as equivalent to modern WotC's, "get to the action" philosophy. They seem to want this so much that prioritizing anything else in a TTRPG is nonsensical to them.

Oh I very much understand, it makes complete sense to me but I have no respect for it. I've done plenty of self-done research and discussion but that just solidified my negative opinion for realism as the only goal.

Wait, let me broaden that up a bit so I'm a bit more clear that I dislike even well calibrated design expectations--Realism as one of the primary goal.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The more familiar I am with something in real life, the more I expect the thing to behave like that in D&D.

 

[GobHag]

The more familiar I am with something in real life, the more I expect the thing to behave like that in D&D.

And I'd rather have DnD commit to the idea that HP isn't entirely meat points so allow me to non-magically pep talk someone and make then heal 3d8 HP.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Oh I very much understand, it makes complete sense to me but I have no respect for it. I've done plenty of self-done research and discussion but that just solidified my negative opinion for realism as the only goal.

Wait, let me broaden that up a bit so I'm a bit more clear that I dislike even well calibrated design expectations--Realism as one of the primary goal.

Fair enough. We're not going to come to terms on this one.

 

[Micah Sweet]

And I'd rather have DnD commit to the idea that HP isn't entirely meat points so allow me to non-magically pep talk someone and make then heal 3d8 HP.

Feel free to play that game. No one's stopping you.

And nobody here thinks HP is entirely meat.

 

[GobHag]

Feel free to play that game. No one's stopping you.

And nobody here thinks HP is entirely meat.

Oh I know that nobody thinks it's entirely meat. I just want 5e(or really, most TTRPG that says that and then make the only non-magical way to heal is through a tourniquette and bed rest) to actually put their money where their mouth is and actually mechanize that.

Hell, I'm a personal believer of 'It's always meat until it isn't' being how DnD actually treats HP. That's why you don't suffer HP damage from being berated by your mom or when your allies die but definitely when a mosquito bites you.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

And I'd rather have DnD commit to the idea that HP isn't entirely meat points so allow me to non-magically pep talk someone and make then heal 3d8 HP.

I don’t have much personal experience of combat, so hp don’t bother me!

 

[Chaosmancer]

The more familiar I am with something in real life, the more I expect the thing to behave like that in D&D.

I have the exact opposite experience. The more I understand something, the more I find it implausible to downright impossible to make it behave that way in Dungeons and Dragons. For example, I would say I know very little of Macro-economics, but I know enough that the idea of actively attempting to track and create a real economy in DnD is laughable. We can barely model real economies in the real world with predictive models and teams of experts. And even if you could somehow model how the weather during the germination cycle of crops affected the percentage of crops destroyed by insects... you didn't count on MAGIC on top of that.

It is just too complex.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Oh I know that nobody thinks it's entirely meat. I just want 5e(or really, most TTRPG that says that and then make the only non-magical way to heal is through a tourniquette and bed rest) to actually put their money where their mouth is and actually mechanize that.

Hell, I'm a personal believer of 'It's always meat until it isn't' being how DnD actually treats HP. That's why you don't suffer HP damage from being berated by your mom or when your allies die but definitely when a mosquito bites you.

Yeah, there IS a game I play where Health is meant to cover everything, and it is a weird mental shift to start thinking about things like a "We are not so different, you and I" speech as being an attack.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I have the exact opposite experience. The more I understand something, the more I find it implausible to downright impossible to make it behave that way in Dungeons and Dragons. For example, I would say I know very little of Macro-economics, but I know enough that the idea of actively attempting to track and create a real economy in DnD is laughable. We can barely model real economies in the real world with predictive models and teams of experts. And even if you could somehow model how the weather during the germination cycle of crops affected the percentage of crops destroyed by insects... you didn't count on MAGIC on top of that.

It is just too complex.

and it is not interesting, not as gameplay.