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.

 

[fluffybunbunkittens]

None of those look like WotC orcs, that's for sure. Not sure what they're hoping to gain.

Especially when there's goliaths in the same book, who basically take over the big muscle guy role. You'd think that would force them to think about orcs' role as the other big guy, but they just softened them to be gentle little farmers or something.

(orcs can dash proficiency times per day? goliaths are inherently faster and can teleport that many times)
(and actually get cool art)

Yeah, it's strange.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I thought 5.5 orcs were grey humans with a bit of fang showing. That's what the art tells us, so these green, tusked beings you're describing don't seem to be what WotC wants to see as orcs. Anything beyond that in-universe that makes them different from humans?

That's really the case with most species in D&D. They lack purpose both mechanically and thematically.

 

[Micah Sweet]

That's really the case with most species in D&D. They lack purpose both mechanically and thematically.

They didn't used to. More effort went into this stuff (to be used or ignored as one sees fit) in earlier editions.

 

[Mannahnin]

They didn't used to. More effort went into this stuff (to be used or ignored as one sees fit) in earlier editions.

Mostly true of just 3E and 4E, I think.

In TSR's days the species were mostly just there to let folks play characters reminiscent of ones they were familiar with from fantasy fiction, but I can't see much of a case to claim that they served considered mechanical or thematic purposes.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Mostly true of just 3E and 4E, I think.

In TSR's days the species were mostly just there to let folks play characters reminiscent of ones they were familiar with from fantasy fiction, but I can't see much of a case to claim that they served considered mechanical or thematic purposes.

Define, "considered". The place of different races in different settings and in D&D in general was described in solid detail in a variety of products in the TSR days, particularly in 2e, but also in BECMI and some in 1e as well. I know, I have a ton of them. Things like the Complete race books did a lot of work on this front as well.

Where's the evidence for your claim?

 

[Imaro]

Define, "considered". The place of different races in different settings and in D&D in general was described in solid detail in a variety of products in the TSR days, particularly in 2e, but also in BECMI and some in 1e as well. I know, I have a ton of them. Things like the Complete race books did a lot of work on this front as well.

Where's the evidence for your claim?

Are you speaking to corebooks or corebooks+individual settings+supplements of each edition?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Are you speaking to corebooks or corebooks+individual settings+supplements of each edition?

That second one mostly, but core certainly gave you enough to go on if that's all you had (I've always preferred more to less).

 

[Mannahnin]

Define, "considered". The place of different races in different settings and in D&D in general was described in solid detail in a variety of products in the TSR days, particularly in 2e, but also in BECMI and some in 1e as well. I know, I have a ton of them. Things like the Complete race books did a lot of work on this front as well.

Where's the evidence for your claim?

I'm basing it on the core books, of course, since that's what we're talking about. Apples to apples comparison.

SETTINGS are very different. While you're right that in 1E and 2E a good bit of setting information was put into generic supplements like Roger E Moore's seminal "point of view" articles on the races in Dragon, and the 2E Complete books, I don't think including those is an apples to apples comparison to just the 5.5 PH.

The races that appear in the core books in the TSR years are mostly just directly lifted from Tolkien with a pinch of Anderson. D&D elves being a mix of his and both forms of Tolkien elves- Hobbit and LotR, with Hobbit a little more prominent. Gnomes apparently being part Hugi from Three Hearts and Three Lions and part the red hatted fellows from Huygen & Poortvliet's 1977 book.

My contention is that the only times it seems to me like the races were given any serious consideration as to what mechanical and thematic PURPOSES they served, which Crimson Longinus was talking about, was in the two editions which really questioned assumptions and put a bunch of work into rationalizing and regularizing D&D's core elements.

Though I guess to make this any more substantive than statements of pure opinion we'd have to define what mechanical and thematic purposes means.

Maybe we can ask @Crimson Longinus what they meant by the original comment.

I inferred that it means each being designed and chosen to fill a distinct mechanical role and thematic concept distinct from each other race.

So for example, you see in 3E a consideration and overhaul of what different benefits each race gives, as well as the addition of what Favored Class they get, to each deliberately fit certain themes and mechanically distinguish them from one another. 4E similarly saw a re-evaluation of them, including Elves being split between the Elf and Eladrin concepts to distinguish between two distinct different parts/themes the larger Elven umbrella concept had encompassed in prior editions. It wasn't the first time that distinction was made either, for example with the different elven peoples in Dragonlance, but it was made more distinct.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I'm basing it on the core books, of course, since that's what we're talking about. Apples to apples comparison.

SETTINGS are very different. While you're right that in 1E and 2E a good bit of setting information was put into generic supplements like Roger E Moore's seminal "point of view" articles on the races in Dragon, and the 2E Complete books, I don't think including those is an apples to apples comparison to just the 5.5 PH.

The races that appear in the core books in the TSR years are mostly just directly lifted from Tolkien with a pinch of Anderson. D&D elves being a mix of his and both forms of Tolkien elves- Hobbit and LotR, with Hobbit a little more prominent. Gnomes apparently being part Hugi from Three Hearts and Three Lions and part the red hatted fellows from Huygen & Poortvliet's 1977 book.

My contention is that the only times it seems to me like the races were given any serious consideration as to what mechanical and thematic PURPOSES they served, which Crimson Longinus was talking about, was in the two editions which really questioned assumptions and put a bunch of work into rationalizing and regularizing D&D's core elements.

Though I guess to make this any more substantive than statements of pure opinion we'd have to define what mechanical and thematic purposes means.

Maybe we can ask @Crimson Longinus what they meant by the original comment.

I inferred that it means each being designed and chosen to fill a distinct mechanical role and thematic concept distinct from each other race.

So for example, you see in 3E a consideration and overhaul of what different benefits each race gives, as well as the addition of what Favored Class they get, to each deliberately fit certain themes and mechanically distinguish them from one another. 4E similarly saw a re-evaluation of them, including Elves being split between the Elf and Eladrin concepts to distinguish between two distinct different parts/themes the larger Elven umbrella concept had encompassed in prior editions. It wasn't the first time that distinction was made either, for example with the different elven peoples in Dragonlance, but it was made more distinct.

Fair enough. Quite frankly I'm not interested in a corebook only comparison, and since 5.5 is supposed to be the same edition all the D&D 5e materials should apply. By that standard, I'd put any TSR edition up against any WotC edition, favorably so (though 3e/3.5 is a solid WotC contender, and I could be convinced).

 

[Mannahnin]

Fair enough. Quite frankly I'm not interested in a corebook only comparison, and since 5.5 is supposed to be the same edition all the D&D 5e materials should apply. By that standard, I'd put any TSR edition up against any WotC edition, favorably so (though 3e/3.5 is a solid WotC contender, and I could be convinced).

Yeah, by those standards I think I can see what you mean.

For me, the vast amounts of published setting materiel in the later 1e and the 2e period are more than I want to grapple with. I like it a lot if the themes of species or classes can be conveyed succinctly and implicitly in brief without me feeling like I need to read a whole supplement about them, never mind multiple setting books.

This is one reason I like the B/X race-classes, because they establish a role for each demihuman which is kind of baked-in setting material. I also like the fact that they way they were implemented dodged the way they leant themselves to min-maxing in AD&D and its descendents.