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.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Could people drop "but not all warlocks" thing that makes the discussion to go into circles? It doesn't matter.

a) Making deals for power with questionable entities is the core for warlock identity. This is relationship that is liable to produce more conflict, than say, a cleric deciding to worship a god whose tenets they agree with. And the text recognises this too and mentions warlocks working against the patron. That this is not the only way warlock/patron relationship can work, is is besides the point. This is a common way to play warlocks, so it will come up.

b) Even if the patron was perfectly friendly, the expectation would still be that the GM plays them like they play every other NPC. You can do it otherwise of course, but there really is not confusion about how D&D expects NPCs to be operated.

c) Even if the GM plays the patron, the player can of course still contribute to brainstorming the patron, as it is part of their character's background. It is just that if they choose the patron at level three like the book suggests, this is a tad more difficult.
It is easier for the GM to incorporate the player's ideas if they know from the get go what they are!

It does matter, it is in fact the entire point. It was brought up that the design of the 2024 Warlock was "obviously" a bad design because 1) The player was not allowed to know who their patron was 2) The DM was not allowed to know who the player's patron was 3) Therefore the Patron could not show up in the first few sessions. We of course pointed at that this is not true. You CAN know these things, you CAN have the patron show up, and in fact, the Warlock player themselves can RP the patron. This started an entire new spiral about how selling your soul to the devil means you are in conflict with your patron, so you can't RP them... to which a complete counter point is "not all warlocks sell their souls to devils and not all warlocks are in conflict with their patron"

Yes, the Patron/Warlock relationship can cause conflict, and yes, it is more likely to cause conflict than a Cleric/God relationship or Druid/Nature Spirit relationship. But "more likely" isn't "absolutely will". So it is not an unreasonable assertion that this issue of the conflict may not prevent the RP.

Yes, the expectation is that the GM would RP the Patron. But as you yourself say, and as has been literally my main point YOU CAN DO IT OTHERWISE. It is an OPTION to have someone else RP the Patron. A thing which people keep pushing back against and saying you cannot or should not do.

And this brings us all the way back to the level 3 complaint, which you state as such "It is just that if they choose the patron at level three like the book suggests, this is a tad more difficult." Which... yeah a tad seems pretty apt. Like 3% more difficult, maybe. Because you can choose your patron before level 3. You just don't choose your subclass. It is even possible that a player will come to you having said they want a fey patron, then choose the fiend pact ofr the mechanics and ask to reflavor. And I know some people are currently reacting with horror and disgust. A player REFLAVORING their class to fit their concept? That makes nothing ever matter to anyone because it ruins everything! But... it could happen. And be okay. And so, I really don't think it even rises to the level of a concern that the mechanical subclass got pushed to level 3. Because it won't really change anything.

d) If the patron can refuse to teach the warlock further powers or even take away existing ones, this of course is not for the purposes of the GM bullying the player into playing their character in certain way. It is just one possible concrete stake for the pact, which can be used to create dramatic conflict. I think Wyll's story in Baldur's Gate III is a decent example about how this could be utilised.

Sure, but you have to remember that for every warlock story where a warlock is de-powered or harmed for going against their pact, there is a story of the warlock giving their patron the middle finger as they burn their plans around them, and the patron being powerless to stop them because of the same pact. This isn't even a two way street, it is a multi-lane highway with loops.

e) Paladin entry actually explain what happens if there is a conflict with their power source. I think it is weird and inconsistent that other classes do not, especially the warlock, for which potential for such conflict is inbuilt and even offered as an example in the text. This might put inexperienced GMs in situations, where they now have a conflict between the warlock and their supposed power source, but no guidance on how to handle it.

There wasn't any better guidance 10 years ago, and people did just fine. Maybe, it is fine? Like, this isn't an issue that people are running into, at all?

 

[Chaosmancer]

My reasons actually boil down to, "I'm more comfortable and have more fun with the traditional allocation of narrative and worldbuilding power. My players are also comfortable with it to all appearances, so I have no reason to change and therefore won't ". The fact that the texts to which I refer during prep and table play almost universally support my point of view is icing on the cake.

That reason is probably not compelling to you, but I really don't care.

Right, so dragging this ALL the way back. Your reasons are because you are comfortable with tradition. That doesn't make a design which can work with or against tradition an inherently bad design. Just one that you are not personally comfortable with. ANd being uncomfortable with something, isn't a reason to call it bad or lazy, or predict it will harm the game.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Right, so dragging this ALL the way back. Your reasons are because you are comfortable with tradition. That doesn't make a design which can work with or against tradition an inherently bad design. Just one that you are not personally comfortable with. ANd being uncomfortable with something, isn't a reason to call it bad or lazy, or predict it will harm the game.

It will to some degree make it a different game, especially if that concept is applied with a broader brush as time goes on. In regards to clean and focused design, that is definitely harm. I have an issue with significantly different games being marketed and sold under the same name. It flies in the face of any logic save the logic of the $$.

And before you say that D&D has made these kinds of sweeping changes before, I agree it has and I disagreed back then too.

 

[pemerton]

should we expect that level of roleplaying acumen from every cleric, paladin, or warlock player?

Assuming that they want these things - crises of faith, pact conflicts, etc - to be part of the fiction, then yes.

After all, that could have gone quite badly for the PC

Aren't you an advocate of trust the GM? And how do you see the risk being reduced by increasing the GM's authority?

in my experience many players will not willingly and without tangible reward take on situations that can cause potential harm or hardship for their PC. Should such PCs get to avoid this harm or hardship no matter what they do, because maintaining their mechanical powers in the game overrules setting events?

This seems to me to cut to the core of the issue: the player is playing one game, and the GM is playing (or wants to play) a different one. I don't think it's the function of rulebooks to paper over these cracks by sheer assertions of authority that, in play, simply produce conflict and bad experiences (see eg every paladin/alignment thread ever - we've even had an example posted in this thread).

 

[Micah Sweet]

Assuming that they want these things - crises of faith, pact conflicts, etc - to be part of the fiction, then yes.

Aren't you an advocate of trust the GM? And how do you see the risk being reduced by increasing the GM's authority?

This seems to me to cut to the core of the issue: the player is playing one game, and the GM is playing (or wants to play) a different one. I don't think it's the function of rulebooks to paper over these cracks by sheer assertions of authority that, in play, simply produce conflict and bad experiences (see eg every paladin/alignment thread ever - we've even had an example posted in this thread).

So we're back to personal preference. Fair enough. So many of these discussions would be shorter if people just stated what they believed, stopping trying tear down the opinions of others, and agreed to disagree. I include myself in that as much as anyone else.

 

[Older Beholder]

The book finally hit the shelves down under, so I managed to grab a copy.
I spent a fair amount of yesterday flipping through it, not much I can say about it that hasn’t already been covered, but I’m enjoying what I’ve seen so far.

 

[Pandion73]

I'm surprised how much the elimination of half-orc and half-elf is bothering me about the new PHB.

 

[Stormonu]

This topic has been circling the drain for several days (or is it weeks?) now. Isn't it time for it to go down the hole and get back to the original topic of reviewing the 2024 PHB?

If the nuTSR thread won't die, what do you think the chances this one will dry up are?

 

[Chaosmancer]

It will to some degree make it a different game, especially if that concept is applied with a broader brush as time goes on. In regards to clean and focused design, that is definitely harm. I have an issue with significantly different games being marketed and sold under the same name. It flies in the face of any logic save the logic of the $$.

And before you say that D&D has made these kinds of sweeping changes before, I agree it has and I disagreed back then too.

Changing proficiency from a +2 up to a +6 to a +3 up to a +7 would to some degree make it a different game too. Doesn't mean it would actually matter. And, okay, cool. At some point, maybe, if they decided to do things in the future, they might use this concept to paint with a broader brush. Possibly. That is AGAIN not a reason to call it a bad design. In fact, if it ends up being adopted and used to alter the game, then that means it was likely a GOOD design. Because you don't often want to expand bad designs.

And no, I don't think this has done any harm at all to a clean and focused design. First of all, because nothing about DnD classes is a focused design and hasn't been.... ever. Even in the 3.5 era classes contained multitudes. And secondly it IS clean design. It legitimately works smoothly and well, as long as you get out of your own way.

It is still DnD, even if a warlock gains certain mechanics at level 3 instead of level 1, which is the only actual change here.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I'm surprised how much the elimination of half-orc and half-elf is bothering me about the new PHB.

Since they are still in the game, it hasn't even been a thing I've considered.