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]

Online tools are good, but they do shift the game more to an online crutch. Ive had players create a PC on DnDB only to show up session one with no clue how to play the character, Thats why I'm not a big fan of online tools in some cases,

I mean, I've sat face to face with someone, built a character with them step by step, and had them show up at the table session 1 with no clue how to play the character we had built. Nothing to do with online tools.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

I mean, I've sat face to face with someone, built a character with them step by step, and had them show up at the table session 1 with no clue how to play the character we had built. Nothing to do with online tools.

And at least with online resource used at the table, they dont waste time cracking open their PHB each time they cast a spell or trying to decipher the badly scribbled shortened version of their features.

Or remember which die is the d20....


...god they're bad.

 

[R_J_K75]

He was asked to sign an NDA not to post a review of the 2024 PHB on his YouTube channel before August 1st. If he was unaware or didn't understand the terms of that NDA, he would probably have turned to an expert who knew and understood them. You or I would have done the same if someone asked us to sign an NDA, right?

As for win-win, it's more like a lose-lose. WoTC's and the Content Creator's reputations both take a hit.

Id say its possible the legal jargon may have slipped past him but more likely sounds like they pulled his video because it was bad to neutral. IDK?

 

[MarkB]

Id say its possible the legal jargon may have slipped past him but more likely sounds like they pulled his video because it was bad to neutral. IDK?

Again, though, they didn't pull the review video, only the page-through one, and they asked for similar videos on other channels to be taken down.

 

[R_J_K75]

Nothing to do with online tools.

I agree and understand but It seems to happen more when there is a digital PC creator involved IME

 

[Daztur]

That seems about the size of it. It's fair to say that if you don't like 5e very much, you're not going to like 2024. If you think 5e combat is a boring slog - there's not much hope that you will find 2024 to be less of a slog. (Maybe less boring? Hard to say. Depends on why you think 5e is boring).

It's 5e, but improved. Improved for 5e. If that's not your thing, it's not your thing.

It should, however, appeal to an awful lot of people.

Well there's two ways to judge an edition:

1. What it's trying to do.

2. How well it succeeds at what it's trying to do.

What 5e is trying to do is shifting away from the kind of D&D that I want to play. 5e was always a compromise for me rather than my first choice and while the underlying philosophy of 5.5e hasn't shifted much in a lot of little ways (like Command getting gutted) it's inched back towards the aspects of 4e that I didn't like.

On the other hand it seems to overall be doing a better job of #2. However there's been such a massive influx of players since 5e came out that I don't think my concerns about #1 are all that broadly shared among the wider playerbase.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I mean, I've sat face to face with someone, built a character with them step by step, and had them show up at the table session 1 with no clue how to play the character we had built. Nothing to do with online tools.

Yeah my experience is exactly the same. I don't think there's any particular difference. Some players just don't turn up knowing how to play, but like, that's how it's been since literally the 1980s and I suppose the 1970s before that. If anything, my experience is that since online tools, players have significantly more knowledge of what exact abilities and spells their character actually has. And how those spells/abilities actually work.

Now super-new players, sure, not so much. But like players who in previous editions (particularly before 4E, which had the DDI to much the same effect as Beyond), just like, didn't actually know how stuff worked, or were really surprised that they had Spell X or Ability Y, even though they'd pencilled it on to their character sheet some weeks before, those have changed. Now they often check their character between sessions, rather than it being in a folder at my house or their backpack or w/e, they just log in and browse idly and see things they can do.

I also find people levelling up between sessions really cool, and without the time-pressure of levelling up in a session, I think people tend to make better, more informed choices (and not usually ones from guides, in my experience), or just choices they like better because they really understand those choices.

 

[R_J_K75]

Again, though, they didn't pull the review video, only the page-through one, and they asked for similar videos on other channels to be taken down.

Maybe I misunderstood the few posts I read on the subject

 

[R_J_K75]

Well there's two ways to judge an edition:

1. What it's trying to do.

2. How well it succeeds at what it's trying to do.

What 5e is trying to do is shifting away from the kind of D&D that I want to play. 5e was always a compromise for me rather than my first choice and while the underlying philosophy of 5.5e hasn't shifted much in a lot of little ways (like Command getting gutted) it's inched back towards the aspects of 4e that I didn't like.

On the other hand it seems to overall be doing a better job of #2. However there's been such a massive influx of players since 5e came out that I don't think my concerns about #1 are all that broadly shared among the wider playerbase.

I can say this is the first iteration of D&D I'm not buying since I've been playing since ~1983; that makes me sad.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I can say this is the first iteration of D&D I'm not buying since I've been playing since ~1983; that makes me sad.

Me too. It's the end of an era personally.