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.

 

[DarkCrisis]

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

As much as I poo on 5E, I realize it’s the easiest system to get into a game for. That being said, I hate how it plays for DMs (superheroes) but I’ll either bite the bullet and DM it anyways if needs be or be a player only.

And since I like playing in meat world I’ll just have to see how things fall.

Although I have a main group so it’s a moot point and we play whatever feels right at the time. Currently OSE, probably 5.5 after that once all the books are out

 

[Micah Sweet]

As much as I poo on 5E, I realize it’s the easiest system to get into a game for. That being said, I hate how it plays for DMs (superheroes) but I’ll either bite the bullet and DM it anyways if needs be or be a player only.

And since I like playing in meat world I’ll just have to see how things fall.

Although I have a main group so it’s a moot point and we play whatever feels right at the time. Currently OSE, probably 5.5 after that once all the books are out

I was fortunate enough to convince my group to switch to Level Up and not move on to 5.5.

 

[Daztur]

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.

For me one issue with the online tools that that players know all the numbers on their character sheet but they sometimes have no idea where those numbers came from so if something unexpected happens they often have no idea what modifier to add as they don't know, for example, what things get a Proficiency bonus.

Also different editions shift the weight of knowing the rules onto the DM or players more. For example 1e dumps sooooooooooooo much on the DM but you can play with players who literally know nothing about the rules and it works just fine (have run game for kids where I had literally 10 minutes to familiarize them with their pregen character sheets before the game started) but it's a real bitch to DM as a newbie. Meanwhile 4e dumps the heaviest load on players as the game assumes that players will know how all of the stuff on their character sheet works so the DM doesn't have to know everything. 4e is a breeze to DM with the right group, but if you have some players who don't know the rules at all/are bad at numbers and have to be handheld then 4e can become almost unplayable.

 

[pemerton]

I just think that it's easier (for me at least) to say, "this game is not for me" and move on to a game more conducive to a person's fun time than persistently complaining about things in threads about it.

But if you don't persistently complain about things in threads about it, how will we be constantly reminded that it's not for you?!?

 

[Micah Sweet]

But if you don't persistently complain about things in threads about it, how will we be constantly reminded that it's not for you?!?

Hey! That's my line!

 

[Ruin Explorer]

For me one issue with the online tools that that players know all the numbers on their character sheet but they sometimes have no idea where those numbers came from so if something unexpected happens they often have no idea what modifier to add as they don't know, for example, what things get a Proficiency bonus.

I've never seen that be an actual issue caused by online tools.

I've seen players not understand their own numbers, but I've seen that since 2E, it's usually just players forgetting stuff. And it's pretty rare. Also the character sheets presented by Beyond are really obvious - it would be very hard not to know how a number was derived, so I'd be interested to hear exactly what tool it was that gave you this problem.

4e is a breeze to DM with the right group, but if you have some players who don't know the rules at all/are bad at numbers and have to be handheld then 4e can become almost unplayable.

Not in my experience.

I've played 4E with people totally new to RPGs and they had no real problems, because of the discrete packets of information 4E uses, and the DDI handling the calculations for the most part, so they only need to add/subtract numbers I tell them. Also at low levels, there just aren't that many numbers to add/subtract in 4E.

Plus the other players help them too. So to me this seems like a made-up situation based on something you're afraid of, not something that actually happened to you.

If you had an entirely new group (or like, all but one), and like, started them at level 10 or something, I guess I could see this happening, but in the course of normal play? I not only think it doesn't, but know it doesn't, because I've played 4E where I introduced new players, even two at once one time, both totally new to TT RPGs and not really video gamers either (fantasy novel readers primarily). They actually really enjoyed it. We did make sure they picked fairly playable characters, but that doesn't mean ultra-simple ones - one was a Dragonborn Spellblade for example. Admittedly these weren't people with problems doing basic math, but I wouldn't recommend any version of D&D to people with those - there are a lot of other RPGs which work better.

I do agree that different version of D&D offload knowledge requirements differently, but the way 4E packages information is good at fighting player overload at low levels. 3.XE was much, much worse in my experience because of the vast numbers of specific rules and exceptions and so on, it made it painful as hell both to play and DM, if you were going RAW/RAI, rather than fast-and-loose.

 

[dave2008]

I was fortunate enough to convince my group to switch to Level Up and not move on to 5.5.

I mean level up is more 5.5 than the 2024 revision is. So I would say you have moved on to 5.5!

 

[dave2008]

I've never seen that be an actual issue caused by online tools.

I've seen players not understand their own numbers, but I've seen that since 2E, it's usually just players forgetting stuff. And it's pretty rare. Also the character sheets presented by Beyond are really obvious - it would be very hard not to know how a number was derived, so I'd be interested to hear exactly what tool it was that gave you this problem.


Not in my experience.

I've played 4E with people totally new to RPGs and they had no real problems, because of the discrete packets of information 4E uses, and the DDI handling the calculations for the most part, so they only need to add/subtract numbers I tell them. Also at low levels, there just aren't that many numbers to add/subtract in 4E.

Plus the other players help them too. So to me this seems like a made-up situation based on something you're afraid of, not something that actually happened to you.

If you had an entirely new group (or like, all but one), and like, started them at level 10 or something, I guess I could see this happening, but in the course of normal play? I not only think it doesn't, but know it doesn't, because I've played 4E where I introduced new players, even two at once one time, both totally new to TT RPGs and not really video gamers either (fantasy novel readers primarily). They actually really enjoyed it. We did make sure they picked fairly playable characters, but that doesn't mean ultra-simple ones - one was a Dragonborn Spellblade for example. Admittedly these weren't people with problems doing basic math, but I wouldn't recommend any version of D&D to people with those - there are a lot of other RPGs which work better.

I do agree that different version of D&D offload knowledge requirements differently, but the way 4E packages information is good at fighting player overload at low levels. 3.XE was much, much worse in my experience because of the vast numbers of specific rules and exceptions and so on, it made it painful as hell both to play and DM, if you were going RAW/RAI, rather than fast-and-loose.

Yep, I taught my 6-8 year old children how to play D&D with 4e. I even ran a game for one of my children's birthdays and the 6 other players had never palyed D&D before. They picked up 4e pretty quick

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Yep, I taught my 6-8 year old children how to play D&D with 4e. I even ran a game for one of my children's birthdays and the 6 other players had never palyed D&D before. They picked up 4e pretty quick

Very nice! I can envision that! My friend has managed to teach his kids to play 5E and one of them is only 6, but used modified character sheets to present the information even more clearly (and a bit more like 4E, oddly enough).

 

[mellored]

(like Command getting gutted)

If it helps, Suggestion got buffed.