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.

 

[Shardstone]

Why do people who don't start playing/running D&D until October or later "deserve" that lol?

I don't have a convincing reason for my heel-turn yet.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I don't have a convincing reason for my heel-turn yet.

That's okay we can work up a reason for your villain origin story later! Maybe like, a Gen Z D&D player shot your parents in alley after they left a live Critical Role show? Cue slo-mo of a necklace made of polyhedrals dropping to the ground.

 

[Shardstone]

That's okay we can work up a reason for your villain origin story later! Maybe like, a Gen Z D&D player shot your parents in alley after they left a live Critical Role show? Cue slo-mo of a necklace made of polyhedrals dropping to the ground.

I fell into a vat of metadata harvested from TikTok and emerged as the Memer.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I fell into a vat of metadata harvested from TikTok and emerged as the Memer.

Doing TikTok dances to dodge Batman's attacks... This will probably be an actual Batman villain within a few years, if it isn't already lol.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I fell into a vat of metadata harvested from TikTok and emerged as the Memer.

Dude.

The Rizzler was right there.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Changing it so that you need DM permission to do this is a huge change, especially in the context of backgrounds now locking down what ability scores you're allowed to increase and what Feat you receive.

So you're just literally wrong when you're saying they didn't change the rules. This isn't from "beige to tan", this is literally removing something from player choice, and replacing it with 100% DM control. It's a bizarre move that no-one asked for.

Here's the thing, though - to anyone who is a DM who expects that they will allow it, or any player who has a DM who they expect will allow it, it literally makes no difference. Anyone who has no animosity across the screen - which I would think ought to be most of us - shouldn't really be worried about it.

You are technically right that it's a difference, and a difference that could possibly maybe be a big deal to some people - but there are a LOT of us who just don't have that problem.

This would be why they'd see it as barely a change at all, while you see it as a huge change.

Now, you're absolutely right if you point out that both groups would be happy with customization being in the PHB. The only group that I can imagine not being happy with it, are DMs with the same animosity issue in reverse - ones that need to keep their players from ruining the game (somehow) when they get to pick from everything. (A group that I'd expect to be, in reality, actually quite small...)

 

[Parmandur]

Here's the thing, though - to anyone who is a DM who expects that they will allow it, or any player who has a DM who they expect will allow it, it literally makes no difference. Anyone who has no animosity across the screen - which I would think ought to be most of us - shouldn't really be worried about it.

You are technically right that it's a difference, and a difference that could possibly maybe be a big deal to some people - but there are a LOT of us who just don't have that problem.

This would be why they'd see it as barely a change at all, while you see it as a huge change.

Now, you're absolutely right if you point out that both groups would be happy with customization being in the PHB. The only group that I can imagine not being happy with it, are DMs with the same animosity issue in reverse - ones that need to keep their players from ruining the game (somehow) when they get to pick from everything. (A group that I'd expect to be, in reality, actually quite small...)

From what Crawford has been laying down, the changes to the Background rules were geared towards helping present clear choices to new players that make a difference over time: 16 specific choices that cover the standard tropes are training wheels (hence the "oh, you own another D&D book? Them juat choose whatever" clause).

 

[Micah Sweet]

Here's the thing, though - to anyone who is a DM who expects that they will allow it, or any player who has a DM who they expect will allow it, it literally makes no difference. Anyone who has no animosity across the screen - which I would think ought to be most of us - shouldn't really be worried about it.

You are technically right that it's a difference, and a difference that could possibly maybe be a big deal to some people - but there are a LOT of us who just don't have that problem.

This would be why they'd see it as barely a change at all, while you see it as a huge change.

Now, you're absolutely right if you point out that both groups would be happy with customization being in the PHB. The only group that I can imagine not being happy with it, are DMs with the same animosity issue in reverse - ones that need to keep their players from ruining the game (somehow) when they get to pick from everything. (A group that I'd expect to be, in reality, actually quite small...)

If the group that would have such a problem is do small (and I agree), why remove it from the PH, thus increasing the chance that the option isn't used?

 

[FitzTheRuke]

If the group that would have such a problem is do small (and I agree), why remove it from the PH, thus increasing the chance that the option isn't used?

See @Parmandur's point above. They assume that once a new group has found its groove, it would be natural for the DM to encourage players to make swaps. Before that, it's simpler to get them to pick from a list.

I'm not saying that I would do it that way - but it seems reasonable that it might have been their thinking on the subject, or they wouldn't have been likely to have left the 2014 Custom Background "loophole".

 

[DinoInDisguise]

Changing it so that you need DM permission to do this is a huge change, especially in the context of backgrounds now locking down what ability scores you're allowed to increase and what Feat you receive.

So you're just literally wrong when you're saying they didn't change the rules. This isn't from "beige to tan", this is literally removing something from player choice, and replacing it with 100% DM control. It's a bizarre move that no-one asked for.

This continually comes up. This idea that if something isn't strictly codified, the DM will run roughshod over their players on that issue.

Maybe tyranny from the DM seat is common outside of my own engagement with the game, and hobby as a whole. But codification doesn't stop DMs from using, or not using, something. It only affects player expectations.

So I'd argue that nothing changed. You always had to ask the DM permission, before you just assumed the answer to be yes.