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.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

so they book's change will suddenly stop players from asking the question of "Can I do this instead"? Maybe I'm just smarter than the average player (highly doubtful) but even back when i first started playing in 3rd/3.5 I asked the DM if i could do something instead of what was in the book because it fit more with the character I had in mind.

I don't know that it will, but the answer is usually "No" in D&D character creation ("No, but..." at best) - you can't just make up a class, you can't just make up a race, you can't just make up an Feat, and so on. Almost everything in 5E character creation, by default, the answer to creating something new is "no". And re-skinning is still "no", it's just a different way of putting no, because you're still using the mechanics.

So why would anyone expect the backgrounds to be "Yes"? This is another problem too, and it's why in 2014 and the Playtest they went out of their way to make it clear that this, unlike most stuff, was completely customizable.

Then 2024 inexplicably takes that away. It's totally bizarre. I'm sure it was the whim of one of the lead designers, but whoever they are, they should stop trusting their whims/instincts.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I can see your point, but D&D is a "mainstream" game and thus, inevitably, aims as wide as possible.

That's not inevitable.

Just look at videogames and the like - the idea that to be "mainstream" you have to cast as broad a net as possible is obviously nonsense - almost all successful videogames have a relatively tight focus mechanically and thematically. D&D 5E isn't even one of the most unfocused games, it's just kind of in the middle between most and least focused, with a bunch of mechanics that do work well together, but also a bunch that don't and/or aren't where they should be. Which rather disproves the idea that it has to aim as wide as possible. Otherwise GURPS or the like would be the dominant RPG.

5E could easily have had a more focused vision mechanically and thematically and I suspect it would still have been very highly successful, frankly. Certainly it would still have been the top RPG, and I doubt the 20m+ players who are essentially new to D&D with 5E would have missed the lack of focus, or are here because of the lack of focus. Most of the lack of focus is due to design compromises or design ineptitude (in part because 5E was rushed).

 

[trappedslider]

I don't know that it will, but the answer is usually "No" in D&D character creation ("No, but..." at best) - you can't just make up a class, you can't just make up a race, you can't just make up an Feat, and so on. Almost everything in 5E character creation, by default, the answer to creating something new is "no". And re-skinning is still "no", it's just a different way of putting no, because you're still using the mechanics.

So why would anyone expect the backgrounds to be "Yes"? This is another problem too, and it's why in 2014 and the Playtest they went out of their way to make it clear that this, unlike most stuff, was completely customizable.

Then 2024 inexplicably takes that away. It's totally bizarre. I'm sure it was the whim of one of the lead designers, but whoever they are, they should stop trusting their whims/instincts.

I'm not saying creating something new, I'm saying like asking " can I swap X for y"..I didn't realize that we needed the book to actually tell us we could do that instead of communicating with the DM

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I'm not saying creating something new, I'm saying like asking " can I swap X for y"..I didn't realize that we needed the book to actually tell us we could do that instead of communicating with the DM

You can do /rolleyes all you like, but the cold reality is, that's not really how D&D has ever operated. D&D has always been very clear when you can and can't swap things, and about 95% of DMs tend to follow the rules re: what you can and can't swap. Your /rolleyes-ing is really undermined by the fact that 2014 absolutely clearly knew this, and that's why customizing backgrounds/custom background were explained the way they were - it's why it was called out! They didn't just leave it to chance, because they knew people wouldn't realize it.

So yeah, that's not likely to happen unless players know backgrounds are designed to be customized (which is no longer information that will be in the PHB), and worse, some DMs will just say no, because the game has trained them to say no to that. Some of them likely won't have read or won't remember the section from the DMG saying about customizing backgrounds (assuming there even is one).

Also you say "Oh I don't mean create something new", but realistically, a lot of players will want to swap out basically everything in a certain background except for the lore/concept, so they absolutely are "creating something new" in a sense.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Nah. They should codify all of MY house rules, and make YOU use them!

(This is what a lot of arguments around here often sound like, it's true).

Philosophically, I understand the Anti-"DM May I" argument, but seeing as my personal #1 Rule of Roleplaying Games is "Play Nice With Others" (which goes for everyone at the table) - I haven't seen it be a problem at any table I've ever played at, so it's hard to get worked up about it.

What gets me is that such posters are positing a deeply adversarial player-DM relationship, which is just bizarre. Even back in 1e days, where the DM was actually encouraged (to a point) to be set up in opposition to the players, there wasn't this level of adversity in the interpersonal aspect (just more in the gameplay aspect). House rules and "ask the DM (who will often grant requests that aren't totally outrageous)" were the rule of the day then, as they are now. While of course I'm sure such adversarial relationships can and do occur, they would have to be in the vast, vast minority (like 0.01%), so trying to make an arguement using that scenario as its base is dubious at best.

"Won't someone think about the players subject to a hostile DM?" really is just "Won't someone think about the children?" transposed to a gaming setting.

 

[Vaalingrade]

What gets me is that such posters are positing a deeply adversarial player-DM relationship, which is just bizarre.

This board runs rather... old school. People who have been here a while I seen plenty of folks actively touting deeply adversarial player-DM relationships. It's not a postulation, it's observable in the culture.

 

[DinoInDisguise]

seen plenty of folks actively touting deeply adversarial player-DM relationships

This hurts my brain. And for such a small brain, it hurts a lot.

Correct me, if I'm wrong, but the current iterations of D&D, and even Pathfinder, seem to just not function under this reality. No wonder there is such vitriol towards the newer design direction. And no wonder it so often feels like I play a different game - in some sense I do.

 

[Daztur]

This board runs rather... old school. People who have been here a while I seen plenty of folks actively touting deeply adversarial player-DM relationships. It's not a postulation, it's observable in the culture.

I like old school games and I'm the faaaaaaaaaaaaarthest thing from an adversarial DM. That's one reason I like OSR games and rolling in the open, they force me to not be too kind and generous I really don't care for Lamentations of the Flame Princess-style "let's naughty word with the players" DMing style, I much prefer having the players naughty word with my NPCs.

 

[Chaosmancer]

You can do /rolleyes all you like, but the cold reality is, that's not really how D&D has ever operated. D&D has always been very clear when you can and can't swap things, and about 95% of DMs tend to follow the rules re: what you can and can't swap. Your /rolleyes-ing is really undermined by the fact that 2014 absolutely clearly knew this, and that's why customizing backgrounds/custom background were explained the way they were - it's why it was called out! They didn't just leave it to chance, because they knew people wouldn't realize it.

So yeah, that's not likely to happen unless players know backgrounds are designed to be customized (which is no longer information that will be in the PHB), and worse, some DMs will just say no, because the game has trained them to say no to that. Some of them likely won't have read or won't remember the section from the DMG saying about customizing backgrounds (assuming there even is one).

Also you say "Oh I don't mean create something new", but realistically, a lot of players will want to swap out basically everything in a certain background except for the lore/concept, so they absolutely are "creating something new" in a sense.

I really don't know where you get this idea of the DM from, except to imagine you have had some very overly strict DMs.

Quite often my approach when asked "can I do..." is to respond with a "well, let's see... does this work for what you are thinking of?" I remember quite clearly a woman brand new to DnD who wanted to play a Kitsune. Myself and the DM for that game didn't shut her down with "No, you can't" we instead looked to the options. Did she want to play a shifter? Could Tabaxi be reflavored into what she wanted? We ended up settling on a Custom Lineage using the Fey-Touched feat, which gave her a connection to the Fey she was very excited about.

I suppose you could argue that we said no, because a custom lineage isn't specifically a Kitsune... but that gets into a weird space of "what counts as fulfilling the fantasy". Mechanical representation of a story is a very flexible thing. And frankly, NO ONE, not a single person I have seen on any platform, has stated they will not disallow Custom Backgrounds. No one. The only discussion of Custom Backgrounds is how upset people are that it is in the DMG. I see that as a sign that, they are going to be pretty widely adopted.

 

[Demetrios1453]

This board runs rather... old school. People who have been here a while I seen plenty of folks actively touting deeply adversarial player-DM relationships. It's not a postulation, it's observable in the culture.

Well, that was sort of my point later in the post - I played back in those 1e days, and the adversarial relationship between players and DM they're describing in their (supposed) complaints/worries didn't exist even back then, at least in my experience (and fellow players/DMs describing games they had played before meeting me). Yeah, there were more "gotcha" moments (all in fun, really), but nothing approaching how some posters are describing players helpless before an almost predatory and monstrous DM.