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.

 

[Emerikol]

Why is it the DM's world? Why is it the DM's campaign? Do you think neither of those things would change if they had radically different players? I know for a fact that it is a common experience (which I have had as well) to have a set of pre-gen characters in a one-shot run at a convention, and out of 5 different sets of players, you will have 5 radically different games. So... is it really, solely, the DM's property if it is utterly changed and completely different if you change the players?

I guess I'm a Gygaxian at heart. I always say "I'm playing in so and so's campaign" when I play. Sometimes if you have a lot of games going you may give each of your campaign's a name. Or if you are famous, like Gygax. Or you want to sell it.

I think there is a degree of absolutes here, and we may be closer than you think. But I am going to keep questioning those absolute statements. You say you would never allow a player to roleplay a conversation between their patron and their PC in game? Not even if it was a one-sided conversation? Not even if they are a Forever DM who is a superbly talented roleplayer and could pull off voices and the conversation better than you could? There is never any situation, in any scenario where you would consider it ever? That doesn't seem right to me. That seems close-minded, because I CAN think of situations where I would be intrigued by a player who came to me with that sort of idea.

Yes. I'm insistent on Actor stance. I may allow "off camera" broad instructions to be state. Something like, "I've told my henchman to stay at the castle and practice his swordplay". Now. No conversation happened. That is the Player talking to the DM. The DM then handles that off camera. All kinds of things could happen including the henchman doing something different. To me that is not "in game" activity. In game, the players stay in actor stance. It improves immersion. We also avoid games that break people out of actor stance.

I also think it is rather frustrating, as a player and sometimes even as a DM, to have this idea that DMs must always control every part of the game. It is an incredibly heavy burden to know and run all of history, time, ect ect for an entire world. DMing can be a lot of work if you want a lot of detail to your game world. But anytime it is even hinted to let player's be in charge of part of that, making it something the DM doesn't have to do.... then there is this tendency to shut it down immediately and completely, because what if the players DO IT WRONG! And I think that knee-jerk reaction should be examined.

Well there are three ways.
1. Just allow the PC to do it and you automatically accept it into the campaign world. Outcomes include success and totally wrecking of your campaign world.
2. Let the PC develop something you must approve that fits your world well. This wastes time but it can work as long as you approve it. I think the PC should present broad ideas and the DM should collaborate. So start with a broad suggestion and if that seems non-campaign damaging go to the next step. The key here is the player has really engaged with the world well and his work fits the campaign concept. Not every player can do this but some are great at it.
3. Reject everything. This potentially loses you some good ideas. I find with some groups this actually is the best approach because they are the type of personalities to not read the intro and not even try to mesh with the world.

I'm not saying people can't or won't do things differently and succeed. I'm just saying my formula consistently results in fun and good campaigns for my players and me. I often get complemented that my world just seems real and other campaigns don't.

 

[Micah Sweet]

No one is not getting it. But not everyone agrees that a PC's family, friends, mentors, patron deity and/or patron entity are part of the conflict and challenge environment.

Heck, Vincent Baker - who designed Apocalypse World - knows more about conflict and its role in RPGs than just about anyone else in the world. And he designed a RPG - Apocalypse World - that makes the typical conflict or challenge in D&D pale in comparison.

And Apocalypse World has the following 12+ result for the advanced seduce/manipulate move (pp 186-7):

you change [the NPC's] nature. Choose one of the following; tell the MC to erase their threat type altogether and write it in instead.​

​

• ally: friend (impulse: to back you up)​

• ally: lover (impulse: to give you shelter & comfort)​

• ally: right hand (impulse: to follow through on your intentions)​

• ally: representative (impulse: to pursue your interests in your absence)​

• ally: guardian (impulse: to intercept danger)​

• ally: confidante (impulse: to give you advice, perspective, or absolution.)​

​

This is serious business and don’t risk the players’ trust by [mucking] around with it. Take that NPC out of whatever front​

she’s in, list her in a whole new place, home instead of the home front.​

​

Furthermore, stop looking at this NPC through crosshairs. She has been set apart, safe from casual death, to a higher purpose. By now the players are bone weary from knowing that every single NPC is, at her heart, only a potential threat to them. Now, this one person, they can breathe.​

D&D is not a game in which every single NPC is expected, at their heart, to be only a potential threat to the PCs. It is in this respect much less intense than Apocalypse World. It in no way violates the basic tenets, ethos or play dynamics of D&D for the warlock's patron not to be a source of threat to the warlock PC.

Anymore than a PC's mum has to be.

That is a narrative way of thinking. No one is saying every NPC is defined as a threat to the PCs, but we're also not necessarily talking about them in terms of their narrative role in a story. They are people in the world, populating the setting just like the PCs. They are defined by their personality and their circumstances and make decisions based on these factors, again just like the PCs.

 

[Micah Sweet]

First, "disingenuous" means not candid or sincere, typically by pretending that one knows less about something than one really does (from Oxford Languages via Google).

So you're accusing me of not being candid or sincere - ie of lying or deceiving. (Or, alternatively, you don't know what the word means?) The accusation is rude and unwarranted.

Second, what is a source of conflict is up for the participants in a game to decide. I decide that my PC is an orphan - is my parentage a source of conflict and drama? or a non-issue? Neither answer is compelled. Either is open.

To me, it seems pretty likely that if a player wants to exercise control over the disposition of their PC's patron, it probably means they don't want that PC-patron relationship to be a source of drama or conflict. And that wouldn't surprise me - why would a player want to build a PC who is mechanically more-or-less on a par with everyone else's, but who is liable to have all their abilities taken away as a result of unilateral GM decision-making.

(There's also a question about the fiction - why is the patron not bound by the pact? - but that's a separate thing.)

And DnD Beyond addresses that tension like this:

Some Warlocks respect, revere, or even love their patrons; some serve their patrons grudgingly; and some seek to undermine their patrons even as they wield the power their patrons have given them.​

That seems to put the player, not the GM, in the controlling seat as far as the existence and character of any tension is concerned.

Your question about the fiction can easily be reversed; ie, why is the PC not bound by the pact?

 

[billd91]

Unless of course the mum is the player's former character

In which case they then get the enjoyment of getting to RP both their mum bothering their kid, and their adventurer being upset their mum is like this. As it should be.

I wouldn't consider that kind of relationship of former PC = role played by the player universal. Players are playing their current PCs. Former PCs are NPCs in the current situation and may have perspectives not in line with the current PCs and different agendas.

 

[pemerton]

it is regardless probably for the best if the GM plays the warlock

Freudian slip?

 

[pemerton]

That is a narrative way of thinking. No one is saying every NPC is defined as a threat to the PCs, but we're also not necessarily talking about them in terms of their narrative role in a story. They are people in the world, populating the setting just like the PCs. They are defined by their personality and their circumstances and make decisions based on these factors, again just like the PCs.

It's also a game way of thinking. Why am I turning up to play the game if the GM is going to tell me what I can or can't do if I want to keep the core of my position, ie my class abilities?

 

[pemerton]

Your question about the fiction can easily be reversed; ie, why is the PC not bound by the pact?

They are. Thus why the GM can't just decide that the PC loses their powers.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Freudian slip?

Not Freudian. Just a regular slip.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

It's also a game way of thinking. Why am I turning up to play the game if the GM is going to tell me what I can or can't do if I want to keep the core of my position, ie my class abilities?

Why I'm turning up to play a game with other people, if along with my PC I play the NPCs too? I can just write fan fiction about my character at home if I don''t want input from the other people.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It's also a game way of thinking. Why am I turning up to play the game if the GM is going to tell me what I can or can't do if I want to keep the core of my position, ie my class abilities?

I'm not intending to mess with my player's ability, but I also want the setting to make logical sense and to be consistent. Warlocks, just like clerics and paladins, owe their power to another being. It's right there in the class fiction. If you don't want your patron to matter in that way, why are you playing a Warlock?

If you just like the mechanics, maybe make a new class that uses similar mechanics and different fiction that explains where their power comes from.