D&D (2024) New D&D Edition's Player’s Handbook Cover Reveal

Game Informer has revealed the cover to the 2024 Player’s Handbook.

The cover features a gold dragon behind the old-school D&D characters Strongheart the paladin, Mercion the cleric, Elkhorn the dwarf fighter, and Molliver the thief. Ringlerun the wizard is absent (then again he got his showcase on one of the 1E AD&D Player's Handbooks), but a drow mage appears to have joined the party!

 

[Nikosandros]

Probably a lot of Tasha's Feats are going to be in, such as the Paionoc Feats.

Paionoc feats actually sound far more interesting and mysterious than anything that has been published...

 

[pukunui]

Meh. Don’t really like this new cover. The colors are kinda weird. I also don’t like the reimagined dragons. They look weird, especially their tails. They remind of the goofy-looking, AI-‘enhanced’ mega-dinosaurs from Bigby’s.

The only bit of art I like so far is that one with the cartoon characters in it. That’s more my style.

I guess I’ll wait and see what the gold leaf alt covers look like.

 

[ninjayeti]

“With the cover art, we wanted to represent each experience,” Jacobson says. “How do we make the Player's Handbook look like it's the players' experience? And how do we make the Dungeon Master’s Guide feel like the Dungeon Master’s experience?”

Yeah, the gold dragon is pretty clearly an DMNPC who is going to steamroll the villain while the PC's mop up the kobolds. Which is pretty representative of many players' experiences.

 

[mamba]

Kind of find it interesting that they are putting some anonymous action figures from the '80s on the cover of the book in 2024 and acting like theyre legendary heroes that everyone should know and love, as if they're on the level of like an Optimus prime or a snake eyes.

to me they are, no idea who snake eyes is, I am unfortunate enough to know of Optimus Prime however....

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Yeah, the gold dragon is pretty clearly an DMNPC who is going to steamroll the villain while the PC's mop up the kobolds. Which is pretty representative of many players' experiences.

My thought was that the kobolds serve the gold dragon, who's about to tell them to chill out.

 

[bedir than]

But those are backwards compatible!

Having a consumer friendly PHB that doesn't require new players to buy books that came out 5+ years ago is good

 

[ezo]

Response to the cover art (and back cover art): Sigh... Don't care for them--at all.

They have ONE redeeming feature IMO: most of the weapons and items are not "glowing with magical POWER!!!".

But why do they keep showing stuff like this when few games ever play like this? I mean, how rare is it to get past tier 2? IME pretty darn rare. But these scene has enormous dragons and screams high-level play.

As for the style, no... again this stuff is so "AI-looking" it is disappointing. The blurry edges, lack of definition, etc. is simply awful to me.

Also, others have pointed out, the red dragon is SO easy to miss. I didn't even notice it until another post mentioned it!

There is just a "whole lot of nothing" going on. It amazes me that the art teams at WotC and the head designers or whoever approved this. I would LOVE to see what other options they turned down! Odds are most would appeal to me more...

And the world's "greatest" RPG? Really...? Let's not get too full of ourselves, WotC. Most popular? Certainly.

 

[dmar]

I love all 3 of them illustrations. Definitely better than the wizard art.

 

[Reynard]

AI-‘enhanced’ mega-dinosaurs from Bigby’s.

172 posts. Not bad. I would have lost money.

 

[Reynard]

But why do they keep showing stuff like this when few games ever play like this? I mean, how rare is it to get past tier 2? IME pretty darn rare. But these scene has enormous dragons and screams high-level play.

You don't have to be tier 3 to be awesome in 5E. You need to be maybe 4th level.

As for the style, no... again this stuff is so "AI-looking" it is disappointing. The blurry edges, lack of definition, etc. is simply awful to me.

Here we go.