D&D (2024) The 2014 vs 2024 PHB Compatibility Thread

[Micah Sweet]

I'm sure right now the answer is, "yes of course!", but just wait about a year after release and then it'll be, "well actually, no."

It'll be "yes" as long WotC thinks they can make more money than trouble with that answer.

 

[Quickleaf]

In theory, sure. In practice, plenty of people during the playtests reported mixing old and new Characters at the same table without issues.

Do you happen to remember anyone / any group reporting about playing with the same class, 2014 version and 2024 version, in the same party?

That's the core of my concern based on my read of UA thus far.

 

[Parmandur]

Do you happen to remember anyone / any group reporting about playing with the same class, 2014 version and 2024 version, in the same party?

That's the core of my concern based on my read of UA thus far.

I want to say @FitzTheRuke IIRC, but I recall several people saying that.

 

[payn]

There was a ton of discussion about this, and at the time, we heard over and over that the books would be compatible. As I suspected, this isn't really going to be true, and the expectation is that you'll adopt the new classes. And it makes sense because we're going from the perspective of "please keep buying the 2014 PHB" to "please buy the 2024 PHB."

There isn't anything wrong with that attitude, of course, because WotC wants everyone to adopt the new material. That completely makes financial sense. What I find cynically amusing is all the people who argued so vehemently that of course the old books and classes would be compatible and you could keep using them.

 

[Shardstone]

I mean like yeah, playing a Fighter from 2014 means no Weapon Masteries, a huge change. I wouldn't suggest anyone do that because the 2014 Fighter is clearly the worse of the two in terms of design. Why do you guys want people to keep playing that trash for?

 

[SteveC]

No idea what this means, but I was repeatedly told how things would be compatible, and how it was utterly ridiculous to think otherwise. So feel free to roll your eyes, I guess, but it happened. And I don't begrudge WotC one bit. I suspect that we're going to shift into the "Oh no one ever said that, of course you're going to use the new material."

 

[payn]

No idea what this means, but I was repeatedly told how things would be compatible, and how it was utterly ridiculous to think otherwise. So feel free to roll your eyes, I guess, but it happened. And I don't begrudge WotC one bit. I suspect that we're going to shift into the "Oh no one ever said that, of course you're going to use the new material."

WotC best bet is just ignore it for the nonsense it is.

 

[Remathilis]

Someone help me out. Do we take this to mean that all subclasses printed before the new 2024 Players Handbook will not be compatible with 2024 PHB characters? That is certainly different from what we heard at the summit last year and I believe what we’ve heard in previous videos that said you could use them with some modifications like ensuring they begin at 3rd level.

That would suck, frankly. There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of subclasses made instantly incompatible.

What about spells and magic items from older books or sources? What about magic items? Monsters? Backgrounds?

I’m not worried about mixing in stuff from the 2014 PHB so much but there are hundreds of 5e supplements out there with material I’d still like to use with 2024 D&D. I get that it wouldn’t always be a perfect fit and might take some tweaking but stating that it just won’t work is a problem.

I take it to mean "you're going to have to do some work, depending on class"

Take the cleric. If you want to take the Twilight domain with the 2024 cleric. Well, you won't get features at level 1 or 2. You won't get the weapon and armor proficiency. You won't get divine strike at 8th level from your domain. But the rest of the domain features will work fine and any DM with a hint of under the hood knowledge is going to smooth out those discrepancies. But that isn't the same as a 14 cleric opening Tasha and having the subclass work with no modifications.

If your a DM comfortable with modifications like that until the updated Twilight domain comes out, then the conversion is fine. It's going to be more work than using silvery barbs or using the tabaxi from MotM, but it should still work. But WotC realizes that not everyone is going to or is comfortable homebrewing such a patch, so the official stance is "wait until a compatible version is released".

Honesty, I don't see it to be any more work to convert a supplement subclass to 24 than it would be to convert it to Level Up or TotV...

 

[mellored]

Whereas comparing PC-to-PC is a more precise bandwidth of power (not precise objectively, just more precise than adventures), where you quickly notice power differences when those two PCs are alongside each other.

Having run both together side by side. And optimized 2014 will be more powerful.

But 2024 has more variety. And being able to use Push mastery to shove an enemy into a zone makes up the difference.

So without teamwork, 2014 is more powerful. With teamwork, 2024 is.

In my limited experience. Also, I expect a few changes.

 

[Wolfpack48]

No idea what this means, but I was repeatedly told how things would be compatible, and how it was utterly ridiculous to think otherwise. So feel free to roll your eyes, I guess, but it happened. And I don't begrudge WotC one bit. I suspect that we're going to shift into the "Oh no one ever said that, of course you're going to use the new material."

I would call the ability to use 2014 characters, the ability to use 2014 monsters and magic items, and the ability to run 2014+ adventures compatible.