D&D (2024) The 2024 Core D&D Rulebooks Are Coming In May

21st May 2024 is the official release date!

Update--WotC has taken down the promo image and replaced it with one without a release date. See more here.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Yeah.

I like the term "Background Feat" because it clarifies that this is something different from "level 1", after taking levels in a class.

"Background" might be, the new 5e technical jargon for what was "level 0" in earlier editions.


Still, no clue about level 8 feats.

I wonder if the Background keyword regarding feats will make those feats unavailable other than as part of your background, or if it will simply be a way to note that you don't get the +1 ASI that goes with the other feats, allowing all the UA1 Level1 feats to be made balanced and using the same method as the UA2 Level4 feats, so that you can take them later (If I've made sense here). It could go either way, I think.

 

[Yaarel]

I wonder if the Background keyword regarding feats will make those feats unavailable other than as part of your background, or if it will simply be a way to note that you don't get the +1 ASI that goes with the other feats, allowing all the UA1 Level1 feats to be made balanced and using the same method as the UA2 Level4 feats, so that you can take them later (If I've made sense here). It could go either way, I think.

My hope is, one can use the level 4 feat to gain "either two Background feats of your choice, or a Background feat with a +1 improvement to an ability score of your choice".

 

[Osgood]

Of course they’ve been working on all these books for a long time, and there’s a whole lot that can be worked on regardless of the play test — creating a character, using ability scores, equipment. Plus much of the play testing has been more or less done for a long time: they haven’t revisited species and backgrounds for like a year, the rules glossary has been pretty muc fixed since last summer, only a handful of feats have been put up first feedback since the first few packets, and percentage-wise most spells aren’t being tested. They are down to a handful of classes/subclasses being tested… so, I think it’s vey doable to have the PH in stores by May.

They’ve already brought up a staggered release schedule, so I’ll bet the MM will release a couple of months after. I doubt they play test anything from that, because they’ve already rolled out those changes with Monsters of the Multiverse. They’ve probably been number crunching and designing those for months already.

The DMG will be last because they do have some things to play test, but a whole lot of it is just advice, info, and tables that they are already working on. I’d guess 2, maybe 3 months after the MM is released, but it could run longer if Bastions or whatever else they test needs more iterations than they planned for.

I‘d guess the dates they had are reasonably firm, but they didn’t want to put them out yet, just in case things with up being a few weeks off. But who knows, the 21st could have been the Sage for D&D Beyond, and print books will be a month later and someone mixed it up, or it could be the nefarious OGL gremlins trying to stir the pot again in their never ending quest to get people mad at WotC so they will rage quit.

 

[R_J_K75]

I'd say that Monk and possibly Druid need another pass before it's ready. There's also a bunch of spells and feats that probably should be looked at too. So it's probably for the best they almost immediately retracted that release date.

Internally at WotC there's probably already a pretty hard cutoff date for the playtest and just because they haven't said it they probably have a projected window of release dates by now. I'm going to assume that yes a lot of feedback from the playtest will be incorporated into the finished core books, but some things will change between the last playtest packet and the final books they release. I'm 100% expecting that and is the main reason I haven't paid much attention to the UA packets. Regardless of what the feedback is eventually they are going to make some design decisions of their own. They're going to have to release these books at some point and move on to other products.

 

[Yaarel]

The artistic layout of the pages is complete. Thus the amount of text is done.

This means they can still fiddle with sentences here and there.

But all the content that the 2024 Players Handbook presents is already in place.

 

[Parmandur]

We still dont know what is going on with level 8 feats, or even epic feats for that matter.

Those may be gone.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

If it was going out on that date (near the end of May), they should have all the final text in place before the end of April. I feel that might be a little too close.

 

[Yaarel]

If it was going out on that date (near the end of May), they should have all the final text in place before the end of April. I feel that might be a little too close.

Maybe WotC plans to publish the 2024 Players Handbook in late May, but retracted the commitment in case they dont make it in time for some reason.

 

[Parmandur]

If it was going out on that date (near the end of May), they should have all the final text in place before the end of April. I feel that might be a little too close.

I mean, it feels like they are most of the way done with locking down the PHB, and just finalizing details?

 

[Charlaquin]

Didn't anyone from the art department had a hour of HEMA training in their lives?

I very much doubt it. HEMA is pretty niche, and there’s no particular reason digital artists would be any more likely to get into it than the general public.