D&D (2024) WotC Fireside Chat: Revised 2024 Player’s Handbook

In this video about the upcoming revised Player’s Handnook, WotC’s Jeremy Crawford and Chris Perkins reveal a few new tidbits.

• The books are near final and almost ready to go to print
• Psionic subclasses such as the Soulknife and Psi Warrior will appear in the core books
• Named spells have art depicting their creators.
• There are new species in the PHB.

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[Oofta]

Sorry, not accepting "skill issue" as the reason.

So I've never seen an issue with multiple groups out of shear luck? Or is it just that in games I've played we did something slightly different, including simply accepting that the PCs have different roles?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Sure... if Dispel Magic needs a format in determining what monster features can be dispelled and which ones can't, then putting tags on those features is fine. I have no disagreement with that. But it seems like people are seeing many more things for which these things are considered a necessity, and I don't know if that's necessarily true in my opinion.

They are a necessity for worldbuilding to make sense to me, and for my players to have an accurate frame of reference, since after all we're all normal humans from Earth.

 

[Charlaquin]

Maybe. I would need to review the specific wording here and there in the official texts.

At least the 5e designers freely describe every form of Psionic, whether spell or nonspell, as "magic", and refer to Dragons as inherently "magical" despite the antimagic not applying.


With regard to antimagic, including the spell Antimagic Field, I would delete the concept of a "Weave" from the D&D game. Instead, the antimagic suppresses any "new" magical phenomena. But any "old" magical phenomenon that lacks a magical duration continues normally. Suppose a +2 Flametongue Sword. The +2 is persistent, thus the antimagic cant suppress this, but the antimagic an suppress evoking the flames because that would be a new phenomenon. The presence or absence of a hypothetical Weave is irrelevant.

Frankly, I’m not terribly interested in what you would do. I’m talking about what D&D does. And what it does is differentiate between “magic” which is enacted by a person or other magical entity to create a specific effect upon the world, and other things which would not be possible in real life but are a normal part of how the fantastical worlds of D&D operate. If dragons can fly and giants can exist, naturally, without a magical entity consciously working their will to make it so, then powerful mortals should be capable of other physics-defying acts, without needing to rely on “magic.”

 

[Micah Sweet]

I was entirely relevant in the context of what Neonchameleon and I were discussing..

I wouldn't know. Neonchameleon blocked me recently.

 

[Micah Sweet]

And according to JC, only spells and things that are explicitly described as magic, are magic. A dragon flying breaks the laws of physics, but it isn’t magic. It’s just part of how the fantastical world works.

There are a ton of setting assumptions baked into the base rules of D&D, from the weave, to the planes of existence, to the existence of multiple worlds. A DM can change these things in their own game, but unless they do so, all these things are baked-in parts of the implied setting.

JC and the Weave are bad explanations that don't hold up to rigor IMO.

 

[Yaarel]

Not in my games. Magic rarely matters all that much unless it's a utility spell that can aid the entire party.

Wizard casts fly to get across the chasm without the fighter? Awesome! Split the party so I can attack the squishy wizard. Want to teleport away? Too bad, Inner Sanctum was cast here a thousand years ago and it's still active because it's permanent. Charm someone? They know you charmed them and you've made an enemy for life and possibly turned an important faction against you depending on circumstances.

Of course sometimes magic does cool things as well. In no way do I totally nerf them. But I also throw in cool things for the non-casters as well. If the story calls for opening a teleportation circle to the other side of the world, I see that as a spell tax, not the wizard controlling the narrative. After all the DM is the one that set up the situation so that there was a need for the teleportation circle.

The truly important campaign changing things in my games are the choices the PCs make and the interactions with NPCs. The fighter is more combat focused. It doesn't mean they're sitting on the sidelines while the adults do all the important stuff. It's a team game, different players have different roles. Thank goodness.

I generally agree with how you run the high tier adventuring.

At the same time, the Fighter class itself should "throw in cool things" for Fighter characters.


Especially because D&D is largely a combat game, and in my experiences mainly is. So it is important every class contributes overall in balanced ways and with roughly equal frequency in combat encounters.

But much of our games are noncombat, with players pursuing various goals. Every class, including Fighter, needs to contribute about equally to noncombat challenges as well. At the high tiers, the contributions are generally extraordinary, fantastical, magical.

 

[Charlaquin]

JC and the Weave are bad explanations that don't hold up to rigor IMO.

Then forget JC and the weave. Dragons fly despite that making no physical sense. Giants exist and can move around in flagrant defiance of the square-cube law. Trolls regenerate limbs in seconds with no apparent energy expenditure. And all of these things are treated as normal parts of how the material plane works, rather than magical effects created by some will-worker. The fact of the matter is, there exist in D&D’s worlds some beyond-natural things that are magic, and some beyond-natural things that are simply part of the nature of these fantastical worlds. That being the case, we should be able to imagine characters who lack magical ability but can still perform feats that are beyond what is possible in real life. If a giant can exist, there should be no reason Goku can’t.

 

[Yaarel]

Frankly, I’m not terribly interested in what you would do. I’m talking about what D&D does. And what it does is differentiate between “magic” which is enacted by a person or other magical entity to create a specific effect upon the world, and other things which would not be possible in real life but are a normal part of how the fantastical worlds of D&D operate. If dragons can fly and giants can exist, naturally, without a magical entity consciously working their will to make it so, then powerful mortals should be capable of other physics-defying acts, without needing to rely on “magic.”

The 5e 2014 Monster Manual says plainly: "True dragons... are highly intelligent and have innate magic".

Dragons are innately magical.

In D&D 5e, whether something is magical or not is separate from the technical adjudication about whether antimagic can suppress it or not.

The Dragon is MAGIC.

Defacto, the Fighter is too.

 

[Charlaquin]

The 5e 2014 Monster Manual says plainly: "True dragons... are highly intelligent and have innate magic".

Dragons are innately magical.

Dragons are innately magical, yes. That doesn’t mean their flight is an act of magic. It’s simply a facet of their nature. And I notice no one wants to address giants existing and being able to stand, and walk, and not collapse under their own body weight.

In D&D 5e, whether something is magical or not is separate from whether antimagic can suppress it or not.

The Dragon is MAGIC.

Defacto, the Fighter is too.

The current fighter is not even supernatural. But it could be, and their supernatural abilities would not need to be defined as magic. Again, if giants exist, why can’t Goku?

 

[Remathilis]

Of course it needs a beyond natural explanation. But that explanation need not be “magic.” It’s the sort of thing a powerful figure in a fantastical world could be capable of, through intensive training or what have you.

Again, vague terms allow us to talk past each other.

A normal man, born of normal parents, cannot cleave a mountain in twain, no matter how hard he trains or how many orcs he kills. He needs something to separate him from the normal folk, the common farmers and NPCs. You can call that whatever you want, but it's something other than "training" and "fantasy". That's like saying Superman's power comes from "comic book".

The alternative is that everyone has that sort of potential and realizes it in different ways. The fighter might cleave a mountain, the cleric might summon an angel, the thief teleports in shadows, the farmer yields crops three times bigger than an Earth harvest, the king's land withers and blooms based on his mood, etc. All use the same mythic potential in different ways.

But you don't wake up one day and your humble farmboy is splitting mountains just because he got enough XP.