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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[SkidAce]

...Should psionics be crystals and dreams, or oozes and Far Realms stuff, or New Agey metaphysics? Should it be a type of magic or totally unlike magic? Should it be used with something like spell points, spell slots, or dice? Should psionicists be able to do incredibly powerful effects at a lower level (but at risk of burnout) and therefore potentially be very OP, or should they go up steadily in power like every other spellcaster and therefore be not much different from anyone else? Should they have lots of powers, or only a few highly versatile powers? ...

Yes. The answer to all those questions is yes.


On a serious note, to clarify... Magic (arcane) does all those thing in the form of different class packages or abilities. Psionics could also.

IMO there just needs to be one thing that sets Psi different, and the rest can be similar to all other classes in framework.

What would appeal to most? Aye, there's the rub. Psi dice? Spell points? Magic transparency? Free metamagic? No spell components? Something unique?

Pick one or two at the most and then use the same framework as the rest of dnd. Not all of them, because even though I'm an old school fan of psionics, using all of them and a new framework makes a new system.

And the current zeitgeist seems to be more of a balance between systems enabling and roleplaying providing than older editions.

And thats okay.

 

[SkidAce]

I liked the ideas that Bruce Cordell had, the only person at WotC who was really into psionics. Based on what 3.5e psionics got, the answer is basically "All of the above". The Far Realms, Victorian influenced New Agey stuff with crystals and ectoplasm, along with Buddhist (Tibetan Tulpas aka Astral Constructs) and Hindu (the Siddhis of Yoga aka Psionic Disciplines) influenced concepts all thrown into what's Psionics.

Quoted for truth.

 

[CapnZapp]

Although some of these are welcome changes, they are still not enough to make me go forward with D&D 5.5 when I already have D&D 5e.

Don't worry, the will have changed around enough little details to make it a chore to use the old books, and to ensure most of us switch over.

If only to escape our players whining "but I want the new version of [insert subclass|feat|spell|other class feature]!"...

 

[Remathilis]

Is unaided flight a thing anyone has ever asked for fighters to be capable of? I was talking about superhuman feats of physical prowess, the specific example I used being cutting a mountain in half with a sword. I could see a character who could jump high and far enough being practically indistinguishable from flight, I suppose, but I imagine such a leap allowing for far less precise areal maneuvering than actual flight would do.

Cutting a mountain in half with a sword (like, in one slice like a giant birthday cake?) is equally ludicrous and needs a beyond natural explanation the same as flight. You don't train and one day wake up and split K2 in twain. Not unless you already got some supernatural backstory explaining where that potential came from.

 

[CapnZapp]

The inclusion of two psionic subclasses I already own being mentioned as a selling point perfectly encapsulates why I'm so disillusioned with this project.

Selling us what we already have is the primary driver for this project.

 

[Yaarel]

Well, D&D doesn’t use the jargon that makes the most sense to you then. Never has, as far as I’m aware. I’m pretty sure dragons have always been able to fly inside an antimagic field, Dispel Magic has never caused giants to collapse under their own body weight, and you’ve never been able to Counterspell a troll’s regeneration.

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.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Don't worry, the will have changed around enough little details to make it a chore to use the old books, and to ensure most of us switch over.

If only to escape our players whining "but I want the new version of [insert subclass|feat|spell|other class feature]!"...

If you have whiny players at your table like that, you should think about getting some new players.

 

[CapnZapp]

If you have whiny players at your table like that, you should think about getting some new players.

Sure. But still - WotC will have made sure enough of the 2024 content is plain better than it's 2014 counterpart, so it's not really that I blame them...

 

[SkidAce]

Maybe the 24 core will make explicit that the Worlds of D&D are innately fantastical and magical and that the laws of physics don't work that way naturally. There are certainly hints of it. But as long as D&D tiptoes around that, the "the ordinary is extraordinary" defense is not viable. And that's a problem that is easily solved if D&D would commit to the bit and define the world.

Your thoughts make sense, but that would move 5e and D&D away from the tool kit philosophy that some of us have.

 

[Clint_L]

How to make Casters and Martials equal in all respects:

Make a game in which they're equal.

That's literally it. If the Wizard can hit 4 people with Magic Missiles then the Fighter can hit 4 people with Normal Missiles. If the Wizard can roll Intelligence to open the magic force-door, the Fighter can roll Strength to open the magic force-door.

And then take it further so that the outcome is equal even if, narratively, the description is different.

The Wizard casts Fly to get to the parapet in 1 turn. The Fighter climbs to the parapet in the same turn. The Wizard neutralizes the poison in their food with a spell, the Fighter just muscles through it with high Constitution.

D&D, though, is bad for that because it was never meant to be balanced between classes.

What's the point of having different classes, if they can all do the exact same thing? Is the flavour text all that matters?

IMO, the classes having different abilities, strengths and weaknesses makes the game better. It adds tactical and cooperative elements that you can't get from every character having the same ability. This immediately makes balance harder, so that's the challenge. Very much worth it, I think.