Summary
The new 2024Dungeons & DragonsPlayer’s Handbookis finally on the horizon, and that means that theDnDcommunity is heavily invested in anticipation, speculation, and debate about what the new rules will look like. Arriving a decade after the lastPlayer’s Handbookin 2014, the revamped version seeks to freshen things up and address common complaints while maintaining backward compatibility with all fifth edition content released to date. It’s an ambitious goal and a precarious balancing act, and it’s easy to see why excitement is still mixed with uncertainty.
Changes in the newPlayer’s Handbookcome at the end of a long line of playtesting throughDnD’sUnearthed Arcanaprocess, but a lot of what appears in the book isn’t necessarily identical to where the playtesting left off. Hard answers about every detail might be hard to come by until the book releases, first on August 1 in alimited supply at Gen Con 2024and more widely in September. Even so, there’s more to learn now than just what’s been shown in official material covering the newPlayer’s HandbookfromDnDpublisher Wizards of the Coast.
New D&D Player’s Handbook Deep Dive Shows A Promising First Look At Improved Classes, Subclasses, & Weapons
The 2024 Dungeons & Dragons Player’s Handbook is still a few months off, but a new look at its contents helps clarify what it’s focusing on.
The man in charge of the newPlayer’s Handbookis lead designer Jeremy Crawford, who also played a key role in the creation of the 2014 version.Screen Ranthad the opportunity to discuss some of whatDnDplayers can expect from the new book with Crawford, a conversation that answered some questions about hot button topics like Rangers' access to Concentration spells and broader perspectives on the future ofDnD.
Moving Over To The 2024 Player’s Handbook
How Players Can Expect To Make The Transition
Screen Rant: 10 years after the 2014 core rulebooks, the new 2024Player’s Handbookwill be a big refresh forDnD.For someone getting into the game for the first time, what makes the new book the best way to do it?
Jeremy Crawford:The new book, for the first time inDnD’s history, actually teaches you how the game works before we ask you to make a character. And then, once we get you into the character creation rules, we have more tools for you than ever before to help make the character creation process as smooth as possible. Then on top of that, the whole game has been enhanced, not only with many new options, but then the options that we’ve carried forward from 2014 have been tuned up, expanded, all with an eye toward making the game run smoother, to give you more different options to sink your teeth into, and always with the hope of making the whole experience more fun.
For a group looking to play something likeCurse of Strahd, a great campaign from 2016, are the new rules still going to be the best fit for this?
Jeremy Crawford: Yes,you can make a character using the 2024Player’s Handbookand march right into Castle Ravenloft, whether you have the originalCurse of Strahdor the one inCurse of Strahd Revamped.
If a party wanted to move characters developed with the lastPlayer’s Handbookover to the new rules, how difficult would that be?
Jeremy Crawford:It really depends on which class you’re transitioning over. So, some classes, like two of the prime examples, the Ranger and the Monk, have seen such significant redesign that they’re effectively new classes. For a class like that, I recommend rebuilding your character, so that you can learn what all the new levers and buttons are for you to use while you’re playing the game. Whereas there might be another class where you can scan through and see okay, what changed in the base class, and then take a look at your subclass, becausesome subclasses have been completely redesigned, whereas others have been enhanced in a few ways.
I think at the end of the day, because of how streamlined the character building process is in the newPlayer’s Handbook, if you just decide, well, I’m basically going to play the same character, but rebuild it from the ground up, you’re going to have a smooth experience of doing so.
Class Changes & More In The 2024 Player’s Handbook
Some Big Overhauls Are On Their Way
There were some big changes floated throughout theUnearthed Arcanaplaytesting leading up to this book that ultimately didn’t make the cut. Are there any particular examples where community feedback really helped clarify the direction of this?
Jeremy Crawford: Yeah, there were some directions that we were exploring in — the Druid is one example, where we explored having Druids use pre-made Wild Shape templates rather than selecting beast statblocks. This is actually something we experimented with over a decade ago in theDnD Nextplay test. And just like that time, there were more people who said “Please keep giving us beast statblocks” than the other direction. And so that’s one example of the feedback being influential.
There were also some core rules changes that we were toying around with. And as we sometimes do with theUnearthed Arcanaprocess, where we’re just not sure if it’s something that the community wants, or if it’s really going to help up the fun of the game, we sent those out and saw, well, no, that’s not really landing. One example there iswe experimented very early on in theUAprocess with embracing the very common house rule that rolling a 20 is always a success and rolling a one is always a failure. We were actually very hesitant to send that out because that actually has a number of issues for certain types of roles in the game, but we thought, hey, it’s anUnearthed Arcanaprocess, let’s see what the community thinks. Well, it turned out the community largely agreed with us that no, let’s just stick with, in the official rules, the 20 only being an automatic success in combat, and the one being an automatic failure, also only in combat
The new Wildheart Barbarian subclass is a name a lot of players were first exposed to inBaldur’s Gate 3. That’s not the only change in the newPlayer’s Handbookthat carries over fromBaldur’s Gate 3, correct?
Jeremy Crawford: So, that is the only change that specifically connected toBaldur’s Gate 3. And the reason why I say that is we were actually a part of the decision to name the subclass that inBaldur’s Gate 3.So I was in the meetings when it was determined that that’s what we were going to call it inBG3. And as a part of that conversation, I was also helping to nail down what we were going to be calling it in thePlayer’s Handbook. So in a way, that’s actually an example of a decision that, Larian and Wizards, we made together. And it appeared first inBaldur’s Gate 3, and is now appearing here.
Now, there are other changes that are certainly sort of broadly influenced by some of our team playingBG3, where sometimes the context shift of seeing something you’ve used over and over again at the table, but now using it in a video game; it gives a nice, different perspective on how certain things work. Andwe would see how some of our own rules worked inBG3and then change them in the tabletop game, hoping that then in the nextBaldur’s Gatewe could use our new design and not the old one. So it was much less about usadopting design decisions fromBG3, but instead reacting to our own design that was inBG3and saying we want to change it.
Another exciting Barbarian change is the ability to regain a Rage charge through a short rest. Every class has a reason to look forward to short rests now, don’t they?
Jeremy Crawford: Yes. And that was one of our design goals is we wanted to make sure, particularly for those classes that heavilyrely on the short rest, that all of their buddies would also be happy to take a short rest. Because we wanted to combat the experience that some players have had, where they might be playing a Warlock, for instance, who heavily relies on short rest, but they’re in a group where no one else cares about them. And the Warlock’s “Please, please give me a short rest.” And so we wanted to make it so that everybody is happy to do it.
And that’s really also just a philosophy we had in the design throughout.Anytime we were asking characters of many different types to engage with a particular part of the rules, we wanted to make sure that they all had something they were happy aboutwhen it came to interacting with that part of the game.
Ranger overhauls are a big part of this. One concern with the new Ranger is there’s a big emphasis onhunter’s mark, and the need for Concentration withhunter’s markhas ramifications with how many other Ranger spells have concentration and how important that is for Rangers in general. What does the newPlayer’s Handbookdo to balance a Ranger’s use of Concentration?
Jeremy Crawford: So we have — not only for the Ranger, but for a number of our classes — looked very closely at what spells and other effects require Concentration. And people are going to see that, while there are certain things likehunter’s markthat required Concentration in 2014 and continue to require it in 2024,there are other things that used to require Concentration that no longer do. And we were particularly mindful of that for classes like the Ranger that have key features that require Concentration.
Now, there’s still going to be Concentration choices. That’s a part of the Concentration mini-game. And that choice is important. And the Ranger particularly at higher level will perhaps have spells that they’re very happy to be concentrating on instead of hunter’s mark, for instance.
Along those lines, to make it easier for people to make their Concentration choices as a part of the Concentration mini-game, is every class’s spell list now tells you if that particular spell on the list requires Concentration, so that it will be really easy for you at a glance to see it as you’re preparing your spells each day, how many competitors you’re lining up for your precious Concentration.
Do you have any favorites among the many new feats and spells in the 2024Player’s Handbook?
Jeremy Crawford: So I am really happy about, in the spell chapter, our adoption of the summoning spells fromTasha’s Cauldron, because I think these spells really bring summoning to life in a way that is a lot of fun for the game. And we’ve not only brought those spells in, but we’ve enhanced them. So even people who already have played with theTasha’sversions of the spells are going to have some nice surprises waiting for them, including cool new art for a number of these summonable creatures.
I also really enjoy our redesigns of the various conjure spells. These now all, rather than unleashing hordes of creatures sometimes onto the game table, now create some really neat game effects, akin tothe Cleric’sspirit guardians. And we basically took this really funspirit guardiansplay experience and have given other versions of it to other spells.
The Past & Future Of Dungeons & Dragons
Where The 2024 Player’s Handbook Stands In D&D History
Is there anything in the newPlayer’s Handbookthat goes back and takes inspiration from elements in older editions ofDnDthat didn’t make the cut in 2014?
Jeremy Crawford: So one of the biggies is us going all in on having psionic options in this Player’s Handbook. So in 2014, when we were building thatPlayer’s Handbook, we talked about psionics having a greater footprint than it ended up having. And we just didn’t have time to fully realize it, and really ended up with our sole sort of psionic representative very subtly in the form of the Great Old One patron in the Warlock.
This time — and this hearkens back to first editionDnD, because first editionDnDhad Psionic options built into it —we now have multiple psionic themed subclasses in this book. The Psi Warrior, the Soulknife, Aberrant Sorcery and the Sorcerer, and, of course, the returning Great Old One Warlock.
The 2014Player’s Handbookhas guided a lot of great games over the past decade, but it’s definitely in need of the refresh. Where do you expect the 2024Player’s Handbookto be a decade from now?
Jeremy Crawford: I’m expecting us to continue the really fun process that has gotten us to where we are now. And that is continual play, continual DMing, and constantly checking in with theDnDcommunity to see “What are you loving about the game? Where do you want the game to go next?”And so I’m excited to see this evolution continue, as this game we love just gets better and better.
Dungeons and Dragons
Dungeons and Dragons is a popular tabletop game originally invented in 1974 by Ernest Gary Gygax and David Arneson. The fantasy role-playing game brings together players for a campaign with various components, including abilities, races, character classes, monsters, and treasures. The game has drastically expanded since the ’70s, with numerous updated box sets and expansions.
