Dungeons & Dragons 5e 2024 Player's Handbook Review - Mixed Messaging Around A Strong Update

In 2014 Dungeons & Dragons released the 5th edition of "The World's Greatest Roleplaying Game" and now as we wrap up 2024 players are able to get their hands on the first of the three new D&D 2024 Core Rulebooks. The Dungeons & Dragons 5e 2024 Player's Handbook is a reference book that allows players to learn the rules of the game and create their own character, ready to embark on an adventure!

For this review, we're only focusing on the Player's Handbook. When the 2024 Dungeon Master's Guide releases on November 12th, and 2024 Monster Manual releases on the 18th of February (in 2025) we'll be reviewing them separately.

The PHB is broken up into three different segments that ease the player logically into the world of D&D, creating their characters, and then additional resources and references for items, spells, and more that the player or DM may need.

How To Play D&D In The Dungeons & Dragons 5e 2024 Player's Handbook

Opening strong, the book begins with an explanation of the History of Dungeons & Dragons, how to use the book, and how to play the game.

Information is laid out in a logical way to provide context for the next instructions. The book describes the roles of those at the table and what kinds of adventures the party might go on before adding in information about the tools of the game (dice), how ability checks work, and how combat plays out.

From the third paragraph of Chapter 1 the 2024 PHB demonstrates one of the smart additions to the Player Handbook, scripted examples.

For anyone who has played Dungeons & Dragons before, reading these rules will make sense as you have the context to frame the situations, but for a new reader wanting to understand their role as a Player and how they fit into the greater structure of Dungeons & Dragons these scripted examples do a lot of heavy lifting to introduce concepts.

The first example provided in the book of scripted play is a conversation between a DM and their two players. Here the DM describes a scene before the players ask to perform investigations. A nice addition here to their conversation isn't just the DM performing their roles, but also gives an example of the DM politely asking the players to not overload them with questions.

While there's no assumption that a player might be a problematic player, this does immediately set a tone to the players to be aware that your DM is doing a lot, and also gives DMs implicit permission that they don't always need to be responding to every players beck and call.

Later on in this chapter larger examples are provided for exploration and combat, in these we don't just get to read about the steps the DM and each player (and their character) are taking, but also we get to learn the rationale behind why they're making those decisions.

Some lessons that are highlighted during these examples are that it's worth rolling regardless of whether you have Proficiency, how light can alter how much you can see, and that it's important for a player to know their spells as their DM may not know them all.

The compression of eight pages of rules into two pages of combat example might not allow for everything to be covered, but for a new player hopping in it gives a good ground level of knowledge to then build upon. 

Layout Improvement

Immediately after reading just the introductory chapter, I've been impressed about the books layout, starting with simple rules and then building upon them creates an excellent environment for learning.

One thing that I would have liked to see, as is common with other games where new editions expand upon previous rules, would be an indication of where something is new. While I'm very familiar with the rules of D&D 5e I'm not going to say I know them all like the back of my hand. An indication that something has received a tweak, or is completely new would be helpful for those who aren't starting their adventures in D&D with the 2024 Core Rulebooks, but are interested in reviewing what's new.

That being said when something needs to be referenced, the book makes accessing that information easier than ever with an eighteen-page rules glossary at the back of the book. (Something that I will likely make a few copies of to always have readily available around my table)

Character Creation

Moving into the character creation section where in 2014 Dungeons & Dragons you'd pick your Race, then Class, with Background coming last. The new order of character creation is to pick your class, then your character Origin which is comprised of your background as well as your species.

An effort has been made to make the content available from the 2024 PHB work with the content from 2014 but as is going to be the case with such a large overhaul there are going to be some times where the pieces don't fit nicely together.

Classes

Contained in the 2024 PHB are twelve different classes, each with four available subclasses. Compared to the 2014 PHB (and the numerous additional sub-classes added over the past decade) there is a lot that has been paired down.

It was interesting reading through the sub-classes that remained (with a variety of tweaks) or the new sub-classes and how they offer brand new options for a class. The available sub-classes offer good variety in the types of archetypes that each of these classes can represent.

A good example of this is in Druid class. The available Circles are the Circle of the Land, Circle of the Moon, Circle of the Sea, and Circle of the Stars. Depending on whether your druid wants to pull power from nature, from the animal inhabitants of the land, from the water of the world, or from the stars each is its own different take on playing a Druid.

These more unique identities from the classes help to make each character more unique in comparison to another, especially when you then factor in the differences that an Origin adds.

For the types of abilities you'll be obtaining through both your class and sub-class I was excited to read most of them. In terms of the overall vibe of the character customization changes in relation to Class and Sub-Class I'd be excited as a player to be rolling up a D&D 2024 character.

In terms of abilities getting downgrades, I believe it's the Druid who has suffered the worst overall. Wildshape, a mechanic that's core to the druid experience, is being altered to be far less powerful. 

You will still take on the physical traits and attacks of a beast that you wildshape into, but instead of using their HP as your own you will instead gain Temp HP equivalent to your druid level.

Wildshaping might offer a better AC than your standard form, but you won't get to have the entirety of the animal's HP on top of your own to survive with. A Crocodile's 13 HP might not be a lot, but for a squishy druid at level 4 it's far better than 4 Temp HP.

Multiclassing

A table for multi-classing spellcasters has been added that allows for fans of picking up multiple forms of spellcasting to have a better time with. To use this table you add up the levels of your different classes, some classes count for less of a level such as a Paladin being ½ a level and an Arcane Trickster being 1/3rd a level.

This lets you know that if you have three levels as an Arcane Trickster and 4 levels as a Bard you'd be level 5 on the Multiclass Spellcaster table.

Origins & Species

Origins have taken over from the place of Backgrounds. Each Origin now influences a number of character traits that had previously been attributed to your race (now species) such as which Ability Scores you have proficiency in, your skill and tool proficiencies, and your starting equipment.

Origins also all provide a special feat that is specific to your Origin that has been designed to be useful to your character throughout their whole career.

With 16 Origins, each holding more weight on the build of your character it allows for a lot more versatility within the character.

For 2014 D&D if you and a friend were both an Arcane Trickster there wouldn't be too much variance between your characters if you selected a different background. With Origins an Arcane Trickster that is an Entertainer vs an Arcane Trickster that is a Wayfarer will be more distinct.

Part of putting more mechanical weight on Class/Sub-Class and Origin is that it frees up the Species to have more variety outside of the mechanics. Your Goliath doesn't need to be the biggest and beefiest warrior on the block, they can have studied books all their lives and it won't be going against their entire way of life.

I enjoy this redistribution of mechanics and roleplay as a way to create more meaningful permutations of different characters. It allows the book to present to me only 48 sub-classes, but allow for thousands of character variants before we even get into roleplay decisions.

Spells, Components, and Summoning

A lot of the spells in the 2024 PHB have been altered in slight ways. Spotchecking a variety of spells that I know my players and I commonly uses I've found tweaks as small as altered wordings, while other spells add or remove entire aspects of the ability.

A quick example of this would be that Faerie Fire acts the exact same, Goodberry changes from being able to choose to create up to 10 vs 2024 always making 10, and Power Word Kill now does 12d12 damage if the target is above 100 HP.

Most of the spell changes that I've read have been -- at the very least -- positive for a player, if not an overall improvement. As so many of these changes are so slight whether you like, dislike, or are ambivalent to these changes will really be up to the player/those at the table.

Monster Stat Blocks

As a forever DM one of the nicest aspects of the 2024 PHB is the insight that it offers to creature statblocks. Inside the PHB there are stat blocks for beasts for Druids to Wildshape into, creatures that can be summoned, and more.

With the updated look important information like the creatures AC, HP, Initiative, and Speed are clearly laid out at the top of the stat block. We also get a detailed break down of the creatures stats, what their base modifier would be for anything, as well as their saves.

This quick glance to find the same info in the exact same place, and the math already being done helps to alleviate stresses for DMs and players alike, especially as they're summoning or transforming any of these creatures.

Controversy! The Confused Loxodon In The Room

Ultimately reading over the rules of the Dungeons & Dragons 2024 Player Handbook has felt most comparable to reading through the changelog of a video game. There's plenty of balancing going on, new abilities appearing while old ones change or potentially even disappear.

While I've enjoyed the vast majority of the updates provided by this PHB it rests in a strange place that it's not a full step to a new edition, and it's not even a half-step like we've seen D&D take before.

As a book of mostly backward-compatible errata, there's a sense of hesitancy that all players can feel from Wizards of the Coast, that they don't want to create a new edition and lose the fanbase that has been very publicly growing but that they want to continue to update it.

This messaging has resulted in a situation that ultimately makes it harder for those who play the game. If I'm playing in multiple tables, I will invariably have some questions: which rules are they using? Would cherry-picking certain rules and spells make the players or the DM too powerful? How much 'fixing' of things does a DM need to perform to make the game feel fun? What's the impact of one player using 2014 abilities and another is using 2024 abilities?

For a casual table like mine, I don't imagine we'll have much issue progressing forward into these new rules tweaks during, or at the conclusion of our current campaign… but that doesn't change the fact that I've dedicated quite some time looking at builds and compatibility to reach that conclusion.

Should I Buy the 2024 Player's Handbook?

As a standalone product, a book that any person can buy off the street to learn how to be a player of Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition I think this book absolutely nails what it's going for. Throughout the course of the book, you'll be taught, with plenty of examples, how to play the game. You'll be able to create characters that offer greater variety in gameplay mechanics with the new Origin system, and you'll learn all you need to about the different feats, spells, magic items, and more.

If you're happy with what you already have available to you with the 2014 Player Handbook and all of the expansions that have since been released though a lot of what you'll find here are changes, that I mostly found were improvement, with a few completely new elements.

By finding this weird place of not being a full or even half step the 2024 PHB would be my recommendation for a new player, but for someone who owns all the books you can likely wait until more of the core books, or even a few adventures have been released before you look at this more seriously.

Dungeons & Dragons 5e 2024 Player Handbook Review | Final Thoughts

This has been an interesting, and slightly complicated review to work through. While there's a lot going on in the almost 400 pages that is the Dungeons & Dragons 2024 Player's Handbook the majority of it is small alterations if you compare it to what's previously been available.

Unless you're picking apart spells and comparing them you might not even notice or realize some of the subtle changes that are taking place. I can imagine for many you might end up unintentionally gaslighting yourself or suffer from the mandela effect when a spell comes up in a game and you just can't be certain if it's changed or not.

As a player the options that I have seen excite me, while the majority might not be entirely new sub-classes altering the way you play the game completely there's enough there to optimize or improve play. Of course, my heart does go out to the druid fans for such an incredible blow.

If you're interested in seeing what kinds of changes there are for D&D 5e in this weird "update that isn't meant to be an update" then it's a fun book to pick up, but for the time being and immediate future it's likely not going to be a 'must have' at anyone's table.

The Dungeons & Dragons 5e 2024 Player Handbook was reviewed with a copy provided by the publisher - All images for this review were taken by the reviewer