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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[Remathilis]

In the UA playtests it doesn’t even have the weapon size restrictions - Heavy weapons had a Strength requirement instead (or a Dex requirement for Heavy ranged weapons). So, unless they go back on that, the only effects of Small vs Medium size will be what size creatures you can mount, what size creatures you can shove or grapple, and what size spaces you can squeeze through.

That’s an optional rule in a sidebar. By default it doesn’t even affect that.

Yeah, at this point you could probably just delete Small size and expand what range Medium size covers.

Currently because we're not 100% sure the heavy weapons being based on Stat not size is going to survive.

And I wasn't sure on the armor thing; I vaguely recalled something about halflings not wearing orc armor, but its been a minute since I had to worry about it.

Honesty, if it were me, I'd change the sizes to be something akin to this:

Small: anything under three feet. Basically what tiny and the low-end of small does now.
Medium: anything from three to eight feet. All PCs races.
Large: Eight feet to twenty feet: All the big stuff.
Huge: Twenty+ feet. Your elder dragons, kaiju, and impossibly large things.

Tiny is a waste of a size, so letting small absorb tiny and making medium cover the majority of "PC" small would be fine.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Could you at least admit that it is a system that CAN have downsides? I'm not exactly enamored with the concept of changing your mind in particular, but there ARE cons to the idea.

There absolutely are downsides to a more elaborate skill system, I agree. I just think they are worth it for the benefits, as suite my preference for more detail and consistent, logical worldbuilding.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Granted, that's the trade-off. I'd personally rather have a single, strong flavor (cf Golarion in Pathfinder) than a bland flavorless porridge you have to turn into something flavorful. IMHO.

If those are your options, I would agree. But there is an option 3 out there, where more detail is available to further differentiate worldbuilding flavors. It's been done before. The current regime unfortunately just sees it as not cost-effective.

 

[Remathilis]

If those are your options, I would agree. But there is an option 3 out there, where more detail is available to further differentiate worldbuilding flavors. It's been done before. The current regime unfortunately just sees it as not cost-effective.

The issue though is what do you put in the Player's Handbook? There has to be some default description of what an elf or dragonborn is, and right now WotC is trending toward the most bland and superficial lore possible to keep it compatible with the vast majority of D&D worlds. There is no shared history, no cultural info, no religious info, heck there is barely anything mentioning appearance. And that's because the PHB elf has be the elf of Kyrnn, Oerth, Eberron, and countless other settings. And for most players, the amount they will read about elves starts and ends with the PHB. So it comes as no surprise they end up as humans with pointy ears; there are no other hooks beyond "ooh, darkvision and free spells!"

 

[SkidAce]

Granted, that's the trade-off. I'd personally rather have a single, strong flavor (cf Golarion in Pathfinder) than a bland flavorless porridge you have to turn into something flavorful. IMHO.

I respect yah, but I'm the exact opposite.

We've always looks as D&D as a tool kit.

Good times for all!

 

[tetrasodium]

I always SMDH when people act like having a choice between two options creates some insurmountable hard to fathom obstacle . It's trivial to simplify complex with a minor sidebar but going the other way takes quite a bit more than "athletics ls is a combination of the granular jump swim balance & climb, acrobatics is a combination of xy&z (so on & so forth). When your GM is using the streamlined skill system instead of the default you can choose the combined skills covering granular skills available to you and use proficiency rather than the granular skills and skill points described earlier." Isn't hard to convey in a sidebar with a little table.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

My house rule is longer weapons can attack before. You could try it with foam or plastic toys to test it.

I would like something like jump-martial maneuver, because this should allow smaller fighters to attack enemies' higher zones, for example the head.

In the real life animals can be strong for some things but not for others. For example the elephants can't jump. The real fact is the stats of the animals in D&D don't show the true strenght of the beast in the real life.

* We shouldn't forget the racial feats.

 

[Remathilis]

I respect yah, but I'm the exact opposite.

We've always looks as D&D as a tool kit.

Good times for all!

I've never bought into this line of thinking. D&D has too much inherent lore to be a tool kit. Its modular, I give you that, but it's modular in the way buying a Lego set of a castle is; there is a clear model you are supposed to build, even if you can also use the parts to build a racecar as well. It's a far cry from the"bucket of blocks" people claim it is.

 

[Parmandur]

I've never bought into this line of thinking. D&D has too much inherent lore to be a tool kit. Its modular, I give you that, but it's modular in the way buying a Lego set of a castle is; there is a clear model you are supposed to build, even if you can also use the parts to build a racecar as well. It's a far cry from the"bucket of blocks" people claim it is.

The Adventures, yeah, but the core books are basically buckets of bricks.

 

[Remathilis]

The Adventures, yeah, but the core books are basically buckets of bricks.

Is it?

How many people complain about neu-Vancian casting? Or the spellcasting ranger? I don't think D&D is modular enough to be the bucket of blocks because it still only is good at playing D&D with D&D assumptions. Try and model something like Earthsea or Lord of the Rings style with it and you quickly see how many necessary bricks you are missing.

Note, this isn't a critique of the 5e engine; it runs a variety of different types just fine, but you D&D Trinity is only good for running D&D despite being labeled as a toolbox.