The new 2024 D&D Players Handbook is out, ready for you to purchase at your local Dragon’s Lair Comics & Fantasy®. But what is the new Player’s Handbook? Is it a new edition of D&D? How does it work with the books you already have? And what’s in it?
First, it is very much not a new edition. These are alternate rules for D&D’s 5th edition, intended to streamline the game and make certain things run more smoothly. But you can absolutely have a player using a character built in the 2014 handbook playing at the same table as a player playing out of the 2024 handbook. You can also run characters from the 2014 Player’s Handbook against monsters from the upcoming 2024 Monster Manual, though the players might be a bit surprised at how much tougher they are, not because they’ve been beefed up so much as because of how the monsters’ abilities are organized. But more on that later.
If you’ve been following along with D&D’s releases to date, you’ll not be surprised at some of the changes in the new Player’s Handbook, like your character’s race, now called species, not dictating stat bonuses, as was teased in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything. But some changes are new: tieflings come in demonic and yugoloth versions as well as devilish; short characters are no longer penalized with a shorter movement speed; you’ll find goliaths and aasimar in the Player’s Handbook now.
Similar changes are found throughout the book. Every weapon now as has special ability available to those who have specialized in that weapon, granting fighters and other martial types more variety and combat and making the differences between a short sword and a scimitar more than just piercing vs. slashing damage. Choosing a certain species grants access to special feats, and your background will now give you a feat as well as a stat bonus, making it more than the window-dressing it sometimes appeared to be in the earlier version of the Player’s Handbook.
Even if you plan to continue to the use the old Player’s Handbook as the cornerstone of your game, you’ll want to check out the additional new options to see if they’ll fit your character concepts better, or simply to enjoy greater flexibility.
The new Dungeon Master’s Guide is scheduled to release this November. In addition to improved organization, this book includes rules for the players setting up their own home bases, and even building their own castles and ruling as nobles. The new Monster Manual comes out in February. While every one of the old monsters retains the CR it had before, they are tweaked and their abilities are organized better in the statblock to help the DM run the monsters at their CR level. Spells especially, a pain for DM’s to juggle in the midst of combat, are now listed as actions or other abilities, so they’re right there ready for you to use without having to keep track of spell slots or the like.
Talk to the friendly folks at your local Dragon’s Lair Comics & Fantasy® today about securing copies of the alternate covers for all three of these books. We’ve had a decade of 5th edition D&D, and with the new 2024 core books, the adventures are just beginning.
All Dragon’s Lair Comics & Fantasy® locations are independently owned and operated by local folks. Not all stores will carry all games but will be willing to attempt to special order any that they do not carry. (And they’ll carry most.)
