I had a chance to look over the new PHB and wanted to record some of my thoughts about what I found there. This isn't meant to be an exhaustive changelog with minor revisions to individual classes, subclasses, backgrounds, races, feats, spells, and the like - others have already done that. It also isn't a "review", per se - others have done that, too. Rather, I wanted to call attention to a few topics in particular that I thought were noteworthy changes - some good, some bad, some...interesting - that I haven't seen reported on elsewhere.
It's worth noting that some of these items might be elaborated on further in the DMG. These are just my impressions based on what's available so far.
I'm going through these items in order as they appear in the book, so there's no real rhyme or reason as to how this post is organized.
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| I love this piece by Noor Rahman in the rules glossary. Click to embiggen. |
Skills
I want to call attention to the fact that skill proficiencies are still, by default, tied to ability scores. That is, the player makes a Charisma (Performance) check. I mention this because this little blurb is still included on page 14:
Skills with Different Abilities
Each skill proficiency is associated with an ability check. For example, the Intimidation skill is associated with Charisma. In some situations, the DM might allow you to apply your skill proficiency to a different ability check. For example, if a character tries to intimidate someone through a show of physical strength, the DM might ask for a Strength (Intimidation) check rather than a Charisma (Intimidation) check. That character would make a Strength check and add their Proficiency Bonus if they have Intimidation proficiency.
I understand why skills are tied to ability scores by default - players and DMs can both benefit from having some idea of what normally goes with what - but I personally really wish they had done away with the default pairings entirely.
It is enough to know that a character is proficient in Intimidation - the DM gets to decide if a situation calls for a character's proficiency to be added to a Strength check, a Charisma check, or some other ability check entirely, and leaving it open might entice players to come up with creative ways to advocate for the use of their skills in unusual situations. Maybe that is just too "advanced" for the PHB, and I certainly wouldn't want players arguing that they can use Strength to make a Perception check, because that doesn't make any sense (not that that's stopping the 2024 barbarian).
The "Skills with Different Abilities" rule is one of my favorites in 5e, and I wish it was used more, but players see "Persuasion (Charisma)" on their character sheet and assume that NPCs can be persuaded only by the character's innate ability to influence (Charisma), and not with logical or intuitive arguments (Intelligence and Wisdom, respectively).
Social Interaction
This is one of my favorite topics to discuss. The social interaction "pillar" is often criticized for being too threadbare. Does the 2024 PHB improve it?
The 2014 PHB took a rules-light approach to social interaction, explaining that players could use a "descriptive" or "active" approach - i.e., describing what their character does or says while interacting with an NPC versus speaking in-character and saying exactly what the character says. The DM then uses their knowledge of the NPC's personality to adjudicate the results, sometimes calling for an ability check. The DMG, in turn, has information on NPC's attitudes (friendly, indifferent, or hostile), associated social interaction DCs, and how to actually adjudicate the interaction.
The 2024 PHB now provides an example of social interaction, including examples of both descriptive an active roleplaying. The friendly, indifferent, and hostile attitudes return, and are now included in the PHB's rules glossary. Player characters have advantage on ability checks to influence friendly creatures and disadvantage on ability checks to influence hostile creatures. The DM can now call on player characters to take the Influence action to urge an NPC to do something.
I like that the PHB explicitly states "The DM will typically ask you to take the Influence action", which will hopefully avoid players simply yelling "I take the Influence action!" instead of actually roleplaying the interaction. Hopefully.
The rules for the Influence action also state that requests that align with the NPC's desires automatically succeed, and those which don't automatically fail. An ability check is only needed if the NPC is "hesitant". Here's the kicker, though:
The GM chooses the check, which has a default DC equal to 15 or the monster's Intelligence score, whichever is higher. On a successful check, the monster does as urged. On a failed check, you must wait 24 hours (or a duration set by the DM) before urging it in the same way again.
First, I can see why the DM chooses which ability check the player makes, but I also think it should be framed more as a discussion. The player should be able to say "I say 'blah blah blah'." If the DM then says "Okay, make a Persuasion check", the player should be able to say "Wait, no. I was trying to threaten them" (or whatever). It also, again, might preclude the player from trying to convince an NPC using a logical or intuitive argument. Like with any other part of the gameplay loop, the player and DM need to be on the same page about what the player is trying to do and how they're trying to do it.
Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but the codifying of social interaction in this way feels so rigid. It doesn't seem like it's teaching new players how to navigate these situations in a way which ensures that the DM is hearing them and adjudicating their actions appropriately.
Second, what is with those DCs? 15 or the NPC's Intelligence score - no matter the NPC, no matter their personality, no matter the player's approach? The friendly and hostile attitudes already provide advantage or disadvantage on ability checks, so the DCs don't necessarily need to be modified by attitude as they were in 2014, but I'm otherwise a bit baffled by this.
Less intelligent NPCs are universally easier to Influence, regardless of whether or not the attempt to Influence them has anything to do with how smart they are, and intelligent NPCs are universally harder to Influence, even if a well-reasoned argument might reasonably appeal more to a more intelligent NPC. A more intelligent NPC might be able to see through lies more easily, but if they are in a situation where they are in danger of being harmed or killed, shouldn't an intelligent NPC be able to recognize that, and perhaps be more susceptible to Intimidation?
Shouldn't some NPCs be more susceptible to one approach versus another? A cowardly politician who goes to the theater and regularly engages in intellectual discourse in the king's court would be difficult to deceive, persuade, or impress with a slam poetry performance, but would be easier to intimidate. A king who values emotion over facts and logic would be more susceptible to an impassioned plea than a cold accounting of the facts at hand. Shouldn't player attempts at Deception be opposed by the NPC's Insight? Shouldn't player attempts to Intimidate the NPC be opposed by the NPC's morale?
Admittedly, I'm realizing that my own social interaction procedures use flat DCs based on the NPC's disposition, which don't account for different approaches when attempting to interact with them, but this is as simple as noting the NPC's personality traits, ideals, bonds, flaws, and goals, and modifying the DCs up and down accordingly if necessary.
The fact that the 2024 PHB's rules don't even allude to these differences between NPCs is what's driving me nuts. It suggests to players that the most optimal form of social interaction is to only ever use whichever skill they have the highest bonus in. That might be the approach most players take anyway, but if players know that different approaches work better or worse with different NPCs, they'll more likely make some attempt to understand what resonates with an NPC before deciding who in the party should speak to them and how.
As printed in the 2024 PHB, the game is telling the players that all approaches work equally well with a given NPC, so they should just use whichever skill is best for them. It does offer this tidbit:
When interacting with an NPC, pay attention to the DM's portrayal of the NPC's personality. You might be able to learn an NPC's goals and then use that information to influence the NPC.
But this only really applies if the players are able to identify the NPC's goals such that their attempts to Influence the NPC are automatically successful - if they have to roll, it doesn't make any difference.
There's also something to be said about the limitation that a character can only urge an NPC in a given way once per 24 hours. Does that mean a character can only attempt to Influence the NPC with Persuasion once during that time, or will different approaches to persuading the NPC be treated as different urgings? It doesn't read that way. At least the rules are explicit here that the DM can choose a different duration, although I don't know how much good it does.
Hiding
After plenty of complaints of ambiguity about how hiding worked in the 2014 version of the rules, the 2024 PHB offers some clarity and...simplification. From page 368:
With the Hide action, you try to conceal yourself. To do so, you must succeed on a DC 15 Dexterity (Stealth) check while you're Heavily Obscured or behind Three-Quarters Cover or Total Cover, and you must be out of any enemy's line of sight; if you can see a creature, you can discern whether it can see you.
On a successful check, you have the Invisible condition. Make note of your check's total, which is the DC for a creature to find you with a Wisdom (Perception) check.\
The condition ends on you immediately after any of the following occurs: you make a sound louder than a whisper, an enemy finds you, you make an attack roll, or you cast a spell with a Verbal component.
First, this clarifies when a character can hide. The 2014 PHB, by comparison, says only "The DM decides when circumstances are appropriate for hiding." This is probably helpful to some people, although as a DM, I've never had a problem making a common-sense ruling as to when a creature can hide. I have heard that there are some DMs who are super stingy about when they allow characters to attempt to hide, so making the conditions player-facing is probably meant to alleviate that particular pain point.
It is weird that successfully hiding gives the creature the Invisible condition, which is not to be confused with being actually invisible in the reality of the fictional world. The capital I Invisible condition doesn't make the creature lower case i invisible, yet in this case, a creature that uses the Search action has to make a Perception check which beats the total of the other creature's Hide action in order to find them. The searcher does not see the hider just by looking at them, even if they are standing out in the open, so...they are invisible, kind of?
Does Truesight, which allows a creature to see objects and creatures with the Invisible condition, then negate hiding? It shouldn't, because in the fiction, Truesight is the ability to see through illusions, shapechanging, and into the Ethereal Plane - being hidden by non-magical means is none of those things. It's literally giving me a headache to write this out.
Aside from that, the biggest problem I see with this is similar to the main gripe I had with the Influence action. What is with that flat DC? It used to be that Stealth checks were opposed by the monster or NPC's Passive Perception, which made plenty of sense - it represented the creature's ability to passively notice another creature attempting to hide without actively looking for it. Now, so long as the other conditions for hiding are met (and I'm accounting for special senses like Blindsight and Tremorsense here), a creature has the same chance of successfully hiding regardless of the situation or what/who it's hiding from.
A 1st-level rogue, assuming a starting Dexterity of 16 (+3) and expertise (+4) in Stealth (total of +7), has a 65% chance of hiding from anyone and everything. At 7th-level, once the rogue gets Reliable Talent, which gives them a minimum of 10 on the die when they roll any skill check with proficiency, that same rogue can successfully hide 100% of the time.
That's fantastic for the class fantasy of the rogue, and monster and NPC Passive Perception scores in the 2014 rules were such that this was often the case anyway, but it's also extremely simplistic and limiting. Again, aside from monsters and NPCs with the aforementioned special senses, all monsters and NPCs are equally easy to Hide from if the conditions are met.
It should be easier to Hide from a drunken guard than from a paranoid beholder with eyes more or less literally in the back of its head. The beholder can more easily find a hidden creature, I suppose, but it should also be harder to Hide from it in the first place.
Stabilized Player Characters Versus Unconscious Creatures
I'm not going to go off on this one, but I found it weird. In both the 2014 and 2024 rules, when a player character drops to 0 hit points but isn't killed and is then stabilized, they regain 1 hit point and become conscious after 1d4 hours.
In both the 2014 and 2024 rules, a player could choose, when reducing a creature to 0 hit points with a melee attack, to knock the creature out instead of killing it. Presumably, in the 2014 rules, unconscious monsters and NPCs worked the same as unconscious player characters, regaining 1 hit point after 1d4 hours.
In the 2024 rules, an unconscious monster or NPC is instead reduced to 1 hit point (because at 0 hit points they are dead, unless the DM makes an exception). The monster or NPC then starts a short rest, meaning they always regain consciousness after 1 hour, they get to roll all of their hit dice and heal for that amount, and they get back any abilities that recharge on a short rest.
It has more or less always been true that player characters and monsters and NPCs follow different rules, but in a few instances it really bothers me, and this is another such instance. Not a huge deal, but a weird quirk of the rules I haven't seen mentioned elsewhere.
Languages
I've written about languages before. One of my complaints was that it felt too easy to learn exotic languages, and that they weren't sufficiently differentiated from standard languages. The 2024 rules change languages just a bit. It's weird.
First, in desperation to remove any connection between a character's race/species and their culture, player characters no longer gain languages based on their race. Instead, all characters speak Common and two other standard languages.
The funny thing is, it's not clear how a character learns a rare language (exotic languages are now rare languages). The PHB says: "Some features let a character learn a rare language." For example, druids learn Druidic, rogues learn Thieves' Cant, and rangers learn two languages from their Deft Explorer feature. I don't know that there's any other way to learn these languages.
So, according to the rules, an aasimar can't know Celestial, an elf can't know Sylvan, a drow can't know Undercommon, and a tiefling can't know Abyssal or Infernal. A reasonable DM can obviously make an exception, but I do find it funny.
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| A piece by Chris Seaman shows how adventurers' equipment evolves with the tiers of play. |
Starting Equipment at Higher Levels
Finally, a change I kind of sort of like. The 2024 PHB gives some recommendations for what kind of starting equipment newly made higher-level characters should have - some extra gold and magic items.
If I have a concern about this, it's that if a character with a bunch of magic items and treasure dies, the rest of the party can take their stuff, then a new character enters the game with more magic items and treasure. The more characters die, the more magic items and treasure are added to the party. It doesn't make sense to me that if a character with 20,000 gold and 10 magic items dies, the party salvages their stuff, and then another character with 20,000 gold and 10 magic items joins the party. The party as a whole is now 20,000 gold and 10 magic items richer because they messed up and someone died.
The way I've handled this in my games is to treat magic items and treasure as belonging to the player, not the character. If a character dies with a bunch of magic items and treasure, that player's new character enters the game with equivalent magic items and treasure. If, however, the other characters loot the dead character and either use or sell their stuff, that stuff no longer belongs to the player whose character died, and their new character enters with fewer items and treasure.
It's a bit meta and not entirely fair to the player with the dead character, but they should have thought about that before they died. And they should convince the other players to give them some of their stuff back so that their new character isn't underpowered (making sure the new character isn't underpowered is in the other players' best interest as well).
Backgrounds
As far as I can tell, the 2024 PHB no longer even suggests that backgrounds are customizable, aside from this:
Each background includes a brief narrative of what your character's past might have been like. Alter the details of this narrative however you like.
The 2014 PHB referred to its backgrounds as "sample backgrounds", and went into detail as to how to customize them or work with the DM to create an entirely new one:
You might want to tweak some of the features of a background so it better fits your character or the campaign setting. To customize a background, you can replace one feature with any other one, choose any two skills, and choose a total of two tool proficiencies or languages from the sample backgrounds. You can either use the equipment package from your background or spend coin on gear as described in chapter 5. (If you spend coin, you can't also take the equipment package suggested for your class.) Finally, choose two personality traits, one ideal, one bond, and one flaw.
If you can't find a feature that matches your desired background, work with your DM to create one.
In my experience, most players do not even try to customize their background, but it happened occasionally when were playing 5e, and I personally tried to do it with all of my characters. Players new to D&D who start with the 2024 PHB might not even think to ask their DM about the possibility, which is a real shame.
Ability score increases are now tied to backgrounds, which is fine. I personally like my dwarves sturdy and taciturn and my elves lithe and frail, but I get why the culture has moved away from that.
What's funny is that Wizards of the Coast did away with specified ability score increases entirely in favor of letting players build the exact characters they wanted, then tied the ability score increases to backgrounds and...made them specific again? For example, a player who chooses the acolyte background can now only increase some combination of Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma (+2 to one and +1 to another, or +1 to all three).
In the 2014 rules, a player might choose to be a dwarf fighter because that race and class synergize well, then have their pick of interesting backgrounds with which to differentiate that character. Now, a player might choose to be a soldier fighter for the same reason, and it is instead the species which differentiates the character.
It's not necessarily better or worse, it's just...different. The race/species and background have just changed places. (Considering the fantasy bioessentialism of it all, maybe it is slightly better now. I just never particularly cared about that but I understand why some people do.)
Perhaps worst of all is that the 2024 PHB does away with traits, bonds, ideals, flaws, and background features (the latter are more or less replaced by origin feats, which are more mechanically useful but less interesting to me).
I personally loved the TBIFs and used those suggested by each background to create my own for each character. Instead, the character creation chapter suggests one-word descriptors based on the character's ability scores and alignment, which is...fine. It's just kind of a little bit...boring? Uninspiring?
The background features were never terribly exciting - they mostly amounted to some way for the character to obtain free room and board in a settlement - but I felt that they were interesting little roleplaying tidbits. They invited the player and DM to collaborate on something together - the acolyte's home temple or shrine, the criminal's black market contact, or the entertainer's preferred tavern to perform at. It felt good to be the street urchin who could show the rest of the party a faster way through a busy urban neighborhood, or to be the sage who knew how to use the fantasy Dewey Decimal System.
Tools and Adventuring Gear
Every tool and bit of adventuring gear now has a little description about what a character can use it for. Tools list what items a character can craft with them. A character can use perfume to get advantage on Persuasion checks to Influence Indifferent Humanoids. Cute! But also very specific for some reason.
A character can use alchemist's supplies to identify a substance! Cartographer's tools to make a map! Jeweler's tools to appraise a gem!
What is with these DCs?!
DC 15 to identify any substance? DC 15 to make a map of any area? DC 15 to appraise any gem? It goes on and on like this! A DC 20 check with a gaming set to "win the game". What game? Who is the character playing against? DC 20 to win any game against anyone?
Admittedly, this isn't the first time these DCs have appeared in a book, at least not with regards to tools. DCs to do a variety of things with tools were first printed in Xanathar's Guide to Everything. But now, they've infected the entire equipment list: DC 10 to apply makeup with a disguise kit (what?), DC 13 to wrap a chain around any creature, DC 10 to tie a knot with a rope. It's enough to make me go completely mad.
Of course the DM is well within their rights to change any of this nonsense. Of course. But the DCs are in the PHB! Why? That's DM-facing information - players literally do not need to know this information, and that goes for social interaction, and hiding, and equipment, and everything else. The section on making ability checks should tell the player how to make an ability check, then say "The DM determines the DC." That's all the player needs to know. The book is actively undermining the DM's ability to adjudicate these situations by implying that there are set-in-stone DCs for any of these things.
All of the tools also have an associated ability score, which mostly seem arbitrary. Painter's supplies require Wisdom, as do all gaming sets (dragonchess doesn't use Intelligence, and playing cards don't use Charisma, so no bluffing). All musical instruments use Charisma (dexterous fingers have nothing to do with playing a string instrument - it's all about convincing people that the performance is good through force of personality).
I've seen a few people praise the new equipment section, so I was especially startled when I read and saw just how bad it actually is.
Spellcasting Services
This is nice - there are suggested prices for NPCs to cast spells for the party. Of course, I'm once again wondering why this is in the PHB, and if it must be in the PHB, why there isn't some disclaimer that the DM can change it or decide that certain services aren't available. Still, it's nice enough, and the prices seem reasonable.
I also find it interesting that the table aligns pretty closely with my own ideas about what services are available in which types of settlements. I've always run it so that Tier 1 NPCs can be found in villages, Tier 2 NPCs in towns, Tier 3 NPCs in cities, and Tier 4 NPCs in metropolises, which is exactly what the table suggests (minus the metropolises).
Where Are the Downtime Rules?
I don't know. They're not in the 2024 PHB (crafting is, but none of the other options).
The new DMG includes rules for player character bastions, so maybe they're lumped together with downtime rules there. Or maybe they've gotten rid of downtime altogether. I wouldn't be surprised.
That's all I've got for now. I've spent a little bit of time looking at how they changed the classes and spells and whatnot but honestly my eyes just kind of glaze over whenever I try too hard to read that stuff.
I'll probably do another post like this when I can get a look at the DMG. Hopefully it will give me less of a headache and I'll have more positive things to say, but I've already heard some things that make me think I, uh...might not like it. Lol.
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