New Players Handbook is Not a New Edition, Swears D&D at Creator Summit

One D&D and whether or not it’s 6th Edition were among the many things discussed at the D&D Creator summit. Like details on the new PHB.

This past weekend, the D&D Creator Summit saw content creators/influences and publishers from across the community attend WotC’s influencer event. According to play-by-plays of folks attending, one of the continuing refrains at play was that One D&D was definitely not a new edition.

Instead, the term refers to a new Player’s Handbook that’s coming out in 2024. And, sure, it will completely reimagine the core classes of the game. And yes, multiple core rules will be updated. Fundamental things about the way the game plays are going to be altered or updated.

But it’s not a new Edition. It’s not even 5.5.

One D&D and the New PHB – Details Emerge at Creator Summit

During the section on the 2024 Core Rules Revision, aka the One D&D panel, Jeremy Crawford, Chris Perkins, and Josh Herman spoke at length about the coming changes to D&D. And to hear their side of it, the plan is that the core rules will get an update. But that you should still be able to play “a 2014 character alongside a 2024 character.” Meaning that you could, theoretically, play a Cleric from the original 5E PHB and from the new one coming out in 2024.

Granted the experience will be different. The new Cleric, as envisioned in the latest Unearthed Arcana, plays with different class features. Not only are they on a more unified track, but they also have access to features that the 5E Cleric doesn’t.

Now, that’s not necessarily the worst thing in the world. But, as we saw with the transition from 3.0 to 3.5, even if they are meant to be “backward compatible” the audience is going to keep to the new thing. But what’s different is you won’t, in theory, have to replace all your books.

Instead, you can play through any of your adventures with the new PHB. And while that remains to be seen, one of the upsides of this discussion was getting at new details about the upcoming PHB.

The new PHB, working title PHB 2024, will be bigger than the previous one. It’ll have more art, more words, and a total of four subclasses for each class. This means that some classes, like the Fighter and Rogue, will get more subclasses in the PHB, while others, like the Wizard and Cleric, will have to lose some.

But you will, in theory, be able to play a 2014 subclass. This will be interesting, because right now those class features are distributed at different levels. If WotC is going to pull this off, it’ll be a very difficult needle to thread.

Because even looking through the extant material, there are some significant changes to the way the game is played. It’s not hard to see why they wouldn’t want to call their “update” a new edition, with 5E being the most popular D&D has ever been. But what will the actual book look like?

We also get a look at the Core Rules’ design goals.  The new PHB will have nine different species:

• Human
• Dwarf
• Dragonborn
• Halfling
• Elf
• Gnome
• Goliath
• Orc
• Tiefling

Will feature all 12 PHB classes, and will include a restructuring of the PHB. New players will learn how to play the game before learning how to make a character.

Weapons, on the other hand, will get a new option called “weapon mastery” which includes special properties that certain class features can unlock. A Fighter using a dagger, for instance, can unlock a property that a Wizard using a dagger wouldn’t be able to. And the trident will finally be a better option than just the plain spear.

Fighters, in general, will be getting a revamp with their weapon mastery options. They might be able to get two mastery knacks on one weapon, choosing a different one with each attack.

And that’s what we know about the new PHB for now. Stay tuned for more from the Creator Summit!

Author: J.R. Zambrano

Bell of Lost Souls Staff Writer and DM, J.R. covers RPGs of all stripes and on occasion eats sandwiches. You can ask him about either at [email protected]