First Impressions: 2024 Player's Handbook
An extremely important caveat to this post: I have not played D&D with the updated 2024 rules. As a result, I'm not calling this a review. I'm just talking about some of the things that particularly jumped out at me--both good and bad. There are plenty of actual more concrete reviews that I encourage you to check out! I'll link a few below as well.
Second, in keeping with Dave Clark's fantastic review of the book, not the system – which I think everyone should go and check out – I'm not going to spend a bunch of words talking about every rules change. Some of the more thorough rules-focused reviews that I liked is this one, on Dungeons & Dragons Fanatics. I'll talk about some of the ones that I think really influence my opinion, but this is not a comprehensive breakdown of the 2024 rules.
Third, most of the 2024 rules are not for me. I've been playing D&D for a long time, and 5e for 10 years since it was still D&D Next (wow... that's a long time). Where the 2024 Player's Handbook shines is that it is more accessible for new players. It is clearer, more organized, has a big variety of art to emphasize different genres and character styles, and starts with how to play the game rather than jumping as quickly into specifically character building. Every review I've read, as well as my own impressions, suggest that this revision is good at what it wants to be in terms of accessibility; it is likely to make it easier to teach new players how to play using this new PHB than it was.
Equipment and Crafting
The biggest major improvement for me is in the Equipment section. Most every item now has explanation for how it can help its owner. Tools give you information and suggested DCs for actions you can use with them, such Jeweler's Supplies allowing you to make a DC 15 check to appraise a gem. Non-tool items get this treatment too: from the entry on map, "If you consult an accurate Map, you gain a +5 bonus to Wisdom (Survival) checks you make to find your way in the place represented on it." Some of these aren't providing mechanic boons, but rather just description: "One sheet of Parchment can hold about 250 hand-written words."
This is a massive improvement to actually providing mechanical support for the non-combat pillars of the game. Having mechanics for exploration that are linked to, for example, "having a map" is an improvement. It is clear, and it redirects you to knowing that Survival is the relevant skill for navigation, something that was a little more hidden in the 2014 rules.
Crafting is still limited but definitely clearer. You need proficiency and access to the relevant crafting tool. You need to spend half of the item's purchase price on raw materials, and then you need to spend days equal to the item's purchase price divided by 10 to actually craft the object. I'm still not crazy about this, as I personally want crafting to be a bit more multi-faceted, dependent on rolls somewhat for the pace and/or quality, and to allow for scavenging materials; that work would all still fall on the GM to adapt. But this is still more transparent as a rules system than it was in the 2014 rules.
I Don't Hate Backgrounds
One of the most publicized changes to the 2024 rules is the change to character creation, or "origins."
The 2014 rules had your "race" (a problematic and imprecise term) that provided a lot of your benefits, like ability scores and fun features. It had a background, which was mostly a minor bonus: two proficiencies, a small bonus ability that may or may not be relevant, and some small equipment. And you had your class, which was of course the most important.
This changed with the release of Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, which did away with your race providing your ability scores. Now, you just got to pick! This was, in my mind, the worst of all worlds. It stripped away flavor; it was harder to play "off-type" in an interesting way, since there was no longer as much synergy between the parts of character creation that you can push against. The motive was good in theory, to show that members of any "race" can be anything they want, but it was not good design. It was fixing a problem by omission.
The 2024 rules divide up "species" (replacing race) and background more evenly. Your ability scores come from background, not species, and in a cool way: each background provides 3 abilities, and you can assign a +2/+1/+0 or a +1/+1/+1 as you choose across these. I really like this; yes, it means your Guard is going to have Strength/Wisdom/Intelligence, when it might make more sense for them to have Constitution... but it also gives you more interesting room to play against type. It gives you a type to play against, which is what I wanted and what the Tasha's rules failed to give me.
Background provides you a feat, which also make their return as no longer just a variant option, but a core part of your character (something I love). They give you skill proficiencies, and a tool proficiency--something more relevant with the expanded equipment and crafting descriptions I've already talked about. Your species is then room for some basic elements like size and speed and creature type, but mostly for special traits.
It's not all that different from Tasha's in terms of what species provides, but by linking ability scores to backgrounds, they are enhanced and substantially more relevant than they ever were in 2014.
The system isn't perfect. Dave Clark notes that they've just shifted the problem of oversimplicity, so that every soldier is a Savage Attacker and there's no "tough" soldiers. As I said earlier, any time you give a "type", it has good and bad; your characters now have to get bonuses to a subset of the abilities scores, and that is more limiting. But I like that the system now gives some type-casting to play against and to play with, and I like that the background ability scores still provides choice, just a more limited choice, instead of being completely locked in stone. I think it's a good compromise, and it is a compromise that I wish that they had applied to some of those features. Why not have a soldier get to choose between "tough" and "savage attacker"? List three feats, pick one, to preserve the identity of the background without making it overly uniform. Why should ability score improvements be the only part where that choice is available?
And it still is missing an area for culture. A soldier from one kingdom should and can feel different than a soldier from another. A farmer eking out an existence in a desert kingdom should have different bonuses than a farmer in a rich breadbasket with fertile land. I understand how this can make character creation unwieldy--in my last D&D (2014) campaign, I played with a homebrew species system that made room for culture, and it was far too complex to be particularly fun. So that's still a work in progress. But I do wish that there was some third part of your origin that allows for some rich linkage between the worldbuilding and the character.
Where are my Wizard Subclasses?
Obviously, any rules revision is going to mean paring back. Despite a lot of the outrage online, I get why Artificers are not included. They came from a supplement. It sucks that you'd have to buy a new supplement for a revised artificer, but I get it. I understand that not every published class and subclass from the 2014 rules are going to make it into the 2024 update or else the book would be truly monstrous in length.
But it did confuse me when the Wizard had only four subclasses in the 2024 Player's Handbook: Abjurer, Evoker, Illusionist, and Diviner. It's not like there are not Necromancy wizard spells--those still exist--but there's no Necromancer subclass. There's no features that support being a necromancer, specifically, which means playing a wizard necromancer means being an evoker/abjurer/diviner/illusionist who knows necromancy spells.
I don't think all the supplementary subclasses like the Order of Scribes need to be included, but I am sad that 2014 core subclasses that are tied to specific, still-present schools of magic are gone. There's no Scribes spells; there are enchantment and conjuration spells, and so it feels strange to me that those are not represented by the arcane academic character class.
That said, people have already released DMsGuild, 3rd-party versions of those lost subclasses. (This is not an endorsement of those products; I haven't even bought it – just saying it is out there). But I don't really want to have to use a third party option quite so right-off-the-bat.
Conclusion
Do the things I like in the 2024 PHB mean that I'm going to exclusively play D&D? No. Does the fact that I like some of the changes outweigh all of Wizards of the Coast's long train of bad behavior (from AI use in multiple cases despite promises not to, to their CEO being very obviously out of touch from the player base--I mean, having 30 players all of which use AI? That makes me think he has never actually played D&D--, to their use of the Pinkertons, to the whole Open Game License debacle) and make me trust them as a company again or want to support them financially? Also no.
Do I think that, if I do return to D&D for a long campaign at some point – which I think depends on how I enjoy my ongoing exploration of some other system, as well as what genre of campaign I decide to run next once my short-term exploring wraps up – that I will give the 2024 rules a shot? Probably. Probably still with a whole lot of homebrew (ex: handling species/cultures/background in a new homebrewed way), and taking parts of the 2014 rules that I liked, and taking some inspiration from other D&D-adjacent games like Tales of the Valiant, but I can definitely seeing myself use the 2024 rules as my base for the system.
Or at least I'll be lifting the 2024 equipment section.