Highlights
- DnD 5e is getting a major update in 2024, focusing on tougher monsters, support for martial classes, and sensitivity changes.
- High-CR monsters will be revamped, supporting high-level play, while martial classes will receive boosts to balance game mechanics.
- The revision will address sensitive topics, adjusting depictions of monsters and classes to be more culturally inclusive.
Dungeons and Dragons is on track for a major overhaul later this year, with the TTRPG's three core books getting revisions. Though fans will have to wait for a few months longer for the first of these volumes, a lot is already known about the next evolution of Dungeons and Dragons.
While DnD isn't moving to an entirely different edition, its fifth edition is getting a rules update. Late 2024 will see new core DnD books in the form of the Player's Handbook and the Dungeon Master's Guide. February 2025 will complete the set with the revised Monster Manual, something that recent 5e books have already set the groundwork for. In fact, many of the changes in the 2024 update to DnD 5e are codifications of ways in which the system has evolved over its decade of life, as well as popular house rules that can be adapted into the base rules.
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What DnD Fans Can Expect From The Game's 2024 Update
Tougher, Revised Monsters
High-level DnD is hard to run, not only thanks to how many powerful options players (especially spellcasters) get at the upper tiers of play, but how comparatively weak monsters are at that level. The famous example of this in DnD 5e is the Tarrasque, a monster with the highest challenge rating in the game (CR 30). Despite this, its lack of ranged attack makes it an incredibly vulnerable target; a 1st level fighter with a +1 bow and a flying speed could kill the Tarrasque after a while.
Designers have been on record about not only making high-CR monsters tougher in DnD 2024, but giving more options at those tiers as well; this means that creature types like ooze, beast, and more will be getting monster entries that can face off with high-level parties. Moreover, basic stat blocks like the cultist will get high-CR variants to keep up with the players' advancement. In addition, recent 5e modules can inform the upcoming changes to monsters; Eve of Ruin's Vecna hints at the replacement of legendary actions with multiple reactions. That statblock and other monsters also suggest that future spellcasting monsters will see some simplification for ease-of-use.
More Support For Martial Classes And Dungeon Masters
Though it may be an excellent game already, some of the known changes to DnD 5e are long overdue. This includes a more robust Dungeon Master's Guide. The 2014 version focuses too much on big-picture world-building for many, so the revised edition will include advice on running a first-time adventure and how to develop the bones for a longer campaign. Moreover, the book will come with instructions for running a session zero, something that's so far only officially available in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything.
The 2024 DnD Player's Handbook, on the other hand, will be giving a leg-up to martial classes. Barbarians, monks, fighters, and rogues are all a good degree weaker than full/half casters, something that the community has long griped about and homebrewed solutions for. It's unknown so far whether the final versions of these martial classes will patch up these problems, but playtests have produced a good idea for those following. Monks in particular will get a notable rework, while classes like the fighter will get 'weapon masteries' for a decent power boost.
Sensitivity Changes
DnD has something of a sketchy record on sensitive subjects, with its fifth edition alone getting into controversies surrounding the colonial influences in some of its descriptions. Fortunately, the revision will patch over any of these issues. Monsters like goblins and orcs now won't be suggested to be inherently evil, while DnD 2024's art will include more non-European depictions of classes as well as non-Asian depictions of the monk.
Dungeons and Dragons
Created by Gary Gygax, Dungeons & Dragons is a tabletop game in which players craft their own worlds and band together to take on adventures through mysterious realms outlined in companion materials. One of the best role-playing games ever made, it has been adapted into a variety of video games and other media.
- Franchise
- Dungeons & Dragons
- Original Release Date
- 1974-00-00
- Publisher
- Wizards of the Coast
- Designer
- E. Gary Gygax , Dave Arneson
