D&D nerdity

September 18, 2024 by
Filed under: RPG 

In case you forgot about the huge nerd thing, I got a copy of the 2024 Dungeons & Dragons Player’s Handbook.  I also obtained and read the play test material they have been putting out for a year or so before the release.  There are some good points to it. The changes to the classes are mostly actual improvements.  The Monk class got some much needed love, which is cool.

Don’t toss out your 2014 versions just yet though.  Part of the upgrade was to make the races (yes, they call them species now and I’m not offended by that…)less important in character generation.  You are no longer denying your sorcerer the highest level of min/maxing if you don’t start with a teifling.  The character origins/backgrounds picked up the slack.  Which is cool by me.

What does bother me is they really cut down on the level of detail on the various races.  Dwarves are just dwarves now.  Most of the “species” just have a single page dedicated to them.  Of course the bloody Elves get two pages.  In the 2014 book, there were multiple pages for each race, including detailed descriptions, examples of names (including regional variations, especially for the humans, since they spread all over the place), and other bits of detail that the role (as opposed to roll) players fornicating love. 

Now they did add several new species covered in the 2024 book, which is good, including Orcs. There are two glaring omissions from the 2014 book however.  Specifically Half-Orcs and Half-Elves.  Apparently racial purity is now a priority at Wizards of the Coast. 

They had a some rules (just a couple of paragraphs) in play test rules for mixed race humanoids, those rules are conspicuously missing from the 2024 book.  I know it’s a honking big book, and there were editorial decisions to be made, but we are really talking about two paragraphs.

One of the main NPCs in the incredibly popular video game Baldur’s Gate 3 is a half-elf.  Now you will have much wailing from the nerds about how they can’t play Shadowheart when the 2024 book gets a wider distribution. 

Enough on that rant. The webcomic Does Not Play Well with Others (http://www.doesnotplaywellwithothers.com/) has some excellent D&D based gags. Those focuses on the ongoing D&D sessions some of the main characters have with the aliens who live down the street.  I printed out this comic (https://www.doesnotplaywellwithothers.com/comic/pwc-0596) and inserted it at page 298 of the 2024 Player’s Handbook.  

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