D&D 2014 Player's Handbook (Dungeons & Dragons Core Rulebook)

tl;dr: This is a great new edition, and I recommend it to almost anyone.I've spent at least some time with every edition of D&D since 1e and Red Box Basic, which I played as a kid. I missed most of the 2e era and I left 4e relatively early in its cycle, but I spent a ton of time playing 1e and 3e. I also have a little bit of exposure to old school revival (OSR) rules that harken back to earlier Original D&D rules. 5e captures a lot of what I like about all of the above.5e continues the trend dating back to 2e (with THACO) of simplifying the math underlying the game. Almost everything in the game is an ability check -- pick the relevant ability score, add the bonus from that score to the result of a d20, and try to beat some number that represents the difficulty of the check. Proficiencies provide bonuses, having the advantage or disadvantage in a situation changes the odds, there's a few stray bonuses here and there, and that's pretty much it. The whole core of the game works on that mechanic -- attacks, saving throws, attempting to perform actions (with or without a relevant skill), pretty much everything. It's fantastic.4e marked a major philosophical change to make D&D more like a *game*, as traditionally understood. Balance in gameplay became one of the most important aspects, there was a relentless focus on combat tactics, character capabilities became systematized into (mostly combat) "powers", many rules revolved heavily around "squares" and board position, and aspects that undermined that kind of gameplay were intentionally weakened -- e.g. magic items, the ability to fly, completely open-ended spells, etc. It was as easy to role play the game as ever, but things like the Encounters series of play sessions in gaming shops and the reuse of the rules in the D&D board games like Castle Ravenloft made it clear that role playing wasn't as integral to the rules, and the portion of the rules devoted to campaign play outside of specific encounters was scant at best. People who loved the tactical aspect of the game generally love 4e.For those people, 5e is going to be a step back, at least for now. The open-ended aspects of the game get a ton of love and none of the minis/squares/board position-based tactics make it into the PHB. If that's your thing, you won't like 5e at this point. My guess is that there will be further books that add back the same tactical depth, so you may yet end up really liking 5e, but for now, there's not that much for you here.Instead we get a return to "theater of the mind" (TOTM) gaming as the default assumption, where you imagine what's going on where your characters are and probably have a small map of the layout, but you don't move little minis around on a board or dungeon tiles or whatever. You could still play that way if you like it, but the game doesn't give you special rule support the way it did in 4e. Instead, the focus of the game rules is shifted to starting with players trying whatever actions they feel like (which need not be specific things the game designers have thought of in advance), and using the ability check mechanic to resolve it. Specific types of actions you may get you better bonuses because you're using a weapon you're good with or you have a relevant skill that means you're trained in that kind of action, but if what you want to do is swing a monkey by his tail and throw him into the mouth of the angry dragon, all the DM has to do is establish a difficulty and have you roll a (Dexterity, presumably) check to try it -- no power cards required. As far as I'm concerned, this is a huge win for imagination, and the fact that the game really tries to lay out that you can do whatever you can think of is fantastic, and shows they've learned key lessons from the OSR movement.We also get a return of focus to the campaign as a whole, as we see from the wonderful chapter on equipment. There's plenty of typical dungeon equipment and some obvious extras like artisan's tools for various trades, but it continues by telling you how much it costs to live in town (depending on the style in which you live, with details on what the different kinds mean), the price of various vehicles and riding and draft animals, the going rates for various trade goods, the cost of hiring different kinds of servants, and more. There have certainly been game supplements that have gone into even more detail in the past, but to put this much detail into the PHB itself really emphasizes how much focus there is on making the game world feel like a real place that your character is a part of -- this is by far the best this has ever been handled in a core rulebook in any edition.The other really fanstastic thing is the focus on making your character more that just a set of stats. There's a whole chapter on personality and character background that's a quantum leap over anything they've done in a PHB in the past. There are a variety of different kinds of background -- some examples are noble, soldier, guild artisan, hermit, criminal, sailor, folk hero, outlander. There's also variations on many of them (e.g. guild merchant for guild artisan), and specific encouragement to work with the DM on a custom background if you have a different idea. Every background gets two skills, one or more tool proficiency, and a special feature, such as guild membership or the ability for sailors to secure free working passage on a ship. The traditional pre-4e alignment wheel is back, but every character also gets two personality traits, a goal, a bond that ties them to something in the world (their clan, an enemy, etc.), and a weakness. There are tables for all of those things tied to each background that you can select or roll from, but there's plenty of latitude to come up with your own. Good role players already did a lot of work like this on their characters before any rules showed up in the rulebook like this, but this is a fantastic tool for new players, less character-focused players, or anyone trying to think of ideas for their latest character.The rules section of the book also does a good job building rules for social encounters and for general exploration of dungeons and the world at large, without resorting to gimmicks like 4e's skill challenges, which meant well, but turned something open-ended into something a little too mechanical. Combat will always be an important part of the rule system, but in 5e, it's just a part of a larger whole.Lest you think this is completely anti-4e, one strong thing 5e preserves is having different character tracks within each class, a real innovation over 3e. In 3e, you could build a really nice custom character, but you had to do it with complicated multiclassing approaches, careful study of skill levels and feat trees, etc. A lot of people like that kind of work, but it was *definitely* work. 4e had different class builds, paragon paths, and power selection such that you could make a character your own by making simpler decisions that didn't require a ton of upfront planning to nab the right prerequisites or take things in the order you wanted. 5e retains this. Different wizard schools and cleric domains are folded in as paths within the class that give you interestingly different gameplay, e.g. depending on whether you want to play a cleric that attacks mainly with spells or with weapons. There's a simple build of fighter designed for "I hit it with my sword" beginner players, but also a build that offers a choice of various combat maneuvers, and an Eldritch Kinght that can cast spells. Rogue comes with paths for standard thief, assassin, and arcane trickster -- no prestige class required. Wizards also get a simpler version of Vancian magic, and high-level wizards lose the unbalanced ability to lob 20 devastating area of effect spells in a row at their enemies (sorry, Wizard enthusiasts). There's a stealth path for monks for players who want to build ninjas.Interestingly, feats are an optional rule, and even if you play with them you don't have to select them. At various times depending on class, your character can add two points to ability scores (to a max of 20 on any given score). If you prefer, you can take a feat instead. You can do this once, or do it every time. This not only makes for an interesting tradeoff, it means feats can be incredibly powerful. You can learn to cast ritual magic like a member of a different class as a feat. You can pick up two of the fighter maneuvers for a non-fighter character with a feat. You can use a single feat to pick up 2 cantrips, 3 skills, or 3 languages plus cyphering. You can really customize the feel of your character by spending a single feat, but beginners don't have to worry about them, and nobody has to worry about keeping track of complicated feat trees and prerequisites.Multiclassing is an optional rule, and it's more flexible that the original (fake) multiclassing options in 4e but not as crazy as it was in 3e, because there are rules on what you get if you just dip into a second class for a level or two. I'm sure there are specific character concepts people will want to make with multiclassing, but overall, it feels a lot less necessary than it did in 3e, and a lot less unbalancing.There's definitely a focus on the core 4 races and core 4 classes, but other races from Gnome to Tiefling to Dragonborn (who are listed as not existing in every game world) are represented, and classes from Barbarian to Paladin to Warlock are here as well. I think they've captured the essence of each of these races and classes well, and this feels like a really polished product that people who like virtually any edition can come to and find a way to capture what they liked about the characters and gameplay of that edition (again, tactical 4e players notwithstanding, for now).There's a great ability to adapt this from pretty simple, streamlined games to much more in-depth ones. If you prefer using the general action-resolution system over keeping track of a ton of character abilities, you could download the free version of the rules and maybe buy a monster manual and play a streamlined, OSR-influenced game happily for years. If you like lots of options for building out your character, there's a ton here for you, and I'm sure there will be plenty more to come in forthcoming splat books. Houserule different healing rules and such (options the forthcoming DMG is likely to lay out for you), and you could play anything from a gritty, inches-from-death style game remininscent of OD&D or 1e to a game that makes you feel invincible as long as you play intelligently like 4e can. When you consider all the ways the rules have improved, 5e could easily fulfill WotC's hopes and become a lingua franca for D&D fans of all the various editions to migrate to and find common ground. Considering the quality of the materials they're releasing, I hope they succeed.

I play 3.5 and love/hate it. Mostly I love it but sometimes the rules get me frustrated when all I want to do is role-play and I need like 3 skills, a feat, and I have to make like 3 checks just to jump over a table (before anybody posts, this is an exaggeration - but my DM would force me to make at least a jump and balance check).BUT, all the rules, and books, and home-brew stuff (and pathfinder) are also great. There is a rule for everything, even some that make no sense, but hey, there's a rule for that. And yet 3.5 remains incredibly flexible, and breakable, but then the DM rolls out broken monsters and its great. Never really played 2nd or 1st edition but some people really like em'. 3.5 didn't replace them and 5th edition didn't replace 3.5.3.5 is still out there and will continue to be played and remains a very easy system to adapt and modify.But 3.5 isn't always easy system to play, and 5th is. And that's a good thing.Because 5th edition DOES replace 4th IMHO. If you are going to make the game easier to play, don't focus on combat, which 4th edition did. But 5th edition focuses on role-play, the whole point of DND for me personally. Role-play and play freedom, let me explain.5th edition IS streamlined (major overhaul, skills pretty much gone - A/C is super simple - no more 5 foot steps, modifiers are much reduced) and it has game mechanics that promote role-play and even tables for rolling traits, bonds, and even flaws (personality, not physical) such as, "if there is a plan you forget or ignore it." Do you have to follow this? No, but if you do you gain inspiration points that give you advantage on a roll. Basically you get to roll 2 dice. The math on rolling two dice is a lot simpler than, mod here, ranks this, plus misc. mod this equals... Now it boils down to, 2 is better than one. All of this serves to make the game a lot more approachable to new players, but not by trying to sell them on combat (like 4e did) which will never work because none of us play the game for combat (or at least no one I know).If you want streamlined combat well... video games are making millions (maybe billions?) of dollars a year for a reason.But why does tabletop gaming have it all over video games though? Freedom to do ANYTHING. 3.5 gave us one kind of freedom (I can't speak of 2nd edition or anything earlier) by giving us a huge amount of rules and options to draw from that if you were willing to commit yourself to learning, provided literally limitless options. COmbat was fun in this context because you came up with some bizare cross-class with certain feats and items that allowed you to do something unique and interesting and power (sometimes totally broken).5th edition gives us a different kind of freedom with much simplified rules that are more intuitive. All checks match to an ability (even saves) proficiency makes it much more intuitive for the lay person too. You want to jump over that table? Roll 1d20, plus dex modifier (obviously). Are you proficient, add 2, done. One roll, make it? Cool. It's also easier on the DM. I would feel comfortable DMing 5th edition and I am trying to talk my friends into trying it out with me because I think they could handle the system and would enjoy knowing what the hell they were doing. I have been selling my friends on table-top rpgs for years on the basis that "you can do literally anything" but I have done a lot of the math for them. Now I think they could handle their own characters stats. Also,I think the role-play rules will be great for my friends who are reluctant to come out of their shells right away.It's not always about breaking the game, and WOTC has clearly tried to unbreakable a lot of things and put rational floors and ceilings (and reduce min-maxing). Yes, it feels more limited in this fashion, but it sucks in 3.5 when one player has an A/C of 31 and everyone else in the party has an A/C around 20. 5th edition reduces this possibility by reducing possibilities, but that opens up the world to your imagination over thinking only in terms of game mechanics. This is good for people who don't want to spend hours thinking about character creation and just want to play and not be told, sorry, you can't climb that because you don't have ranks in climb.I know that pathfinder addressed some of these issues but that is still more "hardcore" that 5th edition IMHO.And that's a good thing! If you don't have friends that you would like to game with who aren't into all the rules or are intimidated by RPGs, or you have never thought to yourself, man I just want to jump in and play instead of looking-up specifics half the time, then ignore this reivew (and this edition).If you are perfectly happy with 3.5 and/or pathfinder, awesome. It's not going anywhere. I know I will keep playing both.But 5th edition is a happy addition to my shelf (where 4th was not) because it offers a different way to play the game, and a system that is very good in my opinion; the care, and play-testing really shows!Are there problems? Yes, the dragon-born draconic bloodline sorcerer thing is weird... Also dragonborn seem a little broken to me compared to other races, although all the races have received some love. I really enjoy the specifics of forest versus rock gnomes, hill dwarves versus mountain dwarves, and the flavor text is great!Do I need the book to give me little blurbs on dwarf racial characteristics, what they are like, how they treat other races? No. But it's fun, and immersive. Do I need the book to give me sub-race characteristics? No, I could (or the DM could) do that on my/her own right. Could I streamline 3.5 rules? Yes, but I would probably spend a lot of time getting the kinks out. I've tried actually. But hey, do I eve need any book at all? I could just make up all the rules! I could completely invent my own game! And I bet it wouldn't be half as good as this one.And in terms of what you pay for, it's great to get a flavor text, and a pretty complete system (I could DM a game right out of the PHB, there are even monsters in the back!) and the art!The art is truly the best I have seen! I love to flip through the older books for the art, I am dorky like that. And 3.5 has some good art, and some is, OK. Pathfidner had a great art style IMHO. But the art in this edition raises the bar! and it is well integrated onto each highly readable page. I would like to note that I appreciate the lack of chain-mail bikinis. Once again, I am trying to get MORE of my friends to play, not fewer. The art would attract many and offend few. Which is a good thing.So, in terms of what you pay for, good system, good layout, immersive flavor text and play ideas, and amazing art across every page. And it's complete enough you could DM right out of the PHB. At 50 bucks it's a good deal, at 30 its a steal!But best of all, 3.5 still exists! But this edition makes the tabletop gaming library more versatile and appealing. IF you think that's a good thing, and want to try a new take on a great game, I highly recommend this edition (for what it is - which isn't 3.75).If your happy with what your playing. Then happy gaming!