2024 PHB Character Changes, Pt. 1
It's Fighting Time: Barbarian, Fighter, Monk, Rogue
It’s been a quiet time on the blog front. Some of that is for personal reasons. A lot of that is because I’m wrapping up the campaign that began as “let’s use a level 6-8 version of Lost Mine of Phandelver to playtest 2024 PHB character options” that sprawled into a level 6-12 campaign to take us until the new book was finally released, then have a fitting conclusion. My players are now in the Shadowfell, chasing after a hobgoblin queen wearing an intelligent beholder crown artifact.
For as much as we playtested the various options, many of which made it into the final 2024 Player’s Handbook more or less as-is, I still wanted to give it some time to digest before writing because there’s a lot going on here.
As it so happens, I’ve got at least one character from just about every class made using standard character creation options. They are from what some would consider a high magic item environment, but I have found that players like magic items and WotC books are incredibly stingy about magic items in this edition. I think some of it is an overcorrection from prior editions, some is a misguided notion of trying to make it easier to build encounters by assuming no magic items. Remember that the 2024 DMG’s Bastion system is likely to make it easier for players to get more magic items of their choice. This seems like the most subtle but valuable addition to what I’ve heard so far from the DMG. (I was hoping for a chapter on herding and managing different types of players.)
As we get into characters, we’ve got to make a couple of assumptions:
Characters get to use the following magic items:
Level 1-4: 1 Uncommon and 1 Common
Level 5-10: Up to 3 Rare & Uncommon combined, more common
Level 11-16: Up to 6 Very Rare, Rare, and Uncommon combined
Level 17-20: Up to 10 items of any rarity.
All characters get a custom background with an origin feat, two skills, and a tool of their choice along with allocating ability scores. No character could use the limited starting backgrounds printed in the book. Also, I want to keep characters who have fun backgrounds like “Self Described Goblin Noble” and “Tourist Trap Operator”
The restrictions of "Exotic" languages and table of more common languages don’t make sense for the Forgotten Realms, where these characters are from. In the Forgotten Realms, Halfling is a Rare language restricted to Halfling cluture, not one of the world’s more common languages. As someone who studied sociololinguistics in graduate school, it’s clear that a game designer thought of a d12 table instead of what makes sense for the worlds of WotC’s published adventures over the last 10 years.
I’m going to start with the barbarian, fighter, monk, and rogue as the four classes that don’t use any magic by default. It’s probably easier to group them together than to have one loooong posting for all of the character classes.
This means making an additional assumption about Weapon Mastery. In all the games I DMed, players had their preferred magic weapons and stuck to them. When Weapon Mastery was first introduced, my players had +1 weapons. I allowed players to take +1 weapons of other types to test weapon mastery and then didn’t. The only thing close to an exception to this behavior I’ve seen in over a year was in my last fight, where giant skeletons were resistant to all piercing damage and vulnerable to all bludgeoning damage. After seeing the vulnerability and attacking with a spear, one of my barbarians decided to just make unarmed attacks.
Additionally, the main Weapon Masteries players have used are Nick, Push, Slow, and Topple. Topple has proven to be quite cumbersome, as I have to roll 2-3 Constitution saving throws per turn. Vex was used once and forgotten by the next turn in our large group.
[UPDATE]: For other character classes:
Here is Paladin, Ranger, melee Warlock
Here are arcane casters
Here are more support casters, including bard
Barbarian
The barbarian in the 2024 Player’s Handbook is pretty much the same as the playtest versions, so I have seen this class for over a year. The biggest change is Rage being maintained as a bonus action. We’ve mainly done modified dungeon crawls, kicking in doors and fighting the enemies of the week since I was DMing a campaign with no set end point as I waited for the next DM to be ready to take over. The new Rage is noticeably stronger in that type of game, as it lasts for multiple fights.
Personally, I’m ambivalent about Rage being a pre-cast buff if you know enemies are behind that door. It feels terrible when you roll badly on Initiative as a Barbarian and get hammered before you can rage, but the pre-cast buff is a very different feel for immersion that didn’t test well for one player.
I hate the final wording of Primal Knowledge. It's too easy for the barbarian to be exceptional at a set of skills, outshining other members of the party when they Rage. You’re going to see some examples. This may not be much of a concern in four player parties where there's less skill overlap. However, the chance of stepping on someone's toes increases exponentially with each player. In my experience, no matter how mature players are and how well they get along, resentment still lingers.
Last, Brutal Strike has proven to be a headache as I DM online. When Brutal Strike does one thing, Weapon Mastery does another, and the World Tree barbarian does a third thing, it slows things down. The slowdown gets much worse online because every online player I’ve DMed clicks through attacks fast but these different features require the player to slowly describe all the different things they are doing. It can also be too easy for the barbarian to push and slow a melee-only monster to neutralize them for a turn without a saving throw. I started having to give them weaker ranged attacks to make sure they’d still have actions.
Lady Lucinda
Goblin Ancestral Barbarian 7 / Mastermind Rogue 3.
Lucinda's tribe sent her off to scout a lone elf wandering his way through the Chultan jungle. She thought this was likely a suicide mission, so she hid and watched the elf (my warlock Gerald) fireball the rest of her tribe when they attacked him. Gerald found her hiding and offered to take her back to Port Nyanzaru as part of his new dinosaur racing team. It turns out he was a cult leader whose promise of prosperity was superficial. However, Lady Lucinda took it seriously, envisioning herself as a leader of a new Batiri goblin tribe who invests in education, trade, and civilized relations with neighbors. The ancestor spirits she brings with her Spirit Shield are sacrificial goblins.
2014 PHB Rating: 10. I like my barbarians to be tanks first, not strikers. Lady Lucinda excels at that role while having good utility and the ability to Help others as a bonus action. That Help action is a great way to share the spotlight with less powerful characters at conventions. She's got a lot of powerful magic items but is so full of support abilities for a barbarian that she plays very well with others at conventions, as opposed to other barbarians with lots of items more focused on damage.
2024 PHB Rating: 9. Not much changes for Lucinda. The Sap weapon mastery on her sun blade could get very annoying for DMs because if she hits with her first attack while raging, the target has disadvantage on its next attack roll targeting anyone along with the marking, which is a lot to remember. I don't think I'm going to tell my DM I don't have Sap most of the time to lower the cognitive load on them. Lucinda gets extremely good at Perception (+13 with advantage) and great at Stealth or Survival (+9 with advantage) when Raging, both of which feel excessive.
I’m not going to address the broader issues of the new Hide rule or oddity with lockpicking here. See the Rogue.
Jasper Hilltopple
Stout Halfling. Zealot Barbarian 10 / Thief Rogue 4 / Fighter 2)
Jasper found Ubtao and followed the protector of Chult at level 5, and I started playing him with some paladin vibes ever since. He's happy to tell you he's a member of the Harpers, since he serves as their loud and annoying distraction while more subtle agents do their work. Since he often had to serve as the face for a party lacking in social skills, I gave him expertise in Persuasion with the Rogue multiclass at level 11, then eventually rebuilt him from having 4 fighter levels to 4 rogue levels. He now believes Ubtao lives inside his bag of devouring.
2014 PHB Rating: 8. Jasper was lots of fun to play when I want to play an instigator and troll and don't want to worry as much about optimization. Jasper’s damage output held up until level 10 with a sword and shield but didn’t hold up in many level 11-16 games, so I switched to dual wielding. It did the job but was clunky because he’d have to spend a turn raging first, but his roleplay and skills became so much fun that I didn't mind.
2024 PHB Rating: 9. Jasper becomes far more dangerous in combat. His damage jumps from 48.5 to 64 the turn he enters Rage and from 64 to 80.5 on subsequent turns. The Nick property lets him attack a third time on his first turn and the Dual Wielder feat gives him a fourth attack as a bonus action on subsequent turns. The key to using Nick and Dual Wielder is to find additional dice of damage to do with an attack or persistent damage modifiers like Rage and a belt of giant strength.
These damage calculations assume an average of 7 damage a round from Sneak Attack, which is easier to get with Vex on the shortsword.
Instead of being considered a bit of a joke who punches above his weight, Jasper is now one of the top round-over-round damage dealers. Magic items make his to-hit bonus high enough that I don't anticipate using Reckless Attack much.
Because Dual Wielder now adds +1 to Dexterity, Jasper also gets Sentinel with +1 to Dexterity to keep the same ability score.
The Zealot gets stronger, with some self-healing and a slight bonus when rerolling saving throws. The bonus will certainly help with mental saving throws that would be too high of a DC at this level (even with a mantle of spell resistance and Resilient: Wisdom). The healing feels like an out of combat thing here.
Because the old Primal Knowledge gave another skill at 10th level, Jasper loses Intimidation but has all the other relevant skills. Jasper relies on a belt of fire giant strength so all of those extra skills would be at +12 and advantage while raging. That's better than any other class unless they can get Expertise and advantage. It's odd to be better than the rogue at Stealth and better than the cleric at Perception or Survival, but many skill challenges aren't too engaging by level 16. If it’s just about rolling dice to move on without penalty, I might as well be good at those dice rolls. Hopefully more characters being gret at skills will force adventure designers to be more creative.
For now, I'm keeping the Expertise in Athletics even though it doesn't do as much in combat. That needed to be toned down: a DC 20 save to avoid a grapple is good enough.
Jasper never hides. He ate the Xanathar's prized goldfish Sylgar then went around Waterdeep saying he did it. But if he ever had to hide, he can hide 75% of the time or 99 percent of the time while raging in combat as a bonus action with the new DC 15 Hide rule. Bear that in mind for the rogue.
Unfortunately, Jasper is going to lose some of his roleplay because WotC took away the Stout Halfling and I have to change. to a generic Halfling or something else For now, I'm going with Goliath as a protest. No more jokes about Jasper being able to lift 10 times his body weight.
New Barbarian Ideas
My first barbarian was one of my first characters. He was a traditional half-orc heavy weapon user. However, his roleplay of not understanding money was a bad fit for conventions and game stores (other players would try to take his share of the gold). He also got way too lucky with Great Weapon Master / Reckless Attack critical hits, ending some fights too early.
With the new Great Weapon Master, I’d like to go back to a more traditional heavy weapon barbarian. I’ve played one in a few one shots, an Owlin named Hootie who was a librarian at Strixhaven and really wants you to bring those overdue books back. I made him a zealot of literacy. He’d probably emphasize offense, trying to get 18 Strength at level 4 with Great Weapon Master’s +1 to Strength and Resilient: Wisdom at 12. Look for a suitable weapon and it’s pretty simple.
The World Tree barbarian’s lower level abilities also speak to how I like tanky / supportive barbarians. However, I’d need to think about a weapon mastery combo at level 10 and higher to not frustrate the DM. Maybe I try a traditional Polearm Master for the first time here? In Bigby’s there are giant guardians of the World Tree, so maybe I go with a goliath or firbolg here.
Fighter
I have never played a character whose main class is Fighter. It's too hard for me to come up with roleplay and personality without any noncombat features. However, I have DMed for multiple fighters through the PHB revisions and the playtest fighter is very close to the final fighter.
Making Second Wind a long rest ability and getting one back on a short rest has been wonderful for everyone. My players are all optimizers so my fights tend to be deadlier than what you’d find in a published adventure. There’s a real split in durability between martial characters and casters. The fighters and barbarian or barbarians in my group get attacked a lot. Second Wind helps cushion that tanking burden significantly. Indomitable’s boost to the saving throw on the reroll is necessary for them to make most mental saving throws.
The Eldritch Knight replacing an attack with a cantrip is very much appreciated.
None of the fighters have figured out how to use all those weapon mastery choices. They were excited when it looked like the 2024 PHB dropped language requiring an action to equip or remove a shield, which is needed to get the most out of Weapon mastery.
As much as I like the new fighter features, it’s still hard to get the imagination sparking to play one.
Monk
The new monk got a ton of changes in playtesting and those changes pretty much all made it into the final book. Because every comic may be someone’s first, here are the main changes:
The bonus action Unarmed Strike from Martial Arts no longer requires you to attack on your main action. This allows for a wider range of actions on your turn.
You can Disengage or Dash as a bonus action without using resources. You can Disengage and Dodge or Dash as a bonus action by spending a focus point. This helps a skirmisher but becomes a real opportunity cost at higher levels.
Once per day, you can regain all your Focus Points when you roll initiative.
Deflect Missiles now applies to melee attacks too. At level 13, it affects anything with an attack roll. It’s overwhelming for many games, like when WotC puts two monsters in a room.
Stunning Strike can only be used once per turn. DMs rejoice!
At level 10, you make 3 attacks with Flurry of Blows. I saw the monk use bonus action flurry, main action dodge during the playtest because that did more. Not using flurry of blows feels like a bigger opportunity cost.
You can grapple using Dexterity.
At level 18, you can just decide to activate the resistance to all damage mode at the start of your turn. Because high level fights take longer and people want to use high level abilities vs. going many sessions without a rest, this gets excessive.
Enna Erenaeth
Hill Dwarf Mercy Monk 16
Enna was a gifted young surgeon who started drinking due to the stress. She showed up drunk when treating an important client and killed him in a medical accident. She was barred from legitimate medical practice, but the Zhentarim mercenaries were happy to give her another chance. She didn't have to be coerced and started training in combat to do other mercenary work. Sometimes she worked with heroes, but in her last quest her party slew the guardian dragon turtle of Chult's Port Nyanzaru when he wouldn't free a captive. Now she's helping the Zhents take over protection.
2014 PHB Rating: 9. For the most part, monk isn't a class I enjoy. I don't like playing skirmishers. Stun heavy monks make DMs miserable. I initially tried Enna as a Drunken Master, then a Shadow Monk. Eventually, I found a way to rebuild Enna as a Mercy Monk (ideal thematically but not published when I made Enna). She had excellent magic items because I needed some way to use a Dwarven Thrower. I'd throw twice in melee with the Gunner feat, use Flurry of Blows with my free Hands of Harm, and do an average of 80.5 damage if all my attacks hit, never running out of Ki. I'd make sure to only play Enna at the right table, because her offense plus existing monk defenses and Hill Dwarf hit points was overwhelming for many DMs.
2024 PHB Rating: 10. The rich get richer! Enna loses Dedicated Weapon so she becomes a wood elf and grabs an Elven Thrower. Her damage jumps to 89.5 if all her attacks hit due to the 3rd attack from Flurry of Blows, without adding in the reduced use of Hand of Harm. She can add the Grappler feat because Speedy (the replacement for Mobile) adds +1 to an ability score. Grappler lets her force a creature to make a DC 20 saving throw against being grappled once per turn as part of her bonus action attacks. On a failed save, she has advantage on all four of her other attacks.
Deflect Energy lets her avoid 1d10+21 damage from a single attack roll every round unless her reactions are taken away, more than making up for the hit point loss from switching to elf. Last, she adds Sleight of Hand because elves get Perception for free and there’s weirdness about how that skill is intended to be used.
New Monk Ideas
The new Player’s Handbook did a lot for the monk base class. It’s still an odd fit for me and I think I’d need a specialized concept. Unfortunately, the revised monk subclasses feel like a fundamental failure of playtesting. More appropriately, they are a failure of WotC’s insistence to rely on a popular vote of people who may not have played the class or subclass as opposed to more rigorous testing.
As I’ve said before, the shadow monk’s new darkness which they can move and ability to see through it is great for the shadow monk but likely to screw over others in the party and/or make the DM miserable, particularly in WotC adventures’ narrow dungeon corridors.
The elements monk sounds cool in theory but feels clunky in execution. Extra reach is cool (I’ve DMed astral monks). Elemental damage is a ribbon. However, each attack forcing a Strength save vs. a push means 3-5 saves per round and the monk needs to know the result before they can finish their turn. Without this push, the elements monk is still pretty weak, although their 10th level fly speed is cool.
Rogue
My very first character for a one shot was a rogue. It was a one shot at the local game store. I just showed up not knowing anyone. Hide and shoot was easy. My second character was also a rogue. However, shoot then hide again was so effective that I didn’t get targeted by an attack from level 6 to level 9. I got bored! The more I played, the more I learned that rogues are not my thing. I tried making rogues that didn’t rely on hiding in combat, like an Inquisitive or a Swashbuckler, but they didn’t take either. I like having several characters with a simple, repeatable decision matrix but the rogue went a step too far by needing to set up Sneak Attack not having a plan B.
I moved on from rogues before Steady Aim. Spending a bonus action and movement to get advantage makes rogue life much easier for the player and for me as a DM. No more awkward adding cover to a battlefield for a rogue player. Cunning Strike should give the rogue more tactical flexibility, particularly as their damage does not stack up in many high level games. (8d6 sneak attack damage at level 16 is 28 damage; Jasper deals 64 damage minimum if all his attacks hit.)
That being said, I don't want to DM the 2024 Rogue at game stores or conventions. The new DC 15 Hide rule means a 65% chance to Hide as a bonus action at level 2, assuming Expertise and maximum Dexterity. This jumps to 80 percent at level 5, 95% at level 9, and 100% at level 13. If the rogue hides, I don't want to waste monster actions searching for the Rogue. Everyone else in the party will suffer more.
Game store and convention players aren’t always the most reasonable when it comes to line of sight, which becomes critical for hiding in these rules but isn’t fully defined. I remember one online charity event where the party was moving across rooftops to kill a necromancer on the docks so innocents could get on boats and escape. Wraiths chased after the party. A player tried to have their rogue duck behind a chimney for cover. I said OK, you hide from the necromancer on the ground, but not the wraith above your head. The player spent minutes arguing that their Stealth roll meant hiding from the wraith too!
Moving Reliable Talent to level 7 will make it harder to design level 7-10 adventures, as rogues can thwart many exploration challenges based on skills. However, parties without rogues need a more moderate challenge to succeed the adventure.
Last, thieves tools have a rules inconsistency. The thieves' tools tool says it is used to pick a lock, implying you need the tool proficiency and it adds your proficiency modifier to the check like any other tool. However, locks state that a Sleight of Hand check is required, making proficiency in thieves' tools far less useful.
Sleight of Hand is one of the least used skills in 5th Edition outside of certain home games. Now characters are forced to take an otherwise relatively useless skill to add their proficiency to lockpicking, an exception to all other tools in the game. If a character has the tool and the skill, they get advantage and lockpicking can get far too easy. I feel like they copied Baldur’s Gate 3, where you could always go to camp and tag in Astarion for Sleight of Hand, instead of seeing how this would work in pencil and paper D&D with a less flexible party.
Quarion
High Elf Arcane Trickster 13 / Bladesinger 7
Quarion was an arcane detective, helping the Waterdeep City Watch solve magical crimes, until he handed a controversial case and had to leave town as an adventurer. He was my second character and I haven’t played him since well before Covid so yeah, that’s the extent of the story.
2014 PHB Rating: 7 until getting Reliable Talent, then 2. Quarion was a good starting character. Easy to play—too easy as I got more experience. He was fun to roleplay because he assumed he rolled a 20 on all his skill checks, so when he rolled a 2 he'd confidently walk right into a trap. That was great early roleplay for me. When he got Reliable Talent, he couldn't fail like that anymore and his value faded. The bladesinger dip to add spice to his attack routine didn't work.
2024 PHB Rating: TBD. Quarion fell into a vorpal scimitar and cloak of invisibility, along with some other useful rogue items because I had to give some item to some character by a given date. I can rebuild him trying to get the most out of these items. Let's become a Scout (not available when I played Q) to go quickly and get two attacks. Add in Elven Accuracy and Speedy to get the most out of them and I have a basic combat plan. He's far more durable without needing high Intelligence. A level in fighter gives 5 to AC when carrying a shield and is better than the eventual rogue capstone. If I'm going to use Reliable Talent, I might as well get the Boon of Skill to have all the skills. This lets me take Alert as a starting feat and get +12 to Initiative.
As far as roleplay, Quarion is going to be inspired by Alice in Wonderland and have spent lots of time in the Feywild, having a warped vision of reality and expecting everything to play by the Feywild's rules.
New Character Ideas
I still have my feelings about the rogue so I probably wouldn’t leap into playing one at lower levels unless I know I am joining a skill heavy, combat light game which doesn’t already have a rogue. If I played that game, particularly if it was an intrigue heavy gme, the Soulknife is a natural fit. Skilled as a starting feat to leverage the knack for better skills, a ranged weapon I don’t have to carry so I can easily hide them if necessary. The new Defensive Duelist is quite good, as is Skulker. Other things about the character like ancestry would have to be campaign specific.