Looking Back at 2024
The 2024 release schedule was a little odd. With the impending release of the 2024 rules and the 50th anniversary of Dungeons and Dragons, the last few pieces of 2014 content were part send-off and part celebration of DnD’s storied history.
Vecna: Eve of Ruin – May, 2024
The first high-level adventure published for 5e, Vecna: Eve of Ruin takes players on a plane-hopping adventure to foil a plot by Vecna, evil god of secrets, to remake the universe in his image. We reviewed it on the RPGBOT.Podcast and liked it a lot. Facing a villain dating back to DnD’s early days and meeting some major characters along the way was a fun romp.
[Spoilers] The reception to the adventure was middling. Many players felt that Vecna’s extremely late appearance in the module was unsatisfying, and Vecna’s stat block wasn’t suitably challenging for a party of level 20 adventurers. I still think it’s an exciting boss fight if the GM uses the battle map appropriately, but I haven’t gotten to test it yet.
Quests from the Infinite Staircase – July 2024
A 5e update for 7 classic adventures dating back to DnD’s earliest days, this was another adventure anthology in the vein of Tales from the Yawning Portal. Adventures are nominally linked together by travel through the Infinite Staircase, but they’re functionally independent.
Among these updated adventures is Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, the first official DnD adventure to introduce science fiction elements like laser pistols and robots to DnD. We reviewed it on the RPGBOT.Podcast and had a lot of fun with it.
2024 DnD Player’s Handbook – September, 2024
After over a year of OneDnD playtest documents, people were nervous about the new Player’s Handbook. The DnD design team took some big swings during the playtest, and responses were mixed. The final version made a lot of exciting improvements, and folks are mostly happy with the changes.
There are certainly some rough edges, but there have also been some great improvements. If nothing else, Weapon Mastery is really fun, and the Monk is really good now.
2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide – November, 2024
The 2014 Dungeon Master’s guide had a lot of issues, and most players rarely saw a need to open it for anything other than magic items. The 2024 DMG attempts to make it more of a go-to resource, and it certainly made some improvements in that respect. Initial responses have been largely positive, and the newly-added sections are excellent additions.
But the new Dungeon Master’s Guide is nowhere near perfect. Most of the book is disorganized, a huge amount of content from the 2014 DMG was cut, and some frequently repeated promises were not delivered upon. Most notably, magic items prices are still nonsense, and the promised update to the monster creation rules is now just “reskin it, change a couple traits, and give it a new name” rather than an actual robust solution for designing new monsters.
As of this writing, the 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide is also suffering significant delays with international shipping. Players in our Discord community outside of the US have reported that their local game stores had their promised supply of books repeatedly delayed, then had the amount drastically reduced to the point that stores couldn’t fulfill preorders.
2025 DnD Releases
Much of the information below was announced in the D&D Direct video published in September of this year.
2024 DnD Monster Manual – February 18th, 2025
The 2024 Monster Manual releases in 2025. According to the designers, we’re going to see 80 new monsters, and all of the monsters have reevaluated to ensure that their stats appropriately match their CR. The variance in monsters’ strength compared to their CR was a major pain point in the 2014 rules, so I’m hoping that the math will be a little tighter.
We’ve seen a few new stat blocks on DnDBeyond (the Dire Wolf was used to show the new stat block format), in the Player’s Handbook (familiars), and in the Dungeon Master’s Guide. So far, I’ve noticed only minor changes to existing monsters, though the sample set is tiny and exclusively low CR.
Dragon Anthology – Summer, 2025
Going back to the game’s conceptual roots, this adventure anthology is expected to include 10 adventures involving fighting dragons inside dungeons. That iconic scene has been a staple of D&D art since its early days, and I’m excited to see it return to prominence.
New Starter Set – Fall, 2025
Lost Mine of Phandelver is, to this day, one of the most widely-played adventures in DnD, in part because of the massive growth of the hobby since 5e’s release. Despite publishing both the Essentials Kit and the Stormwreck Isle starter set, Lost Mine of Phandelver remains the go-to entry point into DnD.
The designers have promised a return to the Keep on the Borderlands and the Caves of Chaos. The iconic adventure B2: The Keep on the Borderlands was originally published in December of 1979, and has remained iconic since then. The Caves of Chaos (part of the B2 adventure) were used as part of the “D&D Next” playtest leading up to 5e’s release.
With a new starter set on the horizon, we may finally see something supplant Lost Mine of Phandelver as that singular introductory experience shared by a huge portion of the player base. The Keep on the Borderlands held that space for a long time, and it’s entirely possible that it will do so again.
Forgotten Realms Player Guide
Prior to 5th edition, setting books were common. When a setting was brought into an edition, there would typically be a campaign guide, such as the 3e Eberron Campaign Guide, then there would be a player’s guide and supplements would expand upon specific peoples, locations, and themes within the setting. DMsGuild lists 21 3e/3.5 products for Eberron, and 3.x lasted just 8 years compared to 5e’s 10. By comparison, settings in 5e got one book which often committed half of its page count to an adventure, as they did with Acquisitions Incorporated, Eberron, Ravnica, Spelljammer, and Strixhaven.
The DnD design team knows that setting books have been missed in 5th edition. Many players have no exposure to pre-5e content, and the only setting book we got for the Forgotten Realms, nominally 5e’s default setting, was the Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide. One of the earliest supplements for 5e, SCAG was also the smallest book published for 5e. People have been asking for more for nearly a decade, and we’re finally getting it.
The new Forgotten Realms Player Guide (which will likely have a more adventurous title) promises to include new subclasses, new spells, new types of spells (no further details on this yet), and information on factions in the setting.
While we have very few details, I’m hoping that we see updates to the character options presented in the Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide. Subclasses like the Sun Soul Monk had some fun ideas, but were mechanically underwhelming. Giving them the 2024 treatment could make them playable. I’m also excited to see what these “new types of spells” are.
Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide
The Forgotten Realms is a huge setting. Ed Greenwood has been writing in the realms since 1987, making it slightly older than I am, and, with decades of lore and iconic characters, there’s a ton to explore. Ed Greenwood has a very active Youtube account where he explores specific lore topics.
But exploring decades of novels, setting books from previous editions, and hundreds of hours is inaccessible to most players, and many of those legacy products might not hold up to today’s sensibilities. A fresh look at the setting promises an entry point for players who haven’t been in the hobby for 15+ years, plus a long-awaited exploration of huge portions of the Forgotten Realms that haven’t seen attention in far too long.
And Now, We Wait
With some exciting products on the horizon, but few specific details, I’m excited to see what we’ll get from WotC in 2025. For now, we’re still hard at work exploring the updated classes, species, feats, and everything else that the 2024 Player’s Handbook and Dungeon Master’s Guide have to offer.
Look forward to reviews of all of the upcoming products on the RPGBOT.Podcast as soon as we can get our hands on them.
Hopefully the provide an (unlikely) update in the form of a free guide to fix the blatantly broken mechanics. There’s no way Backgrounds were tested or received well. If you’re not playing with one of two MAYBE three backgrounds (see the RPGBot Barbarian recommendations as a generous variety relative to other classes), then you’re picking a deficiency in the name of theme. Tasha’s and Mordekeinen’s fixed problem mechanics. Then less than two years later they’re breaking their own game. So supplements repairing these glaring issues would just be seen as a cash grab.