Okay, I took the next step in my "New Edition" journey purchasing the 2024 5th Edition revisions edition of the Player's Handbook. A subset of our regular gaming group have been running straight 5th Edition since last April so I could familiarize myself with the rules, but just for the sole purpose of running the new 2024 revision version.
The new Player's Handbook is the same size, 8.5 x 11 inches, but has a quarter-inch more depth than the original 5th Ed. PBH and now runs 384 pages rather than 320. As my eyes are failing, but I still prefer not to wear my specs, the font is thicker - sort of a sub-bold - and much easier to read than the really tiny print in the earlier version. Thanks also for Wizards of the Coast making the page numbers and book section information in the footer much darker and easier to read than the prior edition.
I am just beginning to dig into the text (won't be running a game with the new book until next month) and I do find the character class sections easier to digest and especially more comfortable to find the info I need and skip over what I don't.
As to rule changes, the first obvious change is removing "Races," which as time has passed is certainly beyond its expiration date given the tragic way some folks continue to use race to compartmentalize and maintain their biases against others.
Here in the 2024 revisions "The peoples of the D&D multiverse hail from different worlds and include many kinds of sapient life forms."
The new Player's Handbook describes ten species for player characters: Aasimar, Dragonborn, Dwarf, Elf, Gnome, Goliath, Halfling, Human, Orc, and Tiefling. Interestingly, while each species provides a variety of mechanical bonuses and abilities, there are no species-related ability score modifications. All the ability score modifications come from a character's background no matter what the species-type.
There is a little conundrum I spied, in that members of different species should not be able to interbreed - literally from the dictionary definition of species is that members of the same species interbreed while members of different species cannot. This means no Half-elves or Half-orcs.
The work around if these half-species are required for your game is to use the stats from the earlier 5th Edition rules, or just merge the 2 species together as you see fit.
And that's about as far as I've gone. More to come (expecially after I actualy use the book in play).
