D&D: New Details About the 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide and Monster Manual Emerge
More news from the D&D Creator Summit, this time a look at what might lie in store for the 2024 editions of two other core rulebooks.
The D&D Creator Summit revealed many tantalizing details about the upcoming One D&D version of the new core rulebooks. We’ve seen a bit of what lies in store for the Player’s Handbook, and new details have emerged about the Dungeon Master’s Guide and Monster Manual.
As ever, these details all revolve around the idea that these are “updates to 5E” to be patched in live, rather than a new edition. Which still feels like a fancy way of saying “this is 5.5E” without actually saying it. Because words have meaning. And while the developers might not intend to release 5.5E, it still feels, at the very least like it’s 5.1E. Except we know it isn’t because the SRD is already D&D 5.1E. So maybe 5.2E.
New DMG and Monster Manual Details
Regardless of what the new core books in 2024 will actually be called, we do know a few things about what’ll be inside them. For starters, one of the “big reveals” is something that many designers in the community have been aware of for a long time. The CR calculation in the Dungeon Master’s Guide is incorrect. The math just straight up doesn’t work. You might not know because the DMG is the least read of the core rules.
J Craw: “The CR Calculation Guide in the DMG is wrong and does not match our internal CR calculation method.”
— Taron “Indestructoboy” Pounds (@Indestructoboy) April 4, 2023
But the new calculation should be more accurate. You can find a correct CR breakdown in Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition as well, as that was the formula used to improve the monsters in the A5E Monstrous Manual. But there’s more to the DMG than just fixed math.
The new DMG will feature a section on updated lore. One of the examples called out was a section to explain to players who Orcus is, for instance. Giving an expanded look at the setting might have more people reading through the DMG. This is also a chance to update the lore, since the information has changed, continues to change, and will likely be even different in 5.2E aka the Core Rules 2024 edition.
The revised DMG will also join the modern era of RPGs, in that it will have a section on session zeroes and RPG safety tools. It’s part of RPG culture in general, and that seems to have hit in the DMG. Finally, there’s going to be a magic item buy/sell guide, which is something the community has been hungering for since 2014.
As far as the new Monster Manual goes, much of the attention will be focused on creatures of CR 10 and above. Which is to say, it sounds like WotC is hoping people might actually play past CR 10. They want to have folks not be able to “steamroll” monsters at higher levels. We also know that there will be almost 500 monsters in it, which means it’s the biggest Monster Manual that D&D has ever seen. And that means higher-level monsters and more NPC stat blocks of a variety of spreads.
All this is in the 2024 edition of the core rules!
