The Free Rules document for 2024 has been released. I’ll be working through understanding the changes in this article, which may get longer as I find more notable changes.
Notable Similarities
Actions in Combat
Although most attack actions are unchanged but there are some new ones. See Influence, Study and Utilize below. Additionally, there has been a pretty significant change to the Attack action.
Conditions
There are no new conditions, and all conditions except exhaustion, grappled, incapacitated, invisible, petrified, and stunned are unchanged except for the specific wording.
Notable Changes
Attack Action
In the 2024 edition, you can now equip or unequip a weapon as part of the attack action. This was previously a separate free action. The way that I read this is that you are now allowed to attack with one weapon and unequip it as part of one attack action. If you have multiple attacks, your character now can equip a new weapon and use it as part of the following attack action. This makes it significantly easier to understand how a creature may swap weapons during their turn.
Bloodied
“Bloodied” is back. A creature is bloodied when it has less than half of its hit points.
Burning
Burning is defined as a hazard now. A burning creature or object takes 1d4 Fire damage. The creature must become prone and roll on the ground to put the fire out. Being doused or submerged in water, or otherwise cutting of oxygen to the fire also extinguishes it.
Exhaustion
The chart from the 2014 rules is gone. Now, when you make roll any d20, your result is reduced by 2x you exhaustion level. Your speed is reduced by 5x your exhaustion level. As before, you a character dies if they have six levels of exhaustion and finishing a long rest removes on level of exhaustion.
Grappling
Grappling is no longer a contested roll, where both the character taking the action and the target roll to see if the grapple succeeds. The target now rolls Strength or Dexterity against a fixed value (8 + Strength Mod + Proficiency Mod). This value is also the DC for escaping a grapple. What this along with the changes to the grappled condition will mean for the grappler feat remains to be seen.
Grappled Condition
The grappled condition continues to reduce the target’s speed to zero. It now makes any attacks against targets other than the grappler disadvantaged. The grappler can move the grappled target, but every foot of movement costs one extra foot unless the grappled target is tiny, or more than two size categories smaller. Forced movement no longer breaks a grapple.
Influence Action
A new action that lets you use your social skills and Animal Handling in combat and provides some structure around how to make the contested roll.
Hide Action
The hide action is significantly clarified. You now require full obscurement, 3/4 or full cover to attempt to hide. The Stealth Check is now a flat 15 DC, not contested. On a success, you take the invisible condition. If you make a sound louder than a whisper, an enemy finds you, you attack or cast a spell with a verbal component, you are revealed.
Incapacitated Condition
Previously, incapacitated creatures could not take actions or reactions. That remains true, but now they cannot concentrate or speak. Incapacitated creatures also role initiative at disadvantage.
Invisible Condition
The invisible condition now grants advantage on initiative rolls. The rule clarifies that the inivisible creature cannot be targeted by effects that require the target to be seen, and that your equipment is also invisible. The invisible creature still attacks at advantage, and attacks against it are at disadvantage. The text of the condition no longer clarifies that the invisible creature can be detected by the sound it makes and tracks it leaves.
Petrified Condition
Petrified creatures are no longer immune to disease.
Search Action
The search action no longer lets you use an Investigation check, but it does broaden out your Wisdom options, letting you use Insight, Medicine, Perception or Survival.
Study Action
The Study Action lets you apply intelligence-based skill checks in combat.
Short Rest
The rules now clearly outlines what causes a short rest to be interrupted and have no benefits:
- Rolling Initiative
- Casting a spell other than a cantrip
- Taking any damage
The 2024 Short Rest rules also require you to have at least 1 hit point.
Simultaneous Effects
If two or more things will happen at the same time during a turn, the player who’s turn it is decides the order. This is true for a player and their PC, or the the DM and their NPCs.
Utilize Action
This seems to just be justification for the DM to ask for an action to be used to interact with the environment without the interaction happening for free.
No Change
- Attunement
- Blinded
- Blindsight
- Bonus Action
While I’m still chugging through summarizing these changes, why don’t you go check out some magical item prices?
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