After Playing D&D For Years, The 2024 Player's Handbook Will Get Me To Play A Dwarf (2024)

Fifth edition might not have quite the well of endless character creation options that can be found in the most complex TTRPGs, but it's still easy to feel spoiled for choice. I'm not a DnD player as often as I am a DM, but whenever I do end up at the other end of the game table, I find coming up with my character a lot harder than inventing NPCs. There are a lot of options that I've still never tapped, and one that I've always been right on the edge of embracing is the dwarf.

If I had to name a favorite fantasy species off the top of my head, Tolkien-style dwarves would certainly be in contention. There's something about their stalwart nature that's just compelling, and although they might not carry a melancholy as overt as elves or a tragedy as great as tieflings, those elements are still easy to more subtly explore. It's all too easy to use a dwarf character as a punchline — even the great The Lord of the Rings films treat Gimli a bit cheaply compared to the book — but there's so much more to do with them.

Dwarves Aren't Slow In D&D's 2024 Player's Handbook

Shorter Species Finally Catch Up

The new 2024 Player's Handbook brings a lot of changes to DnD, and races, now called species, have been pretty aggressively reworked. The most obvious change is the elimination of an official rules implementation for mixed ancestries, which showed up in the 2014 Player's Handbook in the form of half-elves and half-orcs. With half-orcs on the chopping block, I did take one out for a spin in a recent one-shot, so the new book has motivated me to branch out once already.

There are a lot of changes to the species that remain as well, and dwarves are among the lucky classes to get one of the most interesting mechanical tweaks. While the base walking speed for most classes is 30 feet per round, dwarves, gnomes, and halflings all lagged behind, with 25 feet per round allotted by the 2014 Player's Handbook. The 2024 Player's Handbook brings them up to speed, putting everyone but the uniquely fast goliaths on an even playing ground.

From a flavor perspective, it's easy to take offense to this change, but n . I always have a lot of fun with maneuverability in DnD combat, and although it's possible to look at the 25 feet movement speed as an interesting restriction to consider in strategic play, it does ultimately guarantee more instances of having to give up on an exciting combat tactic because an enemy is just slightly too far away.

The 2024 Player's Handbook Has Other Dwarf Changes

Darkvision Fans Should Be Happy

The other big boost to dwarves in particular is an expanded Darkvision range, bumping things from 60 feet to 120. Another interesting rework is Stonecunning, which gets a bit more direct utility now by granting dwarves Tremorsense as a bonus action when touching a stone surface. I still have a fondness for the old version of Stonecunning that focuses on stonework history checks, which the dwarf player in my campaign tends to use cleverly, and I'll probably let dwarves in my campaigns use both in the future.

What specifically draws me to the dwarf reworks is that they feel like they benefit dwarves in their element. Although it obviously varies from character to character, I feel like dwarves should be at home when dungeon-delving in a way that most DnD species aren't, and the movement speed change removes the biggest obstacle in that regard. Expanded Darkvision and reworked Stonecunning sweeten the pot while making more sense than the speed change from a flavor standpoint, highlighting the idea that dwarves can navigate dark, dangerous places with intuition and skill.

D&D's New Approach To Species Isn't Perfect

D&D Needs To Stop Removing Flavor Text

I don't want to over-praise the approach to species flavor in DnD's 2024 Player's Handbook, because it makes some steps backward as well. I appreciate the transfer of ability score improvements to backgrounds instead of species, which is a smart step away from what was starting to feel like an outdated approach. I'm not in love with the vast reduction in species flavor text, however, which removes a lot of insight into the cultural aspects of each species.

I'm sure that giving shorter species a speed boost will be met with some detractors, although the 2024 Player's Handbook is really just playing catch-up to design changes that started in 2022's Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse. I've also resisted hom*ogenization in game movement before, and in a very different realm, I'm still annoyed by how much Overwatch 2 flattened a lot of character specialization from the first game. In this case, though, I'm perfectly happy to imagine that every dwarf, gnome, and halfling has simply mastered the patented Gimli hustle.

There's really no good reason I haven't played a dwarf in DnD until now. Part of it, I suppose, is that species is never what I define characters around. I'm perfectly content to frequently play humans while exploring other ways to make them interesting, which helps explain why I'm happy with the decision to move ability score improvements to backgrounds.

When it comes down to it, though, it's high time I play a dwarf, and the changes in the new Player's Handbook could very well spur me to do so. They might be minor, but they feel good, and I'm excited by the possibility of a dwarf that can keep pace with battlefield movement. The best changes in the 2024 Dungeons & Dragons Player's Handbook highlight strengths and remove annoyances without upsetting the balance, and I think dwarves are a perfectly strong example of that.

Dungeons and Dragons

Dungeons and Dragons is a popular tabletop game originally invented in 1974 byErnest Gary Gygax and David Arneson.The fantasy role-playing game brings together players for a campaign with various components, including abilities, races, character classes, monsters, and treasures. The game has drastically expanded since the '70s, with numerous updated box sets and expansions.

Franchise

Original Release Date

1974-00-00

Publisher

TSR Inc. , Wizards of the Coast

Designer

E. Gary Gygax , Dave Arneson