Dungeons & Dragons: How Backwards Compatibility Works in 2024 Player’s Handbook

Dungeons & Dragons lead rules designer Jeremy Crawford has explained exactly how backwards compatibility will work with their new Player’s Handbook. Later this year, Wizards of the Coast will publish a new Player’s Handbook for Dungeons & Dragons, featuring updated rules for character building. However, Wizards has noted that the rulebook is “backwards compatible” with other material for 5th edition, meaning that players can use older subclasses, species, and feats found in other books provided that a new version doesn’t appear in the 2024 Player’s Handbook.” 

Speaking with ComicBook, lead rules designer Jeremy Crawford elaborated on how backwards compatibility works with different aspects of the game. “So the classes, subclasses, feats, species backgrounds, and all the rest that you have in the new Player’s Handbook, you can use with any similar elements that appear in other books as long as it’s not the same thing,” Crawford said. “If a subclass appears in the 2024 rules and you’re making a 2024 character, you can’t use the 2014 version of that subclass. Same with feats, same with species, and any other element that basically as soon as it appears in its new form, that new form replaces the old form.”

However, Crawford noted that players will still have access to all the subclasses that don’t appear in the 2024 Player’s Handbook, including subclasses that appeared in the previous Player’s Handbook. “If something doesn’t appear in the 2024 Player’s Handbook, you are welcome to pair it with a thing that does,” Crawford said. “So great example of this, if you are playing a 2024 Wizard and you want to use the Necromancer subclass from the 2014 Player’s Handbook, you are welcome to do so. And again, that is true of anything, not just from the 2014 Player’s Handbook, but books like Xanathar’s Guide [to Everything] or Tasha’s Cauldron [of Everything]. If it’s a feat, subclass, species, or other character element that does not appear in the 2024 Player’s Handbook, you can use it with the material that does. But again, anything that appears in the 2024 Player’s Handbook replaces its older equivalent. And we’re doing that largely so that we don’t end up at tables with two different versions of the same subclass.”

The Player’s Handbook will have specific guidance on how to incorporate species (formerly called races) and backgrounds from older books, in part because of the shift in how ability score increases are incorporated based on player choices. 

As for the 2024 classes, they feature different level progressions than the 2014 rules. However, Crawford noted that the new class rules are written to allow for the use of older subclasses with different class progressions. “Let’s say you pick an older subclass that maybe had a different level progression, the new subclass ability rules make it clear you get all of the features from any earlier levels,” Crawford noted. So, the Wizard’s new 3rd level subclass ability would specify that players can add the features from the Necromancer subclass that would have activated at 2nd level if players opt to use the Necromancer subclass rules. 

The new Player’s Handbook will be released on September 17th. More changes and details about the new Dungeons & Dragons rulebook can be found here.