Thoughts on the 2024 DMG

I just finished reading the 2024 DMG, and I have some thoughts for the group. First thing is that I don't feel there are a lot of major changes. The three chapters I was most interested in were the Greyhawk chapter, Magic Items, and Bastions, so I'm going to give you my take on those three sections.   Before that, some other changes that I either noticed or read about that will slightly change game-play are the fact that they seem to have eliminated surprise. If someone starts a combat with an action (I fire my bow at the goblin), they gain advantage on the Initiative check, but it's not a sure thing that they go first. I need to re-read these rules, but they're not a huge change. The other thing I noticed is under potions, they say that drinking a potion is a bonus action, not a full action, which could change the feel of combat and make potions and potion crafting more valuable and popular.   And another big one. There are no rules for the half-races in the PHB. It sounds like there was in a UA playtest, but half-elves and half-orcs (my alfar and rageborn) aren't in the rules yet, except as legacy races for 2014. I'm not sure what I think about that. Lore-wise we will continue to use the 2014 rules for players that want to play those races, but full-orc is now an option.   Now for my big three.  

Greyhawk

The biggest change in the Greyhawk material is that it reverts to the 576 CY time period. This was the year listed in the original AD&D boxed set and Glossography. This is also pre Greyhawk Wars. In addition, they introduced much more diversity across the rulers of the continent. Gygax's original world was primarily ruled by males, mostly human, with a few elves and dwarves sprinkled in. There were a handful of female rulers, but not many. Gygax was also the guy who had ability penalties for playing female characters in the original ruleset, so not surprising. They've changed the gender of many rulers and added tieflings and dragonborn, halflings and gnomes still don't have kingdoms for the most part, but the two races are written to not be "ruler-types".   Also, tieflings and dragonborn are just added to the setting, no explanations or origin stories, no place of origin or homelands. Makes sense for tielflings, but not so much for dragonborn. I like the dragonborn origin story I wrote on WorldAnvil, so we will stick with that in my game.   They changed or modified some of the names of some kingdoms and regions, I'll stick with the new names.   It sounds like this is all they are producing for Greyhawk, leaving it as a bare-bones setting for GMs to make their own, so here's what I am doing with it.   The current campaign is set in 595 CY, its closing in on 596 CY, almost twenty years into the future. I encouraged players to read the Greyhawk section as recent history. The Greyhawk Wars happened in my Greyhawk, but I may play around with some events and use other ideas moving forward. Iuz will eventually suffer some major setbacks, the Horned Society (a kingdom of devil-worshipers on Iuz's doorstep) will eventually take back their lands with the help of the hells. Lendore Island was never sealed off by elves (it served no story purpose). The undead Overking Ivid V rules Rauxes but nothing else, as the rest of the Great Kingdom splintered. Oh, and he didn't make almost every ruler of the Great Kingdom into powerful undead animuses or death knights. Those kind of changes.   By the way, these changes are not going to impact the current campaign much, if at all.    

Magic Items

BOO!!!!! They said there would be magic item prices, the Foundry 2024 SRD release has prices on its magic items, yet the DMG goes back to items by rarity pricing.   So in the 2014 ruleset, Common Magic items had base prices of 50-100 gp. 2024 sets the prices at 100 gp. Uncommon changed for 101-500 gp to 400 gp. Rare 501 - 5,000 gp to 4,000 gp, etc. There's not that big a difference. For the 2014 rules, I refined the magic item prices into "tiers" within the rarities. So Uncommon items had four tiers 150 gp, 250 gp, 400 gp, and 500 gp. The simpler items were priced on the lowest tier, the most complex or powerful items at the top tier in that range. Rare items are 1,000 gp, 2,000 gp, 3,000 gp, 4,000 gp or 5,000 gp, and so on. Consumables cost half to one-fifth the prices of permanent magic based on their power and usefulness.   That means most of the uncommon item prices I've set right now are less than 400 gp, with the more powerful uncommon items being 400 or 500 gp. I thought about doubling the prices I have under the 2014 rules, bringing the lower tier items closer to the 2024 prices, but honestly that is a lot of work for almost no story gain. I'm going to stick with the system I have in place and not up the prices. It's not going to break the world for the players to buy +1 magic weapons for 250 gp instead of 400 gp, provided that I don't all of a sudden start giving out way more treasure than expected for the party levels, which I don't.   Oh, and those SRD prices in Foundry, totally break the rules from the DMG, +1 weapons are in the SRD for 1,000 gp, yet Uncommon items are only supposed to cost 400 gp. +1 armor (rare) is in the SRD for 1,500 gp, when the DMG says 4,000 gp. The Decanter of Endless Water (uncommon) is 135,000 gp. Huh?    

Bastions

I love the idea of player bases and have played around with strongholds and homes, etc. through many rule sets. Starting with the AD&D Stronghold Builder's Guide and using the Pathfinder downtime system for rooms, buildings and teams. These rules have been part of my campaigns for decades.   I like Bastions. I'm not crazy that they are closely tied to character level, but I can understand level as a way to limit growth. The rules are a simplified version of the homebrew I've put together from the above sources and I think actually make the bastions more usable by the players. So yes, I'm mostly for them with some caveats.   I don't like that players get bastions for free. The players should have a reason for gaining a bastion. In the Temple Campaign, you had to refurbish the Moathouse/Temple Outpost. In this campaign you had to spend some money to gain your "base sites", although because of your adventures, you got those sites at a significant discount. That will likely be the way I always handle that moving forward. The upgrades at higher levels are free, although you can spend money to enhance rooms/facilities by the rules. The upgrade costs for the other stuff is higher than my homebrew costs, but that's offset by adding facilities for free at higher levels.   I'm going to be pulling these rules apart in the coming months and really making sure I understand them. I will likely be adding my own flavor, like what's the base cost for a house in the Artisan's Quarter of Greyhawk, but I'll leave most of the rules as written. I'm probably going to have a whole slew of prices for "beginner" bastion locations, buying a house in Greyhawk City will cost "x" depending on its starting size and shape. As always, adventuring may impact the base cost. For example, the Temple party didn't buy the moathouse, they just paid for the repairs.   Besides, you need something to do with all of the gold you're going to save on magic items.    

Summary

All in all, I like the changes. However, we won't be switching anytime soon. We need to wait for Foundry, and more importantly the mods, to catch up to the new rule system, that's going to take months. We can go through this entire campaign with the current rules, so it will be a group decision if we switch over when we are able to.