The new Player's Handbook; changing character creation

Hello everyone!

Wizards of the Coast has just published their new Player's Handbook for Dungeons & Dragons. It is still considered 5th edition, and characters created with the new book are completely compatible with all of our published adventures!

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Changes to Character Creation

The new handbook changes some of the ways D&D characters are created. In short:

• Race becomes Species, and describes only physical / biological / innate traits.

• Background is seeing multiple updates. Most importantly, it now includes the Ability Score Increase previously attributed to Race, and each background is given a special Feat.

• All Classes and some Spells have seen significant updates.

When you create a character in 5e 2024, you take the following steps:

• Choose your Class.

• Determine Ability Scores

• Determine your Origin:

  • Choose a Species

  • Choose a Background

  • Choose 1 or 2 Languages. Every character knows the Common language.

5e 2014 / 2024 Conversion Guide:

• Ancestries & Cultures:

In this compatibility guide, our Ancestries and Cultures rules are interchangeable with old Race. This means you can't use A&C with the new Backgrounds (you must use an old Background), but can use it with the new classes.

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New Hemelin Player Options

We are going to discontinue the Ancestries & Cultures line moving forward, and instead use an Ancestry & Background system that is compatible with the new base game while also retaining all of the ethics and flavour of A&C.

We have already been playtesting new material for the new rules: you can see the latest versions of the Dragonspring and Seasong player guides here.

The Player Options book that is part of the Traveller's Guide to the Seasong Islands Kickstarter will be the first release to follow the new model.

The Future

Before we do a new big book in the style of Ancestries & Cultures of Hemelin, we are going to release a series of smaller books that each pair with an adventure setting we've released. This allows us to go even more in-depth with local lore, and add new options like Subclasses, Feats, Items and Spells.

The player guides we currently have planned are as follows:

• Player Guide to the Seasong Islands (already completed, will be released with kickstarter rewards)

• Player Guide to Dragonspring (next completed book to be released on patreon)

• Player Guide to the Soddenweald (next playtest to be released on patreon)

• Player Guide to Silver Spires (in drafts)

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We understand a lot of you love the Ancestries & Cultures method and will be sad to see it go. We ask you to have faith in us; the new player options will be just as flavourful and fun as A&C!

Remember: Any 5e adventures we have released and will release in the future are completely compatible with old 5e characters. You can keep using them as long as you like!!

Thank you for all of your kind support,

~ Niels & Rose