I do not get why people dislike the 2024 rules.

Quote from TymptedToKMS >>

 Quicken gives you the ability to do a spell quicker than what it is. As in ritual spell is now an action and an action is now instant... 

Quickened Spell takes a spell with a casting time of one action and makes its casting time one bonus action. It does not impact ritual casting and it cannot make a spell "instant".

Quote from TymptedToKMS >>

Quote from RJP1973 >>

Quote from TymptedToKMS >>

Quote from sabin76 >>

From your responses (some of which I skimmed, so sorry if you addressed this), it appears that you already have a notion of what it means to be a DM that is incongruous with the norm. You job is not to "beat" the players, and their job is not the "beat" the DM (this can be the case in a "meatgrinder" or pure "dungeon crawl" type of campaign, but you should only run those for people who know exactly what they are getting into as it isn't that many people's cup of tea). All of your jobs are to create a fun storytelling experience. The DM is definitely not the main character, the players are. Treat them as the protagonists of the story you are all weaving.

Objectively speaking, player power has gone up a bit with 2024... but so did the monsters (for the most part). The caster/martial divide is smaller now than it was (still leans caster unless you really limit the ability to long rest). 2024 was a great update with a few oddballs.

 As I said before. There is no statement that prevents of multiple spells as lvl 0 (cantrips) it states that you can do any action or instant during your attack action or bonus action. Like a character I had once made had a high armor that was also part cleric. And my character would attack to try to get the attention on him and then hold his bonus action to use as a reaction just in case. That way if my teammate is about to get hit by an heavy attack that's only two or less above his armor class I can cast shield of Faith to give him a plus two to his armor class to help him defend against it. That means bonus actions can be used for attacking with a spell just like a fighter can attack with his action and also attack with his bonus action. The book states that a level 1 spell can be used as an action but not as a bonus action. Which would mean cantrips because not specifically stated unable to be done can be home brewed to be able to be used as a bonus action. Going by that I allow them to do one spell and one can trip and I've only been choosing to do two can trips...

So as a way to balance that the magic that they're around is going to start causing chaos while using the cantrips.

 With respect, you don't seem to be reading the rules correctly. Bonus Actions and Actions are not interchangeable.

First, read the rules on casting times: https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dnd/phb-2024/spells#CastingTime

Spells are cast either as an Action OR a Bonus Action. Which it requires is part of the spell's definition. You can only use one "levelled spell" with a Spell Slot on your turn.

So you can ONLY cast two spells on your turn if:

• You cast one spell that can be cast as a Bonus Action (some spells are defined as requiring a Bonus Action, but some other effects such as a Sorcerer's "Quicken" Metamagic allow you to transform a Spell that normally takes an Action into a Bonus Action) AND
• You cast one spell that can be cast as an Action

Since you can only use one Spell Slot on your turn, it means ONE of the aforementioned spells must be cast without a Spell Slot (e.g. a cantrip or via some magic item).

I'm pretty sure there are no Bonus Action cantrips (?), so casting two cantrips per turn could only be done if you use "Quicken" Metamagic or some similar effect.

Second, Readying an Action doesn't change any of the above. Read https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dnd/br-2024/rules-glossary#ReadyAction

The "Ready" action is an Action in itself. And it specifically says that to Ready a spell, that spell must have a casting time of one Action. Again, this is not interchangeable. The casting time of a spell is part of its definition.

 

 Quicken gives you the ability to do a spell quicker than what it is. As in ritual spell is now an action and an action is now instant... 

 Please actually read the rules.

Here is the Quicken metamagic from the book (important parts highlighted in bold)

Quickened Spell 

Cost: 2 Sorcery Points

When you cast a spell that has a casting time of an action, you can spend 2 Sorcery Points to change the casting time to a Bonus Action for this casting. You can’t modify a spell in this way if you’ve already cast a level 1+ spell on the current turn, nor can you cast a level 1+ spell on this turn after modifying a spell in this way.

"Quicken" turns a spell that normally takes an Action into a Bonus Action. Nothing more nothing less.

If you think there is more to this, then please point out where in the rules it makes a spell "instant"

Quote from TymptedToKMS >>

 Quicken gives you the ability to do a spell quicker than what it is. As in ritual spell is now an action and an action is now instant... 

 Besides what everybody has already said, "instant" is not a thing.

In D&D, an ability can take your Action, your Bonus Action, or your Reaction.

(There are some abilities that exist outside this system, but they are explicit about their timing. For instance the Elemental Monk's Elemental Attunement is used "at the start of your turn".)

A Reaction is an instant response to a trigger of some kind, is about the only instance i recall "instant" is referred.

Quote from TymptedToKMS >>

Quote from BigHeartedGuy >>

Phrasing your question from a negative angle isn't likely to lead to an unbiased set of responses, a better question would simply be "What do you think of the 2024 rules?" As Apple Paladin mentions there is no option to refute the negative assumption of your question. Also, why would being a GM or a player create a situation where they are unsure of their position? Of the 7 responses, four of them have a negative slant, two of them don't make sense and one is a joke answer.

I really like the 2024 rules, and given the sales numbers that have been reported, apparently I'm far from alone.

 Okay so the reason why I say the, no I'm a PC, no I'm a GM. So somebody who's not a GM only knows 2/3 of the rules basically with the player's handbook. And someone who's never played as an PC, they only know 1/3 of the rules.

 Reading through the last few pages of everyone pointing out just how badly you’ve misunderstood some of the most basic rules and remembered this post which might explain it. The DM needs to read both books, if anything I’d say the PHB is *more* important than the DMG for a DM, because it’s the PHB that teaches you the fundamentals of how to play including things like the difference between an Action and a Bonus action. I’m now really hoping you’ve read the PHB before trying to run a game 

There are only two (if my search on DDB is correct) cantrips in the 2024 PHB which have a casting time of a Bonus Action: Produce Flame and Shillelagh. Interestingly, neither of them allow attacks as part of the BA when you cast them. (Produce Flame allows you to make ranged spell attacks using the Magic Action whereas Shillelagh affects attacks made with the club or quarterstaff used in its casting, but those attacks otherwise follow the normal rules for weapon attacks.)

If cantrips could routinely be cast using both your action and your bonus action, it would make Warlocks with Eldritch Blast and Agonising Blast much too powerful. E.g. Level 5, the Warlock could attack four times, doing 1d10+CHA force damage on each hit. A Fighter with Crossbow Expert and a heavy crossbow would need to use their action surge to match that; on their subsequent turns, they’d be making half the attacks that the Warlock was. 

Quote from TymptedToKMS >>

Quote from unRiva1ed >>

2024 rules are ridiculously OP... Take two characters, one from 2014 rules and one from 2024 rules in a PvP situation and see who wins. As a DM that likes to add suspense and a feel of danger, 2024 removes all sense of any danger. The characters are so OP I have to make the encounters unbelievably OP just to add some challenge. 

 You don't have to make a OP. Let's say your characters are going up against a group of bandits and their boss. Make your boss have a ring that allows them to dispel all magic in a 10 ft radius for five turns. That's not overpowered that just means they're going to have to think of something other to do. Or something along the lines of for the entirety of next turn until it comes back to him every single one of them has to do a wisdom saving through due to a ring effect that tricks the player's minds into thinking that their teammates could be the enemies and the enemies could be the teammates. It's not overpowered it's just something that gives them a little bit of an edge of, oh s*** wait what's going on.

To me, that is an extreme way of trying to control the battlefield. I prefer more organic fights where I don't have to shoehorn in a mechanic to counter my OP players. What happens to the ring when the boss dies? I've essentially taken my magic users out of the fight and that sucks for a player. I get what your saying about being creative in the encounters, and right now that is the only option. I can also make house rules... Or stick with 2014... But at the end of the day, 2024 DnD is still way too much and IMHO it makes the DM's job harder.

Quote from unRiva1ed >>

Quote from TymptedToKMS >>

Quote from unRiva1ed >>

2024 rules are ridiculously OP... Take two characters, one from 2014 rules and one from 2024 rules in a PvP situation and see who wins. As a DM that likes to add suspense and a feel of danger, 2024 removes all sense of any danger. The characters are so OP I have to make the encounters unbelievably OP just to add some challenge. 

 You don't have to make a OP. Let's say your characters are going up against a group of bandits and their boss. Make your boss have a ring that allows them to dispel all magic in a 10 ft radius for five turns. That's not overpowered that just means they're going to have to think of something other to do. Or something along the lines of for the entirety of next turn until it comes back to him every single one of them has to do a wisdom saving through due to a ring effect that tricks the player's minds into thinking that their teammates could be the enemies and the enemies could be the teammates. It's not overpowered it's just something that gives them a little bit of an edge of, oh s*** wait what's going on.

 

To me, that is an extreme way of trying to control the battlefield. I prefer more organic fights where I don't have to shoehorn in a mechanic to counter my OP players. What happens to the ring when the boss dies? I've essentially taken my magic users out of the fight and that sucks for a player. I get what your saying about being creative in the encounters, and right now that is the only option. I can also make house rules... Or stick with 2014... But at the end of the day, 2024 DnD is still way too much and IMHO it makes the DM's job harder.

Exactly what did you pit against your players, what level were the PCs/what spell/ability broke your atmosphere of suspense & dread?

Because you've given no parameters for how you came to your conclusion, only that it is your conclusion.

Quote from Gnomarchy >>

Funny poll.

Here's my take: given that WotC had ten years of data and all the talent in the world, I'm disappointed that 2024 delivered incremental improvements in some areas and backsliding in others. In hindsight, the devs were likely given insufficient time to build a whole new system that's "backward compatible." Some examples of kludge:

1. We didn't like racial ASIs, so instead of making them free, we got backgrounds with feats and ASIs attached, meaning every fighter is a farmer. This was an arbitrary choice that nobody asked for. Character creation remains a mess, and it's only gotten worse now that we have backgrounds to optimize over.
2. Very little was done to address the annoying imbalance between muggles and spellcasters. Weapon masteries are nice, but they create new issues of their own.
3. Very little was done to address combat length. Monsters hit harder, but bonus actions are, if anything, more entrenched than ever.
4. I have no idea who thought the ranger they shipped was acceptable. When they wrote that a 20th-level ranger gets a bonus of two damage from Hunter's Mark, were they not laughing to themselves?
5. The corporate objective for 2024 was obviously an attempt to be able to re-release the entire core set, as well as a reprint of the artificer, Eberron, and the FR. 

And so on.

Maybe try looking at things outside of minmaxing, powergaming & optimizing for those first 4. All are valid playstyles, but they're not the only ones. 
& that last one needs ironclad proof(As in, a signed document with Chris Cocks's name on it), not just circumstantial evidence, content creators' videos, & pointed fingers. It also ignores the numerous small rules tweaks & clarifications that players who don't touch Sage Advice & errata on Beyond wouldn't see unless it was printed.

When Maedra is the one telling you not to believe Hasbro’s bad intentions you know your conspiracy theory is far fetched 😉

Quote from Gnomarchy>>

Funny poll.

Here's my take: given that WotC had ten years of data and all the talent in the world, I'm disappointed that 2024 delivered incremental improvements in some areas and backsliding in others. In hindsight, the devs were likely given insufficient time to build a whole new system that's "backward compatible."

Some examples of kludge:

1. We didn't like racial ASIs, so instead of making them free, we got backgrounds with feats and ASIs attached, meaning every fighter is a farmer. This was an arbitrary choice that nobody asked for. Character creation remains a mess, and it's only gotten worse now that we have backgrounds to optimize over.
2. Very little was done to address the annoying imbalance between muggles and spellcasters. Weapon masteries are nice, but they create new issues of their own.
3. Very little was done to address combat length. Monsters hit harder, but bonus actions are, if anything, more entrenched than ever.
4. I have no idea who thought the ranger they shipped was acceptable. When they wrote that a 20th-level ranger gets a bonus of two damage from Hunter's Mark, were they not laughing to themselves?
5. The corporate objective for 2024 was obviously an attempt to be able to re-release the entire core set, as well as a reprint of the artificer, Eberron, and the FR. 

And so on.

1.  I don't actually like the way they did backgrounds, but "every fighter is a farmer" is nonsense. The stat boosts for soldier are the ones that most say "make a fighter", and really any background that give you strength or dexterity is gonna be fine in practice. You are presuming that one must have Tough, and you don't.
2. The imbalance is inherent to the foundational design decisions of the game. Unless you do a radical rebuild, it's not gonna change. And, while I like 4e, there's no way to get something of that scope while remaining 5e.
3. I'm not sure what you think can be done about combat length. Giving characters options means it's gonna take a while. (Not that 1/2e combat was quick) Making it faster is going to make it unsatisfying. D&D has always been a combat-centric game. You're always gonna spend a lot of time in combat when that's the game's focus.
4. Eh. Whatever. You can't evaluate a class solely by its capstone, but by the whole. In many ways, the capstone is the single least important of a class -- it's rarely reached, and even if you do, it's not used for very long relative to the rest of the class's abilities. While the capstone is, I admit, underwhelming, the rangers in the games I'm in seem to be having fun, so I think the class as a whole is ok.
5. ...yes? This is the ugly fact of RPGs as a business -- eventually you saturate your market for the core books, and supplements are a diminishing-returns business. D&D's done a new edition every ten or fewer years since forever. Of all the edition transitions, this is possibly the least necessary for you to actually buy while keeping playing. 

Quote from TymptedToKMS >>

 As I said before. There is no statement that prevents of multiple spells as lvl 0 (cantrips) it states that you can do any action or instant during your attack action or bonus action. Like a character I had once made had a high armor that was also part cleric. And my character would attack to try to get the attention on him and then hold his bonus action to use as a reaction just in case. That way if my teammate is about to get hit by an heavy attack that's only two or less above his armor class I can cast shield of Faith to give him a plus two to his armor class to help him defend against it. That means bonus actions can be used for attacking with a spell just like a fighter can attack with his action and also attack with his bonus action. The book states that a level 1 spell can be used as an action but not as a bonus action. Which would mean cantrips because not specifically stated unable to be done can be home brewed to be able to be used as a bonus action. Going by that I allow them to do one spell and one can trip and I've only been choosing to do two can trips...

So as a way to balance that the magic that they're around is going to start causing chaos while using the cantrips.

 Man, the concept of "Ready [Action]" is so off.

If you take the Ready [Action] that is your Action.  You can't Ready an action as well as take another Action like Attack.

You take the Ready action to wait for a particular circumstance before you act. To do so, you take this action on your turn, which lets you act by taking a Reaction before the start of your next turn.

This is your Action.  The ability to use your Reaction to do the readied action before the start of your next turn.  If you use Attack to attack someone, you have used your Action.  Ready, being another Action is not available any more.

Capitalisation matters.

I obviously misinterpreted the nature of this thread, which is not to understand why folks are disappointed about aspects of 2024, but instead to try and invalidate opinions expressing disappointment. I will update my model.

Quote from MaedraDawnkeeper >>

Maybe try looking at things outside of minmaxing, powergaming & optimizing for those first 4. All are valid playstyles, but they're not the only ones. 
& that last one needs ironclad proof(As in, a signed document with Chris Cocks's name on it), not just circumstantial evidence, content creators' videos, & pointed fingers. It also ignores the numerous small rules tweaks & clarifications that players who don't touch Sage Advice & errata on Beyond wouldn't see unless it was printed.

Quote from jl8e >>

1.  I don't actually like the way they did backgrounds, but "every fighter is a farmer" is nonsense. The stat boosts for soldier are the ones that most say "make a fighter", and really any background that give you strength or dexterity is gonna be fine in practice. You are presuming that one must have Tough, and you don't.
2. The imbalance is inherent to the foundational design decisions of the game. Unless you do a radical rebuild, it's not gonna change. And, while I like 4e, there's no way to get something of that scope while remaining 5e.
3. I'm not sure what you think can be done about combat length. Giving characters options means it's gonna take a while. (Not that 1/2e combat was quick) Making it faster is going to make it unsatisfying. D&D has always been a combat-centric game. You're always gonna spend a lot of time in combat when that's the game's focus.
4. Eh. Whatever. You can't evaluate a class solely by its capstone, but by the whole. In many ways, the capstone is the single least important of a class -- it's rarely reached, and even if you do, it's not used for very long relative to the rest of the class's abilities. While the capstone is, I admit, underwhelming, the rangers in the games I'm in seem to be having fun, so I think the class as a whole is ok.
5. ...yes? This is the ugly fact of RPGs as a business -- eventually you saturate your market for the core books, and supplements are a diminishing-returns business. D&D's done a new edition every ten or fewer years since forever. Of all the edition transitions, this is possibly the least necessary for you to actually buy while keeping playing. 

I don’t need to subpoena Chris Cocks’ emails to know that re-releasing core rules is a safer bet than innovation, but that doesn’t excuse the lack of progress on decade-old pain points. Slow combat and clunky character creation weren’t fixed; they were just repackaged. The new background system didn’t fully resolve the racial ASI issue—it just shifted the focus, making certain backgrounds mechanically preferable for specific fantasies rather than letting flavor drive choices.

The martial/caster imbalance isn’t foundational to D&D, though it is a constraint of the 2014 framework. Still, there’s plenty of room between 3e’s pointless high-level fighters and 4e’s homogenization that the 2024 rules didn’t explore. Games like Dragonbane, Numenera, and Daggerheart already occupy different points on this spectrum.

Combat remains sluggish. Yes, D&D is combat-heavy, but I’d rather spend an hour in an encounter with constant action than wait five minutes per turn so each player can act maybe twice. Volumes of house rules have been written trying to speed up combat, which is testament to how widespread this concern is.

The ranger rewrite, tied to a concentration spell, feels like a choice made without much thought. The capstone being pathetic isn’t the point; it’s just symptomatic of the root issues with the class. People might enjoy playing it, but it’s still a mess and one of the least-played classes for a reason.

Given ten years of data, I expected more than incremental tweaks and occasional backsliding. The 2024 rules feel like a safe corporate reboot that missed the chance to actually fix what players have been vocalizing since day one.

Quote from CunningSmile >>

When Maedra is the one telling you not to believe Hasbro’s bad intentions you know your conspiracy theory is far fetched 😉

 
What conspiracy theory? That businesses are conspiring to *checks notes* make low-risk, high-return choices?

Bringing counterpoints is not invalidation, it is discussion. But your post read much more like venting than trying to incite more discussion.

1. It's also hard to bring real details into those counters when you didn't really give many yourself. "Character creation is a mess" by what metric? Are you basing this solely on moving ASIs to backgrounds (which is something people have been asking for, btw), or something else unstated?

2. What issues do weapon masteries introduce that further the divide? That was your point, was it not?

3. Combat length is a pain point, sure. But I think you've misdiagnosed the cause. It isn't the number of actions you can take on a turn that slows people down, it's the decision paralysis of all the options for those actions. And reducing that makes for a less interesting game IMO.

4. Based on your post, your entire argument for why the Ranger class sucked was it's capstone. If it was supposed to be more, then you should have expanded on the reliance on HM in the first place. Personally, my problem with them is the loss of the ribbon features that really defined them as a skill class. HM reliance was an odd choice, but I don't think it's necessarily bad. The flavor of the spell is, kind of, the ranger's thing anyway. It's not like they are so much less powerful DPR-wise, if Treantmonk is to be believed.

5. As for your last point... I mean, yes? It's been 10 years. Expecting them to sit on 5e for much longer with no changes is not exactly logical.

My verdict on 5.5e is that it is an improvement in nearly every aspect of the rules, with just a couple places where they really should have had a technical writer look over it to make sure it said what they wanted it to say (Stealth, I'm looking at you).

Quote from sabin76 >>

Bringing counterpoints is not invalidation, it is discussion. But your post read much more like venting than trying to incite more discussion.

 
Indeed, because I wasn't trying to start a discussion at all--I was answering the OP's question, plain and simple. A debate with points and counterpoints simply isn't productive if we don't share the same frustrations. My experience with D&D is my own, and I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything.

1) IMO the process takes too long due to poor organization. As Mike Shae noted, the workflow is non-linear; i.e. reaching step 5 often means rethinking step 2, and so on. The new quick builder appears to me as a bandage for bad design. We simply don't see eye to eye on backgrounds and ASIs. Nobody denies that species-based ASIs were an issue for the community. But I do not know who argued that the solution would be to move starting ASIs into backgrounds, as opposed to tying them to classes or just letting them be freely assigned according to the PC's backstory and flavor.

2) It wasn't. I credited weapon masteries with narrowing the power gap while also noting that they introduced new frictions. IMO they are a second-best solution forced by backward compatibility, which hamstrung the devs from making more structural changes.

3) Nowhere did I assert that the number of actions is the single cause of sluggish combat. IMO, the issue has many causes including decision paralysis, pervasive opportunity attacks, and over-reliance on bonus actions--a mechanic Mike Mearls himself criticized recently. As I've noted elsewhere, there are plenty of other TTRPGs out there in which combat encounters can be both exciting and fast, and so IMO D&D is not at the frontier of the trade-off between exciting player choices and combat speed.

4) My entire argument? Not at all. The ranger capstone exemplifies the 2024 ranger's struggles, but I never argued that it's the root issue. Even if we accept that the ranger's combat abilities should be built around Hunter's Mark, IMO, it makes more sense for it to be a class feature, like the rogue's sneak attack, which would incidentally free up the ranger's concentration. But IMO, the deeper issue is that there is a yawning gulf between the core vision of a ranger as an exploration expert and the combat-heavy nature of D&D. Especially so given that the rogue can already ambush, shoot arrows, and sneak about--all moves that are associated with the archetypal ranger in combat, IMO.

5) I must not be making my opinion clear, so I'll try to restate it. Given the business incentives for a x.5 revision and given that we have a decade of play data, IMO, 2024 was disappointing because the devs didn't address systemic issues raised as far back as 2014's development. This suggests poor coordination between WotC's dev and executive teams. But now, given the 2024 refresh is complete, the recent books feel like recycled content without meaningful design evolution.

That's the answer to the OP about why I'm not enthused about 2024. I don't hate it, but IMO the incremental improvements can't justify my additional spending on recycled subclasses and settings. And further, I feel that the years of effort expended on this reboot must have come at the expense of developing novel ideas, settings, and adventures which would have been a more worthwhile use of the devs' talents, IMO.

That's it. My experiences laid out. You've all clearly had different experiences, so there's no "debate" to be had.

Why do i dislike  the 2024 version of Dungeons and Dragons? the short answer is i don't dislike  it so much as I do not care enough to purchase the new edition.

I'm in two games that allow a mix of 2014 and 2024 players.  What I noticed the players that refuse to update tend to be two types.  The I don't like change and refuse to change (I'm a 50 old player/DM that started 40 years ago with 1st Ed and mainly played 2nd).    Or they are the folks that want to make certain power builds you can't no longer do in 2024/5.5 cause of balance in the game.   The two main guys against it in one game are those exact types even though a lot of mechanics would make their chars way better.   

Like rangers getting two free cast of Hunters Mark to free up more slots.   WE are constantly not doing short rest cause they don't want to loose their marks....so those that will get stuff back (like my Warlock) have to suffer and drag along.  Which also hurts cause we don't have a full on Healer in the party so it's all about the short rest and potions we do have.  Think the DM really needs to force more encounters between long rest to make it more important to do short rest.

I get having to buy a bunch of new books sucks, but lets be honest 2014 came out 12 years ago.  It was eventually going to get updated and we move to a new system.   As new players come they will adapt easier to a new system that is easier to follow and have readly available books at the stores.  Yah i get it as I'm one of them old timers, but I love books and new sources of stuff to work from and old stuff to fall back on.   Though I understand that times also change and things move forward.  Don't like it than just run older versions of games.  

This is a core mechanic with sorcerer. Meta magic is powerful and quickened spell is a must take.