Abeir Toril › Coming from 5e

If You Know D&D

Then you already know how to play this. Almost everything here is a word swap — there is exactly one rule you have not seen before.

Start with what did not change

You roll a d20 and add your modifiers. Advantage and disadvantage work the same. Your AC, your saving throws, your proficiency bonus, your hit dice, your spell slots, your action / bonus action / reaction economy, concentration, conditions, death saves — all identical.

This is D&D 2024. It is wearing a coat.

The word swaps

Read this as a dictionary, not a rules change. The right-hand column is what your character sheet says; the left is what the Player's Handbook calls the same thing.

In the PHB	Here	What actually changed
Class	Role	Nothing. A Solo is a Fighter, rule for rule. Look Solo abilities up under Fighter.
Level	Mark	Nothing. Mark 7 grants exactly what level 7 grants.
Background	Lifepath	Nothing. Three abilities, +2/+1 or +1/+1/+1, two skills, a tool, an origin feat — that is the 2024 background rule verbatim.
Spell	Program	Nothing. Same names, same levels, same text. Acid Arrow is Acid Arrow.
Skill proficiency	Skill Shard	Same bonus. It is now an item on your sheet, so it can be found, bought and lost.
Gold	Eddies €$	Nothing. It spends the same.
Species	Species	Reflavoured only. A Dwarf is an industrial line. Traits are unchanged, and — as in the 2024 PHB — species grants no ability bonuses.
Subclass	Firmware	Same features at the same Marks, but you do not choose it. See below.
Magic item	Cyberware	Same idea, but it goes in a body location with limited slots, and it has a weight called Load.
Attunement	—	Not used here. Cyberware is either installed or it isn't. Nothing to attune, no three-item cap.

Why your sheet still says “Fighter” in places

Under the hood every Role keeps its D&D identifier, because that is what makes the automation work — the dice roller, the animations, the macros all key off it. If you spot the old word somewhere, nothing is broken. Look the rules up under the chassis name and they will be correct.

The Role → chassis table ›

The one genuinely new rule

Everything above is vocabulary. This is the actual change, and it is the only subsystem you have to learn.

Load Σ Marks + chrome what you carry

Capacity CON + highest Mark what your body tolerates

Overload Load − Capacity above zero, you save

Your body has a budget for how much hardware it will accept. Go over it and you make a CON save at the start of each combat — DC 8 + your Overload — and a failure is a scene event, not damage.

In PHB terms, the closest thing is attunement slots: a cap on how much gear can be doing something for you at once. The difference is that you are allowed to exceed it, and the game gets interesting when you do. Full detail ›

Three things that will feel different

You never level up	There is no moment where you gain a level. You go to a clinic and buy the next Mark, for Mark × 1,000 €$. Mechanically it is levelling; narratively somebody installs it, and they can decline to.
Your subclass picks you	Firmware is specced at Mk3 by whoever owns your implant. One per Role, unswappable. If you want something else you commission it between sessions — that is a story, not a menu.
Multiclassing costs Load	A second Role is legal and adds its full Mark to your Load while giving nothing back. Depth is free; breadth is paid for out of your chrome.

And one thing that is not a rule at all

Every Role implant has a lienholder — the company that made it and can take it back. No mechanic enforces this. It is there so that “where did you get that arm” has an answer, and so the GM has something to lean on that isn't a monster.

What to do at the table

Rules question?	Look it up in the 2024 PHB under the chassis name. It will be right.
Spell question?	Look up the Program by its own name. It's the same spell.
“Can I do X?”	If you could do it in 5e, you can do it here.
Overload?	The only thing on this page worth memorising: CON save, DC 8 + Overload, start of combat.