February 14th, 2018
Today's update includes a few bug fixes, as well as a new feature for DMs as well as players in campaigns.
Bugs:
- Fixed an issue with the modifier type and subtype filters not filtering properly in the magic item listing.
- Fixed an ordering issue occurring in the character builder for Mutagen options in the Blood Hunter class.
- Addressed an issue with speed overrides and modifiers. See this forum post for more information.
Additions:
- Added the ability within a campaign to transfer ownership of characters among players. See more below.
Notes:
Along with today's update, you will now be able to create characters for other players in your campaign. Whether you're a DM or a player, you'll be able to create a character to be made available for users in your campaign to claim as their own.
You'll now see a new section called "Unassigned Characters" on the Campaign Details page:
If a character is "unassigned", it is available for anyone within the campaign or with an invite link to the campaign to claim the character as their own.
As a DM or player, you can create a new unassigned character by clicking the "Create Unassigned Character" button on the details page.
You can also click "Unassign" on any existing characters you own who are in the campaign to put them up for other players.
Characters that are created as Unassigned characters will then appear in the Unassigned Characters section. While they are in an "Unassigned" state, the user who created or last owned the character is still considered the owner. The transfer of ownership happens when the character is claimed by another player. Unassigned characters are still owned by the player who most recently put them up to be claimed for the purposes of viewing, editing, character slot, and potential content sharing purposes.
If you are already in the campaign, you can claim a character by simply clicking "Claim" on any unassigned character. If you have an invite link to the campaign, you can claim any unassigned characters on the "Join a Campaign" page in addition to joining with one of your characters or creating a new one. If you already have the maximum number of slots filled, you will not be able to claim a character, and you will not have an option to claim characters until you make room for that character.
Once a character is claimed, the new user becomes the owner, and has the ability to view, edit, or even unassign the character for someone else to claim if they please. A player who has maxed out their character slots will not be able to create a new unassigned character or claim an existing one until they make room for that character.
It's important to note once again that Unassigned Characters still consume character slots and campaign slots, and are owned by the last person who had ownership of the character before unassigning them. If Content Sharing is enabled, the characters will still share the content of their owners to everyone in the campaign. Lastly, a player can access the campaign as long as they have any active or unassigned characters in the campaign. If a player transfers their last character in a campaign to someone else, they will no longer have access to that campaign. (Unless they join again with another character).
If they had a button that allowed you to add a character right beside the make a character one, that's a feature. If you have to figure out an abstract path to getting something to work (i.e. using an invite link multiple times to add characters) then it's a workaround.
It would be great if I could copy any characters I have as an unassigned character to one of my campaigns.
I like to build characters and being able to easily move some of them into campaigns as unassigned characters would be incredibly convenient!
You're in luck! Recent updates made that possible. There should now be a 'Copy' option when you're looking at a character in the list.
Here's the changelog which mentions the new ability to copy your characters: https://www.dndbeyond.com/changelog/256-character-sheet-revamp
Right, no I understand I can copy my characters while making new ones, etc. I'm referring particularly to being able to take a character I made personally and place a copy of it into a campaign as an unassigned character.
Apologies if there is a way to do that already and I'm not seeing it.
Don't you just make a copy of the character in question, add it to the campaign in the usual manner (via the campaign link) and then unassign it?
That’s how I do it
Ah! That did the trick. Thanks!
It still seems more like a workaround to me though. Being that I have access to the Campaign page as a DM, I think it would make more sense to have a clear Import Unassigned Character type feature on the screen.
It didn't occur to me to use the invite link to join my own campaign as a player. Maybe it's just me, but it doesn't seem intuitive.
Ohhh, I see what you were saying.
And yeah, it feels 'workaround-y' right now. I bet we see a smooth 'import unassigned character' feature within the next year, but maybe that's too optimistic an estimate. Quite a lot on their plate.
Yeah, and that's fine. As long as an effective workaround exists, I can see this being a super low priority item.
Thanks again for the assist!
Glad it worked for you. Yeah, certainly does seem like a workaround, but that's been how even the DM has to do it under the current system. Happy Gaming!
Is there no way for the DM of the campaign to force unassignment for a character that is no longer playing, but the player is inactive as well, so that another player can pick that player up?
Just make a new one in your campaign with same stats etc. Then remove old one from campaign shouldnt take more than few minutes. Would understand why this is not possible . Character Owner is that player Can understand he would not like someone else to copy his character even if not playing .
This should definitely be a feature, its pretty rough to handle campaigns with people that have shifting schedules, they don't always unassign right away and I'm left dealing with all the stats.
Is it intendet that this doesn't work anymore?
Slight necro, but yes this is pretty frustrating in a homebrew setting. I recently manually built out 4 characters for a one-shot, and now having realized that there is no way for me to 'retrieve' a character from a now inactive player means I get to recreate the character for future runs of the one-shot.
I will now be using the copy function, but these characters shouldn't be treated as playing cards where full ownership goes to the player. As the DM I provide the pre-gen and I should be able to take it back, just like props at a table. I very quickly had all my other players "unassign" just so I could 'claim', 'copy', and 'unassign' for them to claim again. At least I'm only stuck rebuilding four characters.
I know there is probably some tricky permissions to navigate for the player to be able to have enough autonomy to 'own' the character while they are playing it, but also keep ownership with the DM.
I appreciate DNDB and hope this gets more intuitive soon.
Hmm think many players would have a fit if dm can take over ownership of their characters. But guess a duplicate function copying stats and equipment would do the job. Leaving both player and dm with a copy
I came to this forum precisely for this. A player lost access to her account (used a corporate email address and she no longer works for that company). I'd like to claim her character (or mark it as unclaimed) so she could claim it back with a new account.
This looked like such a cool feature but every time we try it the button you click to claim the character just straight up won’t work.