Quote from mjsoctober >>

 And if/when D&D Beyond shuts down, you will be left with nothing for your investment. I will still have my hardcover books.

Quote from nichm >>

Quote from mjsoctober >>

Yes, but these days when you buy a DVD they almost always come with a digital copy at no extra cost. For example, I just bought the DVD for Batman Lego movie for $19.99 and it comes with a digital version free, so...

 People are leaning on this as well as the "lots of RPG books come with a free PDF" a lot, but I don't think this is a similar situation. PDFs already exist for most books as layout files the books are printed from, so the extra work involved in making that file available is minimal. Likewise, a DVD of Lego Batman already contains the movie in a digital format, so again, negligible work there in formatting that into a downloadable or streamable version. In either case, a generous estimate would be one person doing two or three days worth of work.

What Curse has built here has taken months and months of work from an entire team, and has reconfigured the bare text you would get in a PDF into a linked series of systems that feed into and build upon each other. This is more than "the PDF that should come with the book" and I wish people would stop trying to lean on that analogy in a situation where it plainly doesn't fit. It's like saying, "Hey, I paid $75 to see Chicago on Broadway a couple years ago, how come they want to charge me to see the movie too?"

This might have been answered already but, will the app work across ios and android devices?  Example : The DM has and andriod tablet and a player has a ios phone. 

Quote from KenMarable >>

Absolutely! This is not just a digital copy of the book, but actual DATA.

Besides, even with the original example, what RPG companies out there offer a PDF with every copy of the physical book? There might be some, but I don't know of any off hand.

People talk about Paizo, but that is not the case with them. Go into your FLGS or shop Amazon to buy a Pathfinder book and where is your PDF? Do any major RPG companies offer a digital copy with every copy of their physical products? A lot people seem to claim they do, but I'm thinking its has to be very rare or like Paizo, be in a very limited situation. Besides, what Curse is offering is much, much more than just a PDF anyway. So the comparisons are doubly inaccurate.

So, Sedge and BadEye have said that it's fine to use the homebrew system to just input stuff from your books (in precisely the way you do with a pencil, on paper). I went to try it out today and I'm not seeing a way to do this with classes, feats, or races. Can I create a homebrew race, class, or feat? This also affects the ability to use UA in a timely manner.

Quote from alficles >>

So, Sedge and BadEye have said that it's fine to use the homebrew system to just input stuff from your books (in precisely the way you do with a pencil, on paper). I went to try it out today and I'm not seeing a way to do this with classes, feats, or races. Can I create a homebrew race, class, or feat? This also affects the ability to use UA in a timely manner.

Quote from filcat >>

 They confirmed that homebrew classes, feats and races will be possible in the future.

Quote from BadEye >>

 

The Hero Tier at $2.99/ month is intended primarily for players. It removes ads on the site, allows players to create an unlimited number of characters, and add publicly-shared homebrew content to your collection to use within the toolset.

Sorry if this is a repeated question. But say I wanna buy a few items and such from different books to make a whole character. (Like in the example stated earlier).

What if I then decide, at a later date, that I in fact want the entire books. Would what I already bought be discounted somehow? Or would that first few purchases just be 'lost'.

Quote from Leevens >>

Quote from BadEye >>

 

The Hero Tier at $2.99/ month is intended primarily for players. It removes ads on the site, allows players to create an unlimited number of characters, and add publicly-shared homebrew content to your collection to use within the toolset.

  One of my main questions is why, (WHY!?) are you putting ads on this site in the first place? Ad removal should not be a perk locked behind a monthly paywall. You're going to be making enough money from book sales, and people subscribing for the other perks. There is absolutely no reason to annoy us with ads, and use that to push us towards subscribing as well...

Also, out of curiosity, what is the plan with the adventure modules here. I'm not sure where they really fit into DnD Beyond, if there is no virtual tabletop. It makes sense for me to buy this content in Fantasy Grounds where I can actually use and interact with the maps. Here though I'm not sure what I gain from buying the modules. 

 

For myself, I don't see the price structure as unreasonable at all, and fully intend to buy in for the core 3 books, LMoP and SKT with a DM tier subscription right away. Pricing is what I expected (less actually) for the books, based on existing pricing for FG or Roll20, and $3 or $6/mo is inconsequential - less than daily coffee money for many people.

While I can understand people feel they shouldn't have to re-buy books, the reality is that of course they were going to (again, as with FG/Roll20) and to think otherwise was naive. Yes, people have limited income and hobby money, but this is a luxury expense, not required for play and like anything else, if you can't afford it, so be it.

I do see people complaining about this huge buy-in for DMs - $60/$90 for core books, plus $30 each for SCAG, Volos, Xanathars and $25 per adventure. That seems disingenuous to me, as I can see no real reasons that any person or group would need to purchase all the adventure content at once, up front.  Most are only running one adventure at a time and can buy the others for completionism at a  later time.  If a particular monster, spell, background or what-have-you is needed for a particular PC or encounter, it's easy enough to add them as a homebrew until you buy the real thing (or you could buy that bit ala carte). To rant and rave about how this is too expensive for anyone to use seems just silly to me.

Just my 2 coppers...

So does a monthly subscription give you access to the core books and modules? All the subscriptions seem to do is allow you to share home brew and content. Why should I purchase a subscription? .

Quote from WanderingMerchant >>

So does a monthly subscription give you access to the core books and modules? All the subscriptions seem to do is allow you to share home brew and content. Why should I purchase a subscription? .

 

Quote from WanderingMerchant >>

So does a monthly subscription give you access to the core books and modules? All the subscriptions seem to do is allow you to share home brew and content. Why should I purchase a subscription? .

 

I'm in the group of people who would like to see the sub cost increased, to offset the initial amount. In my humble opinion it's an easier pill to swallow when the money is spread out over a contractual period (3 months, 6 months, 12 months). I don't have a good gaming group. Every cost, and I mean every cost is on me. From Character sheets to minis, it's all up to me. So this tool, if I choose to use it, is a huge blow to the wallet.

that being said, I love the tool. I think Curse did an awesome job of understanding and implementing feedback. If I had another payment option I would sub 5 minutes after going live. I really have to wait and see if Curse can, once again, listen to their core consumer base.

great job Curse! 

Quote from WanderingMerchant >>

So does a monthly subscription give you access to the core books and modules? All the subscriptions seem to do is allow you to share home brew and content. Why should I purchase a subscription? 

Quote from Red_King >>

Quote from DustinAshe >>

I'm kind of envious of those picking up 5e for the first time in August. They can go completely digital from the start and save all that money.

That being said, if the tools come together as promised, I'll stop buying hardcovers and only buy digital copies here.

 This.

I have a feeling that this is an either/or situation, not both. If you're just starting to play D&D, perhaps after a long layoff or from playing other RPGs then you'd be crazy to buy the hardbacks and a digital subscription for DDB / Roll20 / FG, IMHO. You'd be a special kind of crazy to buy the hardbacks, then digital copies for DDB and then do the same for Roll20, for example. 

Pick which horse you think will stay the race and put all of your money on that one - and when is 6e due...?

 

 

After reading the original post by BadEye I can't tell it the two ways to purchase potentially provide ALL the same things. For instance, if you pay one-time fees for content (a Player's Handbook for example) does that allow you to make and store an unlimited number of characters using THAT content and to add home-brew rules of your own like you can for the subscription-based method, and allow you to do so forever? Or do you ALSO have to pay one-time fees for unlocking unlimited character storage and other features like home brewing rules? Or are we essentially going to need to do BOTH ways of purchasing to make the product useful to us (i.e. buy the books we want AND buy a subscription to utilize that content to make characters online and store home brew information and use it all to play, etc.)

Books and subscriptions are two separated things. You can have either, both...or neither. If have subscriptions, you don't have automatically the books. If you buy the books, you do not automatically have the subscriptions.