I’ve been using this site since the beta began. I was sold immediately by the SRD compendium access. The character builder was secondary to me. Over time, more features have been added to this toolset. Each addition has improved my experience here. I have no idea if my perspective on this toolset is similar to others, but it appears to me that some view this tool as half-baked because it doesn’t include every possible contingency or automation. It doesn’t have an encounter builder. Its campaign management is a placeholder for things to come. The character sheet doesn’t figure every single thing for me.
It ought to be noted that BadEye and the development team have been responsive to the community. They added PDF export when it wasn’t on their radar. They’ve expanded available content to include Unearthed Arcana and Critical Role. They’ve worked to make sure official content is released alongside the print materials. They’ve released a beta of the mobile app that includes offline access to the compendium content. The team’s accomplishments have been many. And the plans for the future are amazing as well.
D&D Beyond’s creators’ goal has been to faithfully recreate the official content while enhancing it’s use at the table and during preparation. They’ve been so careful to present things as they are in the physical books that they maintain mistakes from the physical materials until errata comes out. They don’t allow for feats outside of the rules. They don’t allow for custom languages. At the same time, they have desired to embrace the customization capabilities of Dungeons & Dragons and the genius of the community. The system has become more flexible as the months have passed, partly in response to community demand, but also because as BadEye has said, the nature of D&D is to be able to do nearly anything. I am blown away by the homebrew capabilities of this site and the community’s innovations when working around the limitations of the ruleset. And the promise of added on-sheet customization that is about to launch with the revamped character sheet has me thoroughly excited. You can see some of this already with the current character sheet. You can add custom attacks. You can customize current attacks. You can select spells to appear in the Attacks box.
I guess what I am trying to say is I am thankful to Curse’s development team and the forum moderators for their ongoing efforts. The service isn’t a perfect fit for everyone, but there is no denying that it is a darned fine tool. It has enhanced my campaign prep. It has enhanced my table play. I’m not telling people to stop asking for more enhancements. I’m not telling people to stop giving feedback and bug reports. All of those things have contributed to making this better. I just want people to try to see this glass as half full. See, I am not used to having a digital tool that does all the things that this one does, much less all the ones that folks are clamoring for. I’ll be tickled when those things come to pass. But in the meantime, I’m doing fine. I’ll be patiently waiting for the next big thing. So if I have to notate that my character has picked up an unidentified long sword instead of being able to click an Identify button to have it revealed, that's not that big of a deal to me. (Not that I am knocking that idea. It's an example of a really cool suggestion that this community has been good at coming up with.)
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I’ve been using this site since the beta began. I was sold immediately by the SRD compendium access. The character builder was secondary to me. Over time, more features have been added to this toolset. Each addition has improved my experience here. I have no idea if my perspective on this toolset is similar to others, but it appears to me that some view this tool as half-baked because it doesn’t include every possible contingency or automation. It doesn’t have an encounter builder. Its campaign management is a placeholder for things to come. The character sheet doesn’t figure every single thing for me.
It ought to be noted that BadEye and the development team have been responsive to the community. They added PDF export when it wasn’t on their radar. They’ve expanded available content to include Unearthed Arcana and Critical Role. They’ve worked to make sure official content is released alongside the print materials. They’ve released a beta of the mobile app that includes offline access to the compendium content. The team’s accomplishments have been many. And the plans for the future are amazing as well.
D&D Beyond’s creators’ goal has been to faithfully recreate the official content while enhancing it’s use at the table and during preparation. They’ve been so careful to present things as they are in the physical books that they maintain mistakes from the physical materials until errata comes out. They don’t allow for feats outside of the rules. They don’t allow for custom languages. At the same time, they have desired to embrace the customization capabilities of Dungeons & Dragons and the genius of the community. The system has become more flexible as the months have passed, partly in response to community demand, but also because as BadEye has said, the nature of D&D is to be able to do nearly anything. I am blown away by the homebrew capabilities of this site and the community’s innovations when working around the limitations of the ruleset. And the promise of added on-sheet customization that is about to launch with the revamped character sheet has me thoroughly excited. You can see some of this already with the current character sheet. You can add custom attacks. You can customize current attacks. You can select spells to appear in the Attacks box.
I guess what I am trying to say is I am thankful to Curse’s development team and the forum moderators for their ongoing efforts. The service isn’t a perfect fit for everyone, but there is no denying that it is a darned fine tool. It has enhanced my campaign prep. It has enhanced my table play. I’m not telling people to stop asking for more enhancements. I’m not telling people to stop giving feedback and bug reports. All of those things have contributed to making this better. I just want people to try to see this glass as half full. See, I am not used to having a digital tool that does all the things that this one does, much less all the ones that folks are clamoring for. I’ll be tickled when those things come to pass. But in the meantime, I’m doing fine. I’ll be patiently waiting for the next big thing. So if I have to notate that my character has picked up an unidentified long sword instead of being able to click an Identify button to have it revealed, that's not that big of a deal to me. (Not that I am knocking that idea. It's an example of a really cool suggestion that this community has been good at coming up with.)