I was working on a character that was planning on using the Aberrant Mind subclass. Even though Tasha's released last November, the sorcerer subclasses still do not have the ability to select their spells. I was hoping, perhaps, that this would have been rectified by now, but the place I was planning on using the character requires all sheets to work "properly" on D&D Beyond, so using the official versions of the subclass, I could not reselect those spells for either subclass, even within the parameters listed.

So, since it just has to work on D&D Beyond, I set about homebrewing a version of Aberrant Mind that allowed me to select the spells. At 4:10 PM I mentioned in Discord, after having a look at how Fey-Touched handles the spell selection for their first level spell (literally just brute force listing the spells) that it would probably take twenty to thirty moments to fix. At 4:39, after venting about some unrelated design decisions for the subclass, I had finished the subclass and completed a character using it (based off of another sheet, just swapping the subclass so it wasn't all that much work). It's sloppy, sure- it lets you make all your selections at first level, which is a bit messy, and you can technically make more alternate selections than allowed since you can only change them at level ups- but I'm close to illiterate when it comes to designing homebrew spell lists and I still got it to "work".

Unfortunately, I can't share the subclass because it's literally just a copy of the official subclass with the fixes to spell selection made, but when it only takes me about 30 minutes of cross referencing, typing, and poking buttons to basically port a functional (if sloppy) version it makes me wonder why it's not "fixed" officially yet. I know that my solution is bad- it allows players to make decisions they shouldn't be able to make and prompts a bunch of selections early, though you could fix that by splitting Psionic Spells across levels instead of granting all the choices at first level. However, it functionally works like it should other than the selection issue, so I don't understand why it can't be solved more properly in 10 months.

Fortunately, I think this works for my case, since campaign sharing allows me to share the subclass with anyone who would need to check it for accuracy, but if I can kludge together a solution in less than an hour, I would hope that actual professionals could do it right without too much work, right?

Dearest Beyond Team,

Please fix this simple issue.

Maybe I am missing something, but I made the aberrant mind sorcerer and it worked fine for me. Could you explain what you mean by not being able to select spells for the subclass?

When you gain levels in Aberrant Mind/Clockwork Soul, you're supposed to be able to replace them with other spells from a certain list: "Whenever you gain a sorcerer level, you can replace one spell you gained from this feature with another spell of the same level. The new spell must be a (school of magic) or a (school of magic) spell from the sorcerer, warlock, or wizard spell list." This means that the list of spells available for Aberrant Mind/Clockwork Soul on that table is not just the spells you get by default, but rather that as you level you should be able to swap those spells for any that meet that above criteria (it's different between AM/CS).

Now, D&D Beyond does not, at the moment, have a way to specify that automatically, meaning any additional spells of those schools in later content would not be added automatically. I would have assumed that's why it doesn't have that feature implemented. That would make sense, until Fey Touched and Shadow Touched basically did the same thing and just brute forced the list, meaning that behind the scenes, that *should* be an acceptable and consistent way to develop these lists.

Even as an amateur when it comes to homebrew, resulting in some ugly implementation, all I had to do to make it "work" was edit the granted spells to list the appropriate spells for the choices manually, which took about 20 minutes for each subclass, and split the feature into different levels so it didn't display earlier that it should (I know there's a way to do it better, such as how Invocations work with selections unlocking at higher levels, but once again I am an amateur when it comes to the system), and this function of the subclass actually works. It's kind of disappointing how easy it was to fix via homebrew. Even doing it right, for someone who actually knew what they were doing, probably couldn't be more than a three hour project, and doing it "good enough" the way I did, as mentioned before, takes less than an hour, so why do we still not have the ability to utilize this ability over half a year later?

Couldn’t it work on the honor system like the Arcane Trickster does with a age Hand?

It seems like, over half a year in, it would be better to have a working, if slightly janky, solution instead of no solution. As a DM, there are already many things that players can do on their character sheets that they shouldn't with the rules of D&D- changing selections, modifying features, etc. I understand that just letting people choose, at the level they gain the spells, the ability to swap both spells if they want might make it unclear that you need to wait, but it seems like, for a system like D&D, it makes sense to offer more choice than necessary. D&D Beyond already allows players to add feats, proficiencies, override all kinds of things on their sheets, and so on so forth- and that's not a bad thing. But to have a feature just not be supported because of an inability to force selections properly seems kind of silly when there are so many other places that inexperienced players would see a bunch of options and potentially make more selections than appropriate at any given time.

But, I still don't buy that this has been something that has been worked on with the amount of attention and care that is required to fix it. I have a feeling someone looked at some spaghetti code, glanced at their schedule, and said "Eh, chalk it up to system limitations" and moved on. If I can make a close approximation of how it should work (which, granted, does allow for some abuse, but only at five specific levels) with homebrew tools, then someone who actually knows what they're doing should be able to do at least that, right?

I will just say that this has been an issue for sorcerer since Divine Soul which allows you to change your free first level spell after level. Despite years of complaints, nothing has ever been done on that front so I don't think AB or CS will be fixed either. We use the honor system at our table. 

So... How is this still a problem?

Because implementing it correctly, the way it's written and intended to work, requires redoing the entire code base for Expanded Spell Lists basically from scratch.  yes, you can brute-force a kludge solution using existing tools, but for DDB it's not enough for something to be only mildly not-how-it's written.  They're bound to implement stuff correctly whenever possible, and players WILL abuse literally any loophole in the system if they're given a chance.  A good DM will catch that and adjust, but DDB isn't for "Good DMs", it's for all DMs.  Right now it's better to just leave the Aberrant and Clockwork ESLs to work the same way as everybody else's, and once they have time to rip out and redo the whole ESL code block, they'll do that.

At least y'all are gonna get a fix, or can make one.  Heh, I still can't use Slow Natural Healing in my games and I'll never be able to on DDB, no matter how absolutely immersion-breaking awful the Wolverine Super Regen of the PHB default long rest is.  Reminder: the PHB long rest you get for freebies every day is equivalent to a ninth-level spell, and you should probably be a lot less okay with that than ye are.

Slow natural healing just slows games down...sure realism...also, cut to the fun part...
I always avoid games that try to feel like Oregon Trail resource management...
D&D for me is about the narrative build up and pay off - like a good fantasy novel.

Good point about the code and DDB is the best.
Cannot wait until they implement Play by Post - like Rolegate.

D&D for you is about the narrative build-up and payoff.
Fortunately for you, I am not you.
Our table finds that instantaneous free and full recovery from all forms of combat trauma robs epic fights of a lot of their punch.  Why give a snot about how badly someone gets hurt when one single night's sleep will restore them to absolutely pristine health, without even the faintest scar or other trace of crippling, life-threatening injuries?  It sabotages narrative build-up and payoff, in a way none of us have really figured out a decent way to cope with while using DDB.  It is absolutely something that has gotten our table to consider using other tools, though not seriously enough to actually move.

Yet.

Slow Natural Healing is a rule in the DMG.  It has existed since before DDB has, and it will never be implemented in DDB.  Just a reminder I like to provide people when they start venting spleen about why their favorite rule hasn't been implemented yet.  Everything is a matter of priority, and some things will simply never be worth the investment.  At least Aberrants and Clockworks will get there eventually, and can be bodged to work in the interim.

My solution to the problem of DDB not making subclasses playable is to learn how to use GSheets. I can put any spell I want to into Gsheets. DDB is just an inferior product for character sheets. GSheets actually lets you modify in a real way. DDB pretends to let you modify. 

I ended up just creating a homebrew copy of the subclass and editing the known spells. It's not all that much extra work really, even if it isn't intuitive at first, it does create a correct end product.

Quote from Ravnodaus >>

I ended up just creating a homebrew copy of the subclass and editing the known spells. It's not all that much extra work really, even if it isn't intuitive at first, it does create a correct end product.

 
In case it helps (and because I'm shameless at self-promotion) here's a video on how to do this. Please excuse the poor audio, but you should be able to hear everything and people are finding it helpful for this issue, so here we are.

Thanks, will check it out  :D

Quote from Halfwing >>

It's a bit more complicated than that. For example, the wording of Clockwork Magic:

You learn additional spells when you reach certain levels in this class, as shown on the Clockwork Spells table. Each of these spells counts as a sorcerer spell for you, but it doesn’t count against the number of sorcerer spells you know.

Whenever you gain a sorcerer level, you can replace one spell you gained from this feature with another spell of the same level. The new spell must be an abjuration or a transmutation spell from the sorcerer, warlock, or wizard spell list.

By default, the wording of the feature is such that you start off by learning those explicit spells, which can later be swapped out according to the level rules. This is different from the "brute force" approach of a feat like Fey (or Shadow) Touched:

You learn the misty step spell and one 1st-level spell of your choice.

Here, by default, you learn one (non-swappable) spell, and then have your choice of the rest of the spells.

There are many reasons the developers have for implementing it the way that they have in the meantime, before a more perfect solution exists. There has been a lot of discussion in Dev Updates around this topic, which I won't rehash (mainly because I don't have time to drag up all the relevant clips at the moment), but rest assured that if the "fix" were to just brute force some spell lists for players to choose, it would have been implemented that way from the start. In the meantime, any updates on these subclasses will certainly be loudly shouted across all social media channels, as well as in the weekly Dev Update and in the Tasha's Cauldron of Everything Issues & Support thread.

 The only thing that's needed as a workaround is to give players the ability to arbitrarily add spells to their spell lists. There are numerous issues, such as this as well as Divine Magic, that having this option as a workaround would aid. I don't understand the strict insistence on limiting character sheets to only those options explicitly defined in the rules without any sort of "unlocked" mode that allows actual customization of character sheets that can support more dynamic character options and abilities granted through adventure rewards. Granting spells through homebrew feats is cumbersome and does not allow those spells to work with the spell slot tracking and so provides a far less adequate workaround.

It seems like this is still an issue.

Is there any plan for dndbeyond to actually fix this problem, or are we left individually having to craft homebrew ourselves to try fix the character sheets ourselves?

Quote from redhawk2085 >>

It seems like this is still an issue.

Is there any plan for dndbeyond to actually fix this problem, or are we left individually having to craft homebrew ourselves to try fix the character sheets ourselves?

 Yes, these subclasses do not support the spell switching mechanics. This is due to how the sheet service currently works with regards to assigning spells.

The team does plan to implement this functionality, it's just a matter of priorities and bandwidth.

Is there any update on this? As a Clockwork Soul, I’m still not able to choose spells from that list. I’m not as worried about swapping — that’s easily enough done by just manually editing the character. But the fact I can’t choose Alarm or Protection From Evil and Good (to use the two 1st level examples) is pretty crippling.