Having just run the first few hours of a new campaign of Out of the Abyss with my friends I thought it would be a good time to provide some feedback on what I thought the strengths and weaknesses of using D&D Beyond in it's current state in my campaign was. If anyone has any comments or input on how they did things differently it would be a pleasure to receive it.

My goal in using D&D Beyond is to reduce the number of tools I need to use to run a campaign, but at this stage I'm still finding myself having to refer to multiple sources of information and using a number of tools trying to keep the flow of the game moving. Not that I'm good at it... but I'd like to be.

My players love D&D Beyond because of how easy it was to create a character for them. The character creator is really great and the ability to track the usage of one-off skills and spells is superb. Having all of the information about their spells available in one place really opened up the game for them so it was encouraging to see them using spells they'd normally ignore or forget they had.

I did notice a lack of detail on some of the skills. Like, there was a monk ability that said an enemy had to perform a dexterity saving throw to avoid being knocked prone but failed to mention what the DC of the check was. I also struggled to use the links to creatures/enemies in the adventure because I couldn't see the information I needed (like, their weapons, attacks, skills and such) without actually clicking through to the link. This slowed me down a lot.

It's been said elsewhere enough, but a combat tracker and place to keep NPC's would be really nice. Having an easy way to quickly share a loot list with my players so that I'm not the bottleneck to loot, and a method of showing an image to them without employing some third-party tool would be good too. How about a dice roller?

How is everyone else finding it so far? Are you finding it to be a good addition to your toolbox? How are you doing things? 

I'd e curious about this as well and surprised  there was no comments. how about a update on how things are now compared to then. I know combat tracker is still not out but it's going to be real soon it seems like.

I did notice a lack of detail on some of the skills. Like, there was a monk ability that said an enemy had to perform a dexterity saving throw to avoid being knocked prone but failed to mention what the DC of the check was.

I'm looking at my monk now and all saving throw DC's are listed (specifically Fist of Unbroken Air and Water Whip)

I also struggled to use the links to creatures/enemies in the adventure because I couldn't see the information I needed (like, their weapons, attacks, skills and such) without actually clicking through to the link.

That's because you can only fit so much information in a snippet and they have to abbreviate somewhere. 

It's been said elsewhere enough, but a combat tracker 

That's coming, we've been shown previews recently

and place to keep NPC's would be really nice

That not so much, as nobody can agree on what they actually mean when they say an NPC tracker/creator. Everyone says they want one, but there's no single idea as to what one would be, considering there are no formal rules for NPCs

Having an easy way to quickly share a loot list with my players so that I'm not the bottleneck to loot

Loot management is coming

and a method of showing an image to them without employing some third-party tool would be good too

This is getting into VTT territory. I just copy the image over discord if playing online, and I just whatsapp it to my players if I'm playing at the table.

How about a dice roller?

I think some form of dice roller is coming, but I don't think it's necessarily a high priority (IMO) as dice are generally one of the few things everyone who plays D&D has.

I don't use DDB to 'run' my campaigns, I use it the same way I use my physical books; as a reference tool. It's a quicker, better reference tool, but a reference none the less. I use physical dice and track combat how I've always done. I won't deny, I'm excited for the combat tracker, but I'm more excited for the encounter builder; I feel D&D Beyond is more about saving time before the session begins, not during gameplay.

I'm not saying your opinions and requests are wrong, I just think it's important to have a pragmatic view of what DDB is meant to be. I don't think it's meant to be a VTT like environment in which you can run an entire game. I think it's supposed to be a power-tool for preparing and referencing.

Ooh, necrothread.

Using the Vivaldi browser, I set up most of the tabs I will need to access during the game in the sidebar, including the Roll 20 window for mapping. I'll then use its Tab Stacking facility to stack tabs with some commonality to them to further reduce clutter in the sidebar. Usually the ones I stack are also defined by the lower frequency of my need to access to them. I then use the Window Panel feature to combine all PC sheets into one window and also combine them into one tab via stacking.

It's hard to see exactly how this all works out even in a screen capture, but trust me, it's amazing.

thanks for that suggestion, I'll be checking that browser out and play around with it.