Has anyone else noticed that when you try adding spells to a wizard, you just prepare them from the full list of wizard spells rather than adding them to your spellbook and preparing them from that list? One of my newbie players got very confused because this functionality seems (and is) wrong. I don't remember running into this issue before, so wondering if it is a new bug.
More than likely they're using homebrew that has allowed them the whole list.
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It does look like the Add Spells section for wizards now says Prepare / Unprepare, but it also seems to work the same as before. After selecting a spell in Add Spells, you still need to select the spell in Spellbook before it’s displayed in the character sheet.
I’ve asked the devs whether the label change is intentional.
i would also be interested to know if this is a change or a bug. It does not make sense since in Add Spells a wizard should be able to Learn or Delete as all they are doing is adding a spell to their spell book which is different than preparing/memorizing a learned spell from a spell book.
Our Wizard started getting confused regarding what spells were learned vs prepared.
Yes but frankly its confusing as the term Prepare and the term Learn mean two different things when it comes to the Wizard class.
Learn - scribe into your spell book
Prepare - memories the spell to be cast with a spell slot.
Nothing in this section regarding a Wizard's Spellbook mentions the word Prepare in terms of adding spells, it mentions prepare regarding spells already in the spellbook. .
Also the last paragraph differentiates prepare from add or learn - if a wizard lost their spellbook and did not have a backup, they can only copy the spell's they've prepared into that new spellbook and must find the remaining spells a new to add to the spellbook. If prepare and learn were the same then they could simply add all of the spells from one spellbook to another, even if they lost the first spell book.
Magic Initiate (Cleric, Druid, or Wizard) allows selection of a level 1 spell that gets one free use, and the feat also states you can use any spell slots you have to cast it as well. Up until recently, both displayed in my spell list, once with a "USE", and the other as a "CAST" which displayed allowing one to select other available level spell slot. Now, only the "USE" listing is available, and there is no way to select the higher level spell slots.
The "Show level-scaled spells" option makes no difference, checked or unchecked.
Other feats that give a spell with a "USE" as well as allowing other spell slots, such as Fey-Touched with Misty Step or Shadow-Touched with Invisible, still have both a "USE" and "CAST" option and display for other levels, as does stuff like "gnomish lineage spells" - speak with animals has both a use and a cast. It looks like just the magic initiate spells are now only "USE".
They include both USE and CAST when the rules give a specific spell.
In cases where the player chooses their spell, only USE is included; there’s not a good way to provide both in these cases. All the CAST button really does, though, is mark a spell slot as used, which you can do by just clicking the spell slot instead.
But this is a change from pre-update and should have at least been listed as such. Sure for stuff like Misty Step, Shield, or Invisibility, clicking off a spell slot isn't a big deal. But for spells such as Cure Wounds/Healing Touch (from magic initiate Druid/Cleric), there is now no mechanic for casting/upcasting after the initial free use and it will have to be rolled manually and any bonuses manually added. Removing the functionality that existed and forcing mechanical implementation is sort of counter to what using DnD Beyond for spellcasting is for, is it not? Now I'm manually rolling my "2d8+5 Hit Points and add an additional 2d8 for every level I want to upcast, and oh yeah don't forget to go click off the spell slot).
The functionality was there, and now it was removed. It wasn't broken, it worked fine. Now I'm back to manually casting my cure wounds at the level I want.
You say "there’s not a good way to provide both in these cases" but there was as way, it was there, it worked.
There’s definitely something weird going on with Zephyr. In addition to the missing “CAST” versions of Misty Step and Invisibility, for some reason it’s also not displaying the book name beside the feat like it does for Wazeau. It might be worth trying to remove and readd those feats and see if it changes.
But this is a change from pre-update and should have at least been listed as such. Sure for stuff like Misty Step, Shield, or Invisibility, clicking off a spell slot isn't a big deal. But for spells such as Cure Wounds/Healing Touch (from magic initiate Druid/Cleric), there is now no mechanic for casting/upcasting after the initial free use and it will have to be rolled manually and any bonuses manually added. Removing the functionality that existed and forcing mechanical implementation is sort of counter to what using DnD Beyond for spellcasting is for, is it not? Now I'm manually rolling my "2d8+5 Hit Points and add an additional 2d8 for every level I want to upcast, and oh yeah don't forget to go click off the spell slot).
The functionality was there, and now it was removed. It wasn't broken, it worked fine. Now I'm back to manually casting my cure wounds at the level I want.
You say "there’s not a good way to provide both in these cases" but there was as way, it was there, it worked.
Actually, it never worked. At least not for feats. The "Use Spell Slots" option for spells added via homebrew has only ever been supported in Race/Species and Subclass. Nothing else can add spells that use spell slots and never have.
For homebrew purposes when adding a feature like this for species/subclass is to add the spell twice : one that doesn't use a slot and has limited uses set and the second time to add a version that uses spell slots. It's clunky because the player has to ensure the select the same spell twice if it's a choice and the homebrewer has to add both versions. But, it works just fine. WHen doing homebrew nobody would care if you put a note "to get this working on D&D Beyond choose the same spell twice in both boxes". And I doubt anybody cares if there's two versions in the spell list on the sheet.
Which means the solution is easy: the devs just need to update feats to add the spell the same way species/subclass does. Problem solved. But, they've known this for years and nothing has been done. They don't prioritise this so our complaints and "wish they'd do this" posts will just fall on deaf ears because they've proven beyond doubt "amount of posts" are not a factor in prioritisation. Or they're waiting on some update to the homebrew system - in which case, again, our complaining will not result in anything.
-
For now, all we can do is the workaround : make a copy of the subclass/species and add a feature to add the "uses spell slots" version of the spell. Using fey/shadow touched feats as the example, you can see a shitty video I made on how to do this here:
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Click ✨ HERE ✨ For My Youtube Videos featuring Guides, Tips & Tricks for using D&D Beyond. Need help with Homebrew? Check out ✨ thisFAQ/Guide thread ✨ by IamSposta.
Actually, it never worked. At least not for feats. The "Use Spell Slots" option for spells added via homebrew has only ever been supported in Race/Species and Subclass. Nothing else can add spells that use spell slots and never have.
It never worked for us making homebrew, but the official feats do have that capability.
Actually, it never worked. At least not for feats. The "Use Spell Slots" option for spells added via homebrew has only ever been supported in Race/Species and Subclass. Nothing else can add spells that use spell slots and never have.
It never worked for us making homebrew, but the official feats do have that capability.
Never worked for 2014 Magic Initiate, and still doesn't for 2024 Magic Initiate.
Which feats now do this, and why do some and not others?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Click ✨ HERE ✨ For My Youtube Videos featuring Guides, Tips & Tricks for using D&D Beyond. Need help with Homebrew? Check out ✨ thisFAQ/Guide thread ✨ by IamSposta.
It did work albeit briefly for 2024 Magic Initiate (Druid and Cleric). My level 9 warlock had both (as Lessons of the First Ones eldritch evocations). Both Cure wounds and Healing Word would have a USE listing and CAST listing, and I could cast them with her highest level pact magic spell slots. Until this last update.
Never worked for 2014 Magic Initiate, and still doesn't for 2024 Magic Initiate.
Which feats now do this, and why do some and not others?
As stated above: both options are provided when the rules give a specific spell. Only “USE” is provided when the rule gives a choice of spell.
Both versions of Magic Initiate let the player choose their spell, so those only show “USE”. Fey-Touched, by contrast, shows both for Misty Step (because the feat always gives Misty Step) but only “USE” for its other spell, which the players choose.
Under the hood, Fey-Touched and features like it just add those fixed choices (i.e. Misty Step) twice: one with its own number of uses and another that uses spell slots. That presents a unique problem when the player chooses the spell, though, because those separate entries can’t currently be tied together; taking this approach would rely on making the player select the same spell twice, which aside from being a bother would open up the opportunity for players to choose a separate spell instead.
That presents a unique problem when the player chooses the spell, though, because those separate entries can’t currently be tied together; taking this approach would rely on making the player select the same spell twice, which aside from being a bother would open up the opportunity for players to choose a separate spell instead.
That sounds like a very bad way of data management, cause it kinda suggests that each spell has two copies in the database (one that can be cast and one that can be “used”) instead of just one - otherwise it should not be a hard task to have one dropdown where you select the spell, and then the background logic that adds the selected spell to both the castable and the “usable” list. Hell, if you can’t do any other way, one could add a second dropdown which is not shown but always take the value of the first one. I can’t really think a way where you don’t have to deliberately make it unfeasable to do that, especially since the aforementioned feats prove it is possible to have the same spell added to both lists.
But I guess the Humblewood Tales and shiny new backgrounds and dice are more important than actual core functionality, cause people won’t pay again for the latter. Probably that’s why there’s no light theme for the mobile app either, just “being considered” since 2020.
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--[ Natural 20 - that's how I roll! ]-- We've stopped this OGL madness, but stay vigilant, they tried it once, they can try it again.
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More than likely they're using homebrew that has allowed them the whole list.
Click ✨ HERE ✨ For My Youtube Videos featuring Guides, Tips & Tricks for using D&D Beyond.
Need help with Homebrew? Check out ✨ this FAQ/Guide thread ✨ by IamSposta.
I would have thought so, too, but we sat down together to do it, and when I rolled up a wizard to test it out I had the same issue.
It does look like the Add Spells section for wizards now says Prepare / Unprepare, but it also seems to work the same as before. After selecting a spell in Add Spells, you still need to select the spell in Spellbook before it’s displayed in the character sheet.
I’ve asked the devs whether the label change is intentional.
Need help with D&D Beyond? Come ask in the official D&D server on Discord: https://discord.gg/qWzGhwBjYr
i would also be interested to know if this is a change or a bug. It does not make sense since in Add Spells a wizard should be able to Learn or Delete as all they are doing is adding a spell to their spell book which is different than preparing/memorizing a learned spell from a spell book.
Our Wizard started getting confused regarding what spells were learned vs prepared.
Those buttons always do the same thing regardless of what they say, even between classes.
Need help with D&D Beyond? Come ask in the official D&D server on Discord: https://discord.gg/qWzGhwBjYr
Yes but frankly its confusing as the term Prepare and the term Learn mean two different things when it comes to the Wizard class.
Learn - scribe into your spell book
Prepare - memories the spell to be cast with a spell slot.
Nothing in this section regarding a Wizard's Spellbook mentions the word Prepare in terms of adding spells, it mentions prepare regarding spells already in the spellbook. .
Also the last paragraph differentiates prepare from add or learn - if a wizard lost their spellbook and did not have a backup, they can only copy the spell's they've prepared into that new spellbook and must find the remaining spells a new to add to the spellbook. If prepare and learn were the same then they could simply add all of the spells from one spellbook to another, even if they lost the first spell book.
Magic Initiate (Cleric, Druid, or Wizard) allows selection of a level 1 spell that gets one free use, and the feat also states you can use any spell slots you have to cast it as well. Up until recently, both displayed in my spell list, once with a "USE", and the other as a "CAST" which displayed allowing one to select other available level spell slot. Now, only the "USE" listing is available, and there is no way to select the higher level spell slots.
The "Show level-scaled spells" option makes no difference, checked or unchecked.
Other feats that give a spell with a "USE" as well as allowing other spell slots, such as Fey-Touched with Misty Step or Shadow-Touched with Invisible, still have both a "USE" and "CAST" option and display for other levels, as does stuff like "gnomish lineage spells" - speak with animals has both a use and a cast. It looks like just the magic initiate spells are now only "USE".
UPDATE: This is weird, some of my characters have the Fey-Touched Misty Step with just the "USE" option, and some have both "USE" and "CAST" options. I can't tell what is different between them. https://www.dndbeyond.com/characters/133611189 does NOT have "CAST" option. https://www.dndbeyond.com/characters/133638103 HAS both "USE" and "CAST". I'm very confused.
This changed with the last update. Prior to the update, both "USE" and "CAST" were available.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/characters/134572768 is one example - "SHIELD" should have a "USE" and a "CAST" as it did previously. See the Speak with Animals as example of how it worked previously.
Yes that bug is happening to me too. I have cure wounds for my magic initiate and it doesn't show the leveled spell option
They include both USE and CAST when the rules give a specific spell.
In cases where the player chooses their spell, only USE is included; there’s not a good way to provide both in these cases. All the CAST button really does, though, is mark a spell slot as used, which you can do by just clicking the spell slot instead.
Need help with D&D Beyond? Come ask in the official D&D server on Discord: https://discord.gg/qWzGhwBjYr
But this is a change from pre-update and should have at least been listed as such. Sure for stuff like Misty Step, Shield, or Invisibility, clicking off a spell slot isn't a big deal. But for spells such as Cure Wounds/Healing Touch (from magic initiate Druid/Cleric), there is now no mechanic for casting/upcasting after the initial free use and it will have to be rolled manually and any bonuses manually added. Removing the functionality that existed and forcing mechanical implementation is sort of counter to what using DnD Beyond for spellcasting is for, is it not? Now I'm manually rolling my "2d8+5 Hit Points and add an additional 2d8 for every level I want to upcast, and oh yeah don't forget to go click off the spell slot).
The functionality was there, and now it was removed. It wasn't broken, it worked fine. Now I'm back to manually casting my cure wounds at the level I want.
You say "there’s not a good way to provide both in these cases" but there was as way, it was there, it worked.
AFAIK, that’s how it’s always worked. (The example characters you sent are all set to private, though.)
Need help with D&D Beyond? Come ask in the official D&D server on Discord: https://discord.gg/qWzGhwBjYr
woops, sorry, set them to public....
There’s definitely something weird going on with Zephyr. In addition to the missing “CAST” versions of Misty Step and Invisibility, for some reason it’s also not displaying the book name beside the feat like it does for Wazeau. It might be worth trying to remove and readd those feats and see if it changes.
Need help with D&D Beyond? Come ask in the official D&D server on Discord: https://discord.gg/qWzGhwBjYr
Yes, there is. Show the two buttons next to each other.
--[ Natural 20 - that's how I roll! ]--
We've stopped this OGL madness, but stay vigilant, they tried it once, they can try it again.
Actually, it never worked. At least not for feats. The "Use Spell Slots" option for spells added via homebrew has only ever been supported in Race/Species and Subclass. Nothing else can add spells that use spell slots and never have.
For homebrew purposes when adding a feature like this for species/subclass is to add the spell twice : one that doesn't use a slot and has limited uses set and the second time to add a version that uses spell slots. It's clunky because the player has to ensure the select the same spell twice if it's a choice and the homebrewer has to add both versions. But, it works just fine. WHen doing homebrew nobody would care if you put a note "to get this working on D&D Beyond choose the same spell twice in both boxes". And I doubt anybody cares if there's two versions in the spell list on the sheet.
Which means the solution is easy: the devs just need to update feats to add the spell the same way species/subclass does. Problem solved. But, they've known this for years and nothing has been done. They don't prioritise this so our complaints and "wish they'd do this" posts will just fall on deaf ears because they've proven beyond doubt "amount of posts" are not a factor in prioritisation. Or they're waiting on some update to the homebrew system - in which case, again, our complaining will not result in anything.
-
For now, all we can do is the workaround : make a copy of the subclass/species and add a feature to add the "uses spell slots" version of the spell. Using fey/shadow touched feats as the example, you can see a shitty video I made on how to do this here:
Click ✨ HERE ✨ For My Youtube Videos featuring Guides, Tips & Tricks for using D&D Beyond.
Need help with Homebrew? Check out ✨ this FAQ/Guide thread ✨ by IamSposta.
It never worked for us making homebrew, but the official feats do have that capability.
Need help with D&D Beyond? Come ask in the official D&D server on Discord: https://discord.gg/qWzGhwBjYr
Never worked for 2014 Magic Initiate, and still doesn't for 2024 Magic Initiate.
Which feats now do this, and why do some and not others?
Click ✨ HERE ✨ For My Youtube Videos featuring Guides, Tips & Tricks for using D&D Beyond.
Need help with Homebrew? Check out ✨ this FAQ/Guide thread ✨ by IamSposta.
It did work albeit briefly for 2024 Magic Initiate (Druid and Cleric). My level 9 warlock had both (as Lessons of the First Ones eldritch evocations). Both Cure wounds and Healing Word would have a USE listing and CAST listing, and I could cast them with her highest level pact magic spell slots. Until this last update.
As stated above: both options are provided when the rules give a specific spell. Only “USE” is provided when the rule gives a choice of spell.
Both versions of Magic Initiate let the player choose their spell, so those only show “USE”. Fey-Touched, by contrast, shows both for Misty Step (because the feat always gives Misty Step) but only “USE” for its other spell, which the players choose.
Under the hood, Fey-Touched and features like it just add those fixed choices (i.e. Misty Step) twice: one with its own number of uses and another that uses spell slots. That presents a unique problem when the player chooses the spell, though, because those separate entries can’t currently be tied together; taking this approach would rely on making the player select the same spell twice, which aside from being a bother would open up the opportunity for players to choose a separate spell instead.
Need help with D&D Beyond? Come ask in the official D&D server on Discord: https://discord.gg/qWzGhwBjYr
That sounds like a very bad way of data management, cause it kinda suggests that each spell has two copies in the database (one that can be cast and one that can be “used”) instead of just one - otherwise it should not be a hard task to have one dropdown where you select the spell, and then the background logic that adds the selected spell to both the castable and the “usable” list. Hell, if you can’t do any other way, one could add a second dropdown which is not shown but always take the value of the first one. I can’t really think a way where you don’t have to deliberately make it unfeasable to do that, especially since the aforementioned feats prove it is possible to have the same spell added to both lists.
But I guess the Humblewood Tales and shiny new backgrounds and dice are more important than actual core functionality, cause people won’t pay again for the latter. Probably that’s why there’s no light theme for the mobile app either, just “being considered” since 2020.
--[ Natural 20 - that's how I roll! ]--
We've stopped this OGL madness, but stay vigilant, they tried it once, they can try it again.