I did active optional Class Features on the Home Page of the Character editor. But I didn't see it as an option on the class page. It just allows me to expand the primeval awareness trait, not giving me an option to select anything other than it.
That's really odd: On a test character, a 7th level Gloomstalker ranger, when I click on the "Optional Feature Manager" on the Class page of the builder, the first option/checkbox I see is "Deft Explorer" (As stated earlier, Rover is part of that feature); below that is Favored Foe, then Primal Awareness, then Nature's Veil, followed by several other options. Do I understand you correctly that you only see Primal awareness? If so, please post a link (full url, not share link) to your character.
I feel through ignorance I was blind. I didn't see the option to see optional class features on the class page to activate them there. Didn't even realize that was an option. But after reading your comment and checking it was definitely there. Thank you so much for helping direct my eyes to the right place. It was like looking for your keys when they're in your hands. I didn't expect it to be there, so I didn't see it 😂 have a good one, thanks again!
I feel through ignorance I was blind. I didn't see the option to see optional class features on the class page to activate them there. Didn't even realize that was an option. But after reading your comment and checking it was definitely there. Thank you so much for helping direct my eyes to the right place. It was like looking for your keys when they're in your hands. I didn't expect it to be there, so I didn't see it 😂 have a good one, thanks again!
In fairness, the extra Optional Feature Manager tab is easy to miss.
I feel through ignorance I was blind. I didn't see the option to see optional class features on the class page to activate them there. Didn't even realize that was an option. But after reading your comment and checking it was definitely there. Thank you so much for helping direct my eyes to the right place. It was like looking for your keys when they're in your hands. I didn't expect it to be there, so I didn't see it 😂 have a good one, thanks again!
In fairness, the extra Optional Feature Manager tab is easy to miss.
Yeah I really wish there was a way to just have the optional features (not replacements) enabled by default; my group is switching between several ongoing campaigns and likes to play one shots, but I constantly have to chase people to enable optional features and customise their origin if they need to, otherwise we end up with some players weaker or with fewer options in and out of combat than the others.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
Is it possible to transfer an already made character into a campaign, if the DND Beyond campaign was made for content sharing after the start of the actual campaign? I want to share content with my campaign mates, but I don't want to have them have to recreate their characters.
Is it possible to transfer an already made character into a campaign, if the DND Beyond campaign was made for content sharing after the start of the actual campaign? I want to share content with my campaign mates, but I don't want to have them have to recreate their characters.
When you create a campaign you'll get a link to give others to join; when they follow that link they'll be asked to pick one of their existing characters to join as, or given the choice to create a new one instead (which will have all sharing content available right away if sharing is enabled).
If the characters are already in another campaign they can go into that campaign, choose to leave, then join yours as normal.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
It's amazing that it has been 10 months since the release of this book and there are still so many unimplemented features.
It seems like an overhaul of the ground level spaghetti code is in order if it takes this long to implement such simple things.
That's part of the reason why it's taken so long to implement, actually. A lot of the code has had to be overhauled because it doesn't support new (and more than a few old) features. That and they have to overhaul it without breaking characters/homebrew using the existing code to boot.
They should fix the code from the ground up. It has to positively be in a ridiculous state of disarray if it takes this long to implement simple features that should be able to be added with a single json update.
Destroy all the existing homebrew. Who cares?
Make the system work. Fix it so that dead simple things like adding actions to magic items, changing the damage dice of mundane weapons, changing the range values of weapons, etc. can be done.
It's frankly ridiculous and I don't see any value in keeping their existing code if such easy, easy, easy things take a year to do (edit: or years? It's not like these features are actually implemented).
There should be no reason to destroy homebrew (and official content) if done properly; it's just data at the end of the day, namely actions, modifiers etc.
Any new system will still need to provide those same basic features, so it should be possible to either make the new system compatible with the old data, or convert it; better yet, keep the old system around for a while and let people convert to new versions under the new system to test and iron out problems before changing over for good.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
Again, they are rewriting a lot of the code from the ground up. A number of decisions were made early on for the sake of convenience, and it hasn't been able to keep up. And a lot of people care about existing homebrew; there's tons of the stuff on this site, and it has to be taken into consideration, like it or not.
It's not preventing them from doing it. They have to rewrite the code regardless. They've just chosen to not screw everyone else over while they do it..
It's ridiculous if someone's homemade garbage is preventing them from implementing official rules.
Please don't dismiss homebrew as "garbage"; some people put a lot of time and effort into what they create, homebrew is also heavily used by DMs in the campaigns they run to implement unique items, spells etc., and I'll bet nobody is going to be happy if their homebrew is suddenly nuked, especially if they've spent hours (maybe dozens or even hundreds of hours) testing and refining it, and players aren't going to be happy if their favourite characters are ruined when homebrew races, classes, gear etc. get ripped out.
Some kind of changeover is going to be necessary whether you like it or not; now whether it'll be 100% compatible is another matter, some stuff might get broken (hopefully not too drastically) and need to be fixed with a new version, but as long as the bulk of it works, and fixing it isn't too hard it should be fine.
While it's frustrating that some official content hasn't been fully implemented, if doing so is non-trivial then it's understandable; it's a lot easier to print something onto a page than it is to code the corresponding rules into an interactive dynamic character sheet. Take the swapping of sub-class spells on things like Aberrant Mind for example, specifically this line:
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 divination or an enchantment spell from the sorcerer, warlock, or wizard spell list.
Easy enough to write out and for people to read and understand, trivial to do on a physical pen and paper sheet, but this is one of those cases where it's actually more complicated to do on a computer system; you need a way to mark spells that can be swapped in this way, what spells are valid for them to switch to, then add some way to present it to the user so they can remove sub-class spells and add alternatives, while maintaining the correct numbers of spells in total. It starts to get a bit complicated logically, with loads of testing needed to make sure it's not going to mess up the character sheet, plus it also needs to be done in a way that it can be reused if other sub-classes get a similar feature (without knowing what differences and other new features new sub-classes might have).
That's a big part of the problem; Wizards of the Coast put out a rule, D&D Beyond implement it, but then WotC put out something similar but not quite the same and suddenly it needs its own implementation, but now you have two similar but not quite the same features in your system. In the ideal case the first version of the feature would be implemented in so flexible a way that implementing the second version is a minor addition, but that's not always possible to predict (we humans don't have precognition). This has been happening for four years now, and Wizards of the Coast aren't putting new books on hold while D&D Beyond changes their system, it's something of a logistical nightmare, let alone the actual coding problem(s).
I'm frustrated by the delays too, but as a software developer myself, I am all too familiar with the types of difficulties they face. 😉
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
It's ridiculous if someone's homemade garbage is preventing them from implementing official rules.
Please don't dismiss homebrew as "garbage"; some people put a lot of time and effort into what they create, homebrew is also heavily used by DMs in the campaigns they run to implement unique items, spells etc., and I'll bet nobody is going to be happy if their homebrew is suddenly nuked, especially if they've spent hours (maybe dozens or even hundreds of hours) testing and refining it, and players aren't going to be happy if their favourite characters are ruined when homebrew races, classes, gear etc. get ripped out.
Some kind of changeover is going to be necessary whether you like it or not; now whether it'll be 100% compatible is another matter, some stuff might get broken (hopefully not too drastically) and need to be fixed with a new version, but as long as the bulk of it works, and fixing it isn't too hard it should be fine.
While it's frustrating that some official content hasn't been fully implemented, if doing so is non-trivial then it's understandable; it's a lot easier to print something onto a page than it is to code the corresponding rules into an interactive dynamic character sheet. Take the swapping of sub-class spells on things like Aberrant Mind for example, specifically this line:
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 divination or an enchantment spell from the sorcerer, warlock, or wizard spell list.
Easy enough to write out and for people to read and understand, trivial to do on a physical pen and paper sheet, but this is one of those cases where it's actually more complicated to do on a computer system; you need a way to mark spells that can be swapped in this way, what spells are valid for them to switch to, then add some way to present it to the user so they can remove sub-class spells and add alternatives, while maintaining the correct numbers of spells in total. It starts to get a bit complicated logically, with loads of testing needed to make sure it's not going to mess up the character sheet, plus it also needs to be done in a way that it can be reused if other sub-classes get a similar feature (without knowing what differences and other new features new sub-classes might have).
That's a big part of the problem; Wizards of the Coast put out a rule, D&D Beyond implement it, but then WotC put out something similar but not quite the same and suddenly it needs its own implementation, but now you have two similar but not quite the same features in your system. In the ideal case the first version of the feature would be implemented in so flexible a way that implementing the second version is a minor addition, but that's not always possible to predict (we humans don't have precognition). This has been happening for four years now, and Wizards of the Coast aren't putting new books on hold while D&D Beyond changes their system, it's something of a logistical nightmare, let alone the actual coding problem(s).
I'm frustrated by the delays too, but as a software developer myself, I am all too familiar with the types of difficulties they face. 😉
As a developer be honest..... Is this slower then average development?
As a developer be honest..... Is this slower then average development?
That's hard to say without knowing exactly what they're actually doing and how many are working on it; they don't seem to have a very big development team (though iirc they've taken more on recently?), so with not enough staff it wouldn't be surprising that it has dragged on so long. I've seen plenty of projects spin out into months of delays for various reasons over the years.
It's a bit weird that we got the containers update (as much as I like it); as that means even fewer staff working on overhauling stuff. I don't recall seeing anything about when the containers update started development work, but if they started it after Tasha's came out then that'd be a big WTF when there were more important projects to finish, especially since the containers update, while nice to have, is lacking the feature(s) that would make it truly useful (like toggling weight, and we don't know when that's coming).
Which kind of points to the biggest problem IMO which is the lack of communication; while we can see the simpler bugs (wrong numbers, wrong action type etc.) getting fixed pretty quickly, we don't know much about the bigger stuff or even whether anyone's actually working on it right now. We don't need hard deadlines, but some kind of ballpark would be nice, like "next year" for an overhaul, or "before the end of this year" for some quick fixes for Tasha's, that kind of thing.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
As a developer be honest..... Is this slower then average development?
That's hard to say without knowing exactly what they're actually doing and how many are working on it; they don't seem to have a very big development team (though iirc they've taken more on recently?), so with not enough staff it wouldn't be surprising that it has dragged on so long. I've seen plenty of projects spin out into months of delays for various reasons over the years.
It's a bit weird that we got the containers update (as much as I like it); as that means even fewer staff working on overhauling stuff. I don't recall seeing anything about when the containers update started development work, but if they started it after Tasha's came out then that'd be a big WTF when there were more important projects to finish, especially since the containers update, while nice to have, is lacking the feature(s) that would make it truly useful (like toggling weight, and we don't know when that's coming).
Which kind of points to the biggest problem IMO which is the lack of communication; while we can see the simpler bugs (wrong numbers, wrong action type etc.) getting fixed pretty quickly, we don't know much about the bigger stuff or even whether anyone's actually working on it right now. We don't need hard deadlines, but some kind of ballpark would be nice, like "next year" for an overhaul, or "before the end of this year" for some quick fixes for Tasha's, that kind of thing.
Thanks for the insight.
Yeah I think I agree on the communication aspect.
It's seemingly all over the place with development and what they are focusing on.
The trello board was at least helpful for some of that.
Containers got moved into development in late June/early July of this year, according to the interactive feedback portal, but it's unclear what phase of 'development' that was, and if it had also been reliant on some of the previous rounds of back-end updates.
I agree that communications are extremely poor - they won't even aggregate or update known issues threads after a certain point (eg a recently resolved issue upthread). The bug threads get unpinned because of forum limitations, regardless of whether or not all issues have been resolved, and their naming has been inconsistent over the years, making it difficult for users to find out about known issues, if they even know to look in the forums.
That's really odd: On a test character, a 7th level Gloomstalker ranger, when I click on the "Optional Feature Manager" on the Class page of the builder, the first option/checkbox I see is "Deft Explorer" (As stated earlier, Rover is part of that feature); below that is Favored Foe, then Primal Awareness, then Nature's Veil, followed by several other options. Do I understand you correctly that you only see Primal awareness? If so, please post a link (full url, not share link) to your character.
Trying to Decide if DDB is for you? A few helpful threads: A Buyer's Guide to DDB; What I/We Bought and Why; How some DMs use DDB; A Newer Thread on Using DDB to Play
Helpful threads on other topics: Homebrew FAQ by IamSposta; Accessing Content by ConalTheGreat;
Check your entitlements here. | Support Ticket LInk
I feel through ignorance I was blind. I didn't see the option to see optional class features on the class page to activate them there. Didn't even realize that was an option. But after reading your comment and checking it was definitely there. Thank you so much for helping direct my eyes to the right place. It was like looking for your keys when they're in your hands. I didn't expect it to be there, so I didn't see it 😂 have a good one, thanks again!
In fairness, the extra Optional Feature Manager tab is easy to miss.
Yeah I really wish there was a way to just have the optional features (not replacements) enabled by default; my group is switching between several ongoing campaigns and likes to play one shots, but I constantly have to chase people to enable optional features and customise their origin if they need to, otherwise we end up with some players weaker or with fewer options in and out of combat than the others.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
Where is Custom Lineage supposed to appear in the character builder?
I've turned on Optional Class Features and Customize Your Origin. But when I go to the Race page, there's no option for Custom Lineage.
I'm not sure if this matters, but I do not own Tasha's myself. It's being shared by my DM via their campaign.
Is it possible to transfer an already made character into a campaign, if the DND Beyond campaign was made for content sharing after the start of the actual campaign? I want to share content with my campaign mates, but I don't want to have them have to recreate their characters.
When you create a campaign you'll get a link to give others to join; when they follow that link they'll be asked to pick one of their existing characters to join as, or given the choice to create a new one instead (which will have all sharing content available right away if sharing is enabled).
If the characters are already in another campaign they can go into that campaign, choose to leave, then join yours as normal.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
It's amazing that it has been 10 months since the release of this book and there are still so many unimplemented features.
It seems like an overhaul of the ground level spaghetti code is in order if it takes this long to implement such simple things.
That's part of the reason why it's taken so long to implement, actually. A lot of the code has had to be overhauled because it doesn't support new (and more than a few old) features. That and they have to overhaul it without breaking characters/homebrew using the existing code to boot.
They should fix the code from the ground up. It has to positively be in a ridiculous state of disarray if it takes this long to implement simple features that should be able to be added with a single json update.
Destroy all the existing homebrew. Who cares?
Make the system work. Fix it so that dead simple things like adding actions to magic items, changing the damage dice of mundane weapons, changing the range values of weapons, etc. can be done.
It's frankly ridiculous and I don't see any value in keeping their existing code if such easy, easy, easy things take a year to do (edit: or years? It's not like these features are actually implemented).
There should be no reason to destroy homebrew (and official content) if done properly; it's just data at the end of the day, namely actions, modifiers etc.
Any new system will still need to provide those same basic features, so it should be possible to either make the new system compatible with the old data, or convert it; better yet, keep the old system around for a while and let people convert to new versions under the new system to test and iron out problems before changing over for good.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
Again, they are rewriting a lot of the code from the ground up. A number of decisions were made early on for the sake of convenience, and it hasn't been able to keep up. And a lot of people care about existing homebrew; there's tons of the stuff on this site, and it has to be taken into consideration, like it or not.
EDIT: Also, what Haravikk said.
It's ridiculous if someone's homemade garbage is preventing them from implementing official rules.
It's not preventing them from doing it. They have to rewrite the code regardless. They've just chosen to not screw everyone else over while they do it..
Please don't dismiss homebrew as "garbage"; some people put a lot of time and effort into what they create, homebrew is also heavily used by DMs in the campaigns they run to implement unique items, spells etc., and I'll bet nobody is going to be happy if their homebrew is suddenly nuked, especially if they've spent hours (maybe dozens or even hundreds of hours) testing and refining it, and players aren't going to be happy if their favourite characters are ruined when homebrew races, classes, gear etc. get ripped out.
Some kind of changeover is going to be necessary whether you like it or not; now whether it'll be 100% compatible is another matter, some stuff might get broken (hopefully not too drastically) and need to be fixed with a new version, but as long as the bulk of it works, and fixing it isn't too hard it should be fine.
While it's frustrating that some official content hasn't been fully implemented, if doing so is non-trivial then it's understandable; it's a lot easier to print something onto a page than it is to code the corresponding rules into an interactive dynamic character sheet. Take the swapping of sub-class spells on things like Aberrant Mind for example, specifically this line:
Easy enough to write out and for people to read and understand, trivial to do on a physical pen and paper sheet, but this is one of those cases where it's actually more complicated to do on a computer system; you need a way to mark spells that can be swapped in this way, what spells are valid for them to switch to, then add some way to present it to the user so they can remove sub-class spells and add alternatives, while maintaining the correct numbers of spells in total. It starts to get a bit complicated logically, with loads of testing needed to make sure it's not going to mess up the character sheet, plus it also needs to be done in a way that it can be reused if other sub-classes get a similar feature (without knowing what differences and other new features new sub-classes might have).
That's a big part of the problem; Wizards of the Coast put out a rule, D&D Beyond implement it, but then WotC put out something similar but not quite the same and suddenly it needs its own implementation, but now you have two similar but not quite the same features in your system. In the ideal case the first version of the feature would be implemented in so flexible a way that implementing the second version is a minor addition, but that's not always possible to predict (we humans don't have precognition). This has been happening for four years now, and Wizards of the Coast aren't putting new books on hold while D&D Beyond changes their system, it's something of a logistical nightmare, let alone the actual coding problem(s).
I'm frustrated by the delays too, but as a software developer myself, I am all too familiar with the types of difficulties they face. 😉
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
As a developer be honest..... Is this slower then average development?
I've heard it both ways.
That's hard to say without knowing exactly what they're actually doing and how many are working on it; they don't seem to have a very big development team (though iirc they've taken more on recently?), so with not enough staff it wouldn't be surprising that it has dragged on so long. I've seen plenty of projects spin out into months of delays for various reasons over the years.
It's a bit weird that we got the containers update (as much as I like it); as that means even fewer staff working on overhauling stuff. I don't recall seeing anything about when the containers update started development work, but if they started it after Tasha's came out then that'd be a big WTF when there were more important projects to finish, especially since the containers update, while nice to have, is lacking the feature(s) that would make it truly useful (like toggling weight, and we don't know when that's coming).
Which kind of points to the biggest problem IMO which is the lack of communication; while we can see the simpler bugs (wrong numbers, wrong action type etc.) getting fixed pretty quickly, we don't know much about the bigger stuff or even whether anyone's actually working on it right now. We don't need hard deadlines, but some kind of ballpark would be nice, like "next year" for an overhaul, or "before the end of this year" for some quick fixes for Tasha's, that kind of thing.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
Thanks for the insight.
Yeah I think I agree on the communication aspect.
It's seemingly all over the place with development and what they are focusing on.
The trello board was at least helpful for some of that.
Containers got moved into development in late June/early July of this year, according to the interactive feedback portal, but it's unclear what phase of 'development' that was, and if it had also been reliant on some of the previous rounds of back-end updates.
I agree that communications are extremely poor - they won't even aggregate or update known issues threads after a certain point (eg a recently resolved issue upthread). The bug threads get unpinned because of forum limitations, regardless of whether or not all issues have been resolved, and their naming has been inconsistent over the years, making it difficult for users to find out about known issues, if they even know to look in the forums.
Birgit | Shifter | Sorcerer | Dragonlords
Shayone | Hobgoblin | Sorcerer | Netherdeep
Thank you very much