Interesting... the post tag seems to have changed from "Bug" to "Request." Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that functionality that's already available, but doesn't work as intended (e.g. having a dropdown for custom arrows but not having an actual selectable Ammunition category) is considered a bug. On the other hand, functionality that does not exist yet, but is asked for seems more like a request...
It works, it’s just locked behind admin privileges.
If ammo gets programmed incorrectly it can cause glitches. That’s true of any homebrew, but ammo is in this weird place halfway between a weapon and a wondrous item, but consumable and stackable like a potion, so it is likely even more prone to glitching. Considering that there is no functional way to apply the properties of any magical ammunition to an attack in any automated way, that means all the ammo can do is just sit in a character’s equipment as a reminder until it is used and then gets deleted. Additionally, creating something stackable to “just sit in a character’s equipment as a reminder until it is used and then gets deleted” can already be accomplished more safely by means of a custom item created directly on your character sheet. So since it could crash your sheet if it gets misprogrammed, and since it wouldn’t actually “do” anything anyway, homebrewed magic ammo could really only do more harm than good at this point, and since there is already a safer alternative, the content for that required dropdown got locked behind admin privileges.
So you see, it isn’t a “bug” or a “glitch” at all. It is an intentional decision to keep that stuff all locked up safe until they finish their updates and overhaul the homebrewer. Its kinda like putting a safety pen up in the living room to keep the baby safe until you can get the house childproofed. So no, it isn’t a “bug,” it’s a “request” to the Devs to finish putting latches on the cabinets and covers on the outlets so we can’t accidentally cut, burn, maim, or electrocute our character sheets and they can take down the baby pen. Unfortunately, mom and dad have to work a lot and just don’t have the time or energy at the moment to childproof everything yet. So we just have to wait.
Thanks for clarifying. I knew this probably would be added in the upcoming homebrew overhaul. I just wasn't sure what this was actually classified as (bug vs. request).
Wouldn't it just be smarter to remove that label from the drop down to begin with? The entire source of this bug post is that the drop down is there, but it doesn't work.
Wouldn't it just be smarter to remove that label from the drop down to begin with? The entire source of this bug post is that the drop down is there, but it doesn't work.
If they actually removed it, then it wouldn’t be there for the Dev’s to use whenever WotC published something with new magic ammo and they need to use it.
We don’t use a different system than the Devs use. We use the exact same system, but they have Admin privileges and we only have user privileges. That’s why it seems so jacked up, it was never originally intended for non-Dev’s to use at all. But it’s what was available, so it’s hat they could offer us until they can get around to overhauling the whole shebang.
Getting around creating the actual ammunition, such as labeling it as a different item, I just created a copy of the weapon and added the extra damage in Homebrew. I changed the Name to reflect the ammo type and changed the description to reflect die and type. Under Additional I added 20 charges, consumable, and typed 0.05 lb. to reflect weight of 20 arrows. Under Modifiers I added a second one for Damage - "Element" and the specific dice to roll. When rolling it rolls the bow's actual damage and the element damage. It's still not perfect but it makes rolling damage a one button press.
Additionally, creating something stackable to “just sit in a character’s equipment as a reminder until it is used and then gets deleted” can already be accomplished more safely by means of a custom item created directly on your character sheet.
Custom items are the opposite of a safe way to keep items, since once deleted they're lost forever — name, description, weight, notes etc. Custom items are also not entirely integrated with other systems, like the recently released inventory spaces.
Maybe the best would've been to allow ammunition to be created just as stackable items and then iterate on other functionality later instead of blocking their creation completely.
Additionally, creating something stackable to “just sit in a character’s equipment as a reminder until it is used and then gets deleted” can already be accomplished more safely by means of a custom item created directly on your character sheet.
Custom items are the opposite of a safe way to keep items, since once deleted they're lost forever — name, description, weight, notes etc. Custom items are also not entirely integrated with other systems, like the recently released inventory spaces.
Maybe the best would've been to allow ammunition to be created just as stackable items and then iterate on other functionality later instead of blocking their creation completely.
You do realize you can deplete the item down to 0 without “deleting” it. And the point of “deleting” something is to get rid of it forever. If you aren’t prepared to get rid of it forever, why did you delete it?
Not to mention, when I said “safely” I meant in regards to “safe” from the Devs’ perspective. It helps if you don’t take a single sentence out of the middle of a paragraph so the whole thing is out of context:
Interesting... the post tag seems to have changed from "Bug" to "Request." Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that functionality that's already available, but doesn't work as intended (e.g. having a dropdown for custom arrows but not having an actual selectable Ammunition category) is considered a bug. On the other hand, functionality that does not exist yet, but is asked for seems more like a request...
It works, it’s just locked behind admin privileges.
If ammo gets programmed incorrectly it can cause glitches. That’s true of any homebrew, but ammo is in this weird place halfway between a weapon and a wondrous item, but consumable and stackable like a potion, so it is likely even more prone to glitching. Considering that there is no functional way to apply the properties of any magical ammunition to an attack in any automated way, that means all the ammo can do is just sit in a character’s equipment as a reminder until it is used and then gets deleted. Additionally, creating something stackable to “just sit in a character’s equipment as a reminder until it is used and then gets deleted” can already be accomplished more safely by means of a custom item created directly on your character sheet. So since it could crash your sheet if it gets misprogrammed, and since it wouldn’t actually “do” anything anyway, homebrewed magic ammo could really only do more harm than good at this point, and since there is already a safer alternative, the content for that required dropdown got locked behind admin privileges.
So you see, it isn’t a “bug” or a “glitch” at all. It is an intentional decision to keep that stuff all locked up safe until they finish their updates and overhaul the homebrewer. Its kinda like putting a safety pen up in the living room to keep the baby safe until you can get the house childproofed. So no, it isn’t a “bug,” it’s a “request” to the Devs to finish putting latches on the cabinets and covers on the outlets so we can’t accidentally cut, burn, maim, or electrocute our character sheets and they can take down the baby pen. Unfortunately, mom and dad have to work a lot and just don’t have the time or energy at the moment to childproof everything yet. So we just have to wait.
See, “safe” as in “won’t crash your character sheet.” A single custom item getting deleted safer than accidentally coding a homebrewed arrow that could crash every character sheet that uses it. Ne?
What you don’t seem to understand is that the Devs need it to be the way it is, and they cannot make it work differently for us than them. We use the same system.
It works, it’s just locked behind admin privileges.
If a feature that is shown to the user does not work the way that it is intended to work for that user, then it indeed is a bug and does not work. If a feature is only intended for admin users, then it should not be shown to non-admin users. It should be trivial to gate a specific option within a drop-down menu behind a flag that hides it for non-admin users so that they don't keep seeing a feature that they're not supposed to use because it would cause problems for them to use it.
If you allow someone to select an option in the UI that they do not actually have the correct privileges to use, then that is a bug. Whether that option is supposed to be there for some privileged set of users is irrelevant. An attempt to classify it as a feature request because the functionality is supposed to exist somewhere within the system is ignorant of the fact that there is a flaw — i.e. a bug — in the code that incorrectly displays the option to users who are not supposed to use it.
If ammo gets programmed incorrectly it can cause glitches. That’s true of any homebrew, but ammo is in this weird place halfway between a weapon and a wondrous item, but consumable and stackable like a potion, so it is likely even more prone to glitching. Considering that there is no functional way to apply the properties of any magical ammunition to an attack in any automated way, that means all the ammo can do is just sit in a character’s equipment as a reminder until it is used and then gets deleted. Additionally, creating something stackable to “just sit in a character’s equipment as a reminder until it is used and then gets deleted” can already be accomplished more safely by means of a custom item created directly on your character sheet. So since it could crash your sheet if it gets misprogrammed, and since it wouldn’t actually “do” anything anyway, homebrewed magic ammo could really only do more harm than good at this point, and since there is already a safer alternative, the content for that required dropdown got locked behind admin privileges.
That's all fine and well, and as someone with an almost 25-year career in software engineering, I fully understand the situation that you're describing as well as the discussions around prioritizing features and limited resources that others have alluded to in this thread — and, in fact, I've referenced those myself in defense of D&D Beyond on other forums where people have been criticizing this platform — but again they really should just make the very trivial effort to gate that particular drop-down or drop-down option with a flag so that non-admin users don't see it since they're not "supposed" to use it right now.
So you see, it isn’t a “bug” or a “glitch” at all. It is an intentional decision to keep that stuff all locked up safe until they finish their updates and overhaul the homebrewer. Its kinda like putting a safety pen up in the living room to keep the baby safe until you can get the house childproofed. So no, it isn’t a “bug,” it’s a “request” to the Devs to finish putting latches on the cabinets and covers on the outlets so we can’t accidentally cut, burn, maim, or electrocute our character sheets and they can take down the baby pen. Unfortunately, mom and dad have to work a lot and just don’t have the time or energy at the moment to childproof everything yet. So we just have to wait.
That's not a great analogy since it has been repeated ad nauseam that we the users are using the same exact tool that the developers do to create objects in the system and the point now is that there is a feature that is shown to the users but only usable by a miniscule subset of users. There's no playpen. The baby has the run of the living room, and the parents keep leaving these scissors on the coffee table and having to snatch them up every time the baby goes for them.
And you're kind of like the family friend that tells them it's okay to leave the scissors there as long as you explain everything to the baby. ;)
But, really, the smartest thing is to just put the scissors away in the console drawer so the baby doesn't even see it in the first place, and the parents can still use them whenever they need to clip their coupons or cut out newspaper articles for their scrapbook. :)
What you don’t seem to understand is that the Devs need it to be the way it is, and they cannot make it work differently for us than them. We use the same system.
It's fine for the devs to need that feature in there, but even a junior developer less than a year out of college or coding bootcamp could gate functionality behind a flag.
It's fine for the devs to need that feature in there, but even a junior developer less than a year out of college or coding bootcamp could gate functionality behind a flag.
Especially when they've clearly mastered the technology behind "not showing people stuff they shouldn't see" when it comes to accessing source books and paid content.
Well it's still around I ran into this problem yesterday
This was first brought up in August 2017, and last discussed in this thread fewer than 10 days ago on August 23, 2021. It is now only September 1st, 2021. There is little point in pointing out that nothing has changed within the last 8 days when the timeline is obviously being measured in years.
This is clearly not going to be addressed before The massive system update they are planning to roll out in a couple of months. In fact, this might not even be slated as part of this update and might be part of a later one. If youse all want to keep complaining as nauseam, feel free. (So far it’s still a free country.) But I doubt it’ll do much good in convincing DDB to push this to the top of the pile of it isn’t already there.
Here is a video showing how to make such customisations among others. The chapters let you navigate to more relevant parts but the first "use" shown is custom actions and items which can be used to create custom ammo.
Hope it helps.
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.
Unfortunately still a problem. Just tried to create my own custom arrow type and ran into this :(
If you see my video above I do go over how to add custom arrows to your sheet.
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 works, it’s just locked behind admin privileges.
If ammo gets programmed incorrectly it can cause glitches. That’s true of any homebrew, but ammo is in this weird place halfway between a weapon and a wondrous item, but consumable and stackable like a potion, so it is likely even more prone to glitching. Considering that there is no functional way to apply the properties of any magical ammunition to an attack in any automated way, that means all the ammo can do is just sit in a character’s equipment as a reminder until it is used and then gets deleted. Additionally, creating something stackable to “just sit in a character’s equipment as a reminder until it is used and then gets deleted” can already be accomplished more safely by means of a custom item created directly on your character sheet. So since it could crash your sheet if it gets misprogrammed, and since it wouldn’t actually “do” anything anyway, homebrewed magic ammo could really only do more harm than good at this point, and since there is already a safer alternative, the content for that required dropdown got locked behind admin privileges.
So you see, it isn’t a “bug” or a “glitch” at all. It is an intentional decision to keep that stuff all locked up safe until they finish their updates and overhaul the homebrewer. Its kinda like putting a safety pen up in the living room to keep the baby safe until you can get the house childproofed. So no, it isn’t a “bug,” it’s a “request” to the Devs to finish putting latches on the cabinets and covers on the outlets so we can’t accidentally cut, burn, maim, or electrocute our character sheets and they can take down the baby pen. Unfortunately, mom and dad have to work a lot and just don’t have the time or energy at the moment to childproof everything yet. So we just have to wait.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Thanks for clarifying. I knew this probably would be added in the upcoming homebrew overhaul. I just wasn't sure what this was actually classified as (bug vs. request).
Wouldn't it just be smarter to remove that label from the drop down to begin with? The entire source of this bug post is that the drop down is there, but it doesn't work.
If they actually removed it, then it wouldn’t be there for the Dev’s to use whenever WotC published something with new magic ammo and they need to use it.
We don’t use a different system than the Devs use. We use the exact same system, but they have Admin privileges and we only have user privileges. That’s why it seems so jacked up, it was never originally intended for non-Dev’s to use at all. But it’s what was available, so it’s hat they could offer us until they can get around to overhauling the whole shebang.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
:edited:
Getting around creating the actual ammunition, such as labeling it as a different item, I just created a copy of the weapon and added the extra damage in Homebrew. I changed the Name to reflect the ammo type and changed the description to reflect die and type. Under Additional I added 20 charges, consumable, and typed 0.05 lb. to reflect weight of 20 arrows. Under Modifiers I added a second one for Damage - "Element" and the specific dice to roll. When rolling it rolls the bow's actual damage and the element damage. It's still not perfect but it makes rolling damage a one button press.
Custom items are the opposite of a safe way to keep items, since once deleted they're lost forever — name, description, weight, notes etc. Custom items are also not entirely integrated with other systems, like the recently released inventory spaces.
Maybe the best would've been to allow ammunition to be created just as stackable items and then iterate on other functionality later instead of blocking their creation completely.
You do realize you can deplete the item down to 0 without “deleting” it. And the point of “deleting” something is to get rid of it forever. If you aren’t prepared to get rid of it forever, why did you delete it?
Not to mention, when I said “safely” I meant in regards to “safe” from the Devs’ perspective. It helps if you don’t take a single sentence out of the middle of a paragraph so the whole thing is out of context:
See, “safe” as in “won’t crash your character sheet.” A single custom item getting deleted safer than accidentally coding a homebrewed arrow that could crash every character sheet that uses it. Ne?
What you don’t seem to understand is that the Devs need it to be the way it is, and they cannot make it work differently for us than them. We use the same system.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
If a feature that is shown to the user does not work the way that it is intended to work for that user, then it indeed is a bug and does not work. If a feature is only intended for admin users, then it should not be shown to non-admin users. It should be trivial to gate a specific option within a drop-down menu behind a flag that hides it for non-admin users so that they don't keep seeing a feature that they're not supposed to use because it would cause problems for them to use it.
If you allow someone to select an option in the UI that they do not actually have the correct privileges to use, then that is a bug. Whether that option is supposed to be there for some privileged set of users is irrelevant. An attempt to classify it as a feature request because the functionality is supposed to exist somewhere within the system is ignorant of the fact that there is a flaw — i.e. a bug — in the code that incorrectly displays the option to users who are not supposed to use it.
That's all fine and well, and as someone with an almost 25-year career in software engineering, I fully understand the situation that you're describing as well as the discussions around prioritizing features and limited resources that others have alluded to in this thread — and, in fact, I've referenced those myself in defense of D&D Beyond on other forums where people have been criticizing this platform — but again they really should just make the very trivial effort to gate that particular drop-down or drop-down option with a flag so that non-admin users don't see it since they're not "supposed" to use it right now.
That's not a great analogy since it has been repeated ad nauseam that we the users are using the same exact tool that the developers do to create objects in the system and the point now is that there is a feature that is shown to the users but only usable by a miniscule subset of users. There's no playpen. The baby has the run of the living room, and the parents keep leaving these scissors on the coffee table and having to snatch them up every time the baby goes for them.
And you're kind of like the family friend that tells them it's okay to leave the scissors there as long as you explain everything to the baby. ;)
But, really, the smartest thing is to just put the scissors away in the console drawer so the baby doesn't even see it in the first place, and the parents can still use them whenever they need to clip their coupons or cut out newspaper articles for their scrapbook. :)
It's fine for the devs to need that feature in there, but even a junior developer less than a year out of college or coding bootcamp could gate functionality behind a flag.
Especially when they've clearly mastered the technology behind "not showing people stuff they shouldn't see" when it comes to accessing source books and paid content.
Well it's still around I ran into this problem yesterday
This was first brought up in August 2017, and last discussed in this thread fewer than 10 days ago on August 23, 2021. It is now only September 1st, 2021. There is little point in pointing out that nothing has changed within the last 8 days when the timeline is obviously being measured in years.
This is clearly not going to be addressed before The massive system update they are planning to roll out in a couple of months. In fact, this might not even be slated as part of this update and might be part of a later one. If youse all want to keep complaining as nauseam, feel free. (So far it’s still a free country.) But I doubt it’ll do much good in convincing DDB to push this to the top of the pile of it isn’t already there.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Glad to see this still hasn't been resolved after five years.
You can still do this. Just not as directly.
Here is a video showing how to make such customisations among others. The chapters let you navigate to more relevant parts but the first "use" shown is custom actions and items which can be used to create custom ammo.
Hope it helps.
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 just came across this issue and was looking for a fix but it seems like this has been an on going issue for years…
Still nothing huh.
If anything had changed you wouldn’t have to ask.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Unfortunately still a problem. Just tried to create my own custom arrow type and ran into this :(
If you see my video above I do go over how to add custom arrows to your sheet.
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.
Custom Ammo needs to be fixed immediately.
May Eilistraee's Song touch your heart and bring you joy.