Someone told me about D&D Beyond, I logged in and couldn't create a character of a race that isn't even that rare. This site says I have to buy all the books digitally that I already have sitting next to me in order to do that. D&D beyond is just a character generator program and it wants me to spend a thousand dollars to make a character that I can do with a few extra minutes on a sheet of paper.
What is the point of D&D Beyond? Make a campaign on the site, I saw, how much is that, $2K?
Actually; if you go to the store and check the books you will find you can buy pieces.. you can actually buy a single race or the races in a book.
That is how I did it.. of course, buying in dribbles and dabs.. didn't stop me from ending up buying the legendary bundle in the end.. but it took a reasonably long time.
And when you did buy a book.. what you already spent on buying parts was taken off the price.
As others have said above, no you do not need to spend $1k to build a character on this site. As I type this the Legendary Bundle is priced at $887, not $1k. More importantly, however, there is absolutely no need to buy the legendary bundle to use the site. I’m amazed at the number of people who fixate on the Lengendary Bundle price tag and seem to think that is the only buying option, or that it is necessary to use the site.
In terms of character creation in particular, one does not need all the books. More than half of the books are adventures with very little to offer character creation. And some of the “source” books are very specific to setting (Rick & Marty, Eberron, Theros, etc.)
Furthermore, as Toddy_Shelfungus pointed out, you can purchases the bits and bobs you need instead of purchasing entire books.
I would also point out that DDB is much more than just a character creator.
If you want to learn more about different approaches to purchasing content here, depending on how you want to use the site, you might find the Buyer’s Guide linked in my signature helpful, as it runs through several purchase options.
As others have said above, no you do not need to spend $1k to build a character on this site. As I type this the Legendary Bundle is priced at $887, not $1k. More importantly, however, there is absolutely no need to buy the legendary bundle to use the site. I’m amazed at the number of people who fixate on the Lengendary Bundle price tag and seem to think that is the only buying option, or that it is necessary to use the site.
In terms of character creation in particular, one does not need all the books. More than half of the books are adventures with very little to offer character creation. And some of the “source” books are very specific to setting (Rick & Marty, Eberron, Theros, etc.)
Furthermore, as Toddy_Shelfungus pointed out, you can purchases the bits and bobs you need instead of purchasing entire books.
I would also point out that DDB is much more than just a character creator.
If you want to learn more about different approaches to purchasing content here, depending on how you want to use the site, you might find the Buyer’s Guide linked in my signature helpful, as it runs through several purchase options.
You see, I have the books sitting here physically next to me. No incentive to use this character generator if I have to pay anything for it.
Then don't use it. Why are you sat here complaining about it when the product clearly isn't for you?
That's exactly what I came here to find out. Hence the question, "Am I missing something?" in my original post. I have all the books, didn't see the point and posted. Turns out I don't need this site, but I was responding to those who wrote responses. Seems Beyond thread is pretty threatened by me asking about your site and determining it isn't for me. I won't post again.
Sorry if I seemed hostile, it's just we get people complaining about this all the time and I have gotten tired of seeing it. Good luck in your games and whatever else
You could just use the tools to recreate the options from your physical book. Most of it is pretty easy. Then you can use whatever you want with no extra cost.
And this is precisely the same as using any VTT/generator/etc system.
Your complaint isn't about D&D Beyond - it is for every legal digital VTT/generator/etc system in existence.
Best of luck.
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.
Literally just use the homebrew tools to recreate the stuff you want smh. It's right there my guy.
What's the point? To make your characters in an easy way without having to bother with any of the math or forgetting X features etc. Want to make a multiclassed caster with X levels of blade singer, X levels of eldritch knight, and X levels of arcane trickster? Trying to measure how many spell slots you have is obnoxious, and DDB does it all for you. It has all the monsters in an easy to search (in comparison to physical books, there's definitely better 5e search engines) database, right at your finger tips. No need to lug bunch of books around, stopping the game every time you need to look something up, and having to pass it around the table because not everyone has it but needs to reference it. You can share all your content to everyone else and they can view it immediately. You can just type into the search bar what you want and boom it's immediately there. The point of DDB is a legal character builder, which helps almost eliminate DnD's paperwork and inconveniences. Oh and all the books are cheaper here than irl. :)
If you don't like the tool then just like, don't use it? It's clearly not for you as you've decided so.
one thing to think about Avrae the discord bot has a direct relationship with D&D beyond so that having a Character sheet allows you to use Avrae to roll straight from the character sheet.. Not just ability checks.. but spells, and class abilities.. and things.
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Itinerant Deputy Shire-reave Tomas Burrfoot - world walker, Raft-captain, speaker to his dead
Toddy Shelfungus- Rider of the Order of Ill Luck, Speaker to Friends of Friends, and Horribly big nosed
Jarl Archi of Jenisis Glade Fee- Noble Knight of the Dragonborn Goldcrest Clan, Sorcerer of the Noble Investigator;y; Knightly order of the Wolfhound
D&D Beyond is not essential to playing D&D. It is a great set of tools that streamlines and largely error proofs character generation and as such is invaluable to new players and DMs teaching new players. Also as a master tier subscriber (a subscription I pay for on top of any of the content I bought here on D&D Beyond) my players in my campaigns can read my whole library without having to wait for other players to give back the books, and I don't have to worry about getting a book back after someone's do took a bite out of it or something worse on it.
It's got its limitations. Homebrew while having a lot of versatility to the point where you can in fact homebrew any WotC published content you already own (so not having to pay "double" for the D&D Beyond version) there are limitations porting in some 3rd party stuff (no new base classes chiefly).
At the end of the day if you "own it all" in print, you don't need to use D&D Beyond. If you do want to use it, you'll either have to pay for access to the tools for various character options or master the homebrew system. Again, neither's essential for playing D&D. The enhancement to the game is almost entirely in facilitating and managing characters, arguably expediting the creation of a character and reducing the time from making a character to jumping in and playing. That's evidently something a lot of people are willing to pay for.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Have the Physical Books? Confused as to why you're not allowed to redeem them for free on D&D Beyond? Questions answered here at the Hardcover Books, D&D Beyond and You FAQ
Looking to add mouse-over triggered tooltips to such things like magic items, monsters or combat actions? Then dash over to the How to Add Tooltips thread.
Then don't use it. Why are you sat here complaining about it when the product clearly isn't for you?
That's exactly what I came here to find out. Hence the question, "Am I missing something?" in my original post. I have all the books, didn't see the point and posted. Turns out I don't need this site, but I was responding to those who wrote responses. Seems Beyond thread is pretty threatened by me asking about your site and determining it isn't for me. I won't post again.
The person you are replying to is just another member of the community and not a representative of D&D Beyond. As such, it's a little misguided to accuse them/DDB of being "threatened" by you asking questions.
In fact, it's quite the contrary, DDB welcomes people asking questions and trying to figure out if it's the service for you to help make playing D&D easier. It's not for everyone and no one is going to deny that.
To loop back on your original post, you don't need to spend "$1k" to use the tools. You have a couple of options:
You mention you have all the "books sitting here physically next to me"; well you're in luck because you can use the homebrew tools to copy the options from those books into DDB for personal use, for free.
Alternatively, you can purchase just the individual options you need to make a specific character. Say you want to make a goblin scribes wizard with access to graviturgy spells and a spellshard. You don't need to purchase Volo's Guide to Monsters, Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, the Explorer's Guide to Wildemount, and Eberron: Rising from the Last War (totalling $119.96). Instead you can purchase the goblin race, the scribes subclass, the dunamancy spells, and the spellshard item, for a grand total of $9.96. Best off all, those purchases will give you credit towards buying the full books, should you decide to.
Your mention of having the physical books and the expectation that you should be able to access all the content here implies maybe a misunderstanding of D&D Beyond. DDB isn't owned or run by Wizards of the Coast and the money you paid for those books doesn't contribute to the running or development of the site. There is no unique identifier number on those books you own (ISBN barcodes are not unique, all copies of a given book have the same one), so there would be no way to redeem those books even if DDB was part of WotC. Finally, it would not be possible for D&D Beyond to offer paid content for free, such as the Player's Handbook or Dungeon Master's Guide. That is simply something the Wizards of the Coast does not/would not permit, for obvious reasons.
I hope this helps clarify things, and if it doesn't make D&D Beyond any more enticing for you, I hope you find a solution to improve your D&D experience elsewhere down the line!
Someone told me about D&D Beyond, I logged in and couldn't create a character of a race that isn't even that rare. This site says I have to buy all the books digitally that I already have sitting next to me in order to do that. D&D beyond is just a character generator program and it wants me to spend a thousand dollars to make a character that I can do with a few extra minutes on a sheet of paper.
What is the point of D&D Beyond? Make a campaign on the site, I saw, how much is that, $2K?
Isn't zoom free?
I must be missing something.
Hello Varysyth,
To add to what has been said above (all offering solutions are great solutions), there is an additional alternative that I had just given someone else the other day. You can see exactly what using this site is like without investing any money or time in making homebrew items.
Run a one-shot with your friends using only the free materials available. If you love it, then you can make the decision later to make purchases or use homebrew. The Basic Rules are able to fully take advantage of the toolset on this site. Frozen Sick is a free adventure module. Use them both for an introduction. If you enjoy it, we would be happy to have you join the community.
Someone told me about D&D Beyond, I logged in and couldn't create a character of a race that isn't even that rare. This site says I have to buy all the books digitally that I already have sitting next to me in order to do that. D&D beyond is just a character generator program and it wants me to spend a thousand dollars to make a character that I can do with a few extra minutes on a sheet of paper.
What is the point of D&D Beyond? Make a campaign on the site, I saw, how much is that, $2K?
Isn't zoom free?
I must be missing something.
This seems to have been answered by a few people but I'll throw in my 2 cents.
You don't "need" to spend $1,000 to use it, just to buy additional products that would cost you money to but physically and cost money to produce/maintain. You said you could use a paper sheet. That's true, but it works the same way as DDB. To use any given race that's not in the SRD/basic rules, you must pay to buy the physical book from WoTC/amazon/game store/wherever you buy it. So yes, it costs $1,000 to have every piece of content ever created by WotC on DDB. The same is true for physical books.
If you already have the physical books, there are some solutions. You could potentially just use basic rules content, at least at first. You can buy the specific race you want for only $1.99. Or you could use the homebrew creation tool to create a copy of official content to use for personal use only (sharing it would be a copyright violation and against DDB terms of service).
But it's true, is possible DDB is not the tool for you. Not every tool if for every person. However it's important to note that this does not render the tool useless. I personally find it incredibly useful. (I don't feel the need to have every piece of content, nor do I mind taking the time to create it as homebrew.)
You also asked if there was anything else on DDB. There is also a searchable database of equipment, spells, magical items, and monsters. (this has the same caviot of only having basic rules content unless you buy digital books). There is also an encounter builder that also has an encounter balancer, and a homebrew creator which is pretty nice for creating homebrew.
Someone told me about D&D Beyond, I logged in and couldn't create a character of a race that isn't even that rare. This site says I have to buy all the books digitally that I already have sitting next to me in order to do that. D&D beyond is just a character generator program and it wants me to spend a thousand dollars to make a character that I can do with a few extra minutes on a sheet of paper.
What is the point of D&D Beyond? Make a campaign on the site, I saw, how much is that, $2K?
Isn't zoom free?
I must be missing something.
Actually; if you go to the store and check the books you will find you can buy pieces.. you can actually buy a single race or the races in a book.
That is how I did it.. of course, buying in dribbles and dabs.. didn't stop me from ending up buying the legendary bundle in the end.. but it took a reasonably long time.
And when you did buy a book.. what you already spent on buying parts was taken off the price.
Itinerant Deputy Shire-reave Tomas Burrfoot - world walker, Raft-captain, speaker to his dead
Toddy Shelfungus- Rider of the Order of Ill Luck, Speaker to Friends of Friends, and Horribly big nosed
Jarl Archi of Jenisis Glade Fee- Noble Knight of the Dragonborn Goldcrest Clan, Sorcerer of the Noble Investigator;y; Knightly order of the Wolfhound
This site isn't really for people who already have the books they want
Digital books aren't free. There are multiple posts covering this topic.
Lightning Strike - A rebranded Fire Bolt for Wizards & Sorcerers.
Spirit Bomb - A holy fireball for Clerics, Paladins, & Divine Soul Sorcerers!
Sword Dancer - A Cleric subclass specifically for the Drow goddess Eilistraee.
Quicksilver & The Scarlet Witch - A pair of magical firearms for your Gunslinger or Artificer.
As others have said above, no you do not need to spend $1k to build a character on this site. As I type this the Legendary Bundle is priced at $887, not $1k. More importantly, however, there is absolutely no need to buy the legendary bundle to use the site. I’m amazed at the number of people who fixate on the Lengendary Bundle price tag and seem to think that is the only buying option, or that it is necessary to use the site.
In terms of character creation in particular, one does not need all the books. More than half of the books are adventures with very little to offer character creation. And some of the “source” books are very specific to setting (Rick & Marty, Eberron, Theros, etc.)
Furthermore, as Toddy_Shelfungus pointed out, you can purchases the bits and bobs you need instead of purchasing entire books.
I would also point out that DDB is much more than just a character creator.
If you want to learn more about different approaches to purchasing content here, depending on how you want to use the site, you might find the Buyer’s Guide linked in my signature helpful, as it runs through several purchase options.
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;
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You see, I have the books sitting here physically next to me. No incentive to use this character generator if I have to pay anything for it.
Then don't use it. Why are you sat here complaining about it when the product clearly isn't for you?
That's exactly what I came here to find out. Hence the question, "Am I missing something?" in my original post. I have all the books, didn't see the point and posted. Turns out I don't need this site, but I was responding to those who wrote responses. Seems Beyond thread is pretty threatened by me asking about your site and determining it isn't for me. I won't post again.
Sorry if I seemed hostile, it's just we get people complaining about this all the time and I have gotten tired of seeing it. Good luck in your games and whatever else
You could just use the tools to recreate the options from your physical book. Most of it is pretty easy. Then you can use whatever you want with no extra cost.
And this is precisely the same as using any VTT/generator/etc system.
Your complaint isn't about D&D Beyond - it is for every legal digital VTT/generator/etc system in existence.
Best of luck.
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.
Literally just use the homebrew tools to recreate the stuff you want smh. It's right there my guy.
What's the point? To make your characters in an easy way without having to bother with any of the math or forgetting X features etc. Want to make a multiclassed caster with X levels of blade singer, X levels of eldritch knight, and X levels of arcane trickster? Trying to measure how many spell slots you have is obnoxious, and DDB does it all for you. It has all the monsters in an easy to search (in comparison to physical books, there's definitely better 5e search engines) database, right at your finger tips. No need to lug bunch of books around, stopping the game every time you need to look something up, and having to pass it around the table because not everyone has it but needs to reference it. You can share all your content to everyone else and they can view it immediately. You can just type into the search bar what you want and boom it's immediately there. The point of DDB is a legal character builder, which helps almost eliminate DnD's paperwork and inconveniences. Oh and all the books are cheaper here than irl. :)
If you don't like the tool then just like, don't use it? It's clearly not for you as you've decided so.
Er ek geng, þat er í þeim skóm er ek valda.
UwU









one thing to think about Avrae the discord bot has a direct relationship with D&D beyond so that having a Character sheet allows you to use Avrae to roll straight from the character sheet..
Not just ability checks.. but spells, and class abilities.. and things.
Itinerant Deputy Shire-reave Tomas Burrfoot - world walker, Raft-captain, speaker to his dead
Toddy Shelfungus- Rider of the Order of Ill Luck, Speaker to Friends of Friends, and Horribly big nosed
Jarl Archi of Jenisis Glade Fee- Noble Knight of the Dragonborn Goldcrest Clan, Sorcerer of the Noble Investigator;y; Knightly order of the Wolfhound
D&D Beyond is not essential to playing D&D. It is a great set of tools that streamlines and largely error proofs character generation and as such is invaluable to new players and DMs teaching new players. Also as a master tier subscriber (a subscription I pay for on top of any of the content I bought here on D&D Beyond) my players in my campaigns can read my whole library without having to wait for other players to give back the books, and I don't have to worry about getting a book back after someone's do took a bite out of it or something worse on it.
It's got its limitations. Homebrew while having a lot of versatility to the point where you can in fact homebrew any WotC published content you already own (so not having to pay "double" for the D&D Beyond version) there are limitations porting in some 3rd party stuff (no new base classes chiefly).
At the end of the day if you "own it all" in print, you don't need to use D&D Beyond. If you do want to use it, you'll either have to pay for access to the tools for various character options or master the homebrew system. Again, neither's essential for playing D&D. The enhancement to the game is almost entirely in facilitating and managing characters, arguably expediting the creation of a character and reducing the time from making a character to jumping in and playing. That's evidently something a lot of people are willing to pay for.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I was summoned?
Hardcover Books, D&D Beyond and You FAQ
#Open D&D
Have the Physical Books? Confused as to why you're not allowed to redeem them for free on D&D Beyond? Questions answered here at the Hardcover Books, D&D Beyond and You FAQ
Looking to add mouse-over triggered tooltips to such things like magic items, monsters or combat actions? Then dash over to the How to Add Tooltips thread.
The person you are replying to is just another member of the community and not a representative of D&D Beyond. As such, it's a little misguided to accuse them/DDB of being "threatened" by you asking questions.
In fact, it's quite the contrary, DDB welcomes people asking questions and trying to figure out if it's the service for you to help make playing D&D easier. It's not for everyone and no one is going to deny that.
To loop back on your original post, you don't need to spend "$1k" to use the tools. You have a couple of options:
Your mention of having the physical books and the expectation that you should be able to access all the content here implies maybe a misunderstanding of D&D Beyond. DDB isn't owned or run by Wizards of the Coast and the money you paid for those books doesn't contribute to the running or development of the site. There is no unique identifier number on those books you own (ISBN barcodes are not unique, all copies of a given book have the same one), so there would be no way to redeem those books even if DDB was part of WotC. Finally, it would not be possible for D&D Beyond to offer paid content for free, such as the Player's Handbook or Dungeon Master's Guide. That is simply something the Wizards of the Coast does not/would not permit, for obvious reasons.
I hope this helps clarify things, and if it doesn't make D&D Beyond any more enticing for you, I hope you find a solution to improve your D&D experience elsewhere down the line!
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
Hello Varysyth,
To add to what has been said above (all offering solutions are great solutions), there is an additional alternative that I had just given someone else the other day. You can see exactly what using this site is like without investing any money or time in making homebrew items.
Run a one-shot with your friends using only the free materials available. If you love it, then you can make the decision later to make purchases or use homebrew. The Basic Rules are able to fully take advantage of the toolset on this site. Frozen Sick is a free adventure module. Use them both for an introduction. If you enjoy it, we would be happy to have you join the community.
DM mostly, Player occasionally | Session 0 form | He/Him/They/Them
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Try DDB free: Free Rules (2024), premade PCs, adventures, one shots, encounters, SC, homebrew, more
Answers: physical books, purchases, and subbing.
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This seems to have been answered by a few people but I'll throw in my 2 cents.
You don't "need" to spend $1,000 to use it, just to buy additional products that would cost you money to but physically and cost money to produce/maintain. You said you could use a paper sheet. That's true, but it works the same way as DDB. To use any given race that's not in the SRD/basic rules, you must pay to buy the physical book from WoTC/amazon/game store/wherever you buy it. So yes, it costs $1,000 to have every piece of content ever created by WotC on DDB. The same is true for physical books.
If you already have the physical books, there are some solutions. You could potentially just use basic rules content, at least at first. You can buy the specific race you want for only $1.99. Or you could use the homebrew creation tool to create a copy of official content to use for personal use only (sharing it would be a copyright violation and against DDB terms of service).
But it's true, is possible DDB is not the tool for you. Not every tool if for every person. However it's important to note that this does not render the tool useless. I personally find it incredibly useful. (I don't feel the need to have every piece of content, nor do I mind taking the time to create it as homebrew.)
You also asked if there was anything else on DDB. There is also a searchable database of equipment, spells, magical items, and monsters. (this has the same caviot of only having basic rules content unless you buy digital books). There is also an encounter builder that also has an encounter balancer, and a homebrew creator which is pretty nice for creating homebrew.
I am an average mathematics enjoyer.
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Wagner - Dragon Heist: Bards.
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That’s why my group uses Teams.