You aren't entitled to dictate the dev's resource allocation. I'd also like to see the homebrew revamp, but I understand that web development isn't easy. If you don't like the way your money is spent, then spend it elsewhere. Make your own homebrew website if it's that easy.
Wow! So mutch hate towards someone who just expressed their frustration that development seams to be really slow towards features that they beleve are important. While other features that are way less important in my opinion get developed. Like 3d collectible dice? Really? Does anybody play with screenshare, or in a form where the dice are seen by others? I understand it that they need more ways of turning a profit and that is totally fine, they are a company after all. But homebrew classes are missing for more than 2 years.
And TBH there are mayn other homebrew websites that are capabel of more than dnd beyond. But Wizards doesn't allow them to work with the official content. So DnD Beyond has a monopoly on the online character sheets. So yes if thery are the only funnly viable solution than they should try and allow it.
And about the homebrew rewamp... that thing is not even on the road map. It used to be, but it just disapeared. ( roadmap ) So i guess we are not getting that in the next year or so either.
Wow... i can't believe they removed this from the roadmap even. Now i'm highly considering dropping D&D beyond altogether.
It's important to note that just because something is no longer on the public roadmap, that doesn't mean it's been removed from the overall development roadmap.
The public roadmap has been retooled to be more informative and granular, but that does mean that some things have been moved outside it's scope.
Wow! So mutch hate towards someone who just expressed their frustration that development seams to be really slow towards features that they beleve are important. While other features that are way less important in my opinion get developed. Like 3d collectible dice? Really? Does anybody play with screenshare, or in a form where the dice are seen by others? I understand it that they need more ways of turning a profit and that is totally fine, they are a company after all. But homebrew classes are missing for more than 2 years.
Hate? No. The user just claimed that explaining the delay comes down to laziness, which is pretty disrespectful. Yeah, they want this feature, and so do I, but that's not really a good reason to diatribe. Again, it's not a top priority for the community. But WotC "monopolizing" is not relevant for homebrewers. Anybody can use the basic rules and anybody can create their own homebrew engine. You don't need licensing to do any of that unless you want to publicly share licensed content.
And as stated above, the revamped roadmap doesn't represent a change in priorities, just a more organized and honest list of what's likely to be in development within half a year.
Before you get all defensive try applying a healthy dose of context and maybe a scoop of critical thinking too.
As I've stated, I've subscribed and payed for at least a thousand dollars worth of stuff at this point. DDB is great and I love it. I'd also love to see it become something so good that everyone felt the need to have it in their arsenal. But the fact of the matter is, so many gaping holes like this cause many of my players to simply use Roll20, fillable PDFs, or any other combination of tools that already exist.
Well, seeing as no one is forced to make purchases or use D&D Beyond at all, this post just comes across as childish and ungrateful. It's been said this will come with the homebrew revamp, which will also feature a more intuitive interface. And it's going to take as long as it needs to to be complete.
So if you want to continue wasting your hate on this feel free I suppose, no one can stop you, but there's plenty to be appreciative of here while waiting on further features to develop.
I think you can nix the idea of "ungratefulness" around the point where I first opened up my wallet. This isn't just a free account I signed up for. I've been a paying member of this community since about 3 days after launch. And I'll continue to buy...it's just disheartening to know all of your feature requests get put into an echo chamber like this for over 30 months. My point here, is we have each other. We came here to see if we were doing something wrong--perhaps overlooked something. But instead you found validation. You're not over-looking something. The feature just doesn't exist and you are not alone.
You aren't entitled to dictate the dev's resource allocation. I'd also like to see the homebrew revamp, but I understand that web development isn't easy. If you don't like the way your money is spent, then spend it elsewhere. Make your own homebrew website if it's that easy.
I'm not trying to dictate their resource allocation, and you'll find from many of my previous posts that I sympathize with the developers. But at this point, they've abandoned their public roadmap in favor of monetizing collectable virtual dice. When was the last time they updated that Trello board? Can you even find this feature request on it anymore? And for the record, web development is not difficult--and the only thing preventing me or hundreds of others from recreating this tool is the licensing which restricts all but the SRD. The tool is not special. But having legit WotC content through it is. Before DDB there were plenty of competitors trying to do this and either getting sued or forcing the users to manually re-enter content that they'd purchased in another form.
EDIT: @Davedamon: Can you link me the new road map? I'm assuming this is no longer used or the granular features are just no longer public? I get that it's tough to keep everything exposed to the public, but when something that was on the map is removed its hard for us to not just assume the worst.
Like dpeter99, there are so many 3rd party sites that are perfect for managing homebrew, but if I cannot do the same thing through DDB (where all of my purchased content is), then honestly, what's the point? It's too late for me. Maybe I should go onto a campaign where I discourage people from spending until they consider all of the gaping holes and lack of support for QoL requests.
Over 2200 people just on this medium are asking for this feature. Should we see how many more on Reddit are interested?
I don't get it... how hard can it be to add "shell" classes? All you need is a Hit Die if you want to make it really simple on your telecommuting programmers, and Homebrewers can fill out the rest.
I will say, though, homebrewing is pretty clunky on DDB. Try making a +1 to hit only weapon, for one example. I'm looking forward to this "homebrew revamp," if such a thing will ever happen.
Ultimately the answer is 'very hard' because it's not about 'shell classes', it's about making a system that can allow any modifier or feature to be added at any level and supported by all the relevant tools; character builder, encounter tracker (eventually), dice roller, character sheet app, avrae. The thing with homebrew classes are that they're nothing like anything else; almost all other homebrew options follow a structure, even subclasses.
Say I want to make a class that can produce effects using a deck of cards that can be added to as I level. The system would need to support:
The ability to create a custom deck of card options
Mapping abilities to cards
The ability to display the cards in the character sheet, potentially as it's own tab
Setting up card selection options by level blocks
And that's just a surface level pass of what might be needed for one part of a hypothetical class, more than just a hit die.
If you're suggesting a 'blank' character sheet that you can fill with your homebrew class that doesn't interact with any of the tools or interactivity of the digital character sheet, well that already exists in with the form fillable PDFs on WotCs site
I agree with you that a fully functional homebrew class system is a humongous task. However, DnDBeyond officially stated (already two years ago) that they would implement Homebrew Base Class Support. I understand it as a homebrew "light", in the sense that you won't be able to add completely new stuff like a card deck as in your example, but you'll be able to use anything that already exists in the official classes. This would satisfy 99% of people asking for homebrew classes (including me). And this would not be that extremely difficult to implement for them, as it would use only existing algorithms and templates.
However, that's two years ago, and still no word on progress. I estimate a lot of people in this thread are programmers (as I am), so I fully understand their frustration about this, as the light version would really not require that much effort at all to implement.
I agree with you that a fully functional homebrew class system is a humongous task. However, DnDBeyond officially stated (already two years ago) that they would implement Homebrew Base Class Support. I understand it as a homebrew "light", in the sense that you won't be able to add completely new stuff like a card deck as in your example, but you'll be able to use anything that already exists in the official classes. This would satisfy 99% of people asking for homebrew classes (including me). And this would not be that extremely difficult to implement for them, as it would use only existing algorithms and templates.
However, that's two years ago, and still no word on progress. I estimate a lot of people in this thread are programmers (as I am), so I fully understand their frustration about this, as the light version would really not require that much effort at all to implement.
Another programmer here. I just wanted to thank you for the excellent write-up and welcome you to the echo chamber support group. As you can see by the responses, this thread isn't about any kind of progress. Oh no. It's more of a place where like-minded users can get together and commiserate while pining over feature requests that won't ever happen--at least not any time soon.
Now that you've posted, you can enjoy the validation that you are not alone as more and more users bump notifications your way. Maybe we'll see something new in the next two years but at the very least we have each other. You are not alone.
I've made and revised a custom class of my own; already others are either using it or looking at it. James Haeck also knows about it, but he hasn't replied on anything good or bad as of yet
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Rogue Shadow, the DM (and occasional) PC with schemes of inventive thinking
Well it is easier to make subclasses for already preexisting classes while they would have to spend time honing the class feature which would take longer to make and has a high chance to break something else, so they probably wanted to get homebrew subclasses out before the homebrew classes and even if they do finish it their could be a huge bug that makes it basically useless and if they found even one small bug they would have to rewrite everything
I am not saying you are wrong to want it or I am right though and I think you are totally right to want that
Well it is easier to make subclasses for already preexisting classes while they would have to spend time honing the class feature which would take longer to make and has a high chance to break something else, so they probably wanted to get homebrew subclasses out before the homebrew classes and even if they do finish it their could be a huge bug that makes it basically useless and if they found even one small bug they would have to rewrite everything
I am not saying you are wrong to want it or I am right though and I think you are totally right to want that
Normally I would agree with this but there are existing homebrew classes I would LOVE to add to the character sheet that are already out there. (Pugilist being the big one!) I agree though this is my #1 ask currently for the team as it would allow all kinds of additional tweaks and changes to be implemented.
I'm a bit disappointed that after 3 years, closing in on 4, Dev team still has not taken the time to allow for the creation of homebrew classes?!? Just my opinion but you guys seem to be asleep at the wheel here. There are some great 3rd party 5e products out there that I would love to bring their classes into Beyond for use in my games but alas still no progress :(
I'm a bit disappointed that after 3 years, closing in on 4, Dev team still has not taken the time to allow for the creation of homebrew classes?!? Just my opinion but you guys seem to be asleep at the wheel here. There are some great 3rd party 5e products out there that I would love to bring their classes into Beyond for use in my games but alas still no progress :(
They've never indicated that adding homebrew classes would be coming anytime soon. In fact at first they said they would not be doing them. There are a LOT of elements they plan to add to DDB, including a batch of fixes/improvements on official content (like the LIfe Cleric Bonuses, Divine Soul Sorcerer spell swaps, etc.) they haven't been able to get to yet. Many of which are higher priority than homebrew classes. I know that's extremely frustrating for those of you who really want homebrew classes, but the reality is that they simply can't do everything at once. The fact that homebrew classes haven't been added yet does not mean they've been "asleep at the switch," but rather that they've been busy with other things.
I'm super pumped for the homebrew classes. I realize that this type of thing is a ton of work and I hope that the D&D Beyond staff and devs know that the majority of us recognize that and appreciate it. I'd love to see this happen sooner than later, but I also realize that this is a business and adding homebrew classes to D&D Beyond isn't as profitable as selling new books and additional content. The profitability of a an endeavor will always directly determine it's priority level. I'm certain they'll get to it eventually. I firmly believed that homebrew classes were an inevitability, even back when they were saying that they had no plans for it. It's in this company's interest to give the people what they want. I have no doubt that they will do just that. It's really just a question of when.
I am disappointed that there is no homebrew class support as it means I can't even run my game here, which is where I paid for the subscription and several books. This is the site all my players know and use from other games, but mine doesn't use the standard races (I can homebrew those here) or the standard classes (which I can't homebrew) so I'm SOL.
I fail to see how allowing homebrew classes would be any harder than the homebrew races, which are themselves a bit of a rabbit hole to navigate and make what you want. I spent quite a few hours working on my campaign's first race before realizing I can't make our classes, so that was all a waste of my time.
Wow... i can't believe they removed this from the roadmap even. Now i'm highly considering dropping D&D beyond altogether.
It's important to note that just because something is no longer on the public roadmap, that doesn't mean it's been removed from the overall development roadmap.
The public roadmap has been retooled to be more informative and granular, but that does mean that some things have been moved outside it's scope.
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
Hate? No. The user just claimed that explaining the delay comes down to laziness, which is pretty disrespectful. Yeah, they want this feature, and so do I, but that's not really a good reason to diatribe. Again, it's not a top priority for the community. But WotC "monopolizing" is not relevant for homebrewers. Anybody can use the basic rules and anybody can create their own homebrew engine. You don't need licensing to do any of that unless you want to publicly share licensed content.
And as stated above, the revamped roadmap doesn't represent a change in priorities, just a more organized and honest list of what's likely to be in development within half a year.
I'm happy to see this thread is getting so many replies lately, but disappointed that there has been no word whatsoever on implementing this feature.
As I've stated, I've subscribed and payed for at least a thousand dollars worth of stuff at this point. DDB is great and I love it. I'd also love to see it become something so good that everyone felt the need to have it in their arsenal. But the fact of the matter is, so many gaping holes like this cause many of my players to simply use Roll20, fillable PDFs, or any other combination of tools that already exist.
@1WngdAngel
I think you can nix the idea of "ungratefulness" around the point where I first opened up my wallet. This isn't just a free account I signed up for. I've been a paying member of this community since about 3 days after launch. And I'll continue to buy...it's just disheartening to know all of your feature requests get put into an echo chamber like this for over 30 months. My point here, is we have each other. We came here to see if we were doing something wrong--perhaps overlooked something. But instead you found validation. You're not over-looking something. The feature just doesn't exist and you are not alone.
@Heartofjuyomk2
I'm not trying to dictate their resource allocation, and you'll find from many of my previous posts that I sympathize with the developers. But at this point, they've abandoned their public roadmap in favor of monetizing collectable virtual dice. When was the last time they updated that Trello board? Can you even find this feature request on it anymore? And for the record, web development is not difficult--and the only thing preventing me or hundreds of others from recreating this tool is the licensing which restricts all but the SRD. The tool is not special. But having legit WotC content through it is. Before DDB there were plenty of competitors trying to do this and either getting sued or forcing the users to manually re-enter content that they'd purchased in another form.
EDIT: @Davedamon:
Can you link me the new road map? I'm assuming this is no longer used or the granular features are just no longer public? I get that it's tough to keep everything exposed to the public, but when something that was on the map is removed its hard for us to not just assume the worst.
Like dpeter99, there are so many 3rd party sites that are perfect for managing homebrew, but if I cannot do the same thing through DDB (where all of my purchased content is), then honestly, what's the point? It's too late for me. Maybe I should go onto a campaign where I discourage people from spending until they consider all of the gaping holes and lack of support for QoL requests.
Over 2200 people just on this medium are asking for this feature. Should we see how many more on Reddit are interested?
Yeah I've been hoping for homebrew class support for some time as well. It would be amazing :-).
I agree with you that a fully functional homebrew class system is a humongous task. However, DnDBeyond officially stated (already two years ago) that they would implement Homebrew Base Class Support. I understand it as a homebrew "light", in the sense that you won't be able to add completely new stuff like a card deck as in your example, but you'll be able to use anything that already exists in the official classes. This would satisfy 99% of people asking for homebrew classes (including me). And this would not be that extremely difficult to implement for them, as it would use only existing algorithms and templates.
See https://dndbeyond.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360022864094-Homebrew-Base-Class-Support for the statement.
However, that's two years ago, and still no word on progress. I estimate a lot of people in this thread are programmers (as I am), so I fully understand their frustration about this, as the light version would really not require that much effort at all to implement.
Another programmer here. I just wanted to thank you for the excellent write-up and welcome you to the echo chamber support group. As you can see by the responses, this thread isn't about any kind of progress. Oh no. It's more of a place where like-minded users can get together and commiserate while pining over feature requests that won't ever happen--at least not any time soon.
Now that you've posted, you can enjoy the validation that you are not alone as more and more users bump notifications your way. Maybe we'll see something new in the next two years but at the very least we have each other. You are not alone.
waiting while receiving nothing but a halfhearted "someday" really takes the wind out of my sails on making new classes :/
*tosses herself onto the bandwagon*
I'm having to break down my full custom classes into subclasses. This is somewhat less bueno than I would like.
I've made and revised a custom class of my own; already others are either using it or looking at it. James Haeck also knows about it, but he hasn't replied on anything good or bad as of yet
Rogue Shadow, the DM (and occasional) PC with schemes of inventive thinking
Well it is easier to make subclasses for already preexisting classes while they would have to spend time honing the class feature which would take longer to make and has a high chance to break something else, so they probably wanted to get homebrew subclasses out before the homebrew classes and even if they do finish it their could be a huge bug that makes it basically useless and if they found even one small bug they would have to rewrite everything
I am not saying you are wrong to want it or I am right though and I think you are totally right to want that
Normally I would agree with this but there are existing homebrew classes I would LOVE to add to the character sheet that are already out there. (Pugilist being the big one!) I agree though this is my #1 ask currently for the team as it would allow all kinds of additional tweaks and changes to be implemented.
Still waiting on this before getting a subscription.
I'm a bit disappointed that after 3 years, closing in on 4, Dev team still has not taken the time to allow for the creation of homebrew classes?!? Just my opinion but you guys seem to be asleep at the wheel here. There are some great 3rd party 5e products out there that I would love to bring their classes into Beyond for use in my games but alas still no progress :(
They've never indicated that adding homebrew classes would be coming anytime soon. In fact at first they said they would not be doing them. There are a LOT of elements they plan to add to DDB, including a batch of fixes/improvements on official content (like the LIfe Cleric Bonuses, Divine Soul Sorcerer spell swaps, etc.) they haven't been able to get to yet. Many of which are higher priority than homebrew classes. I know that's extremely frustrating for those of you who really want homebrew classes, but the reality is that they simply can't do everything at once. The fact that homebrew classes haven't been added yet does not mean they've been "asleep at the switch," but rather that they've been busy with other things.
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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Totally agree! I’m not disappointed that they haven’t done it, just hopeful that we will get an ETA sometime.
I'm super pumped for the homebrew classes. I realize that this type of thing is a ton of work and I hope that the D&D Beyond staff and devs know that the majority of us recognize that and appreciate it. I'd love to see this happen sooner than later, but I also realize that this is a business and adding homebrew classes to D&D Beyond isn't as profitable as selling new books and additional content. The profitability of a an endeavor will always directly determine it's priority level. I'm certain they'll get to it eventually. I firmly believed that homebrew classes were an inevitability, even back when they were saying that they had no plans for it. It's in this company's interest to give the people what they want. I have no doubt that they will do just that. It's really just a question of when.
I am disappointed that there is no homebrew class support as it means I can't even run my game here, which is where I paid for the subscription and several books. This is the site all my players know and use from other games, but mine doesn't use the standard races (I can homebrew those here) or the standard classes (which I can't homebrew) so I'm SOL.
I fail to see how allowing homebrew classes would be any harder than the homebrew races, which are themselves a bit of a rabbit hole to navigate and make what you want. I spent quite a few hours working on my campaign's first race before realizing I can't make our classes, so that was all a waste of my time.
LIke potion dice? LoL, sorry in almost 4 years I'm not buying it.