Sure, but similarly this kind of explanation has been refuted a ton of times. Already two years ago DnDBeyond said they were working on a basic-custom class system, where you can only make custom classes that follow the mechanics of existing classes. Like, you want to have a wizard that can prepare two extra spells per level, and stuff like that (personally I'd make a Healer class, essentially a trimmed down version of a Cleric with earlier access to healing spells etc). That would be extremely straightforward for them, as all mechanics code is already there; they'd only need to implement the GUI. And it would satisfy 99% of people asking for custom classes. Win-win.
But that statement was two years ago. And no progress since.
Easy to implement, satisfying the majority of users, promised two years ago, but no follow-up? No wonder people are frustrated.
there is also the problem of them havign to follow the book release of every wizard of the coast release, which WotC has decided to release 4 books a year. thats about 1 book every 4 months. how long do you think it takes beyond to parse a book in its entirety to their database and then having it follow the mechanics that goes along with it. that doesn'T leave them with much room to work on features. the homebrew system that released about 3 years ago had a lot more time to dedicate to since they were having only 2 books a year to worry about.
i think of all of that is what makes people angry and them having much less time to do anything aside following book release. we don't know how mnay people are working on the design team either. but i think things have been going on quite well for now. they are clearly working ont he mobile app which was asked for since almost day one. i think once that will be on par with the website, they will have more time to add more core tools for us. we'll see once they get there.
One of the biggest problems... that many of us that have been following this thread for a while know... is that this used to be on the roadmap. Now, it is removed completely. The more those of us that desire this feature raise our voices, the sooner they will make this a priority. If you do not care for this feature, that's fine. But please stop invalidating the desires and requests of those of us that do think this should be prioritized. Thanks!
except they answered all of what you just said about 1 year ago ! they said a lot of things were removed from the board, not because they are not worked on or not planned anymore... but because it is on the long road playlist. also, you think homebrew classes has no voices ? it is literally not in the top 3 things they should work on. number one being complete VTT !
so the conclusion is... Homebrew classes is on the roadmap, it never was removed, they said so themselves ! but they have to do a lot of things before getting there because people are aksing other things before it. complete VTT means a lot for more people then you think. and complete VTT means they have to make sure their system works better then it is right now.
now do i want them not to do it... never said that, never said i was against it... but what i am wondering about, is why you guys literally ignore what they are saying and literally tell they are ignoring this ? they have been giving us answers literally everywhere about that and they have been for like 2 years. if you think this thread is the only place where look, you are far from it...
again... they said it themselves... it disappearing from the board doesn'T mean they stopped working on it or that they have completely stopped caring for it... it only means its on the long term road map. which isn'T on the board. i also imagine their to-do list is still so huge that printing it would be at least 500 pages.
ask people to upvote the homebrew classes... which are not even in the top 10 things right now. you are missing about 400 people to vote on it if you want it to beat complete VTT. perhaps if you get there it will change. but know that people can vote on numerous things, not just one. so yeah, they should vote on everything they want. and many of us did, thats why VTT is in first place.
so yeah, go on, push people to vote more on homebrew classes, see if it goes up. if it does it might go from long term road map to less longer road map and eventually perhaps make its way to the short term.
by the way, looking at the actual board for voting, most of the stuff is already being worked on and most of the thing is almost finished, so i think it might be closer then you think to being back on the road now.
hers the things that are higher on the voting and are almost all finished with... - character sheet on mobile app - encounter builder - containers
- - share only part of my content - - w - custom made warlock invocations !
all of those are almost done or already done... thats a lot of work done if you ask me. and pretty much all of those except warlock invocations were above homebrew classes.
thats all i can say, they have been working, the thing is still planned... they haven't changed that.
DM of two gaming groups. Likes to create stuff. Check out my homebrew --> Monsters --> Magical Items --> Races --> Subclasses If you like --> Upvote, If you wanna comment --> Comment
Play by Post Games --> One Shot Adventure - House of Artwood (DM) (Completed)
Nobody needs to go to some other site to vote in a place they don't care to look anyhow. This thread itself is a poll, and nearly 3000 people (over 99%) have already voted they want this feature.
I'm looking forward to when it comes, if for no other reason than to nolonger have to listen to all the excuses why it hasn't yet.
See, the only reason I want this is so I can tweak the base classes for *very specific* subclasses. Yes, you heard me: tweak base class features for subclass powers.
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Formerly Devan Avalon.
Trying to get your physical content on Beyond is like going to Microsoft and saying "I have a physical Playstation disk, give me a digital Xbox version!"
Nobody needs to go to some other site to vote in a place they don't care to look anyhow. This thread itself is a poll, and nearly 3000 people (over 99%) have already voted they want this feature.
I'm looking forward to when it comes, if for no other reason than to nolonger have to listen to all the excuses why it hasn't yet.
you say that, but they were clear... they don't look at their own forum, they look at the other thing... but feel free to continu thinking they ignore you when they clearly haven'T. as i said, they answered the "out of roadmap" thing a while back yet you seem to think they haven't.
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DM of two gaming groups. Likes to create stuff. Check out my homebrew --> Monsters --> Magical Items --> Races --> Subclasses If you like --> Upvote, If you wanna comment --> Comment
Play by Post Games --> One Shot Adventure - House of Artwood (DM) (Completed)
Sure, but similarly this kind of explanation has been refuted a ton of times. Already two years ago DnDBeyond said they were working on a basic-custom class system, where you can only make custom classes that follow the mechanics of existing classes. Like, you want to have a wizard that can prepare two extra spells per level, and stuff like that (personally I'd make a Healer class, essentially a trimmed down version of a Cleric with earlier access to healing spells etc). That would be extremely straightforward for them, as all mechanics code is already there; they'd only need to implement the GUI. And it would satisfy 99% of people asking for custom classes. Win-win.
But that statement was two years ago. And no progress since.
Easy to implement, satisfying the majority of users, promised two years ago, but no follow-up? No wonder people are frustrated.
there is also the problem of them havign to follow the book release of every wizard of the coast release, which WotC has decided to release 4 books a year. thats about 1 book every 4 months. how long do you think it takes beyond to parse a book in its entirety to their database and then having it follow the mechanics that goes along with it. that doesn'T leave them with much room to work on features. the homebrew system that released about 3 years ago had a lot more time to dedicate to since they were having only 2 books a year to worry about.
i think of all of that is what makes people angry and them having much less time to do anything aside following book release. we don't know how mnay people are working on the design team either. but i think things have been going on quite well for now. they are clearly working ont he mobile app which was asked for since almost day one. i think once that will be on par with the website, they will have more time to add more core tools for us. we'll see once they get there.
One of the biggest problems... that many of us that have been following this thread for a while know... is that this used to be on the roadmap. Now, it is removed completely. The more those of us that desire this feature raise our voices, the sooner they will make this a priority. If you do not care for this feature, that's fine. But please stop invalidating the desires and requests of those of us that do think this should be prioritized. Thanks!
except they answered all of what you just said about 1 year ago ! they said a lot of things were removed from the board, not because they are not worked on or not planned anymore... but because it is on the long road playlist. also, you think homebrew classes has no voices ? it is literally not in the top 3 things they should work on. number one being complete VTT !
so the conclusion is... Homebrew classes is on the roadmap, it never was removed, they said so themselves ! but they have to do a lot of things before getting there because people are aksing other things before it. complete VTT means a lot for more people then you think. and complete VTT means they have to make sure their system works better then it is right now.
now do i want them not to do it... never said that, never said i was against it... but what i am wondering about, is why you guys literally ignore what they are saying and literally tell they are ignoring this ? they have been giving us answers literally everywhere about that and they have been for like 2 years. if you think this thread is the only place where look, you are far from it...
again... they said it themselves... it disappearing from the board doesn'T mean they stopped working on it or that they have completely stopped caring for it... it only means its on the long term road map. which isn'T on the board. i also imagine their to-do list is still so huge that printing it would be at least 500 pages.
ask people to upvote the homebrew classes... which are not even in the top 10 things right now. you are missing about 400 people to vote on it if you want it to beat complete VTT. perhaps if you get there it will change. but know that people can vote on numerous things, not just one. so yeah, they should vote on everything they want. and many of us did, thats why VTT is in first place.
so yeah, go on, push people to vote more on homebrew classes, see if it goes up. if it does it might go from long term road map to less longer road map and eventually perhaps make its way to the short term.
by the way, looking at the actual board for voting, most of the stuff is already being worked on and most of the thing is almost finished, so i think it might be closer then you think to being back on the road now.
hers the things that are higher on the voting and are almost all finished with... - character sheet on mobile app - encounter builder - containers
- - share only part of my content - - w - custom made warlock invocations !
all of those are almost done or already done... thats a lot of work done if you ask me. and pretty much all of those except warlock invocations were above homebrew classes.
thats all i can say, they have been working, the thing is still planned... they haven't changed that.
That is from like 3 years ago at this point. The VTT market has changed dramatically and 3rd party software now lets you just roll from beyond in existing VTT.
They would be stupid to try to compete with the VTT out there now as they are already functional and now have several years of development under their belt.
They need to just focus on implementing an API to allow them to port things to VTT and license it instead.
Ship has sailed on VTT for them....they need to move on.
by third party if you mean the chrome extensions, they are only text parsers, anybody can create those. thats nowhere near a feat of strength. text parsers have been used for at least the last 50 years in computers. its like computers 101 in programming. there is nothing special there. and if you think about it... none of the websites for VTT actually allows people to do that. its just that they are chrome addons, they can'T stop chrome addons. but you wont see roll20 allowing that if they can stop it. fantasy ground sure do not allow it by having made their thing a software instead of a browser. literally because they are protecting themselves. foundry is working on addons and extensions themselves... the beyond chrome do not work on them either unless you actually download the addons on their own site. addons which are currently not looked upon, but when the thing goes live and the developpers have more time to watch whats being designed on it... don't you think they will start managing the addons ? as it stands, its not a big tehcnology boost there and saying they changed dramatically is an overstatement if you ask me. i've been with beyond for the last 3 years and i havenM't seen roll20 change and i haven't seen FG change either. the only change i have seen is Foundry being created.
i don't think it has sailed yet though, the reality is that all VTT actually have poor integration with their softwares. most people actually preffer to use beyond as you mentionned.. thats an opportunity right there for them to just do their own VTT to punish the competition for not making great visual character sheets. the reality is, all the VTT out there have poor design. they all focused mainly on VTT and features, but none of them have great esthetics and none of them have great intuitive character sheets. thus beyond has an opportunity to just dive in and do it better !
look at roll20, people uses beyond instead of roll20 now... why ? because somehow those people preffer beyond. that eans roll20 has to step up their game in that department. which they aren'T ! same with foundry right now, but foundry is a new competitor at this. they are still pretty much babies and again, like other VTT are preffering to focus on features instead of design... again by choice, this is what beyond has an advantage on.
this all means one thing, beyond are still doing 1 thing no others are doing and thats just screaming for them to do it better.
now all that mentionned... all that remains for them to have a VTT wouldbe to have a board like the others... they already just created everything else. they are not so far away from the others if you think about it.
as for homebrew classes... we can already do a lot, as mentionned before, yet they never really said much about it, except it is still in the pipeline and still being worked on, just not gonna be released soon.
that being said, i think homebrew classes, like i said in many other threads talking about it... is probably closer then one might think considering we now have options from tasha's cauldron. those options can easily be used to create homebrew classes. so i think if we give them a bit of time, they will probably release homebrew options and those homebrew options will probably allow us to make our own homebrew classes by just replacing base class features !
i think that is the right step into full on homebrew classes.
DM of two gaming groups. Likes to create stuff. Check out my homebrew --> Monsters --> Magical Items --> Races --> Subclasses If you like --> Upvote, If you wanna comment --> Comment
Play by Post Games --> One Shot Adventure - House of Artwood (DM) (Completed)
by third party if you mean the chrome extensions, they are only text parsers, anybody can create those. thats nowhere near a feat of strength. text parsers have been used for at least the last 50 years in computers. its like computers 101 in programming. there is nothing special there. and if you think about it... none of the websites for VTT actually allows people to do that. its just that they are chrome addons, they can'T stop chrome addons. but you wont see roll20 allowing that if they can stop it. fantasy ground sure do not allow it by having made their thing a software instead of a browser. literally because they are protecting themselves. foundry is working on addons and extensions themselves... the beyond chrome do not work on them either unless you actually download the addons on their own site. addons which are currently not looked upon, but when the thing goes live and the developpers have more time to watch whats being designed on it... don't you think they will start managing the addons ? as it stands, its not a big tehcnology boost there and saying they changed dramatically is an overstatement if you ask me. i've been with beyond for the last 3 years and i havenM't seen roll20 change and i haven't seen FG change either. the only change i have seen is Foundry being created.
i don't think it has sailed yet though, the reality is that all VTT actually have poor integration with their softwares. most people actually preffer to use beyond as you mentionned.. thats an opportunity right there for them to just do their own VTT to punish the competition for not making great visual character sheets. the reality is, all the VTT out there have poor design. they all focused mainly on VTT and features, but none of them have great esthetics and none of them have great intuitive character sheets. thus beyond has an opportunity to just dive in and do it better !
look at roll20, people uses beyond instead of roll20 now... why ? because somehow those people preffer beyond. that eans roll20 has to step up their game in that department. which they aren'T ! same with foundry right now, but foundry is a new competitor at this. they are still pretty much babies and again, like other VTT are preffering to focus on features instead of design... again by choice, this is what beyond has an advantage on.
this all means one thing, beyond are still doing 1 thing no others are doing and thats just screaming for them to do it better.
now all that mentionned... all that remains for them to have a VTT wouldbe to have a board like the others... they already just created everything else. they are not so far away from the others if you think about it.
as for homebrew classes... we can already do a lot, as mentionned before, yet they never really said much about it, except it is still in the pipeline and still being worked on, just not gonna be released soon.
that being said, i think homebrew classes, like i said in many other threads talking about it... is probably closer then one might think considering we now have options from tasha's cauldron. those options can easily be used to create homebrew classes. so i think if we give them a bit of time, they will probably release homebrew options and those homebrew options will probably allow us to make our own homebrew classes by just replacing base class features !
i think that is the right step into full on homebrew classes.
I'm so glad you keep posting here, this topic hasn't been this active in ages. Btw... you are wrong. Change my mind.
VTT and homebrew classes have been "in the works" for years.
For dnd beyond to even say they're close to a VTT id have to see an encounter grid with tokens so you can run combat on it.
The homebrew class system, the bare minimum we asked for was just a blank class that started at lvl 1 with the hit dice, that way we could use the subclass system to make w/e we wanted and it would work. But where is that interim bare minimum solution?
VTT and homebrew classes have been "in the works" for years.
For dnd beyond to even say they're close to a VTT id have to see an encounter grid with tokens so you can run combat on it.
The homebrew class system, the bare minimum we asked for was just a blank class that started at lvl 1 with the hit dice, that way we could use the subclass system to make w/e we wanted and it would work. But where is that interim bare minimum solution?
They have never said that homebrew classes are "in the works." Initially the word was they were not going to do homebrew classes at all. Eventually, due to clear interest from the user base, it got added to the list of things they want to get to "someday." They have never claimed they were anywhere close to tackling homebrew classes. They have been clear that it is not a priority until a lot of other things have been addressed.
As for a VTT, while they have said they are working toward a virtual game space, that they expect to be more "all encompassing" than current VTTs, I've never heard them say that the entirety of a VTT system is "in the works." In fact, originally--somewhat like homebrew classes--they said they had no intention of adding VTT features, and they envisioned themselves as a digital tool set for folks around an actual table. That, too, changed, as people started asking for it, and they are beginning to work on some features that will be part of the virtual game space they envision: namely digital dice, encounter builder and combat tracker. I have never seen them claim that battle maps/tokens or the likes are "in the works," only that eventually they plan to address those things.
Note that I have no objection to these features. I hope for the sake of those who want them more than I do that they arrive sooner than later, but at the same time, if either of those were something I really needed now, I'd look for other solutions. I think it will be a long time (as in 2 years or more) before those features are available here. I say that purely based on my experience of the speed of development and my memory of the number and type of features that I have understood to have higher priority for them than either of these two things; I have no inside information or insight.
VTT and homebrew classes have been "in the works" for years.
For dnd beyond to even say they're close to a VTT id have to see an encounter grid with tokens so you can run combat on it.
The homebrew class system, the bare minimum we asked for was just a blank class that started at lvl 1 with the hit dice, that way we could use the subclass system to make w/e we wanted and it would work. But where is that interim bare minimum solution?
if thats all a vtt is for you... to me it is... Dice = we have them now Character Sheets = we have them now books = We have them now Iniative tracker = we have that now
of course a VTT is also considering a board which we don't have and a voice chat as well as cameras !!! but if you look at it... we're not that far from a VTT.
DM of two gaming groups. Likes to create stuff. Check out my homebrew --> Monsters --> Magical Items --> Races --> Subclasses If you like --> Upvote, If you wanna comment --> Comment
Play by Post Games --> One Shot Adventure - House of Artwood (DM) (Completed)
I just want to have the Sword-sage class back from tomb of battle. Their is no where to make this class and their is no way to jam that class into a subclass with out gutting it. Battle Master fighter is nothing like the two weapon Sword-sage class of old. Tomb of battle had over 300 maneuvers with the Tasha's Caldron bring the Battle Master maneuvers to about 30.
Plus 5e would let me fix the bad or lack of maneuver recovery in this class plus add in some flavor full sub classes to spice things up, Arcane Blood Claw for so shifting and replacing maneuvers with spells(Stone Dragon & Tiger Claw), Path of Ega a subclass based around Kobolds [traps](Shadow Hand & Setting Sun ), Path of Central Blade (Jedi) ranged grapple (Dimond mind & Stone Dragon) , Path of the Setting Sun Ninja (Shadow Hand & Dessert Wind ), and Path of Master of 9 (All 9 disciplines ).
Sadly their is no way to create classes so I can't play my favorite class or get feed back on making a playable 5e version of this 3.5 class.
Really, i get why you can't make classes. The enormous complexity in not just writing it, but making it work. Though, if you could edit base class features via for example subclasses, so that you could make sorcerer a caster that prepares, that would be awesome!
Just stating this ahead of time so I don't get complaints of being ignorant, I understand why Homebrew Classes are such a complicated thing on their own, from Details, to Abilities, to Equipment choices, to proficiencies, to Potentially complex custom spell casting rules and multiclassing madness.
Homebrew Subclass is by no means something easy to create a "Creator Interface" for, especially after you take all the custom subclasses it will have and custom coding requirements.
However, in my opinion I still want to see it happen one day, I want to see the potential of what the community comes up with, and have my own homebrew playtested and reviewed by experience and inexperienced members of the community, see people's feedback, and see how far we can take Homebrewing and D&D customization.
For now, I'll settle for using notepad and word documents for creating the subclass (using what exists as a standard for leveling) and the few campaigns I host to playtest them if given the opportunity.
I realy don't understand what is the difficulty of creating the option to build homebrew classes. Wouldn't it be just like making a subclass but with one extra step of creating hit points and proficiencies?
I realy don't understand what is the difficulty of creating the option to build homebrew classes. Wouldn't it be just like making a subclass but with one extra step of creating hit points and proficiencies?
Class define what the subclasses can do. They can have completely bespoke progression (compare what a wizard gets at each level to a fighter). They can have custom resources such as sorcery points, ki, pact magic slots or infusions. They often have completely custom rules, which is what defines a class. Ultimately classes have almost no limits and thus that makes them very hard to make a system that supports that without breaking everything.
Faith Lilley, our Content Specialist and all round wizard, was on the most recent Dev Update and mentioned some of the complexities involved setting up classes. Well worth a watch
I realy don't understand what is the difficulty of creating the option to build homebrew classes. Wouldn't it be just like making a subclass but with one extra step of creating hit points and proficiencies?
The reason is the difference between Wizard, Warlock, Fighter, Paladin, and Sorcerer.
Custom Class Rules, including Unique Spell Casting methods, Slot type, and other custom things. If they just added the extra step of Creating Hit points and Proficiencies, it wouldn't be much of a Homebrew Class.
even if you aren't making a magic based class, the option still needs to be there for it to be a proper class creator, the custom class rules alone add a lot of complications for a creator, specifically on how to make the interface work, and still be user friendly.
But you can create homebrew subclasses with expandable resources so what is the difference. The only true difference I see is with the spellcasting although I do not think it is that much problem to overcome it. They can just do Full spellcaster, and half spellcaster or Pact Magic options so the spell slots progress will be more easy to do, and then ask you to insert all of the spells the class can choose from.
But what happens if you want to make a class that doesn't use full, half or pact magic spellcasting? What if you want to make a psionic class that uses psi points to cast spells from a custom spell list and those spells have varied effects based on what psionic manifestations you've selected from a custom class feature? The main difference is that subclasses follow the rules, while classes define the rules.
Then you can use a system like in magic items but with the ability to choose from different spells I don't know how psi points would work but it would probably use a limited use, which you regain when you either complete a short or long rest, or when a day passes. Either ways, it is just like charges in magic items.
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except they answered all of what you just said about 1 year ago !
they said a lot of things were removed from the board, not because they are not worked on or not planned anymore... but because it is on the long road playlist. also, you think homebrew classes has no voices ? it is literally not in the top 3 things they should work on. number one being complete VTT !
so the conclusion is...
Homebrew classes is on the roadmap, it never was removed, they said so themselves !
but they have to do a lot of things before getting there because people are aksing other things before it. complete VTT means a lot for more people then you think. and complete VTT means they have to make sure their system works better then it is right now.
now do i want them not to do it... never said that, never said i was against it... but what i am wondering about, is why you guys literally ignore what they are saying and literally tell they are ignoring this ? they have been giving us answers literally everywhere about that and they have been for like 2 years. if you think this thread is the only place where look, you are far from it...
again... they said it themselves... it disappearing from the board doesn'T mean they stopped working on it or that they have completely stopped caring for it... it only means its on the long term road map. which isn'T on the board. i also imagine their to-do list is still so huge that printing it would be at least 500 pages.
now heres the voting booth for planned features...
https://dndbeyond.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/community/topics/115000209847-Feature-Requests?sort_by=votes
ask people to upvote the homebrew classes... which are not even in the top 10 things right now.
you are missing about 400 people to vote on it if you want it to beat complete VTT.
perhaps if you get there it will change. but know that people can vote on numerous things, not just one. so yeah, they should vote on everything they want. and many of us did, thats why VTT is in first place.
so yeah, go on, push people to vote more on homebrew classes, see if it goes up.
if it does it might go from long term road map to less longer road map and eventually perhaps make its way to the short term.
by the way, looking at the actual board for voting, most of the stuff is already being worked on and most of the thing is almost finished, so i think it might be closer then you think to being back on the road now.
hers the things that are higher on the voting and are almost all finished with...
- character sheet on mobile app
- encounter builder
- containers
- - share only part of my content
- - w
- custom made warlock invocations !
all of those are almost done or already done... thats a lot of work done if you ask me. and pretty much all of those except warlock invocations were above homebrew classes.
thats all i can say, they have been working, the thing is still planned... they haven't changed that.
DM of two gaming groups.
Likes to create stuff.
Check out my homebrew --> Monsters --> Magical Items --> Races --> Subclasses
If you like --> Upvote, If you wanna comment --> Comment
Play by Post Games
--> One Shot Adventure - House of Artwood (DM) (Completed)
Nobody needs to go to some other site to vote in a place they don't care to look anyhow.
This thread itself is a poll, and nearly 3000 people (over 99%) have already voted they want this feature.
I'm looking forward to when it comes, if for no other reason than to nolonger have to listen to all the excuses why it hasn't yet.
See, the only reason I want this is so I can tweak the base classes for *very specific* subclasses. Yes, you heard me: tweak base class features for subclass powers.
Formerly Devan Avalon.
Trying to get your physical content on Beyond is like going to Microsoft and saying "I have a physical Playstation disk, give me a digital Xbox version!"
you say that, but they were clear... they don't look at their own forum, they look at the other thing... but feel free to continu thinking they ignore you when they clearly haven'T. as i said, they answered the "out of roadmap" thing a while back yet you seem to think they haven't.
DM of two gaming groups.
Likes to create stuff.
Check out my homebrew --> Monsters --> Magical Items --> Races --> Subclasses
If you like --> Upvote, If you wanna comment --> Comment
Play by Post Games
--> One Shot Adventure - House of Artwood (DM) (Completed)
That is from like 3 years ago at this point. The VTT market has changed dramatically and 3rd party software now lets you just roll from beyond in existing VTT.
They would be stupid to try to compete with the VTT out there now as they are already functional and now have several years of development under their belt.
They need to just focus on implementing an API to allow them to port things to VTT and license it instead.
Ship has sailed on VTT for them....they need to move on.
by third party if you mean the chrome extensions, they are only text parsers, anybody can create those. thats nowhere near a feat of strength.
text parsers have been used for at least the last 50 years in computers. its like computers 101 in programming. there is nothing special there. and if you think about it... none of the websites for VTT actually allows people to do that. its just that they are chrome addons, they can'T stop chrome addons. but you wont see roll20 allowing that if they can stop it. fantasy ground sure do not allow it by having made their thing a software instead of a browser. literally because they are protecting themselves. foundry is working on addons and extensions themselves... the beyond chrome do not work on them either unless you actually download the addons on their own site. addons which are currently not looked upon, but when the thing goes live and the developpers have more time to watch whats being designed on it... don't you think they will start managing the addons ? as it stands, its not a big tehcnology boost there and saying they changed dramatically is an overstatement if you ask me. i've been with beyond for the last 3 years and i havenM't seen roll20 change and i haven't seen FG change either. the only change i have seen is Foundry being created.
i don't think it has sailed yet though, the reality is that all VTT actually have poor integration with their softwares. most people actually preffer to use beyond as you mentionned.. thats an opportunity right there for them to just do their own VTT to punish the competition for not making great visual character sheets. the reality is, all the VTT out there have poor design. they all focused mainly on VTT and features, but none of them have great esthetics and none of them have great intuitive character sheets. thus beyond has an opportunity to just dive in and do it better !
look at roll20, people uses beyond instead of roll20 now... why ? because somehow those people preffer beyond. that eans roll20 has to step up their game in that department. which they aren'T !
same with foundry right now, but foundry is a new competitor at this. they are still pretty much babies and again, like other VTT are preffering to focus on features instead of design... again by choice, this is what beyond has an advantage on.
this all means one thing, beyond are still doing 1 thing no others are doing and thats just screaming for them to do it better.
now all that mentionned...
all that remains for them to have a VTT wouldbe to have a board like the others... they already just created everything else.
they are not so far away from the others if you think about it.
as for homebrew classes... we can already do a lot, as mentionned before, yet they never really said much about it, except it is still in the pipeline and still being worked on, just not gonna be released soon.
that being said, i think homebrew classes, like i said in many other threads talking about it... is probably closer then one might think considering we now have options from tasha's cauldron. those options can easily be used to create homebrew classes. so i think if we give them a bit of time, they will probably release homebrew options and those homebrew options will probably allow us to make our own homebrew classes by just replacing base class features !
i think that is the right step into full on homebrew classes.
DM of two gaming groups.
Likes to create stuff.
Check out my homebrew --> Monsters --> Magical Items --> Races --> Subclasses
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I'm so glad you keep posting here, this topic hasn't been this active in ages. Btw... you are wrong. Change my mind.
They are absolutely VERY far away from a VTT...
Their dice roller is pretty but hardly even remotely comparable to even the most simple rollers in most VTT.
Their combat/initiative tracker is dead in the water and has had like 0 updates since it was "released"
They have no map/token/target system to speak of.
Like they 5% of a working VTT and they are "close"?
VTT and homebrew classes have been "in the works" for years.
For dnd beyond to even say they're close to a VTT id have to see an encounter grid with tokens so you can run combat on it.
The homebrew class system, the bare minimum we asked for was just a blank class that started at lvl 1 with the hit dice, that way we could use the subclass system to make w/e we wanted and it would work. But where is that interim bare minimum solution?
They have never said that homebrew classes are "in the works." Initially the word was they were not going to do homebrew classes at all. Eventually, due to clear interest from the user base, it got added to the list of things they want to get to "someday." They have never claimed they were anywhere close to tackling homebrew classes. They have been clear that it is not a priority until a lot of other things have been addressed.
As for a VTT, while they have said they are working toward a virtual game space, that they expect to be more "all encompassing" than current VTTs, I've never heard them say that the entirety of a VTT system is "in the works." In fact, originally--somewhat like homebrew classes--they said they had no intention of adding VTT features, and they envisioned themselves as a digital tool set for folks around an actual table. That, too, changed, as people started asking for it, and they are beginning to work on some features that will be part of the virtual game space they envision: namely digital dice, encounter builder and combat tracker. I have never seen them claim that battle maps/tokens or the likes are "in the works," only that eventually they plan to address those things.
Note that I have no objection to these features. I hope for the sake of those who want them more than I do that they arrive sooner than later, but at the same time, if either of those were something I really needed now, I'd look for other solutions. I think it will be a long time (as in 2 years or more) before those features are available here. I say that purely based on my experience of the speed of development and my memory of the number and type of features that I have understood to have higher priority for them than either of these two things; I have no inside information or insight.
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if thats all a vtt is for you...
to me it is...
Dice = we have them now
Character Sheets = we have them now
books = We have them now
Iniative tracker = we have that now
of course a VTT is also considering a board which we don't have and a voice chat as well as cameras !!!
but if you look at it... we're not that far from a VTT.
to me a VTT is not just a board though.
DM of two gaming groups.
Likes to create stuff.
Check out my homebrew --> Monsters --> Magical Items --> Races --> Subclasses
If you like --> Upvote, If you wanna comment --> Comment
Play by Post Games
--> One Shot Adventure - House of Artwood (DM) (Completed)
I just want to have the Sword-sage class back from tomb of battle. Their is no where to make this class and their is no way to jam that class into a subclass with out gutting it. Battle Master fighter is nothing like the two weapon Sword-sage class of old. Tomb of battle had over 300 maneuvers with the Tasha's Caldron bring the Battle Master maneuvers to about 30.
Plus 5e would let me fix the bad or lack of maneuver recovery in this class plus add in some flavor full sub classes to spice things up, Arcane Blood Claw for so shifting and replacing maneuvers with spells(Stone Dragon & Tiger Claw), Path of Ega a subclass based around Kobolds [traps](Shadow Hand & Setting Sun ), Path of Central Blade (Jedi) ranged grapple (Dimond mind & Stone Dragon) , Path of the Setting Sun Ninja (Shadow Hand & Dessert Wind ), and Path of Master of 9 (All 9 disciplines ).
Sadly their is no way to create classes so I can't play my favorite class or get feed back on making a playable 5e version of this 3.5 class.
Really, i get why you can't make classes. The enormous complexity in not just writing it, but making it work. Though, if you could edit base class features via for example subclasses, so that you could make sorcerer a caster that prepares, that would be awesome!
Just stating this ahead of time so I don't get complaints of being ignorant, I understand why Homebrew Classes are such a complicated thing on their own, from Details, to Abilities, to Equipment choices, to proficiencies, to Potentially complex custom spell casting rules and multiclassing madness.
Homebrew Subclass is by no means something easy to create a "Creator Interface" for, especially after you take all the custom subclasses it will have and custom coding requirements.
However, in my opinion I still want to see it happen one day, I want to see the potential of what the community comes up with, and have my own homebrew playtested and reviewed by experience and inexperienced members of the community, see people's feedback, and see how far we can take Homebrewing and D&D customization.
For now, I'll settle for using notepad and word documents for creating the subclass (using what exists as a standard for leveling) and the few campaigns I host to playtest them if given the opportunity.
I realy don't understand what is the difficulty of creating the option to build homebrew classes. Wouldn't it be just like making a subclass but with one extra step of creating hit points and proficiencies?
Class define what the subclasses can do. They can have completely bespoke progression (compare what a wizard gets at each level to a fighter). They can have custom resources such as sorcery points, ki, pact magic slots or infusions. They often have completely custom rules, which is what defines a class. Ultimately classes have almost no limits and thus that makes them very hard to make a system that supports that without breaking everything.
Faith Lilley, our Content Specialist and all round wizard, was on the most recent Dev Update and mentioned some of the complexities involved setting up classes. Well worth a watch
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The reason is the difference between Wizard, Warlock, Fighter, Paladin, and Sorcerer.
Custom Class Rules, including Unique Spell Casting methods, Slot type, and other custom things. If they just added the extra step of Creating Hit points and Proficiencies, it wouldn't be much of a Homebrew Class.
even if you aren't making a magic based class, the option still needs to be there for it to be a proper class creator, the custom class rules alone add a lot of complications for a creator, specifically on how to make the interface work, and still be user friendly.
But you can create homebrew subclasses with expandable resources so what is the difference. The only true difference I see is with the spellcasting although I do not think it is that much problem to overcome it. They can just do Full spellcaster, and half spellcaster or Pact Magic options so the spell slots progress will be more easy to do, and then ask you to insert all of the spells the class can choose from.
But what happens if you want to make a class that doesn't use full, half or pact magic spellcasting? What if you want to make a psionic class that uses psi points to cast spells from a custom spell list and those spells have varied effects based on what psionic manifestations you've selected from a custom class feature? The main difference is that subclasses follow the rules, while classes define the rules.
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Then you can use a system like in magic items but with the ability to choose from different spells I don't know how psi points would work but it would probably use a limited use, which you regain when you either complete a short or long rest, or when a day passes. Either ways, it is just like charges in magic items.