Will it be possible to make a duplicate of personal homebrew (or any if creator allows duplicates) any time like we can with official material? I am creating  several variants of magical items that differ in small ways and a few races in such a manner. Being able to copy homebrew would be a wonderful thing.

I am wondering this myself, I found something someone posted in the homebrew but I want to make a copy and make some modifications but the base is what Im looking for.

Being able to make duplicates of homebrew items would save a lot of time

We can now make items based on homebrew items. Hooray.

How so?

As long as you're trying to copy a homebrew item you've made, if you go to Create a Homebrew Magic Item/Spell/Race etc, then in the "Use an existing [type] as a template:" section, enter the name of the item you've made, you'll see it in the list.

For example, these items are all ones I've made that I can copy:

Ahh, I see. thank you Damon.  I was hoping there was a way to Copy a Homebrew item that was published from someone else so that I could tweak it in my own campaign (not to republish)  is there a way to do that?

You can't copy others homebrew, even if it's in your collection.

"As long as you're trying to copy a homebrew item you've made, if you go to Create a Homebrew Magic Item/Spell/Race etc, then in the "Use an existing [type] as a template:" section, enter the name of the item you've made, you'll see it in the list."

There appears to be no way to do this very cool template trick with homebrew races/subraces/variant races. Does it need to be published? Am I missing something here?

Thanks already for the tricks/tips

I believe it does need to be published.

While this topic concerns itself with copying your own homebrew magic item. How do you create a copy of your homebrew variant race?

1. I created the homebrew race by selecting from Create Homebrew Race => Create Variant => Select a race to create a new Variant for => Dwarf => CREATE FROM SCRATCH
2. I name the Variant MY_VARIANT_DWARF
3. I edited MY_VARIANT_DWARF and was happy with the outcome
4. I need to create a copy / backup of the MY_VARIANT_DWARF so I go to Create Homebrew Race => Create Variant => Select an existing Variant for => ????
   1. MY_VARIANT_DWARF does not appear in the drop down

I looked into the issue, and created COPY_OF_Variant Human. Likewise, the COPY_OF_Variant Human does not appear in the template drop down. It appears that this functionality is not supported, nor is copying homebrew subraces. 

Is this true? If so, is there a technical reason preventing using a homebrew variant or subrace as a template?

Thanks, and by-the-way, the tool set is quite powerful.

I want to give copies of my homebrew stuff to my DM. Do I have to publish or is there another way? The goal is to use my stuff, a player, in the campaign my DM is running.

Quote from BradBeyond >>

I want to give copies of my homebrew stuff to my DM. Do I have to publish or is there another way? The goal is to use my stuff, a player, in the campaign my DM is running.

 Hello there BradBeyond,

As long as the things you have homebrewed are in your homebrew collection (they do not have to be published to be in it), and content sharing has been enabled in your campaign, your DM and fellow players should have access to them.

Quote from haggis_mchaggis >>

Quote from BradBeyond >>

I want to give copies of my homebrew stuff to my DM. Do I have to publish or is there another way? The goal is to use my stuff, a player, in the campaign my DM is running.

 Hello there BradBeyond,

As long as the things you have homebrewed are in your homebrew collection (they do not have to be published to be in it), and content sharing has been enabled in your campaign, your DM and fellow players should have access to them.

 It doesn’t even require content sharing for our homebrews.

Being able to modify published items would be so useful. So often I find something that is similar to what I'm already trying to make, and being able to switch one variable would be so much better than trying to figure out how to make it on my own.

Right now I'm in the process of remaking an entire homebrew subclass because somewhere it says "You also gain proficiency in the Performance or Persuasion skill (choose one)." but doesnt give the choice and needs to be edited manually on the character sheet, so now I'm making it all, just so there's a dropdown menu in character creator instead

Quote from corey2002 >>

Being able to modify published items would be so useful. So often I find something that is similar to what I'm already trying to make, and being able to switch one variable would be so much better than trying to figure out how to make it on my own.

Right now I'm in the process of remaking an entire homebrew subclass because somewhere it says "You also gain proficiency in the Performance or Persuasion skill (choose one)." but doesnt give the choice and needs to be edited manually on the character sheet, so now I'm making it all, just so there's a dropdown menu in character creator instead

 Do you men published home-brew, or official items? Official items we can use as templates for home-brew and just tweak stuff like that. For Published home-brews I believe it's on the agenda.

Quote from IamSposta >>

Quote from corey2002 >>

Being able to modify published items would be so useful. So often I find something that is similar to what I'm already trying to make, and being able to switch one variable would be so much better than trying to figure out how to make it on my own.

Right now I'm in the process of remaking an entire homebrew subclass because somewhere it says "You also gain proficiency in the Performance or Persuasion skill (choose one)." but doesnt give the choice and needs to be edited manually on the character sheet, so now I'm making it all, just so there's a dropdown menu in character creator instead

 Do you men published home-brew, or official items? Official items we can use as templates for home-brew and just tweak stuff like that. For Published home-brews I believe it's on the agenda.

 other people's published

Bump for this. Hugely annoying that I can't modify someone else's homebrew to make my own. 

This would create a renaissance of content, please allow homebrew copying!

It's like Twitter's retweet function

You would get so much more polished content

Quote from Loopuleasa >>

This would create a renaissance of content, please allow homebrew copying!

It's like Twitter's retweet function 

You would get so much more polished content

 That is unfortunately not true. There will definitely be more content, because bunches of people will be making bunches of versions of the same content, but if one in fifty is actually polished up properly, that still means there are now 49 unpolished versions when once there was one. And that presumes we would ever be allowed to publish our variations of other folks stuff.

To be honest, if other people start making minor variations of my homebrews and then publishing them as their own original work, I will be very put out. I may not make a dime off of ‘brews I publish here on DSB, but that is still my work, my designs, my time and effort writing, editing, playtesting, and rebalancing. I am still playtesting things I wrote “in the before times” when we could hug friends and eat with each other in restaurants without fear. That’s my time, effort, and energy. If someone wants to adjust them for their private use I have no problem with that. If they start publishing those adjusted versions as their original work, I would consider that as much plagiarism as WotC does. (You know how we are physically prevented from publishing things that are “too similar” to the original? I expect my work to enjoy the same protection.)

In case it was unclear, that last paragraph was as much for the benefit of the DDB Devs as for anyone else.