Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
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Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer CreaturesFrozen SickD&D Beyond Basic RulesBasic Rules (2014)Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
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Just bumping this article.
Didn't DnDB walk back deleting the 2014 magic items and Spells?
They did when we had mass sub cancellation part 2. It couldn't have come at a worse time as the new book is coming out.
They grossly misjudged how much we would allow, and they are paying for it dearly.
Unsurprising that DnD Beyond hasn't said a thing about this. It is clear that nobody behind this site cares about the customer anymore.
I am boycotting all future purchases, both digital and physical, from WotC until they restore à la carte purchases and I will be encouraging my friends to do the same. It is a shame because I was looking forward to the release of OneDnD, but I'm sticking with this.
Seconding this. I’ll still buy hard copy, but I’m done with digital purchases if it means having to buy the whole book twice.
I used to spend $1.99 here and $5.99 there for various character creation options or monsters. But I am not spending $29.99 just because one of my players wants an Arcana Domain cleric.
I just homebrewed Arcana Domain in the subclass creator tool instead. Can’t publish it because it’s detected as being similar to the official subclass, but I can still use it and I can still content-share it at my tables. I would have paid $1.99 to save the time it took me to do that, but not $29.99.
I think I’ll be spending a lot more time with the homebrew tools unless/until this decision is reversed.
This policy will cost DMs either more money or more time. Really, really not a smart move, especially when there’s a DM shortage.
Have they not fixed this yet?
My wife got me into this many years ago. Monkey king fan. Sneak fan. Storyteller.
No. They want to keep enticing large purchases instead of more accessible small purchases. I'm not sure they will ever bring it back, which I still believe is a poor business choice.
I was looking forward to buying classes, feats, equipment, magic items, and spells from the 2024 handbook via la carte.
I've made my choice. I've not bought anything since from this site. A la carte buying enticed me into spending and eventually buying entire books I might not have otherwise bought. Without it, the content presented for purchasing just isn't good enough to get me to drop £25 on.
There is a third choice, you can buy hard copies from WotC but no DDB content. That's my path. I cancelled my subscription and have not made a purchase on DDB since they removed a la carte items. My table has gone back to pencil and paper.
I've gone from buying almost everything on dndbeyond, sometimes the same a la cart things 2 or 3 times for gifts for friends, to using FoundryVTT and "google" for free.
I'm relatively new to D&D Beyond compared to other users, so I'm actually pretty glad I didn't get the chance to invest heavily on this platform before WotC began their string of bad decisions.
I have noticed some second-hand books hitting the used market in my local area after the release of the 5.5e PHB. It's a great way to get your hands on physical D&D books that you don't own yet without giving WotC a single cent. Ironically, looks like pen and paper is the future for me.
Free Content: [Basic Rules],
[Phandelver],[Frozen Sick],[Acquisitions Inc.],[Vecna Dossier],[Radiant Citadel], [Spelljammer],[Dragonlance], [Prisoner 13],[Minecraft],[Star Forge], [Baldur’s Gate], [Lightning Keep], [Stormwreck Isle], [Pinebrook], [Caverns of Tsojcanth], [The Lost Horn], [Elemental Evil].Free Dice: [Frostmaiden],
[Flourishing], [Sanguine],[Themberchaud], [Baldur's Gate 3], [Lego].I understand that this is upsetting, and I too would have liked the option. I have purchased a few items, but nothing I couldn't homebrew or live without. But I never saw this as lasting.
When I began playing this game in '79, I could not walk into a hobby store and ask to buy just one or two pages from the monster manual. I had no internet to scour for free information that others had paid for. Hell, they hadn't even released the DM Guide yet, so I had to make due. And practically every dime from my allowance and part time jobs went to books, modules and minis...and again, I paid for 2nd edition when I was a newlywed, and again as a Dad for 3rd edition, and now 5th in my old age. And I am happy to do it, because what's worth having is worth paying for.
It just makes no business sense to sell off the content a little at a time when they can sell you a whole book. Now that WOTC has bought Beyond, it makes even less sense.
Remember that we have the privilege of using Beyond at no cost, and they have even granted us free rules. Any new player can start playing this game at zero cost. If it were not for Beyond, I would not be playing with old friends in 3 different states. As the DM, I have supported the site through my subscription and purchases and my players get to share every page of every book, never having spent a dime.
it takes time, money and creativity to create published product. We have always had the option to buy it...or not. I am happy with my bundled purchase. My players are happy to play for free.
do you also understand that the books you physically buy and own you can decide what to do (resell it, borrow to someone else) while the digital content is something you digital have until the site is on or someone decide that the content is not available anymore?
That's right, in 1979 you couldn't buy pages of a book, and you still can't, and that's logical. But this game was designed to be played with books and paper; online tools are a modern supplement. As such they should not need to double your cost to play. I still buy hardcopies of nearly every sourcebook, and some adventure books, but for creating character sheets online I just want to purchase the items needed for myself and my players.
I'll add that when you bought books you could share them with your friends. With DDB content you have to pay extra for that privilege as well. This makes sense to me, but only in an environment where you can buy the bits you want/need.
Another point to keep in mind is that's was brought many of us to DDB. Without this feature, why stay? to use the upcoming VTT? There are plenty of those already that are already in use around the world.
I agree with both points of view, but what MJC says is more accurate in 2024. You can't equate a book purchase and use-case with DDB. You buy a book and it's yours. You can give it to friends to use, you can share it. DDB doesn't work like that. It's the same for any video game, music album, book or even for streaming movies. We live in different times where you don't own content anymore, and as such, the price should not be as high and individual purchases are common-place. It does take a lot to make content; I do it as a side business myself on other accounts, but a large part of the cost was always the physical manufacture and distrubution costs - something that isn't the case for a digital product. You also have to subscribe to share, so they make their costs back this way by design.
Get people into the ecosystem with cheap, easy and handy utilities and then have them subscribe to continue. It is a good business model and the one deployed by DDB at the start. Since WotC purchased this website they have moved away from that.
Players never needed to buy the books whether they are real or digital and the free rules were a thing since the start of 5e and nothing to do with DDB, so the arguement from Autumnsbane here is weak.
Having the piece-meal purchasing on DDB was a big reason people came here. It provided convenience over using a pencil and paper character sheet and the videos that Todd did with Mike and Jeremy were interesting to learn lore. Since WotC bought the site they have just tried to make it a subscription system readying people for their Talespire clone, that nobody asked for. The funny thing is I suspect when Sigil comes around they'll have individual microtransactions for that. Dice here, animations there. Maybe piece-meal will return then, but it doesn't seem likely almost two months on they'll be reversing this decision.
DM subscriber since I joined this website. Ended my subscription June 2024 due to the removal of individual purchases. Was the only reason I ever bothered with this website. I use it for character building for my players and occasional referencing. I don't want digital books that can be removed whenever the company sees fit.
January 2025: seems it was a correct move. They're removing 2014 content that we paid for in lieu of their new version of the game. You only rent content on here, never own.
I would like to accent the point you made about the initial cost of digital product vs books. Both cost money and time in the making of the product. Books cost money every time one is made in paper, printing and shipping while digital essentially only has the cost of creating and maybe hosting if you wish to include it. Hosting costs are offset by data collection and add sales so I would call that portion a draw. Digital should cost less for the consumer than a book. In the end both have positive and negatives in reasons to purchase and it boils down to preference. That being said, digital prices here are still overinflated imo.
The number one reason I chose digital was ease of character creation, convenience of looking up rules and items at the table and the streamlining the amount of physical stuff I need to bring with me to the gaming table. Ten years ago I literally needed a huge book bag to RP confidently, and now it’s just a tablet and maybe some dice and a tray. The moment any of these items gets difficult, the reason for storing/buying information on DnDb is negated..gone forever.
I'm pretty sure all digital prices here *are* cheaper than their physical book variants?
There is also a lot more partnerships that they've made over the past year and allowed into dndbeyond, and that partnered content is also cheaper, and would likely not have been possible with their previous business model.
There are pros and cons here, but really the only thing I would say is that they should have announced the removal of the ability to do a la carte. The actual removal of it was a business decision 100% based on how many more people would be convinced to buy the books over the loss of those smaller purchases. I'm sure people who know math a lot better than I made that calculation on their end. Was it great for PR? No. Which is why they needed to control the narrative before hand and not let people find out the way they did.
I'm pretty sure WOTC head of communication got some cushy gov't job recently, so here's hoping their external comm team gets better leadership. So much of *EVERYTHING* that has happened over the past two years from the OGL onward could have been easily resolved in a much more civil manner if WOTC/Hasbro PR team didn't have its cranium up its rectum.
[REDACTED] proper communication solves 95% of problems in life. And *that* is where they fumbled the biggest.
I will say again, these changes are within their rights but not necessarily wise. And while they did not launch any ad campaigns regarding piecemeal purchasing, that is true, they did certainly list it prominently as an option via the purchase interface, if you clicked on anything you do not yet have. It was not any sort of hidden feature.
They do not have TV spots or any conventional billboard advertising, either. They do not seem to do all that much advertising, generally.
The fact that you have to contact support prior to purchasing to get your discount is super annoying. This has to be a huge burden on the support team. This discount needs to be applied to the marketplace directly if you have already made a la carte purchases instead of going through a middleman for every transaction. I've been waiting 11 days so far with no response. How long is this supposed to take?