I have been with D&D Beyond since the beginning and I plan to keep using the service until something better comes along. That said, I am extremely disappointed in the removal of a la carte purchases. I am a disabled vet and live on a fixed income. I can't afford to purchase full books at the prices they charge, especially if all I am going to use out of the book is a couple of background options. I have purchased quite a few things a la carte over the years, and I would have continued to do so. I hope that they can pull their collective heads out soon. I'm guessing the recent rash of book sales in their marketplace is due to the crash of sales since the changes.
I've always enjoyed making new PCs but It is now an extremely frustrating experience as I have to try to re-create the race I don't own instead of just giving wotc $2. I'm not gonna buy multiverse of monsters as a player. I can only hope that enough people feel the same way. But as we keep seeing, user experience doesn't matter anymore. All that matters is appeasing shareholders. Either way, they won't get any more of my money until a la carte is back. Mostly because it is the only reason I'd ever buy anything in the first place. I'll fight through the accessibility issues and just do pen and paper instead.
Hugely sucks, especially as a DM who's regularly creating new characters and who's interested in creating weird builds. Does anyone have good recs for dndbeyond alternatives for character creation?
Hugely sucks, especially as a DM who's regularly creating new characters and who's interested in creating weird builds. Does anyone have good recs for dndbeyond alternatives for character creation?
Are you looking for just character sheets, a VTT or something more? The first thing that comes to mind is the MPMB character sheets.
Mostly, I just like to build my NPCs in the dnd beyond character creator, because it makes them easier to manage--especially for spellcasters. Then I usually just keep the sheet up at the table so I can track HP, spells, etc. Ideally something that will let me continue to pull from all the rules for the character creation (I was trying to quickly build a school of necromancy wizard with the metamagic adept feat, which would have cost me like sixty dollars for those two features alone), but will also offer tools for tracking resources during combat.
This is me as well--I haven't posted in the past because the OGL business didn't have an impact on my use of dndbeyond as a tool. I DM for a table of five--all dndbeyond users and monthly subscribers--and we're trying out some dndbeyond alternatives now. This massively reduces functionality for me and the people I play with regularly.
Don't forget yall, dndbeyond has a twitch community livestream from 5-5:45 pm Eastern time tomorrow
i don't know anything about twitch livestreams. is this a regular community thing or is there some sort of announcement?
Probably some crap about upcoming 6e crap, someone will post about what it said.
I was here and commented on the OGL issue, same as I am here now commenting and curious as to what is to become of the 5e character builder? Will it still support 5e character building, or will it be changed to accommodate 6e builds? Will we be able to select which builder we would like to use?
I think the staff can pass that question on to someone who has the authority to format a response in a timely manner.
Discourse is the best course, in the thread about epic boons I had an epiphany due to the discourse, and I feel like I now understand why piecemeal was removed, I also feel it makes sense in that without piecemeal we can not pick and choose the parts of the new rule books that address the longstanding shortcomings we may feel via parts of the books might address without having to buy the entire book, thus artificially inflating the success of the new books, ie if the bulk of buyers only bought the piecemeal that addressed the parts of the books that solved the perceived problems they wanted addressed the books as a whole may not sell as well as if we get the option to only buy the parts they may find beneficial to fix the issues any individual/group may have with the 2014 ruleset without buying the entire 2024 books. I may, and am likely wrong about this, but it makes sense to me, especially since I would only consider piecemeal purchases of the new ruleset for my personal reasons which are both varied and many. Either way it is wizbro's choice to do so, and I find no wrongdoing in this methodology if it happens to be true. I still think the removal of piecemeal purchases is a bad choice, though it is still their choice to make.
ALSO, this is nothing more than WILD SPECULATION on MY PART!
Don't forget yall, dndbeyond has a twitch community livestream from 5-5:45 pm Eastern time tomorrow
i don't know anything about twitch livestreams. is this a regular community thing or is there some sort of announcement?
Probably some crap about upcoming 6e crap, someone will post about what it said.
I was here and commented on the OGL issue, same as I am here now commenting and curious as to what is to become of the 5e character builder? Will it still support 5e character building, or will it be changed to accommodate 6e builds? Will we be able to select which builder we would like to use?
I think the staff can pass that question on to someone who has the authority to format a response in a timely manner.
If you wouldn’t mind?
I agree.
Will we still be able to use the 5E builder or will we be forced to switch to 6E to keep using the builder.
My solution would be to copy(or make new) a whole new builder and essentially a new website just for 6E. It would be easier for the programmers since they would not have to integrate old and new rules on the same builder. Internet traffic would stay just about the same since it would only change with a significant uptick in users. Even the sales porthole could stay the same for the old (piecemeal)5E and changed for the new 6E.
Discourse is the best course, in the thread about epic boons I had an apifiny due to the discourse, and I feel like I now understand why piecemeal was removed, I also feel it makes sense in that without piecemeal we can not pick and choose the parts of the new rule books that address the longstanding shortcomings we may feel via parts of the books might address without having to buy the entire book, thus artificially inflating the success of the new books, ie if the bulk of buyers only bought the piecemeal that addressed the parts of the books that solved the perceived problems they wanted addressed the books as a whole may not sell as well as if we get the option to only buy the parts they may find beneficial to fix the issues any individual/group may have with the 2014 ruleset without buying the entire 2024 books. I may, and am likely wrong about this, but it makes sense to me, especially since I would only consider piecemeal purchases of the new ruleset for my personal reasons which are both varied and many. Either way it is wizbro's choice to do so, and I find no wrongdoing in this methodology if it happens to be true. I still think the removal of piecemeal purchases is a bad choice, though it is still their choice to make.
ALSO, this is nothing more than WILD SPECULATION on MY PART!
Discourse is the best course, in the thread about epic boons I had an apifiny due to the discourse, and I feel like I now understand why piecemeal was removed, I also feel it makes sense in that without piecemeal we can not pick and choose the parts of the new rule books that address the longstanding shortcomings we may feel via parts of the books might address without having to buy the entire book, thus artificially inflating the success of the new books, ie if the bulk of buyers only bought the piecemeal that addressed the parts of the books that solved the perceived problems they wanted addressed the books as a whole may not sell as well as if we get the option to only buy the parts they may find beneficial to fix the issues any individual/group may have with the 2014 ruleset without buying the entire 2024 books. I may, and am likely wrong about this, but it makes sense to me, especially since I would only consider piecemeal purchases of the new ruleset for my personal reasons which are both varied and many. Either way it is wizbro's choice to do so, and I find no wrongdoing in this methodology if it happens to be true. I still think the removal of piecemeal purchases is a bad choice, though it is still their choice to make.
ALSO, this is nothing more than WILD SPECULATION on MY PART!
I can certainly see why they wouldn't want to make core rulebook items a la carte. Thing is...they don't have to. They could totally decide that the new core rulebooks a full purchase only and still have a la carte for other official content. I wouldn't even be mad about that becasue it makes sense.
Discourse is the best course, in the thread about epic boons I had an apifiny due to the discourse, and I feel like I now understand why piecemeal was removed, I also feel it makes sense in that without piecemeal we can not pick and choose the parts of the new rule books that address the longstanding shortcomings we may feel via parts of the books might address without having to buy the entire book, thus artificially inflating the success of the new books, ie if the bulk of buyers only bought the piecemeal that addressed the parts of the books that solved the perceived problems they wanted addressed the books as a whole may not sell as well as if we get the option to only buy the parts they may find beneficial to fix the issues any individual/group may have with the 2014 ruleset without buying the entire 2024 books. I may, and am likely wrong about this, but it makes sense to me, especially since I would only consider piecemeal purchases of the new ruleset for my personal reasons which are both varied and many. Either way it is wizbro's choice to do so, and I find no wrongdoing in this methodology if it happens to be true. I still think the removal of piecemeal purchases is a bad choice, though it is still their choice to make.
ALSO, this is nothing more than WILD SPECULATION on MY PART!
I can certainly see why they wouldn't want to make core rulebook items a la carte. Thing is...they don't have to. They could totally decide that the new core rulebooks a full purchase only and still have a la carte for other official content. I wouldn't even be mad about that becasue it makes sense.
Yes, and we know it is possible from releases like the Book of Many Things that was buy only while piecemeal was still available for the other books.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
CENSORSHIP IS THE TOOL OF COWARDS and WANNA BE TYRANTS.
So, I reached out to customer support for a discount code on a book I'd made previously purchases for.
It took T E N days for CS to get me the code. That was after I made two follow up messages and lodged a second ticket.
Finally, I get the code. I go to marketplace, add item to cart. Add the coupon code and ... Coupon could not be applied to this purchase.
I think I'm done with DnDBeyond. They've broken all trust... Community managers are being thrown to the wolves to face our anger, and customer support are as useful as a white crayon in the Australian summer.
So does this mean that you can't both get a price reduction, based on the parts that you have already purchased And take advantage of Sales, when those are offered?
I hope it doesn't mean that.
I want to feel excited about the new edition that is coming out (not feel conflated, or icky when/if I make future purchases). D&D feels weirdly personal and it would be nice just to feel generally good about all of it, including the company behind it (it feels to me like that is getting harder to do).
Don't forget yall, dndbeyond has a twitch community livestream from 5-5:45 pm Eastern time tomorrow
i don't know anything about twitch livestreams. is this a regular community thing or is there some sort of announcement?
Probably some crap about upcoming 6e crap, someone will post about what it said.
I was here and commented on the OGL issue, same as I am here now commenting and curious as to what is to become of the 5e character builder? Will it still support 5e character building, or will it be changed to accommodate 6e builds? Will we be able to select which builder we would like to use?
I think the staff can pass that question on to someone who has the authority to format a response in a timely manner.
If you wouldn’t mind?
you know, i got an email just a few days ago from roll20 that says their version of the digital d&d character sheet is going into alpha on the 18th. even more pertinent to this conversation, "the new [roll20] character sheet will be fully compatible with both 2014 and 2024 core rulebooks."
i've previously hesitated to mention competing entities but this is important: dndbeyond isn't improving and soon what dndbeyond provides won't be at all unique. THAT's some germane feedback for the feedback forums. and we're still this much engaged, devs! it usually costs big bucks to get eyeballs this consistent, doesn't it? what are you doing with your position while you have it? show us what you're made of!
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: providefeedback!
From a ticket to support: The discount system for the D&D Beyond Marketplace is optimized to provide customers with the best discount for their purchases. At this time, discounts and offers in the Marketplace cannot be combined. If in a future sale the discount on Tomb of Annihilation was larger than the discount provided by the unique code, that is the price that would display.
This disincentivizes me from purchasing modules I have bought a la carte in the past, because I am now paying more overall than a customer buying one now on sale does. I used to by spells/backgrounds/feats a la carte, then buy the book on sale closer to when I needed that content. The discount stacked for years. Not anymore...
I guess filling up my back catalog isn't gonna happen.
To be honest, I barely posted before the OGL scandal. It seems that when people are happy and are just here to buy things, it's a lot quieter. Now I'm more vocal about changes I see as flagrantly corporate greed because I can and will just buy from other creators.
I suppose they see losing the bulk of sales worth the few who still buy full books. But now I just buy my official books secondhand.
To be honest, I barely posted before the OGL scandal. It seems that when people are happy and are just here to buy things, it's a lot quieter. Now I'm more vocal about changes I see as flagrantly corporate greed because I can and will just buy from other creators.
I suppose they see losing the bulk of sales worth the few who still buy full books. But now I just buy my official books secondhand.
Yeah I'm the same. I saw the OGL as a Wizbro issue. DDB was third party until recently, it wasn't them causing the issue so I kept using the service and buying new material.
But now, this is an issue with DDB. Piecemeal was what initially drove me to buy on this site. A $30 digital book for content I already had in physical form was unnecessary. I got the PHB on Amazon for $15, my first copy is completely notated and with several tab indicators to flip through more easily and I'd print off anything I need at work. But things like $5 for a new race and subclass was well worth it. Low barrier to entry and I didn't feel like I was making an investment in something I may not like anyway. Now I've purchased so much I have eventually rounded out many of the books, but I never would have started if I saw a $60 price tag to play one new race from Mordekainan's and one subclass from Tasha's.
That's what I really don't get, how do they expect to bring on new players if all they want is one thing from a source. And the only thing DDB says "oh for a subscription you can share content!" But you need people to want to buy your product first. Not everyone has that level of disposable income, or cares to run a campaign fully digitally. They ticked of most of their customer base and shot themselves in the foot over this.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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I have been with D&D Beyond since the beginning and I plan to keep using the service until something better comes along. That said, I am extremely disappointed in the removal of a la carte purchases. I am a disabled vet and live on a fixed income. I can't afford to purchase full books at the prices they charge, especially if all I am going to use out of the book is a couple of background options. I have purchased quite a few things a la carte over the years, and I would have continued to do so. I hope that they can pull their collective heads out soon. I'm guessing the recent rash of book sales in their marketplace is due to the crash of sales since the changes.
I've always enjoyed making new PCs but It is now an extremely frustrating experience as I have to try to re-create the race I don't own instead of just giving wotc $2. I'm not gonna buy multiverse of monsters as a player. I can only hope that enough people feel the same way. But as we keep seeing, user experience doesn't matter anymore. All that matters is appeasing shareholders. Either way, they won't get any more of my money until a la carte is back. Mostly because it is the only reason I'd ever buy anything in the first place. I'll fight through the accessibility issues and just do pen and paper instead.
Hugely sucks, especially as a DM who's regularly creating new characters and who's interested in creating weird builds. Does anyone have good recs for dndbeyond alternatives for character creation?
Are you looking for just character sheets, a VTT or something more? The first thing that comes to mind is the MPMB character sheets.
Mostly, I just like to build my NPCs in the dnd beyond character creator, because it makes them easier to manage--especially for spellcasters. Then I usually just keep the sheet up at the table so I can track HP, spells, etc. Ideally something that will let me continue to pull from all the rules for the character creation (I was trying to quickly build a school of necromancy wizard with the metamagic adept feat, which would have cost me like sixty dollars for those two features alone), but will also offer tools for tracking resources during combat.
I'm looking into MPMB now--thank you!
Don't forget yall, dndbeyond has a twitch community livestream from 5-5:45 pm Eastern time tomorrow
Trying to DM | Lost my party due to removal of A la Carte options | Party no longer wants to use Beyond
i don't know anything about twitch livestreams. is this a regular community thing or is there some sort of announcement?
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: provide feedback!
This is me as well--I haven't posted in the past because the OGL business didn't have an impact on my use of dndbeyond as a tool. I DM for a table of five--all dndbeyond users and monthly subscribers--and we're trying out some dndbeyond alternatives now. This massively reduces functionality for me and the people I play with regularly.
Probably some crap about upcoming 6e crap, someone will post about what it said.
I was here and commented on the OGL issue, same as I am here now commenting and curious as to what is to become of the 5e character builder? Will it still support 5e character building, or will it be changed to accommodate 6e builds? Will we be able to select which builder we would like to use?
I think the staff can pass that question on to someone who has the authority to format a response in a timely manner.
If you wouldn’t mind?
Discourse is the best course, in the thread about epic boons I had an epiphany due to the discourse, and I feel like I now understand why piecemeal was removed, I also feel it makes sense in that without piecemeal we can not pick and choose the parts of the new rule books that address the longstanding shortcomings we may feel via parts of the books might address without having to buy the entire book, thus artificially inflating the success of the new books, ie if the bulk of buyers only bought the piecemeal that addressed the parts of the books that solved the perceived problems they wanted addressed the books as a whole may not sell as well as if we get the option to only buy the parts they may find beneficial to fix the issues any individual/group may have with the 2014 ruleset without buying the entire 2024 books. I may, and am likely wrong about this, but it makes sense to me, especially since I would only consider piecemeal purchases of the new ruleset for my personal reasons which are both varied and many. Either way it is wizbro's choice to do so, and I find no wrongdoing in this methodology if it happens to be true. I still think the removal of piecemeal purchases is a bad choice, though it is still their choice to make.
ALSO, this is nothing more than WILD SPECULATION on MY PART!
CENSORSHIP IS THE TOOL OF COWARDS and WANNA BE TYRANTS.
I agree.
Will we still be able to use the 5E builder or will we be forced to switch to 6E to keep using the builder.
My solution would be to copy(or make new) a whole new builder and essentially a new website just for 6E.
It would be easier for the programmers since they would not have to integrate old and new rules on the same builder. Internet traffic would stay just about the same since it would only change with a significant uptick in users. Even the sales porthole could stay the same for the old (piecemeal)5E and changed for the new 6E.
I think you might just be correct.
I can certainly see why they wouldn't want to make core rulebook items a la carte. Thing is...they don't have to. They could totally decide that the new core rulebooks a full purchase only and still have a la carte for other official content. I wouldn't even be mad about that becasue it makes sense.
Yes, and we know it is possible from releases like the Book of Many Things that was buy only while piecemeal was still available for the other books.
CENSORSHIP IS THE TOOL OF COWARDS and WANNA BE TYRANTS.
So does this mean that you can't both get a price reduction, based on the parts that you have already purchased And take advantage of Sales, when those are offered?
I hope it doesn't mean that.
I want to feel excited about the new edition that is coming out (not feel conflated, or icky when/if I make future purchases). D&D feels weirdly personal and it would be nice just to feel generally good about all of it, including the company behind it (it feels to me like that is getting harder to do).
you know, i got an email just a few days ago from roll20 that says their version of the digital d&d character sheet is going into alpha on the 18th. even more pertinent to this conversation, "the new [roll20] character sheet will be fully compatible with both 2014 and 2024 core rulebooks."
i've previously hesitated to mention competing entities but this is important: dndbeyond isn't improving and soon what dndbeyond provides won't be at all unique. THAT's some germane feedback for the feedback forums. and we're still this much engaged, devs! it usually costs big bucks to get eyeballs this consistent, doesn't it? what are you doing with your position while you have it? show us what you're made of!
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: provide feedback!
I posted this on another thread:
From a ticket to support: The discount system for the D&D Beyond Marketplace is optimized to provide customers with the best discount for their purchases. At this time, discounts and offers in the Marketplace cannot be combined. If in a future sale the discount on Tomb of Annihilation was larger than the discount provided by the unique code, that is the price that would display.
This disincentivizes me from purchasing modules I have bought a la carte in the past, because I am now paying more overall than a customer buying one now on sale does. I used to by spells/backgrounds/feats a la carte, then buy the book on sale closer to when I needed that content. The discount stacked for years. Not anymore...
I guess filling up my back catalog isn't gonna happen.
In other words, the content of our posts doesn't matter at all, only the raw number of people complaining.
To be honest, I barely posted before the OGL scandal. It seems that when people are happy and are just here to buy things, it's a lot quieter. Now I'm more vocal about changes I see as flagrantly corporate greed because I can and will just buy from other creators.
I suppose they see losing the bulk of sales worth the few who still buy full books. But now I just buy my official books secondhand.
Yeah I'm the same. I saw the OGL as a Wizbro issue. DDB was third party until recently, it wasn't them causing the issue so I kept using the service and buying new material.
But now, this is an issue with DDB. Piecemeal was what initially drove me to buy on this site. A $30 digital book for content I already had in physical form was unnecessary. I got the PHB on Amazon for $15, my first copy is completely notated and with several tab indicators to flip through more easily and I'd print off anything I need at work. But things like $5 for a new race and subclass was well worth it. Low barrier to entry and I didn't feel like I was making an investment in something I may not like anyway. Now I've purchased so much I have eventually rounded out many of the books, but I never would have started if I saw a $60 price tag to play one new race from Mordekainan's and one subclass from Tasha's.
That's what I really don't get, how do they expect to bring on new players if all they want is one thing from a source. And the only thing DDB says "oh for a subscription you can share content!" But you need people to want to buy your product first. Not everyone has that level of disposable income, or cares to run a campaign fully digitally. They ticked of most of their customer base and shot themselves in the foot over this.