WHAT IF I WANT TO USE THE 2014 VERSION OF A SPELL OR MAGIC ITEM?
If you wish to use the old version of a magic item or spell that has been replaced by its 2024 counterpart, you will need to create a homebrew copy of it and enable homebrew content on your character sheet. Then, you can add it to your character sheet.
So plenty of us have seen this in the Changelog, right? Right. I realized there's a major issue with this even for those willing to put in the time and effort to do so. And I believe this deserves its own thread.
Doing so will only allow players to add the spells manually. Auto-added spells, such as those added via feats and subclasses, will still pull the new versions with no chance to add the old ones.
As a result of this, the only solution to fully fix the spells would be to create homebrew copies of said subclasses and feats as well.
The only acceptable solution to this would be for Beyond to allow us to toggle the legacy version of the spells on our character sheets. This needs to happen. No replacement, just alternates.
Agreed. Would it truly be that hard to implement a toggle to allow us to choose if we want the new or old versions, at least with spells? I bought the old rulebooks because I want to use them. If I wanted to use the new versions, I would have bought the new books.
1) duplication - As a Database professional, this is going to (likely already happening) create a HIGE flood of duplicate entries for people copying their magic items and spells. It might be less problematic if people could publish a 2014 Legacy copy of spells or items, but anyone who attempts to copy and publish will get hit with the “too similar” error, so everyone has to create their own copy.
2) We don’t know what is going to change so we don’t know what we NEED to copy. Sure there are some people making videos but I can’t use a video as a reference manual to go over each spell or item and tell whether it will need to be replaced with a legacy version.
Will the legacy versions be available to copy after the prerelease or do I need to just start making legacy copies of everything right now? Don’t they see how silly it is that we even have to ask?
And when the data comes in and more people are homebrewing and 5.24e sales continue to be lukewarm, they'll increase the price of the tier needed for the privilege of doing just that, before removing the homebrew option all together.
It might be less problematic if people could publish a 2014 Legacy copy of spells or items, but anyone who attempts to copy and publish will get hit with the “too similar” error, so everyone has to create their own copy.
You don't need to publish to use them. In fact because you are copying something from an existing book, it is against site rules to publish.
Anything you homebrew can be used by you and anyone in your campaign without publishing, without subscriptions and for free.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Click ✨ HERE ✨ For My Youtube Videos featuring Guides, Tips & Tricks for using D&D Beyond. Need help with Homebrew? Check out ✨ thisFAQ/Guide thread ✨ by IamSposta.
It might be less problematic if people could publish a 2014 Legacy copy of spells or items, but anyone who attempts to copy and publish will get hit with the “too similar” error, so everyone has to create their own copy.
You don't need to publish to use them. In fact because you are copying something from an existing book, it is against site rules to publish.
Anything you homebrew can be used by you and anyone in your campaign without publishing, without subscriptions and for free.
You missed the context of the post completely. They were pointing out that this will increase server load and their own rules are the problem.
1) duplication - As a Database professional, this is going to (likely already happening) create a HIGE flood of duplicate entries for people copying their magic items and spells. It might be less problematic if people could publish a 2014 Legacy copy of spells or items, but anyone who attempts to copy and publish will get hit with the “too similar” error, so everyone has to create their own copy.
2) We don’t know what is going to change so we don’t know what we NEED to copy. Sure there are some people making videos but I can’t use a video as a reference manual to go over each spell or item and tell whether it will need to be replaced with a legacy version.
Will the legacy versions be available to copy after the prerelease or do I need to just start making legacy copies of everything right now? Don’t they see how silly it is that we even have to ask?
Another issue I thought of is how they tie to classes.
Take Healing Word for example. It's tied to the bard/cleric/druid. If we homebrew-copy it right now those class tags are bard/cleric/druid. (I'm ignoring the Alchemist.)
What will happen when the 5.5 PHB hits? Will those bard/cleric/druid tags still refer to the current bard/cleric/druid or will they now refer to the 5.5 bard/cleric/druid? Because if so, that's gonna get really annoying to fix.
1) duplication - As a Database professional, this is going to (likely already happening) create a HIGE flood of duplicate entries for people copying their magic items and spells. It might be less problematic if people could publish a 2014 Legacy copy of spells or items, but anyone who attempts to copy and publish will get hit with the “too similar” error, so everyone has to create their own copy.
2) We don’t know what is going to change so we don’t know what we NEED to copy. Sure there are some people making videos but I can’t use a video as a reference manual to go over each spell or item and tell whether it will need to be replaced with a legacy version.
Will the legacy versions be available to copy after the prerelease or do I need to just start making legacy copies of everything right now? Don’t they see how silly it is that we even have to ask?
Another issue I thought of is how they tie to classes.
Take Healing Word for example. It's tied to the bard/cleric/druid. If we homebrew-copy it right now those class tags are bard/cleric/druid. (I'm ignoring the Alchemist.)
What will happen when the 5.5 PHB hits? Will those bard/cleric/druid tags still refer to the current bard/cleric/druid or will they now refer to the 5.5 bard/cleric/druid? Because if so, that's gonna get really annoying to fix.
Theoretically, either would have access. In practice, we'll see what happens.
There’s also the issue of “Always Prepared” spells. As far as I can tell, the character builder/editor doesn’t allow me to customize the “Always Prepared” tag. Therefore, any spell that I homebrew a legacy copy of and then add to my character would count against my known/prepared spells.
I also don’t see a way to customize number of allowed spells on a character, so beyond the “Always Prepared” issue, these copies then eat into my class economy…
The only workaround that I can think of, is to make homebrew copies of the spells and then make a homebrew copy of the subclass and select those copies as “Always Prepared”… homebrew subclasses are notoriously glitchy, but beyond that if an Always Prepared spell is tied to the Class rather than the Subclass then there’s no workaround at all since Classes aren’t allowed in the Homebrew tool today
There’s also the issue of “Always Prepared” spells. As far as I can tell, the character builder/editor doesn’t allow me to customize the “Always Prepared” tag. Therefore, any spell that I homebrew a legacy copy of and then add to my character would count against my known/prepared spells.
I also don’t see a way to customize number of allowed spells on a character, so beyond the “Always Prepared” issue, these copies then eat into my class economy…
The only workaround that I can think of, is to make homebrew copies of the spells and then make a homebrew copy of the subclass and select those copies as “Always Prepared”… homebrew subclasses are notoriously glitchy, but beyond that if an Always Prepared spell is tied to the Class rather than the Subclass then there’s no workaround at all since Classes aren’t allowed in the Homebrew tool today
If you think of cleric domains you can do the domain always prepared thing. But yes, the idea will be homebrew spells and homebrew subclass. But doing that does give you control over what is or isnt always prepared and whether it does or does not count against your limit or uses spell slots.
But having tried to do this for somebody in bugs and making a video on it - I realised how annoying, unintuitive and labouring it can be. So, you can do it but aye it isn't easy to do for somebody who hasn't homebrewed before.
(The video was for this thread, which shows how to homebrew the spells and replace the always prepared domain spells with them).
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Click ✨ HERE ✨ For My Youtube Videos featuring Guides, Tips & Tricks for using D&D Beyond. Need help with Homebrew? Check out ✨ thisFAQ/Guide thread ✨ by IamSposta.
At least currently, if a homebrewer lists an artificer specialist, cleric domain, druid circle, or paladin oath in the “available for class(es)” field of a spell, it automatically links to that subclass as an always prepared spell.
At least currently, if a homebrewer lists an artificer specialist, cleric domain, druid circle, or paladin oath in the “available for class(es)” field of a spell, it automatically links to that subclass as an always prepared spell.
Thanks for the tip. For what it’s worth I just checked and that doesn’t seem to work. It may have worked in the past but it currently does not. I copied Spiritual Weapon and looked at “Available for class(es)” under the Basic Information section and it has “CLERIC | CLERIC - LIFE DOMAIN | CLERIC - WAR DOMAIN | PALADIN - OATH OF CONQUEST” listed. Then I created a brand new War Domain cleric and bumped them up to level 5, added a race and stats, then looked at the character sheet, and my new spell wasn’t there.
I think maybe the only way to make this work is by either also cloning the subclass and changing the spells to the legacy clones, and subclass copies are super glitchy, so not really a solution at all.
Thanks for pointing this out, this is going to become very frustrating for everyone currently in a campaign who doesn't want to switch to 5.5e right away..
If D&DBeyond is going to make all the content I purchase unusable for me within it's application every time a they move to a new version then I am out... it negates the use of D&D Beyond as a simple platform to manage my characters.
It really comes down to I shouldn't have to do a ton of work to be able to easily use things that I paid for. Quite frankly, I paid for a DND sub to be able to easily use the things and now they're changing it so that it's no longer useable for the reason I paid for it...
At least currently, if a homebrewer lists an artificer specialist, cleric domain, druid circle, or paladin oath in the “available for class(es)” field of a spell, it automatically links to that subclass as an always prepared spell.
Thanks for the tip. For what it’s worth I just checked and that doesn’t seem to work. It may have worked in the past but it currently does not. I copied Spiritual Weapon and looked at “Available for class(es)” under the Basic Information section and it has “CLERIC | CLERIC - LIFE DOMAIN | CLERIC - WAR DOMAIN | PALADIN - OATH OF CONQUEST” listed. Then I created a brand new War Domain cleric and bumped them up to level 5, added a race and stats, then looked at the character sheet, and my new spell wasn’t there.
I think maybe the only way to make this work is by either also cloning the subclass and changing the spells to the legacy clones, and subclass copies are super glitchy, so not really a solution at all.
They already stated that it won’t work for the old versions of spells, but try renaming it to see if it works. If adding a subclass to a home brew spell no longer links that spell as always prepared that indicates a pretty significant change on the backend.
Is that post showing from November 9th of this year for anyone else?
How badly is this website breaking over all the feedback from the new changes?
It's showing as from November 9th for me too. First time I've ever seen that. I've seen delayed notifications (after when some threads were busier than usual), but never inaccurate post dates like that. It even shifted post 18 to be after post 21 due to it.
So plenty of us have seen this in the Changelog, right? Right. I realized there's a major issue with this even for those willing to put in the time and effort to do so. And I believe this deserves its own thread.
Doing so will only allow players to add the spells manually. Auto-added spells, such as those added via feats and subclasses, will still pull the new versions with no chance to add the old ones.
As a result of this, the only solution to fully fix the spells would be to create homebrew copies of said subclasses and feats as well.
The only acceptable solution to this would be for Beyond to allow us to toggle the legacy version of the spells on our character sheets. This needs to happen. No replacement, just alternates.
Agreed. Would it truly be that hard to implement a toggle to allow us to choose if we want the new or old versions, at least with spells? I bought the old rulebooks because I want to use them. If I wanted to use the new versions, I would have bought the new books.
Forcing every caster in a current DDB campaign to learn the Aberrant/Clockwork dance is an interesting choice.
2 issues:
1) duplication - As a Database professional, this is going to (likely already happening) create a HIGE flood of duplicate entries for people copying their magic items and spells. It might be less problematic if people could publish a 2014 Legacy copy of spells or items, but anyone who attempts to copy and publish will get hit with the “too similar” error, so everyone has to create their own copy.
2) We don’t know what is going to change so we don’t know what we NEED to copy. Sure there are some people making videos but I can’t use a video as a reference manual to go over each spell or item and tell whether it will need to be replaced with a legacy version.
Will the legacy versions be available to copy after the prerelease or do I need to just start making legacy copies of everything right now? Don’t they see how silly it is that we even have to ask?
You mean Divine? This has been a problem for over half a decade.
Amen!
And when the data comes in and more people are homebrewing and 5.24e sales continue to be lukewarm, they'll increase the price of the tier needed for the privilege of doing just that, before removing the homebrew option all together.
Guarantee this.
You don't need to publish to use them. In fact because you are copying something from an existing book, it is against site rules to publish.
Anything you homebrew can be used by you and anyone in your campaign without publishing, without subscriptions and for free.
Click ✨ HERE ✨ For My Youtube Videos featuring Guides, Tips & Tricks for using D&D Beyond.
Need help with Homebrew? Check out ✨ this FAQ/Guide thread ✨ by IamSposta.
You missed the context of the post completely. They were pointing out that this will increase server load and their own rules are the problem.
Another issue I thought of is how they tie to classes.
Take Healing Word for example. It's tied to the bard/cleric/druid. If we homebrew-copy it right now those class tags are bard/cleric/druid. (I'm ignoring the Alchemist.)
What will happen when the 5.5 PHB hits? Will those bard/cleric/druid tags still refer to the current bard/cleric/druid or will they now refer to the 5.5 bard/cleric/druid? Because if so, that's gonna get really annoying to fix.
This is a signature. It was a simple signature. But it has been upgraded.
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Theoretically, either would have access. In practice, we'll see what happens.
There’s also the issue of “Always Prepared” spells. As far as I can tell, the character builder/editor doesn’t allow me to customize the “Always Prepared” tag. Therefore, any spell that I homebrew a legacy copy of and then add to my character would count against my known/prepared spells.
I also don’t see a way to customize number of allowed spells on a character, so beyond the “Always Prepared” issue, these copies then eat into my class economy…
The only workaround that I can think of, is to make homebrew copies of the spells and then make a homebrew copy of the subclass and select those copies as “Always Prepared”… homebrew subclasses are notoriously glitchy, but beyond that if an Always Prepared spell is tied to the Class rather than the Subclass then there’s no workaround at all since Classes aren’t allowed in the Homebrew tool today
If you think of cleric domains you can do the domain always prepared thing. But yes, the idea will be homebrew spells and homebrew subclass. But doing that does give you control over what is or isnt always prepared and whether it does or does not count against your limit or uses spell slots.
But having tried to do this for somebody in bugs and making a video on it - I realised how annoying, unintuitive and labouring it can be. So, you can do it but aye it isn't easy to do for somebody who hasn't homebrewed before.
(The video was for this thread, which shows how to homebrew the spells and replace the always prepared domain spells with them).
Click ✨ HERE ✨ For My Youtube Videos featuring Guides, Tips & Tricks for using D&D Beyond.
Need help with Homebrew? Check out ✨ this FAQ/Guide thread ✨ by IamSposta.
At least currently, if a homebrewer lists an artificer specialist, cleric domain, druid circle, or paladin oath in the “available for class(es)” field of a spell, it automatically links to that subclass as an always prepared spell.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Thanks for the tip. For what it’s worth I just checked and that doesn’t seem to work. It may have worked in the past but it currently does not. I copied Spiritual Weapon and looked at “Available for class(es)” under the Basic Information section and it has “CLERIC | CLERIC - LIFE DOMAIN | CLERIC - WAR DOMAIN | PALADIN - OATH OF CONQUEST” listed. Then I created a brand new War Domain cleric and bumped them up to level 5, added a race and stats, then looked at the character sheet, and my new spell wasn’t there.
I think maybe the only way to make this work is by either also cloning the subclass and changing the spells to the legacy clones, and subclass copies are super glitchy, so not really a solution at all.
Thanks for pointing this out, this is going to become very frustrating for everyone currently in a campaign who doesn't want to switch to 5.5e right away..
If D&DBeyond is going to make all the content I purchase unusable for me within it's application every time a they move to a new version then I am out... it negates the use of D&D Beyond as a simple platform to manage my characters.
It really comes down to I shouldn't have to do a ton of work to be able to easily use things that I paid for. Quite frankly, I paid for a DND sub to be able to easily use the things and now they're changing it so that it's no longer useable for the reason I paid for it...
They already stated that it won’t work for the old versions of spells, but try renaming it to see if it works. Ifadding a subclass to a home brew spell no longer links that spell as always prepared that indicates a pretty significant change on the backend.Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Is that post showing from November 9th of this year for anyone else?
How badly is this website breaking over all the feedback from the new changes?
It's showing as from November 9th for me too. First time I've ever seen that. I've seen delayed notifications (after when some threads were busier than usual), but never inaccurate post dates like that. It even shifted post 18 to be after post 21 due to it.
This is a signature. It was a simple signature. But it has been upgraded.
Belolonandalogalo, Sunny | Draíocht, Kholias | Eggo Lass, 100 Dungeons
Talorin Tebedi, Vecna: Eve | Cherry, Stormwreck | Chipper, Strahd
We Are Modron
Get rickrolled here. Awesome music here. Track 48, 5/23/25, Immaculate Mary