Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
Sign in- Marketplace
Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer CreaturesFrozen SickD&D Beyond Basic RulesBasic Rules (2014)Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
Sign in
It is entirely possible I have somehow missed the boat or not found the right thread, but I've recently hit a wall I don't understand.
I have been running a biweekly campaign for 4+ years. Recently a new player joined it and built their character with the 2024 rules. This did not raise my antennae at all until I realised they could not see the old versions of classic spells, such as Healing Word, and moreover could not prepare them.
Having now looked it things, I don't see a way to give them access to 5e legacy spells as well as the improvements made to their class in 5.5e (to which I do not object, Land Druid is better). Additionally, dndbeyond will not, as far as I understand it, allow multiclassing between 5e and 5.5e.
WotC promised everything would be backwards compatible -- are they intentionally trying not to make things forwards compatible? The only legacy spells this 5.5e PC has access to are ones that have not been updated. Is my only recourse an extensive homebrew as a DM or a paper sheet for my player?
I realise a long running reliable game isn't perhaps the WotC target market, we're going to play anyway and make it work. But seriously, have I missed a trick or do I have to do extra work to ensure I allow my PCs to have a fair shout without making new players overpowered?
This is the correct behavior according to the 5.5e rules; you're not meant to be using the old versions of stuff that's been updated for 5.5e, whether it be spells, subclasses, items, etc. The new classes, subclasses, spells, and items are designed to work together. What's your reasoning for wanting to mix them?
D&D Beyond does allow multiclassing between 5e and 5.5e classes if you turn off the multiclassing prerequisites. This is probably a bad idea in most cases.
pronouns: he/she/they
To add on (because your question was accurately answered already): This was never true, and people need to stop saying it was. We were told the new books would be compatible with existing content. We were not, at the time, told the full extent, which is: Any game using any part of the new rules should be updating EVERYTHING POSSIBLE to the new rules. Using the 2024 rules to build a character should only be done in a game where everyone is, and everyone should be using the 2024 versions of every spell they can in that instance.
Anyway, if you want to break the design and allow it anyway, creating homebrew copies of 2014 spells the player wants and adding the 2024 version of the class to the compatibility list will fix this for you.