I am truly sorry if this a frequently asked question, but I did not find any thread with a sufficient answer.

I am new to d&d and I want to buy the books. I came across d&d beyond, but I am not sure if it is better to buy the physical copies or the digital ones on dnd beyond. I am playing with my friends offline and at this point in time I do not intend to play it online. So to a player who does not own any of the books would you recommend to start with d&d beyond?

I am picking up D&D after a long pause and had none of the 5e books. From playing in a campaign with a DM who has the books on DDB, he can do content sharing with the Master Tier subscription. It is awesome! All the classes, races, spells and everything in the books he has on DDB are readable by everyone in the campaign, and are also available for use in the character sheets!  I'm very impressed with how integrated it all is on the site. 

Due to covid we have been playing almost all remote. Even if we got together i would still use DDB. Searching is so much faster. Clicking on a spell in a character brings up the description. Same with abilities and other info on the sheets. With the new mobile app, i have it all on my phone. Great for browsing the books while waiting somewhere.  

DDB is also adding new features to the eco system like the encounter builder and the combat tracker. When you add up all the features, its a no brainer. Plus, the books are less expensive than if you buy them hardcopy! 30 bucks on DDB vs $36.50 on Amazon today. Maybe you can get cheaper elsewhere but still. And if you buy a bundle, especially when they run a sale, makes it even better.

So, obviously buy the physical books (-;  Seriously, i'm very please with the value-add DDB brings to the game.

With physical books you get the book for as long as it lasts, but with DDB you get access to the content online, so things like maps have player versions and you can print them out, and use their stuff on DDB, like the character creator.

PHYSICAL BOOKS DO NOT REDUCE THE COST OF THE ONLINE ONES!!!! IF YOU WANT BOTH YOU HAVE TO BUY BOTH. 

With DDB you get convenience, access to the online tools, which make character creation really easy, you dont need to carry half a dozen books to your session, but DDB goes offline, its gone, you dont get anything. 

This is not a question anyone can answer for you, you need to weigh up the pros and cons of each, neither is the right or wrong answer. do you want the added convenience of DDB or do you want the security of physical.

You might want a hybrid, so things like the character creation stuff on DDB, and the monster books or adventures in physical, no one can tell you what is better for you.

If you're not going to play online, the biggest use for D&D Beyond is as a lookup tool. And it's only useful for looking up some things, and abysmal at others. The search function for the site sucks (can't filter by a specific book), but is a little bit better on the app (can filter this way). If you need to look up the text of spells, it's good. If you need to know which spells have a monetary component or the material component is consumed by the spell, guess what, you get to manually open up every search result individually and search for 'gp' or 'consumed' using your browser search. So there are pluses and minuses. I personally wouldn't start with buying books. I'd start with using the site using the free content, and borrowing the books from a friend or your local library, and see which works better for you, or if a combination works well for you.

Like any tool, there is good, and not as good.  I like this site because it makes creating a character quick and easy (once you figure out how to work the spell lists, anyway).  Some things are not as good as I would like, but all in all it is better than having to lug around 12 books, or more, and figuring out which one has that one spell in it, or the background I want, or the subclass, and lets not even go down the race road on what is where...  For me, it is all in one place, and I like that.  I theory-craft characters to see what I might want to play sometime in the future, what works well for me in with multi-classing, etc.  In our normal campaigns, my friends and I make up our own worlds to play in, so the lore and such presented in the books isn't that big of a deal, and when I am a player everything that I need for my character is on my phone (or tablet, or laptop) - no forgetting that one book that I suddenly now need to reference something, or having to borrow someone else's book.

If you are wanting to read through for all of the lore, and that kind of thing, I'd suggest getting the books.  I always enjoy reading out of books over reading on a browser.  I retain it better, personally.

If it is a price issue, periodically DnDBeyond runs sales and specials that knock the price of things down some to make it more attractive.  If you are patient, and buy during the sales, you could have a good core set of books for character creation on here in 6 to 9 months, I'd say.  I personally didn't always wait for the sales when I got started, but I am also not always the most patient of people either.

I know that you said that you don't plan on playing online.  Neither did I 2 years back, but thanks to Covid, now I am.  It is different than playing across a table from everyone, but it is still fun, and full of laughs.  Together, or virtually, watching the Bard roll back to back 1s on Performance, and getting yanked off stage, is funny no matter where everyone is!

There are more factors besides playing online or not. There's cost (lower for digital, especially when you wait for a significant discount), there's portability (physical books weigh a lot), there's added functionality (DDB provides services rather than product), there's the fact that when (no idea when that'll be, but presumably it'll happen at some point) DDB or WotC pulls the plug on 5E you'll lose access other than via saving your content on your devices or in the cloud (which will involve some file shenanigans, as this digital content isn't provided in the form of complete .pdfs), there's the subjective value of owning physical products, and there's the technical limits to porting homebrew creations to the digital tools (some official mechanics haven't been ported to DDB yet either and homebrew concepts can be even more incompatible with what the system allows, and recreating something in these tools is always going to be more time consuming than just jotting it down on paper). 

If you're not going to play online and presumably buying both is not financially viable, I'd lean towards buying the physical books myself - but I'm not you and you have to weigh all these factors for your own situation.

Yes, it is worth it.  And as a new player, the only book you really need access to is the PHB (unless you are playing even more bare-bones, then use the free Basic Rules).

Get with a DM who has a subscription and enables content sharing.  Then it becomes even more worth it.

Worth is a rather subjective concept though, isn't it?

A better question to ask would be whether it is worth it to you...

In terms of if it's worth it, it all depends on how you would use it, what you are looking for, and what your budget is. 

I can tell you that it is worth it for me, and that it was worth it for me when, pre-COVID, my D&D playing was mostly in person.   I ran a table for jr high and high school students who were new to the game, and creating characters with them went a lot faster using DDB's character creator than doing it on paper.  I loved the spell and monster listings when running a game, and found having the adventure on DDB helpful.  I did also end up having it in hard cover, and having it both ways was great; but if I had to choose one or the other, I'd choose DDB over physical.  Interestingly, both of my children prefer hardcovers over digital, although my daughter opted for DDB versions when she went to college because it was so much cheaper.  (She got them during the initial sale when DDB came out of beta).  My son has most of the 5e library in print, and he's still at home (though not for much longer) so I've had access to the print copies, but I rarely use them.  The rare times I've been able to play, it's been great to have my character and access to spells, etc. on the character sheet on my iPad.

It might help to know that when DDB was first envisioned, it was intended to be a digital aid for in-person games, not primarily for online games.   Even before COVID, it was helpful for some online games, and my impression is that more people were wanting to use it for online games that DDB staff had original projected.  Obviously, COVID changed things.  

Keep in mind that you don't have to buy everything here, or even entire books.  For example, depending on what works best for you, you might find it more helpful to have the DMG (Dungeon Master's Guide) in print, and only purchase the magic items you need here.  And you are not penalized for buying piecemeal at first and then later deciding you want the entire book. 

The buyer's guide linked in my signature might be of help to you as you decide what works best for you. 

Quote from VinitBelam >>

I am truly sorry if this a frequently asked question, but I did not find any thread with a sufficient answer.

I am new to d&d and I want to buy the books. I came across d&d beyond, but I am not sure if it is better to buy the physical copies or the digital ones on dnd beyond. I am playing with my friends offline and at this point in time I do not intend to play it online. So to a player who does not own any of the books would you recommend to start with d&d beyond?

If you are new to D&D, I recommend using as many free resources as possible and not spend a single penny. I strongly discourage spending money on any new hobby, and if you do have to spend, I recommend spending as little as possible. D&D is NOT for everyone. In my group of ten friends (eleven including me), only five others are willing to try it out at all, and only three are willing to continue beyond a few sessions. Until you have played and finished at least one campaign, I would not spend any money on D&D. There are so much free stuff out there that you can technically play D&D without ever buying anything. You do not even need to spend money on dice, since you can just type 4D20 on Google (or whatever dice roll) for free, and there are plenty of free dice apps out there too.

If you want official, published stuff, the following two are completely free:
Basic Rules/Systems Reference Document (Beyond's BR/SRD)
Elemental Evil Player's Companion
If you do not mind playtest material, then Unearthed Arcana are also completely free. However, only active UA are supported on Beyond, so old playtest material that have been archived (i.e.: fine tuned and released in a book) will not be supported on here. Also keep in mind that Beyond might not support all active UAs either due to difficulty of some of their implementation. On Beyond, there are also some free homebrew stuff from Critical Role/Matt Mercer that you can use as well, but they are not official content from Wizards of the Coast.

Now that you know you can play D&D completely for free, if you are also going to be a game master or dungeon master, I also recommend watching at least a few videos of Running the Game by Matt Colville on YouTube (episode 1) and the first season of D&D with High School Students by Bill Allen (episode 1).

If you must purchase something, I recommend getting the physical box version of the D&D Starter Set and/or D&D Essentials Kit. Between the two, I lean towards the Essentials Kit for overall value, but the Starter Set has a better adventure and is a little more polished in my opinion. If you can afford both, I would personally get both. I do not recommend getting the digital version of the Essentials Kit since the physical box version also comes with the digital version that you can redeem on Beyond, and the physical version also comes with a 50% off coupon for the Player's Handbook. As for the Starter Set, while you can get the digital version, I prefer and recommend the physical version for all the physical nick-nacks in the box; unfortunately, the physical Starter Set does NOT come with the digital version, so if you want both, you will have to buy it twice.

Between Beyond and physical books, I personally lean towards Beyond due to the convenience. However, before you commit to either route, I recommend getting the physical Essentials Kit as mentioned above to gauge your preferences since it also gives you the digital version. And depending on how often you use the physical version and digital version, it would better help inform you which direction you want to go, or even a mix of both.

Personally, I have the Legendary Bundle on Beyond (all the digital content) and all the physical box sets (the two others are Rick and Morty and Stranger Things). I also have a few physical books, but I have not really opened them yet and I only bought them because they have the special covers and were on sale. When I ran D&D before COVID, since I did not have any books to carry, it leaves a lot of extra space on the table (I have a portable table) for battle mats and minis; I also use my laptop and phone as basically my GM screen. I use both physical and digital dice.

I don't have any physical books for 5e.

The site is incredibly useful as the above people said. There is less scramble to find a spell or skill. If you want to look up monsters by  name or type that can be done too.

In the before time, all of my players made their characters on DDB. As a GM, It's very convenient to see during prep what spells, skills, hp, whatever the party has.