This thread probably comes up all the time. I am not often on the DnDBeyond forums to know if that's true or not, but I am curious just the same. Is there a specific reasoning DnDBeyond doesn't have a homebrew section to "Create your own class"?
I remember in a Twitch stream of Matt Colville's I had asked him if his Illrigger class might ever be promoted onto DnDBeyond, kind of like how the Critical Role crew have subclasses and the like promoted on DnDBeyond. He had told me that because of the WoTC association with DnDBeyond that his unofficial class would never be on DnDBeyond. Now I don't know the whole rigmarole on whether that is true or not, but it got me thinking.
Is there a legal reason DnDBeyond can't have a homebrew section of "Create your own Class"? Or does it have to do with the operators of DnDBeyond not wanting to or not having the time to code and make it work. Personally through using DnDBeyond's homebrew features for a good 3 years now it seems pretty feasible that they could do it. I don't think anyone who wants to create their own class is looking for all the bells and whistles that standard classes have, but in my humble opinion it seems like if the basis of it was started updates could be made and eventually it would/could be cleaner and work nicely.
Personally I love using DnDBeyond and I wouldn't trust any other website to work on for my long running campaign, I have classes I want to add into my campaign's world and would love to be able to use this website to do it.
Perhaps I am wrong and there are only a handful of people who want to create their own class on here. Or perhaps DnDbeyond has been working on this and I am just uniformed. If anyone has any information on this, please let me know!
Search bar is your friend. In short the official rules makes allowances for everything currently capable of being home-brewed on D&D Beyond, mostly in Chapter 9 of the DMG I think. The 5e rules offer no support for homebrew classes because there is no rules logic them in for 5e (which D&D Beyond is obligated by licensing agreement to represent). Bloodhunter was an exceptional case, likely involving a tripartie discussion between DDB/WotC/ and whatever business entity CR was operating under at the time.
I don't think the legality argument is right, it's a matter of technological difficulty. Homebrew base classes have been a planned addition for years now. The trouble is that the end user of Beyond is only really given access to homebrew mechanics that are similar enough to what official options provide. The fact that homebrew classes would have near infinite ways of affecting character sheets makes it nightmarish to implement.
I don't think the legality argument is right, it's a matter of technological difficulty. Homebrew base classes have been a planned addition for years now. The trouble is that the end user of Beyond is only really given access to homebrew mechanics that are similar enough to what official options provide. The fact that homebrew classes would have near infinite ways of affecting character sheets makes it nightmarish to implement.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
This question was asked on yesterday’s Dev Update. Mellie said that they would like to do homebrew classes eventually, but 1) their priority is supporting the official rule set and there are still lots of elements of that which need support (epic boons, dark gifts, divine soul/clockwork soul/aberrant mind spell swaps, etc.) and 2) at the class level, it’s easy to build something that will break things significantly. I had the impression from that she meant breaking something is a bigger risk with homebrew classes than other homebrew options, and that they would have to do something different than just slightly pretty-up the dev tools used to build classes in order to make homebrew classes an option.
I don't think the legality argument is right, it's a matter of technological difficulty. Homebrew base classes have been a planned addition for years now. The trouble is that the end user of Beyond is only really given access to homebrew mechanics that are similar enough to what official options provide. The fact that homebrew classes would have near infinite ways of affecting character sheets makes it nightmarish to implement.
I don't think the legality argument is right, it's a matter of technological difficulty. Homebrew base classes have been a planned addition for years now. The trouble is that the end user of Beyond is only really given access to homebrew mechanics that are similar enough to what official options provide. The fact that homebrew classes would have near infinite ways of affecting character sheets makes it nightmarish to implement.
I suspect that homebrew classes when it comes will be to minor tweaks. Taking existing systems and changing the words around it.
Some examples I can imagine please note some of this can happen with subclasses currently:
1. Add an ability that is fully realized in one class to another class maybe change the text around it. -- Make that Spell Caster Fighter class
2. Slightly tweak existing abilities. Change an action to a bonus action or vice versa.
3. Slightly tweak the modifiers around a particular class. Add a skill or background.
4. Change the name of an ability -- maybe change Sorcery Points to Psi points or Ki points to Power Points.
It seems like pretty much anything else would break something so I would be very shocked if there were any other class creation homebrews. Though with these sort of tweaks we would never be able to publish them as they would by default strongly resemble existing classes. (though maybe there would be an SRD argument).
It's a strong possibility that you're right, especially since the "homebrew revamp" disappeared from the roadmap. The main problem, as I see it, is that connecting the homebrew classes to a character sheet would require too many moving parts.
So the logic to "homebrew classes" I think goes through the development of officially supporting "Dark Gifts, epic boons etc" (and yes Yurei has pointed out that really all they're doing is making a "special space" for what are de facto mechanically feats, I'm just not good at linking). Then I imagine opening home brewing to epic boons and feats etc (which again is just creating a special compartment for a variety of feats). _Then_ what I don't see yet in this thread was talk back with Tasha's that opening up homebrew to optional class features would be a big leap toward homebrew classes since all you'd need after the logic of building class features is a way to unbind them from the present classes and put them on onto some sort of "base 20 level" template. I don't say "all you need" to minimize this sort of lift at all but indicate that the "big lift" would be custom homebrew optional class features. I remember that being buzzed about a lot when Tasha's was on the horizon and the scramble to get OCF functioning in D&D Beyond ..,. but I also think a lot of folks thought the OCFs would be a bit "more" than what we saw in Tasha's.
I think we should also recognize that a homebrew class builder won't necessarily let you port every custom class out there, the Illrigger, to me strikes me as something that would be hard to implement in the homebrew system ... but they were able to do the Bloodhunter (and part of me thinks the Illrigger is sorta a Matt for Matt "I can do that too" moment but MvM homebrew isn't really what this thread is about though the Bloodhunter and Illrigger happen to be on opposite sides of the issue).
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
This question is almost as annoying as folks who get mad that they have to pay for DDB.
They'd have to do an immense amount of coding and drop almost all their other projects to get such a feature done. And it will never be enough. It will never be enough to encapsulate the uniqueness of various homebrew classes. As well as, basically most new homebrew classes really would fit better or just as well as a subclass instead of a full new class.
Wasting time on such a feature would take resources away from keeping DDB up to date with new releases, other new features, new perks, etc. As well as fixing any mistakes on the site.
There's also legality issues potentially, as previously mentioned.
While they have said it is something they'd like to do, they will likely never do it, at least not until 5e is done and 6e is the new thing.
So the logic to "homebrew classes" I think goes through the development of officially supporting "Dark Gifts, epic boons etc" (and yes Yurei has pointed out that really all they're doing is making a "special space" for what are de facto mechanically feats, I'm just not good at linking). Then I imagine opening home brewing to epic boons and feats etc (which again is just creating a special compartment for a variety of feats). _Then_ what I don't see yet in this thread was talk back with Tasha's that opening up homebrew to optional class features would be a big leap toward homebrew classes since all you'd need after the logic of building class features is a way to unbind them from the present classes and put them on onto some sort of "base 20 level" template. I don't say "all you need" to minimize this sort of lift at all but indicate that the "big lift" would be custom homebrew optional class features. I remember that being buzzed about a lot when Tasha's was on the horizon and the scramble to get OCF functioning in D&D Beyond ..,. but I also think a lot of folks thought the OCFs would be a bit "more" than what we saw in Tasha's.
While Epic Boons, Dark Gifts etc. are implementationally mechanically similar to Feats, and many of us use homebrew feats to implement those ourselves, DDB is likely tied by their contract to only allow things that are Feats to show up under the heading of Feats. (It's probably better to think of a catchall term for them, like "character supplements", that describes Feats Boons Gifts Charms etc.) But DDB will need to present all these things in a different way within the character builder/sheet since they are defined in the official sources as different things. Meaning what we need from DDB is (1) the general features system to give a foundation for "supplements" of different types, (2) a user interface that keeps the official types of "supplements" separated the way WotC would likely want them to be.
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Helpful rewriter of Japanese->English translation and delver into software codebases (she/e/they)
So the logic to "homebrew classes" I think goes through the development of officially supporting "Dark Gifts, epic boons etc" (and yes Yurei has pointed out that really all they're doing is making a "special space" for what are de facto mechanically feats, I'm just not good at linking). Then I imagine opening home brewing to epic boons and feats etc (which again is just creating a special compartment for a variety of feats). _Then_ what I don't see yet in this thread was talk back with Tasha's that opening up homebrew to optional class features would be a big leap toward homebrew classes since all you'd need after the logic of building class features is a way to unbind them from the present classes and put them on onto some sort of "base 20 level" template. I don't say "all you need" to minimize this sort of lift at all but indicate that the "big lift" would be custom homebrew optional class features. I remember that being buzzed about a lot when Tasha's was on the horizon and the scramble to get OCF functioning in D&D Beyond ..,. but I also think a lot of folks thought the OCFs would be a bit "more" than what we saw in Tasha's.
While Epic Boons, Dark Gifts etc. are implementationally mechanically similar to Feats, and many of us use homebrew feats to implement those ourselves, DDB is likely tied by their contract to only allow things that are Feats to show up under the heading of Feats. (It's probably better to think of a catchall term for them, like "character supplements", that describes Feats Boons Gifts Charms etc.) But DDB will need to present all these things in a different way within the character builder/sheet since they are defined in the official sources as different things. Meaning what we need from DDB is (1) the general features system to give a foundation for "supplements" of different types, (2) a user interface that keeps the official types of "supplements" separated the way WotC would likely want them to be.
Yes this is what I meant by creating a separate compartment from the feat function to place epic boons, dark gifts, etc. (not just for WotC but game integrity, ensuring that gifts and boons are given as such and not claimed during an ASI feat option).
The point is, I don't see anything happening with Homebrew classes till DDB sees this supported. After that, we'd probably see homebrew boons/gifts, homebrew optional class features, and then maybe homebrew classes. All that of course competes with D&D Beyond keeping pace with at least PROJEKT CD D&D 2024 GOLD or whatever it'll be packaged as.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I support the idea of homebrew classes. If the writers of Dragon magazine could make them work back in the day, then it can be done here. All it takes is demand, and someone will make it work.
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This thread probably comes up all the time. I am not often on the DnDBeyond forums to know if that's true or not, but I am curious just the same. Is there a specific reasoning DnDBeyond doesn't have a homebrew section to "Create your own class"?
I remember in a Twitch stream of Matt Colville's I had asked him if his Illrigger class might ever be promoted onto DnDBeyond, kind of like how the Critical Role crew have subclasses and the like promoted on DnDBeyond. He had told me that because of the WoTC association with DnDBeyond that his unofficial class would never be on DnDBeyond. Now I don't know the whole rigmarole on whether that is true or not, but it got me thinking.
Is there a legal reason DnDBeyond can't have a homebrew section of "Create your own Class"? Or does it have to do with the operators of DnDBeyond not wanting to or not having the time to code and make it work. Personally through using DnDBeyond's homebrew features for a good 3 years now it seems pretty feasible that they could do it. I don't think anyone who wants to create their own class is looking for all the bells and whistles that standard classes have, but in my humble opinion it seems like if the basis of it was started updates could be made and eventually it would/could be cleaner and work nicely.
Personally I love using DnDBeyond and I wouldn't trust any other website to work on for my long running campaign, I have classes I want to add into my campaign's world and would love to be able to use this website to do it.
Perhaps I am wrong and there are only a handful of people who want to create their own class on here. Or perhaps DnDbeyond has been working on this and I am just uniformed. If anyone has any information on this, please let me know!
Search bar is your friend. In short the official rules makes allowances for everything currently capable of being home-brewed on D&D Beyond, mostly in Chapter 9 of the DMG I think. The 5e rules offer no support for homebrew classes because there is no rules logic them in for 5e (which D&D Beyond is obligated by licensing agreement to represent). Bloodhunter was an exceptional case, likely involving a tripartie discussion between DDB/WotC/ and whatever business entity CR was operating under at the time.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
So in short, Homebrew Create your own Class will most likely never be a thing due to legality with WoTC?
You got it.
Plus creating a system that would allow for literally infinite possibilities would be, let's say, difficult.
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Well shoot, that answers my question. Thanks!
I don't think the legality argument is right, it's a matter of technological difficulty. Homebrew base classes have been a planned addition for years now. The trouble is that the end user of Beyond is only really given access to homebrew mechanics that are similar enough to what official options provide. The fact that homebrew classes would have near infinite ways of affecting character sheets makes it nightmarish to implement.
Well, D&DB disagrees with you, or at least did when they made they Tweeted this in 2019: https://mobile.twitter.com/dndbeyond/status/1137110071953973249?lang=en-GB
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
This question was asked on yesterday’s Dev Update. Mellie said that they would like to do homebrew classes eventually, but 1) their priority is supporting the official rule set and there are still lots of elements of that which need support (epic boons, dark gifts, divine soul/clockwork soul/aberrant mind spell swaps, etc.) and 2) at the class level, it’s easy to build something that will break things significantly. I had the impression from that she meant breaking something is a bigger risk with homebrew classes than other homebrew options, and that they would have to do something different than just slightly pretty-up the dev tools used to build classes in order to make homebrew classes an option.
Trying to Decide if DDB is for you? A few helpful threads: A Buyer's Guide to DDB; What I/We Bought and Why; How some DMs use DDB; A Newer Thread on Using DDB to Play
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Seems like that, along with the time lag, suggest exactly what I was saying.
Honestly just reading that tweet, that reads like a Adam Bradford tweet and since he left, a lot of the wants have been VERY much slimmed down.
I suspect that homebrew classes when it comes will be to minor tweaks. Taking existing systems and changing the words around it.
Some examples I can imagine please note some of this can happen with subclasses currently:
1. Add an ability that is fully realized in one class to another class maybe change the text around it. -- Make that Spell Caster Fighter class
2. Slightly tweak existing abilities. Change an action to a bonus action or vice versa.
3. Slightly tweak the modifiers around a particular class. Add a skill or background.
4. Change the name of an ability -- maybe change Sorcery Points to Psi points or Ki points to Power Points.
It seems like pretty much anything else would break something so I would be very shocked if there were any other class creation homebrews. Though with these sort of tweaks we would never be able to publish them as they would by default strongly resemble existing classes. (though maybe there would be an SRD argument).
It's a strong possibility that you're right, especially since the "homebrew revamp" disappeared from the roadmap. The main problem, as I see it, is that connecting the homebrew classes to a character sheet would require too many moving parts.
So the logic to "homebrew classes" I think goes through the development of officially supporting "Dark Gifts, epic boons etc" (and yes Yurei has pointed out that really all they're doing is making a "special space" for what are de facto mechanically feats, I'm just not good at linking). Then I imagine opening home brewing to epic boons and feats etc (which again is just creating a special compartment for a variety of feats). _Then_ what I don't see yet in this thread was talk back with Tasha's that opening up homebrew to optional class features would be a big leap toward homebrew classes since all you'd need after the logic of building class features is a way to unbind them from the present classes and put them on onto some sort of "base 20 level" template. I don't say "all you need" to minimize this sort of lift at all but indicate that the "big lift" would be custom homebrew optional class features. I remember that being buzzed about a lot when Tasha's was on the horizon and the scramble to get OCF functioning in D&D Beyond ..,. but I also think a lot of folks thought the OCFs would be a bit "more" than what we saw in Tasha's.
I think we should also recognize that a homebrew class builder won't necessarily let you port every custom class out there, the Illrigger, to me strikes me as something that would be hard to implement in the homebrew system ... but they were able to do the Bloodhunter (and part of me thinks the Illrigger is sorta a Matt for Matt "I can do that too" moment but MvM homebrew isn't really what this thread is about though the Bloodhunter and Illrigger happen to be on opposite sides of the issue).
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
This question is almost as annoying as folks who get mad that they have to pay for DDB.
They'd have to do an immense amount of coding and drop almost all their other projects to get such a feature done. And it will never be enough. It will never be enough to encapsulate the uniqueness of various homebrew classes. As well as, basically most new homebrew classes really would fit better or just as well as a subclass instead of a full new class.
Wasting time on such a feature would take resources away from keeping DDB up to date with new releases, other new features, new perks, etc. As well as fixing any mistakes on the site.
There's also legality issues potentially, as previously mentioned.
While they have said it is something they'd like to do, they will likely never do it, at least not until 5e is done and 6e is the new thing.
Er ek geng, þat er í þeim skóm er ek valda.
UwU
While Epic Boons, Dark Gifts etc. are implementationally mechanically similar to Feats, and many of us use homebrew feats to implement those ourselves, DDB is likely tied by their contract to only allow things that are Feats to show up under the heading of Feats. (It's probably better to think of a catchall term for them, like "character supplements", that describes Feats Boons Gifts Charms etc.) But DDB will need to present all these things in a different way within the character builder/sheet since they are defined in the official sources as different things. Meaning what we need from DDB is (1) the general features system to give a foundation for "supplements" of different types, (2) a user interface that keeps the official types of "supplements" separated the way WotC would likely want them to be.
Helpful rewriter of Japanese->English translation and delver into software codebases (she/e/they)
Yes this is what I meant by creating a separate compartment from the feat function to place epic boons, dark gifts, etc. (not just for WotC but game integrity, ensuring that gifts and boons are given as such and not claimed during an ASI feat option).
The point is, I don't see anything happening with Homebrew classes till DDB sees this supported. After that, we'd probably see homebrew boons/gifts, homebrew optional class features, and then maybe homebrew classes. All that of course competes with D&D Beyond keeping pace with at least PROJEKT CD D&D 2024 GOLD or whatever it'll be packaged as.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I support the idea of homebrew classes. If the writers of Dragon magazine could make them work back in the day, then it can be done here. All it takes is demand, and someone will make it work.