buying the books irl sucks now

Quote from ThorukDuckSlayer >>

I agree. Most notably, nobody can ever legally come around to your house and take them away.

Unless you get them early!

(Sorry, couldn't resist 😛)

Quote from ThorukDuckSlayer >> 

Anything digital is relying on the digital source to be maintained, secured, and remain available. If DDB every went over to "streaming", they would likely give you 1 year free for owning the book, then start charging you monthly. Nobody can do that with a real book!

Always worth remembering that these businesses are committed to turning over more profit than last year. If you pay for a subscription, they don't feel compelled to make good content. If you only buy books, the only way they can keep making money is to make books which are good enough that people will buy them.

IE, if you want good books, buy books!

 DDB technically IS a streaming service. You need to connect to their servers to (temporarily) download the material.

But the value proposition is greater than simply not having to lug dead trees around. The search engine and other tools could use additional work, but they're a definite step up over flipping through pages and pages of text to find things, or filling out character sheets manually.

Really need to just save a response to cut and paste every time it comes up.

You are not just purchasing a digital copy of the book when you buy DDB content. You are buying the ability to use that content in the online tools. You are paying for a service, the content is just a side-effect of that service.

This is not Playstation versus Xbox. That's apples and apples. This is apples and oranges.

If paying for a service sounds like a scam to you, then don't buy it. But the online tools have their own value, and your purchase of the physical book does not cover the value of that service.

The mobile app lets you offline your books, much like you can offline a show on the Netflix app (e.g. for a long flight with no wifi). But yes, you're still reliant on that app to access the content. 

You can still access your characters, and read any books you downloaded to your phone through the app.

So without an internet connection, you can play the game in an in-person situation. You just cant do things that require internet connections like updating sources or leveling up and creating characters.

We've done this when at a friends house playing and his internet went down.  A mix of physical tools and our character sheets on DNDB worked just fine.  Even the dice roller works.

only thing i can think of is that you do need to first make sure everything is sync'd up first.   so that part needs an internet connection.   i just tested my phone on airplane mode (Galaxy S20 FE) and i can get to everything.

maybe it's an Android version issue? Or maybe load it on a network connection first to make sure everything gets downloaded and then try it.  But it is supposed to work offline.

I don't know whether you need to already be connected to access character sheets offline, but character sheets can be exported to PDF if you know you're going to be without internet, both from the mobile site and the app (just tested both.)

In any case, to use the DnD Beyond services will require you to either spend time, money or both.  How you want to tackle it depends on your needs. 

If you're the DM, you may want to unlock as much content as possible for your players.  There is the Sourcebook bundle that will unlock pretty much most content needed for character creation.  You may want to wait for a 30% off though as it isn't cheap (Black Friday?).  Then you'll have to pay a small monthly/annual fee to share that content with your friends.  Some friends do share the cost (all or the monthly fee) but it can be tricky over time because one person owns the account.

If you're a player (or DM), maybe you'd want to look to buy specific books that relates to your (or your friends) character or the feature itself as you can buy specific items in a book such as feats.  I believe that if you've bought a portion of a book, that book cost would be cheaper if you end up deciding to buy the book later.  You could of course as some said, create customized options to use for your character.

I was like you when i came here, but i eventually understood the reason behind as explained by fellow players here.  I ended up waiting to buy the Legendary bundle at a discount (well , let's say that the value was the same but in CAN instead of US) as going each book trying to see how much it would cost me in the end to unlock all character features concluded that i was not saving much per book in the end...(sourcebook that is).  So i bought the Sourcebook bundle and later that day upgraded to Legendary as i figured, may as well have everything unlock.  I have all the physical books too as it is a moment for me to spend not being in from of a monitor...

In the end, pounce the good and bad for each options and choose what suits you

Quote from scatterbraind >>

Really need to just save a response to cut and paste every time it comes up.

 

Yep. :-)

I'also use the comparison that buying a book and expecting access to online content is like buying a DVD at a store and then expecting the movie theatre to let you in for free because you own the DVD.

I cast legend lore to remember the ultimate copy and paste job - Hardcover Books, D&D Beyond and You FAQ