Discussion seems to boil down to a few core items.
Digital, that's cool for some.
Hardbooks, that's cool for others.
Accessories (i.e. Spell Cards, Monster Cards, etc.), those are just awesome.
Version? Depends on you and your players. I know two groups who only play D&D 3.5e, I know one group that plays only AD&D.
I play D&D 5e because I introduce new players every month to the game and the core mechanics are unstood in minutes, of course there are things I leave out as it's not necessary to start adventuring and just get a feel for what the excitement is all about (and it's about a lot of things from story to encounters, from social to imagination).
They can always go back and fill in details if any DM cares to cater to those particulars.
But new players understand one thing when they get in the wilderness for their first time LOL
There's no way they're going to update the rest of the subclasses anywhere near that quickly. If nothing else, they're going to want large scale data on how their updates are working out in play before they look at how they're going to change other subclasses, assuming they care to bring them all forward. The power scale is supposed to remain roughly even with the current stuff, so it's not like the current options are being rendered obsolete.
You're probably right. There will be a lot of things going on as the new versions come out, and they will need to do some internal playtesting of any converted sub-classes. Nevertheless, I think they would be smart to put something like the book I am describing in the first year or so -- they have already updated some of the Tasha's/Xanathar subclasses according to the last PHB update video.
First year seems unlikely. How long did it take for us to get XGtE or TCoE? The big compilation books don't come one after the other, they're spaced out to consolidate portions of content from earlier books and round them out with other content. I give it at least two or three years before they drop a Big Book of Subclasses.
There's no way they're going to update the rest of the subclasses anywhere near that quickly. If nothing else, they're going to want large scale data on how their updates are working out in play before they look at how they're going to change other subclasses, assuming they care to bring them all forward. The power scale is supposed to remain roughly even with the current stuff, so it's not like the current options are being rendered obsolete.
Problem is there's a lot of disparity in power levels of the "current stuff." Even if you look at the original PHB, Champion fighter is considered by most players to be absolutely terrible, while Battle Master is one of the best. If you include the more recent releases, is there any reason for a cleric to not choose Twilight Domain? WotC needs to rebalance every 5E subclass, but so far, they've been extremely lax. They want all the players to buy Tasha's and Xanathar's, so including some OP subclasses in the books makes them almost required purchases to stay competitive. The same thing will happen with future content. Even if the PHB content is balanced, each later release will include the next big power increase for players.
I've had several Clerics at my table, and the only Twilight I've ever seen was mine - I was trying it out for a while in a series of one-shots. I have a player in my group now that's playing a Life Cleric. Just saying.
Anyways, they'll take their sweet time updating the Subclasses. Why? Because there'll be a significant portion of the market that won't simply upgrade what they already have because...they already have it, and want new stuff. There'll also be a significant portion of the market that will start off fine with it, but will get fatigue of it for similar reasons. As such, I think they'll intermingle updated subclasses with new ones, meaning that it'll take time to do them all.
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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.
And why should all player characters in a fantasy sword and sorcery setting be able to fly, use any weapon, and wear full plate while casting spells all at level 3? D&D is a fantasy game, not a superhero game.
There is literally a rest variant option called Epic Heroism in the DMG. GMs also have the freedom to handout feats and magic items like candy. People can play D&D however they want. Just because you do not want to play a superhero game does not mean others cannot play it either. You do not play even play at my table nor other GM's tables, so you do not get to decide how we play or tell us how we play is wrong.
Problem is there's a lot of disparity in power levels of the "current stuff." Even if you look at the original PHB, Champion fighter is considered by most players to be absolutely terrible, while Battle Master is one of the best. If you include the more recent releases, is there any reason for a cleric to not choose Twilight Domain? WotC needs to rebalance every 5E subclass, but so far, they've been extremely lax. They want all the players to buy Tasha's and Xanathar's, so including some OP subclasses in the books makes them almost required purchases to stay competitive. The same thing will happen with future content. Even if the PHB content is balanced, each later release will include the next big power increase for players.
D&D is not a competitive PvP game where perfect balance is something to strive for. See how dumb that statement sounds? It comes off as dismissive and rude.
I agree that balance is important, but what balance means to each person and table is going to vary. I think current balance is fine within classes. It is not perfect, a few subclasses definitely feel more meh than others, but it is not unplayable either. In my opinion, where balance is more of an issue is between classes, specifically between martials and casters in noncombat scenarios. Casters just have so much more options in their toolbelt to solve a variety of problems. High level martials on the other hand still feel like mere mortals, super mortals for sure, but still just plain old mortals who do regular mortal things. Even in combat, there is definitely an imbalance in terms of cool factor. A level 20 cavalier fighter holding off hordes of enemies is definitely really cool, but it totally pales in comparison to a level 20 draconic sorcerer casting Meteor Swarm and flavoring it as them using dragon fire or something.
What is wrong with champion fighter? Its simplicity might not appeal to everyone, but that is okay. Not everyone wants to decide on a bajillion choices during every turn in combat. Some people just want to be really good at smashing things.
I can think of at least two good reasons to not choose twilight cleric. First is flavor, maybe someone wants a more evil death cleric or druidy nature cleric. Second is power, arcana cleric is by far the best since they are the only cleric who can abuse the Wish-Simulacrum combo.
First year seems unlikely. How long did it take for us to get XGtE or TCoE? The big compilation books don't come one after the other, they're spaced out to consolidate portions of content from earlier books and round them out with other content. I give it at least two or three years before they drop a Big Book of Subclasses.
If they do plan to turn XGTE and TCOE into legacy books, hopefully they organize the content better and split it into DMG2 and PHB2 instead of just throwing it all into one book. If they do throw it all into one "book", hopefully they do it in bundle style like S:AIS and P:AITM, but with enough content to actually make each individual book feel beefy, and do a book of subclasses, a book of spells, a book of magic items, and a book of DMG options. But that is just my wishful thinking; realistically, I expect Wizards to continue to do the same thing and throw everything into one book.
At the end of the day, the mess in the physical books does not really affect me that much since I have Beyond, and I can afford to have my books sitting on my shelf just looking pretty. But when Beyond does go down one day and I want to revisit 5e again in the far future, going through all the physical books without digital tools to help is going to be a real pain in the ass. Even if they give us 5e for free in PDF form, Beyond with its tools and browser layout is still far easier to go through than pages and pages of PDFs. It would be amazing if they can somehow give us an offline version of Beyond, but I highly doubt Wizards are going to do that. The closest thing would be the app, but the app currently lacks many of the browsers' tools and have some severe limitations.
yes, everyone should be worried about that now with this change.
they are charging you twice for material you have already purchased if you've purchased individual subclasses etc and now want to buy the rest of the book. But don't worry you just have to scroll through a bunch of comments on a forum to see that you can contact customer support to possibly avoid this second charge. This solution is not a solution and is an insult to everyone that has purchased individual items before. It was a great way to gift players small things from the books that also gave them a future discount if they decided to buy the rest of the book. Not anymore.
I've gone from someone who bought a tonne of books and individual purchases, sometimes even twice if it was a gift, to someone who will most likely never buy anything on here again. Cannot trust them. Scumbag move for sure.
If they are willing to do this to customers, why should anyone not just look for the material for free on the internet, something I would have never have done before this.
removing ala carte purchasing without communicating ahead of time has strongly shaken my confidence in whether purchases will become unusable in the future.
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unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: providefeedback!
they are charging you twice for material you have already purchased if you've purchased individual subclasses etc and now want to buy the rest of the book. But don't worry you just have to scroll through a bunch of comments on a forum to see that you can contact customer support to possibly avoid this second charge. This solution is not a solution and is an insult to everyone that has purchased individual items before. It was a great way to gift players small things from the books that also gave them a future discount if they decided to buy the rest of the book. Not anymore.
The solution is almost certainly a “band-aid” fix, which WotC is offering — for the time being — as they work out a viable system behind the scenes.
That’s no excuse— they should have had a plan in place before pushing these changes, and their communication needs some serious work. But hey, hindsight is 20/20.
They’ve been emphasizing backwards compatibility too much to get away with taking content down en mass.
This didn't age well.
Eh, it's not as dramatic as people make it out to be. Of the 200 some spells in the current PHB, we've seen edits on maybe two dozen of them, quite a few strict upgrades. And despite the way people make it out, the spells are not actually being taken down, they're just not being linked to the character sheet. Any text-based ones have no real disruption of function beyond needing you to bookmark the page in your browser. Given that character sheets automatically calculate your spell attack and save DC in separate tabs in addition to the ones next to the spells, all you need to do on your end for anything that involves rolling is read the effect and manually roll damage die, which is maybe an extra 30 seconds of work in play if you can bring yourself to spend 5 minutes reviewing your character sheet and bookmarking anything you want to use the 2014 version of. They are not actually putting any content more than a few steps to one side.
Eh, it's not as dramatic as people make it out to be. Of the 200 some spells in the current PHB, we've seen edits on maybe two dozen of them, quite a few strict upgrades. And despite the way people make it out, the spells are not actually being taken down, they're just not being linked to the character sheet. Any text-based ones have no real disruption of function beyond needing you to bookmark the page in your browser. Given that character sheets automatically calculate your spell attack and save DC in separate tabs in addition to the ones next to the spells, all you need to do on your end for anything that involves rolling is read the effect and manually roll damage die, which is maybe an extra 30 seconds of work in play if you can bring yourself to spend 5 minutes reviewing your character sheet and bookmarking anything you want to use the 2014 version of. They are not actually putting any content more than a few steps to one side.
Obviously precedence is going to be given to the new ruleset but hypothetically can you honestly say you would be perfectly satisfied having to do what you expect others to do?
They’ve been emphasizing backwards compatibility too much to get away with taking content down en mass.
This didn't age well.
Eh, it's not as dramatic as people make it out to be. Of the 200 some spells in the current PHB, we've seen edits on maybe two dozen of them, quite a few strict upgrades. And despite the way people make it out, the spells are not actually being taken down, they're just not being linked to the character sheet. Any text-based ones have no real disruption of function beyond needing you to bookmark the page in your browser. Given that character sheets automatically calculate your spell attack and save DC in separate tabs in addition to the ones next to the spells, all you need to do on your end for anything that involves rolling is read the effect and manually roll damage die, which is maybe an extra 30 seconds of work in play if you can bring yourself to spend 5 minutes reviewing your character sheet and bookmarking anything you want to use the 2014 version of. They are not actually putting any content more than a few steps to one side.
We know of some spell and magic item changes, but we do not know all of the changes. It would be nice if they let us know before hand, but they are refusing to communicate that, so I am going down the route of homebrew copying them as much as I can. At least we got a heads up this time, so it is something.
Beyond's convenience and UI is what made me gravitate towards and stick with it. Beyond's UI is still there, but that convenience factor is diminishing. The point of buying the whole book and not just the compendium content was so that I do not have homebrew stuff myself. I like where D&D is going as a game, but I do not like where Beyond is going as a tool set. Variant rules like spell points and Epic Boons are not supported. UA is no longer supported. Legacy and individual purchases are not supported. Homebrew is barely supported. And now also knowing that what I purchased that could have been Legacy content is being deleted instead, I no longer feel comfortable that my purchases will bring me the same convenience that it once did. I hate to be that panicky paranoid person, but my level of trust in Beyond at this point is gone.
Currently, I am stuck with Beyond because I have no other option that is realistic. I feel forced to go physical, but that is a horrible idea: not only is physical a huge inconvenient pain-in-the-ass health hazard (I can comfortably carry Beyond in my pocket, I am not going to break my back lugging around a physical D&D library), the tools are garbage and/or incomplete ("easily" searchable "physical" database is slogging through your bookself one book at a time, MM and similar content in book format is stupid as a game play tool, the cards only support really early content, paper character sheets are trash). I can go full digital or use a hybrid mix of digital and physical tools, but there is no way I am going full physical. I cannot easily switch digital tool sets either: Foundry is an automatic no-go since they have miniscule support of 5e, and I will be missing a lot of Legacy and other content on Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds. If I can still buy VGTM and MTOF on either Roll20 or Fantasy Grounds, I would gladly switch over in a heartbeat and homebrew any other content I am missing form Beyond.
Beyond's convenience and UI is what made me gravitate towards and stick with it. Beyond's UI is still there, but that convenience factor is diminishing. The point of buying the whole book and not just the compendium content was so that I do not have homebrew stuff myself.
I can't say I'm in an identical position...but I get what you're saying and have similar sentiments. The reason why I paid $30 for the PHB in D&D was primarily so I wouldn't have to homebrew it, not just so I could put off homebrewing for a year or so and then have to homebrew it anyway.
This event per se doesn't bother me, it's probably the ideal...but that they're willing to throw aside what I and others paid for over the sake of programming in a toggle is worrying and concerns me for the future. Like, what if I don't like 6e? Or I just want to play it? The only argument against that being a problem is the same argument that said this wouldn't.
Can't say the behaviour of some here aren't worsening my mood, either.
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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.
Beyond's convenience and UI is what made me gravitate towards and stick with it. Beyond's UI is still there, but that convenience factor is diminishing. The point of buying the whole book and not just the compendium content was so that I do not have homebrew stuff myself.
I can't say I'm in an identical position...but I get what you're saying and have similar sentiments. The reason why I paid $30 for the PHB in D&D was primarily so I wouldn't have to homebrew it, not just so I could put off homebrewing for a year or so and then have to homebrew it anyway.
This event per se doesn't bother me, it's probably the ideal...but that they're willing to throw aside what I and others paid for over the sake of programming in a toggle is worrying and concerns me for the future. Like, what if I don't like 6e? Or I just want to play it? The only argument against that being a problem is the same argument that said this wouldn't.
Yeah, removal of the individual purchases did not affect me directly, but it certainly changed my perception of Beyond significantly. While I personally did not use it, it is part of the convenience factor that Beyond was known for. D&D is the industry LEADER in the TTRPG space, and while D&D cannot compete on price at the same level as their competitors, à la carte purchases on Beyond is one way they can do so.
Can't say the behaviour of some here aren't worsening my mood, either.
I hate trolls who intentionally spread disinformation. They are not making things better, and even worse, they are diluting the legitimate concerns people like me have with whatever nonsense they are spewing.
I just want the Legacy tagging and content, because that seems pretty doable based on how they handled VGTM and MTOF. And for many people, they want a toggle too, and honestly, that is not an unreasonable ask either since we got a bunch of toggles now for third parties.
From what we've seen, are there any spells with rolling that you'll actually need to homebrew so you can maintain the convenience of rolling from the spell tap, instead of clicking your spell attack mod/save DC and manually selecting your dice? Healing spells got buffed so they're actually combat viable, so I can't imagine there's more than an extremely small portion of the player base who will want to go out of their way for a weaker effect, Spiritual Weapon got a nerf that it really needed years ago that doesn't even affect how it's used on the sheet, and Counterspell was just an INT roll before on the rare cases where someone didn't spend a slot of equal level.
Can anyone here actually list an example where a spell we know is being updated is being affected in a way that you can't resolve simply by bookmarking the original version and clicking your spell save/attack mod on the character sheet and selecting the dice you need to roll?
From what we've seen, are there any spells with rolling that you'll actually need to homebrew so you can maintain the convenience of rolling from the spell tap, instead of clicking your spell attack mod/save DC and manually selecting your dice? Healing spells got buffed so they're actually combat viable, so I can't imagine there's more than an extremely small portion of the player base who will want to go out of their way for a weaker effect, Spiritual Weapon got a nerf that it really needed years ago that doesn't even affect how it's used on the sheet, and Counterspell was just an INT roll before on the rare cases where someone didn't spend a slot of equal level.
Can anyone here actually list an example where a spell we know is being updated is being affected in a way that you can't resolve simply by bookmarking the original version and clicking your spell save/attack mod on the character sheet and selecting the dice you need to roll?
I want my players to have the convenience of having the spell on their character sheet without needing to look elsewhere for reference. Whether or not a spell got better or worse does not matter. For me, what matters is that I give my players options.
And I do not have the physical copy of the book (and once I get my hands on the physical copy, it will be too late then), so I cannot say what spell is being changed or not, and Beyond is not telling me what spells those are, so I am just going to homebrew copy them all. From the clarification post, it seems like the only magic items that are changing would be potions, so I am going to copy those first once I finish copying spells, and I will do what I can to copy the rest of the magic items in case those change too.
From what we've seen, are there any spells with rolling that you'll actually need to homebrew so you can maintain the convenience of rolling from the spell tap, instead of clicking your spell attack mod/save DC and manually selecting your dice? Healing spells got buffed so they're actually combat viable, so I can't imagine there's more than an extremely small portion of the player base who will want to go out of their way for a weaker effect, Spiritual Weapon got a nerf that it really needed years ago that doesn't even affect how it's used on the sheet, and Counterspell was just an INT roll before on the rare cases where someone didn't spend a slot of equal level.
Can anyone here actually list an example where a spell we know is being updated is being affected in a way that you can't resolve simply by bookmarking the original version and clicking your spell save/attack mod on the character sheet and selecting the dice you need to roll?
I want my players to have the convenience of having the spell on their character sheet without needing to look elsewhere for reference. Whether or not a spell got better or worse does not matter. For me, what matters is that I give my players options.
And I do not have the physical copy of the book (and once I get my hands on the physical copy, it will be too late then), so I cannot say what spell is being changed or not, and Beyond is not telling me what spells those are, so I am just going to homebrew copy them all. From the clarification post, it seems like the only magic items that are changing would be potions, so I am going to copy those first once I finish copying spells, and I will do what I can to copy the rest of the magic items in case those change too.
Various content creators like Joefudge have gone through all the spell changes if you'd rather not wait to see what they are.
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Discussion seems to boil down to a few core items.
Digital, that's cool for some.
Hardbooks, that's cool for others.
Accessories (i.e. Spell Cards, Monster Cards, etc.), those are just awesome.
Version? Depends on you and your players. I know two groups who only play D&D 3.5e, I know one group that plays only AD&D.
I play D&D 5e because I introduce new players every month to the game and the core mechanics are unstood in minutes, of course there are things I leave out as it's not necessary to start adventuring and just get a feel for what the excitement is all about (and it's about a lot of things from story to encounters, from social to imagination).
They can always go back and fill in details if any DM cares to cater to those particulars.
But new players understand one thing when they get in the wilderness for their first time LOL
[REDACTED]
There's no way they're going to update the rest of the subclasses anywhere near that quickly. If nothing else, they're going to want large scale data on how their updates are working out in play before they look at how they're going to change other subclasses, assuming they care to bring them all forward. The power scale is supposed to remain roughly even with the current stuff, so it's not like the current options are being rendered obsolete.
You're probably right. There will be a lot of things going on as the new versions come out, and they will need to do some internal playtesting of any converted sub-classes. Nevertheless, I think they would be smart to put something like the book I am describing in the first year or so -- they have already updated some of the Tasha's/Xanathar subclasses according to the last PHB update video.
First year seems unlikely. How long did it take for us to get XGtE or TCoE? The big compilation books don't come one after the other, they're spaced out to consolidate portions of content from earlier books and round them out with other content. I give it at least two or three years before they drop a Big Book of Subclasses.
Problem is there's a lot of disparity in power levels of the "current stuff." Even if you look at the original PHB, Champion fighter is considered by most players to be absolutely terrible, while Battle Master is one of the best. If you include the more recent releases, is there any reason for a cleric to not choose Twilight Domain? WotC needs to rebalance every 5E subclass, but so far, they've been extremely lax. They want all the players to buy Tasha's and Xanathar's, so including some OP subclasses in the books makes them almost required purchases to stay competitive. The same thing will happen with future content. Even if the PHB content is balanced, each later release will include the next big power increase for players.
I've had several Clerics at my table, and the only Twilight I've ever seen was mine - I was trying it out for a while in a series of one-shots. I have a player in my group now that's playing a Life Cleric. Just saying.
Anyways, they'll take their sweet time updating the Subclasses. Why? Because there'll be a significant portion of the market that won't simply upgrade what they already have because...they already have it, and want new stuff. There'll also be a significant portion of the market that will start off fine with it, but will get fatigue of it for similar reasons. As such, I think they'll intermingle updated subclasses with new ones, meaning that it'll take time to do them all.
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.
There is literally a rest variant option called Epic Heroism in the DMG. GMs also have the freedom to handout feats and magic items like candy. People can play D&D however they want. Just because you do not want to play a superhero game does not mean others cannot play it either. You do not play even play at my table nor other GM's tables, so you do not get to decide how we play or tell us how we play is wrong.
D&D is not a competitive PvP game where perfect balance is something to strive for. See how dumb that statement sounds? It comes off as dismissive and rude.
I agree that balance is important, but what balance means to each person and table is going to vary. I think current balance is fine within classes. It is not perfect, a few subclasses definitely feel more meh than others, but it is not unplayable either. In my opinion, where balance is more of an issue is between classes, specifically between martials and casters in noncombat scenarios. Casters just have so much more options in their toolbelt to solve a variety of problems. High level martials on the other hand still feel like mere mortals, super mortals for sure, but still just plain old mortals who do regular mortal things. Even in combat, there is definitely an imbalance in terms of cool factor. A level 20 cavalier fighter holding off hordes of enemies is definitely really cool, but it totally pales in comparison to a level 20 draconic sorcerer casting Meteor Swarm and flavoring it as them using dragon fire or something.
What is wrong with champion fighter? Its simplicity might not appeal to everyone, but that is okay. Not everyone wants to decide on a bajillion choices during every turn in combat. Some people just want to be really good at smashing things.
I can think of at least two good reasons to not choose twilight cleric. First is flavor, maybe someone wants a more evil death cleric or druidy nature cleric. Second is power, arcana cleric is by far the best since they are the only cleric who can abuse the Wish-Simulacrum combo.
If they do plan to turn XGTE and TCOE into legacy books, hopefully they organize the content better and split it into DMG2 and PHB2 instead of just throwing it all into one book. If they do throw it all into one "book", hopefully they do it in bundle style like S:AIS and P:AITM, but with enough content to actually make each individual book feel beefy, and do a book of subclasses, a book of spells, a book of magic items, and a book of DMG options. But that is just my wishful thinking; realistically, I expect Wizards to continue to do the same thing and throw everything into one book.
At the end of the day, the mess in the physical books does not really affect me that much since I have Beyond, and I can afford to have my books sitting on my shelf just looking pretty. But when Beyond does go down one day and I want to revisit 5e again in the far future, going through all the physical books without digital tools to help is going to be a real pain in the ass. Even if they give us 5e for free in PDF form, Beyond with its tools and browser layout is still far easier to go through than pages and pages of PDFs. It would be amazing if they can somehow give us an offline version of Beyond, but I highly doubt Wizards are going to do that. The closest thing would be the app, but the app currently lacks many of the browsers' tools and have some severe limitations.
Check Licenses and Resync Entitlements: < https://www.dndbeyond.com/account/licenses >
Running the Game by Matt Colville; Introduction: < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-YZvLUXcR8 >
D&D with High School Students by Bill Allen; Season 1 Episode 1: < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52NJTUDokyk&t >
I’m not worried for the simple reason that the fan base would revolt like they did with the Open Gaming License, but much louder than that.
yes, everyone should be worried about that now with this change.
they are charging you twice for material you have already purchased if you've purchased individual subclasses etc and now want to buy the rest of the book. But don't worry you just have to scroll through a bunch of comments on a forum to see that you can contact customer support to possibly avoid this second charge. This solution is not a solution and is an insult to everyone that has purchased individual items before. It was a great way to gift players small things from the books that also gave them a future discount if they decided to buy the rest of the book. Not anymore.
I've gone from someone who bought a tonne of books and individual purchases, sometimes even twice if it was a gift, to someone who will most likely never buy anything on here again. Cannot trust them. Scumbag move for sure.
If they are willing to do this to customers, why should anyone not just look for the material for free on the internet, something I would have never have done before this.
removing ala carte purchasing without communicating ahead of time has strongly shaken my confidence in whether purchases will become unusable in the future.
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: provide feedback!
The solution is almost certainly a “band-aid” fix, which WotC is offering — for the time being — as they work out a viable system behind the scenes.
That’s no excuse— they should have had a plan in place before pushing these changes, and their communication needs some serious work. But hey, hindsight is 20/20.
Terra Lubridia archive:
The Bloody Barnacle | The Gut | The Athene Crusader | The Jewel of Atlantis
This didn't age well.
Eh, it's not as dramatic as people make it out to be. Of the 200 some spells in the current PHB, we've seen edits on maybe two dozen of them, quite a few strict upgrades. And despite the way people make it out, the spells are not actually being taken down, they're just not being linked to the character sheet. Any text-based ones have no real disruption of function beyond needing you to bookmark the page in your browser. Given that character sheets automatically calculate your spell attack and save DC in separate tabs in addition to the ones next to the spells, all you need to do on your end for anything that involves rolling is read the effect and manually roll damage die, which is maybe an extra 30 seconds of work in play if you can bring yourself to spend 5 minutes reviewing your character sheet and bookmarking anything you want to use the 2014 version of. They are not actually putting any content more than a few steps to one side.
Obviously precedence is going to be given to the new ruleset but hypothetically can you honestly say you would be perfectly satisfied having to do what you expect others to do?
We know of some spell and magic item changes, but we do not know all of the changes. It would be nice if they let us know before hand, but they are refusing to communicate that, so I am going down the route of homebrew copying them as much as I can. At least we got a heads up this time, so it is something.
Beyond's convenience and UI is what made me gravitate towards and stick with it. Beyond's UI is still there, but that convenience factor is diminishing. The point of buying the whole book and not just the compendium content was so that I do not have homebrew stuff myself. I like where D&D is going as a game, but I do not like where Beyond is going as a tool set. Variant rules like spell points and Epic Boons are not supported. UA is no longer supported. Legacy and individual purchases are not supported. Homebrew is barely supported. And now also knowing that what I purchased that could have been Legacy content is being deleted instead, I no longer feel comfortable that my purchases will bring me the same convenience that it once did. I hate to be that panicky paranoid person, but my level of trust in Beyond at this point is gone.
Currently, I am stuck with Beyond because I have no other option that is realistic. I feel forced to go physical, but that is a horrible idea: not only is physical a huge inconvenient pain-in-the-ass health hazard (I can comfortably carry Beyond in my pocket, I am not going to break my back lugging around a physical D&D library), the tools are garbage and/or incomplete ("easily" searchable "physical" database is slogging through your bookself one book at a time, MM and similar content in book format is stupid as a game play tool, the cards only support really early content, paper character sheets are trash). I can go full digital or use a hybrid mix of digital and physical tools, but there is no way I am going full physical. I cannot easily switch digital tool sets either: Foundry is an automatic no-go since they have miniscule support of 5e, and I will be missing a lot of Legacy and other content on Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds. If I can still buy VGTM and MTOF on either Roll20 or Fantasy Grounds, I would gladly switch over in a heartbeat and homebrew any other content I am missing form Beyond.
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I can't say I'm in an identical position...but I get what you're saying and have similar sentiments. The reason why I paid $30 for the PHB in D&D was primarily so I wouldn't have to homebrew it, not just so I could put off homebrewing for a year or so and then have to homebrew it anyway.
This event per se doesn't bother me, it's probably the ideal...but that they're willing to throw aside what I and others paid for over the sake of programming in a toggle is worrying and concerns me for the future. Like, what if I don't like 6e? Or I just want to play it? The only argument against that being a problem is the same argument that said this wouldn't.
Can't say the behaviour of some here aren't worsening my mood, either.
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.
Yeah, removal of the individual purchases did not affect me directly, but it certainly changed my perception of Beyond significantly. While I personally did not use it, it is part of the convenience factor that Beyond was known for. D&D is the industry LEADER in the TTRPG space, and while D&D cannot compete on price at the same level as their competitors, à la carte purchases on Beyond is one way they can do so.
I hate trolls who intentionally spread disinformation. They are not making things better, and even worse, they are diluting the legitimate concerns people like me have with whatever nonsense they are spewing.
I just want the Legacy tagging and content, because that seems pretty doable based on how they handled VGTM and MTOF. And for many people, they want a toggle too, and honestly, that is not an unreasonable ask either since we got a bunch of toggles now for third parties.
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Running the Game by Matt Colville; Introduction: < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-YZvLUXcR8 >
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From what we've seen, are there any spells with rolling that you'll actually need to homebrew so you can maintain the convenience of rolling from the spell tap, instead of clicking your spell attack mod/save DC and manually selecting your dice? Healing spells got buffed so they're actually combat viable, so I can't imagine there's more than an extremely small portion of the player base who will want to go out of their way for a weaker effect, Spiritual Weapon got a nerf that it really needed years ago that doesn't even affect how it's used on the sheet, and Counterspell was just an INT roll before on the rare cases where someone didn't spend a slot of equal level.
Can anyone here actually list an example where a spell we know is being updated is being affected in a way that you can't resolve simply by bookmarking the original version and clicking your spell save/attack mod on the character sheet and selecting the dice you need to roll?
I want my players to have the convenience of having the spell on their character sheet without needing to look elsewhere for reference. Whether or not a spell got better or worse does not matter. For me, what matters is that I give my players options.
And I do not have the physical copy of the book (and once I get my hands on the physical copy, it will be too late then), so I cannot say what spell is being changed or not, and Beyond is not telling me what spells those are, so I am just going to homebrew copy them all. From the clarification post, it seems like the only magic items that are changing would be potions, so I am going to copy those first once I finish copying spells, and I will do what I can to copy the rest of the magic items in case those change too.
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Running the Game by Matt Colville; Introduction: < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-YZvLUXcR8 >
D&D with High School Students by Bill Allen; Season 1 Episode 1: < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52NJTUDokyk&t >
Various content creators like Joefudge have gone through all the spell changes if you'd rather not wait to see what they are.