The only magic items I can really think of that have varying rarities are things like the various potions of healing, the various belts of giant strength (and their equivalent potions), the bard instruments, etc., but those are all broken out into individual items in the system rather than a single collective item, so I'm wondering what the use of that option is.
Is it so that you can create a base entry from which you link all of the individual items...? If so, how would you hide that base entry from all the various searches? You can't add a generic Belt of Giant Strength to your character sheet or create a homebrew item by copying a Potion of Healing.
D&D Beyond creates separate entites for our convenience and ease of adding them to the sheet. However, in books it is a single item entries, with rarity as "Varies", listing the different versions.
For our use it can be useful to include a single item which lists different varieties by rarity, if the effect isn't something that affects the sheet using modifiers - if it's just a text description there's no point replicating it for different rarities. Better to have one item, the player using it can then just add the note on the item itself in their sheet or name it with which rarity they have.
It's also an option because the homebrew system is basically what devs use to create official things. They are required to list the item as detailed in the book ("varies"), and usually choose to add the individual versions for us. Because they have the option "varies", so do we, as we basically use the same tools (just theirs makes official things and they can create new modifiers as needed while ours makes homebrew).
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Click ✨ HERE ✨ For My Youtube Videos featuring Guides, Tips & Tricks for using D&D Beyond. Need help with Homebrew? Check out ✨ thisFAQ/Guide thread ✨ by IamSposta.
It's also an option because the homebrew system is basically what devs use to create official things.
Has this officially been confirmed by the development team? I would imagine they would have their own UI to do that as there are no doubt options that they can implement in official objects in the system that we could not in homebrew objects.
Yes. It was years ago when they first released homebrew to us. Obviously it's not exactly the same, there is stuff they can do we cannot, but yes, these homebrew tools were based on tools they use and this is the reason it's clunky and restricted when it comes to trying to create things there is no official similar thing for. As newer official stuff gets released new options are made and sometimes those options are put into homebrew tools as well.
There is an entry on their roadmap to overhaul the homebrew tools and eventually gives us something more separate and complete as homebrew tools. They're current creating and testing new framework behind the scenes that could build up to that while also resolving current issues, work toward new features and lay groundwork for VTT and more.
While we have this as it is now, because it's part of what they use, it will have modifier options we can see and select but won't work for us - because without being a dev it does nothing, but because it's based on a dev tool we still see it. So, we'll see things that don't make sense for homebrewing, things we can't use, things than seem to be redundant, etc - because these tools weren't originally designed for homebrewing. Homebrewing in general was not something they ever intended to have (they say they did want to but WotC said "no") but customer demand meant that changed. Since customers were impatient and the base architecture was never intended to support homebrew, the best they could do was make a "lite" version of some of their own tools and release these to us for public use.
I can't link to the specific post, this was learned over 2+ years from multiple threads, mods, devs, chats, interviews, and more.
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Click ✨ HERE ✨ For My Youtube Videos featuring Guides, Tips & Tricks for using D&D Beyond. Need help with Homebrew? Check out ✨ thisFAQ/Guide thread ✨ by IamSposta.
It's also an option because the homebrew system is basically what devs use to create official things.
Has this officially been confirmed by the development team? I would imagine they would have their own UI to do that as there are no doubt options that they can implement in official objects in the system that we could not in homebrew objects.
I don't know what limitations may or may not have been added, but I know this was a big topic in the dev updates months ago
It's also an option because the homebrew system is basically what devs use to create official things.
Has this officially been confirmed by the development team? I would imagine they would have their own UI to do that as there are no doubt options that they can implement in official objects in the system that we could not in homebrew objects.
D&D Beyond presents all content as it is printed, which includes some content that is presented in the books as 'condensed' such as Figurine of Wondrous Power, Potion of Healing and the recent Unearthed Arcana [Tooltip Not Found] and [Tooltip Not Found]. These items in the compendium are not broken out, but presented as entries that contain all rarity versions, as presented in the book (or in the case of Unearthed Arcana, the PDF)
For these items to be added to the character builder, they also exist in their individual rarity versions.
The 'Varies' option is present in the homebrew tools because it exists in the system for official items. The option can be used if you wished to make a 'generic', all rarities item, but most people elect to make individual entries for each rarity.
I'm convinced by everyone that this is some subset of the official item creation tools that the development team uses, but I feel like if it were the case that we're seeing the "admin" interface without having "admin" rights that would be a bit of a surprise, and this perspective is mainly driven by my own experiences as a software engineer for two decades and how trivial it was to hide individual options -- not full features but just options in a greater feature -- based on different rights. :shrug:
I'm convinced by everyone that this is some subset of the official item creation tools that the development team uses, but I feel like if it were the case that we're seeing the "admin" interface without having "admin" rights that would be a bit of a surprise, and this perspective is mainly driven by my own experiences as a software engineer for two decades and how trivial it was to hide individual options -- not full features but just options in a greater feature -- based on different rights. :shrug:
The Devs were point blank told by WotC to not develop a homebrew generation system in the first place. Thanks to users, and a big part to Adam, they finally convinced WotC to allow them one, but all they had was the system they had built for themselves, so that’s what the used.
I'm convinced by everyone that this is some subset of the official item creation tools that the development team uses, but I feel like if it were the case that we're seeing the "admin" interface without having "admin" rights that would be a bit of a surprise, and this perspective is mainly driven by my own experiences as a software engineer for two decades and how trivial it was to hide individual options -- not full features but just options in a greater feature -- based on different rights. :shrug:
The Devs were point blank told by WotC to not develop a homebrew generation system in the first place. Thanks to users, and a big part to Adam, they finally convinced WotC to allow them one, but all they had was the system they had built for themselves, so that’s what the used.
Cool. Glad they were able to do that. I'm not sure whether to be surprised that a) Wizards didn't want this in the first place and b) gave into it, as it seems like Wizards in general has been pretty good about homebrew stuff "in the real world" so to speak. I just read the latest article about that one 3D artist who created 3D printing files for like a gajillion official monsters and made them available to everyone for free, and it stated that Wizards tried to stop him until they found out he wasn't trying to make a profit off it and was just doing it as a service for the community... they just made him switch to a different platform due to details in the legal stuff.
I'm convinced by everyone that this is some subset of the official item creation tools that the development team uses, but I feel like if it were the case that we're seeing the "admin" interface without having "admin" rights that would be a bit of a surprise, and this perspective is mainly driven by my own experiences as a software engineer for two decades and how trivial it was to hide individual options -- not full features but just options in a greater feature -- based on different rights. :shrug:
The Devs were point blank told by WotC to not develop a homebrew generation system in the first place. Thanks to users, and a big part to Adam, they finally convinced WotC to allow them one, but all they had was the system they had built for themselves, so that’s what the used.
Cool. Glad they were able to do that. I'm not sure whether to be surprised that a) Wizards didn't want this in the first place and b) gave into it, as it seems like Wizards in general has been pretty good about homebrew stuff "in the real world" so to speak. I just read the latest article about that one 3D artist who created 3D printing files for like a gajillion official monsters and made them available to everyone for free, and it stated that Wizards tried to stop him until they found out he wasn't trying to make a profit off it and was just doing it as a service for the community... they just made him switch to a different platform due to details in the legal stuff.
They were afraid the “new players” wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between official “balanced” material and the ridiculous homebrews. It plagued them with the Wiki, and they wanted to avoid it on the “official resource,” but so many people kept asking for it that they had to give in.
The only magic items I can really think of that have varying rarities are things like the various potions of healing, the various belts of giant strength (and their equivalent potions), the bard instruments, etc., but those are all broken out into individual items in the system rather than a single collective item, so I'm wondering what the use of that option is.
Is it so that you can create a base entry from which you link all of the individual items...? If so, how would you hide that base entry from all the various searches? You can't add a generic Belt of Giant Strength to your character sheet or create a homebrew item by copying a Potion of Healing.
D&D Beyond creates separate entites for our convenience and ease of adding them to the sheet. However, in books it is a single item entries, with rarity as "Varies", listing the different versions.
For our use it can be useful to include a single item which lists different varieties by rarity, if the effect isn't something that affects the sheet using modifiers - if it's just a text description there's no point replicating it for different rarities. Better to have one item, the player using it can then just add the note on the item itself in their sheet or name it with which rarity they have.
It's also an option because the homebrew system is basically what devs use to create official things. They are required to list the item as detailed in the book ("varies"), and usually choose to add the individual versions for us. Because they have the option "varies", so do we, as we basically use the same tools (just theirs makes official things and they can create new modifiers as needed while ours makes homebrew).
Click ✨ HERE ✨ For My Youtube Videos featuring Guides, Tips & Tricks for using D&D Beyond.
Need help with Homebrew? Check out ✨ this FAQ/Guide thread ✨ by IamSposta.
Has this officially been confirmed by the development team? I would imagine they would have their own UI to do that as there are no doubt options that they can implement in official objects in the system that we could not in homebrew objects.
Yes. It was years ago when they first released homebrew to us. Obviously it's not exactly the same, there is stuff they can do we cannot, but yes, these homebrew tools were based on tools they use and this is the reason it's clunky and restricted when it comes to trying to create things there is no official similar thing for. As newer official stuff gets released new options are made and sometimes those options are put into homebrew tools as well.
There is an entry on their roadmap to overhaul the homebrew tools and eventually gives us something more separate and complete as homebrew tools. They're current creating and testing new framework behind the scenes that could build up to that while also resolving current issues, work toward new features and lay groundwork for VTT and more.
While we have this as it is now, because it's part of what they use, it will have modifier options we can see and select but won't work for us - because without being a dev it does nothing, but because it's based on a dev tool we still see it. So, we'll see things that don't make sense for homebrewing, things we can't use, things than seem to be redundant, etc - because these tools weren't originally designed for homebrewing. Homebrewing in general was not something they ever intended to have (they say they did want to but WotC said "no") but customer demand meant that changed. Since customers were impatient and the base architecture was never intended to support homebrew, the best they could do was make a "lite" version of some of their own tools and release these to us for public use.
I can't link to the specific post, this was learned over 2+ years from multiple threads, mods, devs, chats, interviews, and more.
Click ✨ HERE ✨ For My Youtube Videos featuring Guides, Tips & Tricks for using D&D Beyond.
Need help with Homebrew? Check out ✨ this FAQ/Guide thread ✨ by IamSposta.
I don't know what limitations may or may not have been added, but I know this was a big topic in the dev updates months ago
D&D Beyond presents all content as it is printed, which includes some content that is presented in the books as 'condensed' such as Figurine of Wondrous Power, Potion of Healing and the recent Unearthed Arcana [Tooltip Not Found] and [Tooltip Not Found]. These items in the compendium are not broken out, but presented as entries that contain all rarity versions, as presented in the book (or in the case of Unearthed Arcana, the PDF)
For these items to be added to the character builder, they also exist in their individual rarity versions.
The 'Varies' option is present in the homebrew tools because it exists in the system for official items. The option can be used if you wished to make a 'generic', all rarities item, but most people elect to make individual entries for each rarity.
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
We use the same system they do, we just don’t have admin rights.
The official items are not broken down, DDB just did it for our convenience so that they can actually function on the character sheet. They include that in the homebrew generator because it is also the official generator. But you can use the various rarities in your own homebrews like this: https://www.dndbeyond.com/homebrew/magic-items?filter-type=0&filter-search=Scepter&filter-requires-attunement=&filter-effect-type=&filter-effect-subtype=&filter-has-charges=&filter-author=IamSposta&filter-author-previous=IamSposta&filter-author-symbol=102118565&filter-rating=-13
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
I'm convinced by everyone that this is some subset of the official item creation tools that the development team uses, but I feel like if it were the case that we're seeing the "admin" interface without having "admin" rights that would be a bit of a surprise, and this perspective is mainly driven by my own experiences as a software engineer for two decades and how trivial it was to hide individual options -- not full features but just options in a greater feature -- based on different rights. :shrug:
The Devs have said that the homebrew tools made available to the community are the same, albeit more limited, tools used by the developers.
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
The Devs were point blank told by WotC to not develop a homebrew generation system in the first place. Thanks to users, and a big part to Adam, they finally convinced WotC to allow them one, but all they had was the system they had built for themselves, so that’s what the used.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Cool. Glad they were able to do that. I'm not sure whether to be surprised that a) Wizards didn't want this in the first place and b) gave into it, as it seems like Wizards in general has been pretty good about homebrew stuff "in the real world" so to speak. I just read the latest article about that one 3D artist who created 3D printing files for like a gajillion official monsters and made them available to everyone for free, and it stated that Wizards tried to stop him until they found out he wasn't trying to make a profit off it and was just doing it as a service for the community... they just made him switch to a different platform due to details in the legal stuff.
They were afraid the “new players” wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between official “balanced” material and the ridiculous homebrews. It plagued them with the Wiki, and they wanted to avoid it on the “official resource,” but so many people kept asking for it that they had to give in.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Adam himself talked about quite a bit of this stuff here:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/d-d-beyond-feedback/62136-a-question-of-priority
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting