WHAT IF I WANT TO USE THE 2014 VERSION OF A SPELL OR MAGIC ITEM?
If you wish to use the old version of a magic item or spell that has been replaced by its 2024 counterpart, you will need to create a homebrew copy of it and enable homebrew content on your character sheet. Then, you can add it to your character sheet.
------
I need to be very clear that if I am unable to access content that I currently use and have paid for, I will not only be leaving dndbeyond and the Master Tier subscription I have paid for since 2017, I will never purchase another piece of content of WotC ever again. You will have completely broken my trust as a consumer by ensuring I can't access content that I paid you for. Forcing consumers to buy new editions before they're ready to upgrade and being inconsiderate of changing the spells, items, etc that characters have in actively running campaigns is completely unacceptable.
If I have to homebrew everything to keep it, I'll give my money to Foundry instead.
Yeah, my DM has just announced that our campaign will be leaving DDB because of this. Changes to new characters is one thing, but forcing changes on existing characters is not useful. If I own the old rules, I want to apply those rules to my sheet. And if I can't filter out homebrew because I've had to duplicate all of the spells and magic items, the site loses even more utility for me.
I'm not paying for this site anymore. I'm not going to have access to materials I paid for as I paid for them, which I consider tantamount to fraud. You could have simply created a toggle for people who don't want your unnecessary new system, but instead you chose to outright steal from your customer base. Though I guess that is wotc's preferred MO, isn't it?
I am a DM and I really like using DNDBeyond as a lookup function with my in-person team. About half my players use DNDBeyond and the other half use pen-and-paper. I'm not interested in edition chasing - especially a minor update. But what this change does is create a major discrepancy between my two player types. So I'll be 'freezing' my game at the 2014 edition and will be forced to migrate off DNDBeyond. For now, I can homebrew patch the changes, but once DNDBeyond becomes more work than it helps, I will just move over to either a different digital service or, more likely, just bake my content into something like Notion. And that will likely just push my group into a different game system entirely.
I understand that its a digital service and that things change - but when key value proposition of the site goes away so does my business.
I'm fine with this. It seems like a good solution in the age of phones and computers auto-updating, it seems silly how offended people are.
But many (if not all) of the updated spells are originally from the Basic Rules. Will we lose access if we don't own the new Player's Handbook, or just gain free access to the new version?
From d and d beyond discord mod: This means if you own a spell from the 2014 PHB, you will continue to be able to use it in the tools, it'll just have the 2024 wording Same for magic items. Its not going to stop anyone from using stuff they have bought, they will just have updated wording.
If you want a frozen copy of a book, you should have purchased a physical book.
This is the way Digital Works evolve these days. You can't tell Apple that you don't want to ever get an update to your iPhone and expect it to remain supported.
I'm fine with this. It seems like a good solution in the age of phones and computers auto-updating, it seems silly how offended people are.
But many (if not all) of the updated spells are originally from the Basic Rules. Will we lose access if we don't own the new Player's Handbook, or just gain free access to the new version?
Have you been hiding under a rock? Why didn't you prepare your players for this? The DND team has been extremely transparent that if things have been updated, the game will want you using the new version.
This was announced formally months ago on interviews and press releases. Why would you assume DnD Beyond would be ignoring it?
This should've been done in reverse. You have a perfectly established 5e system already in place and a new and widely untested 5.5e that you're rolling out; you should be adding the tab to opt in, not opt out.
With this one update, you've set back every 5E player that doesn't want to use the new system and essentially made it much harder to use the 5E content. Telling us to copy and paste 'old' content as homebrew is like telling every fifth edition player to pick up the slack that you dropped; there should simply be a 2014 and 2024 tab to swap between the two rulesets.
And the ironic part? They are STILL selling material on the website for the 2014 edition ruleset, while screwing over the player base. Why in the world would I buy any of the 2014 books now when you are forcing the 2024 ruleset to be used for character creation and information available on the site such as ALL of the information in the Game Rules tab? Both of those will be useless to anyone working with the 2014 books, not to mention totally mess up any campaigns currently being run through the website that use the 2014 ruleset and information.
This is going to cost WotC and DDB money in the long run. Sure, we'll still have access to all our characters, campaigns, and the digital books we bought, but (if I'm reading the Changelog correctly) the information on the character sheets are going to be 'updated" to the 2024 ruleset, essentially changing the data currently on the sheets. Oh, and we'll only have less than two weeks to either homebrew the spells that are being changed and make pdf's of the sheets if we want to save them with the 2014 information on them, or learn to live with the new material being installed into the system. For someone with a large number of characters, and already set plans for Labor Day weekend that Can Not be changed (I'm sorry, but my Aunt's Funeral in another state DOES take precedence over homebrewing all the material they want me to!) it is unreasonable to expect their clientbase to do all of this in the short period of time DDB has given to their clientbase.
WotC and DDB are being unreasonable, and unrealistic in what they are asking for, and will find that this hurts them in the long run financially when folks stop subscribing to the website, and stop purchasing material. From this point forward, only the 2024 material will be marketable for use with the features available on the website (most notably the top row of the Collections, and the aforementioned game rules tabs). They are cutting off their nose to spite their face by doing this. No one is interested in buying the 2014 material if they're not going to be able to use it on the website. There are other sources they can go to, and they will. In droves.
WHAT IF I WANT TO USE THE 2014 VERSION OF A SPELL OR MAGIC ITEM?
If you wish to use the old version of a magic item or spell that has been replaced by its 2024 counterpart, you will need to create a homebrew copy of it and enable homebrew content on your character sheet. Then, you can add it to your character sheet.
This is probably the worst way DDB could've handled this. I'm having a hard enough time convincing my players to get on board with the 2024 ruleset at all - the only way I'm getting them onboard is with the understanding they're not forced to use the 2024 content. Except now if we're using DDB, they're being forced to use the 2024 spells and magic items unless I spend huge time home-brewing all the stuff that's already in my paid-for books back in. Which is time I don't have to spend.
Nonsense like this could be the straw that breaks the camels back, and they decide they just want to go back to their old physical books they already own, and we do it with pen and paper exclusively - at which point we cancel all our subscriptions.
Adding a blanket legacy tag would've been so much easier, and have preserved so much more goodwill. Everything we've bought and paid for should be easily accessible through the character builder, as its always been.
The proposed solution of making home-brewed copies is not only incredibly boring and time-consuming, but - in my personal situation - useless.
I'm in a campaign where I'm a player. I'm also the one who has bought the books that are being shared. This means that I'm the only one who can actually make the copies. Unfortunately, private copies are accessible to the other players only if the DM for the campaign has made them. And you can't make the copies public because they are identical to official material.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Fatti non foste a viver come bruti ma per seguir virtute e canoscenza
Oh, I’m absolutely cancelling my subscription right this second then and pulling all my characters off the platform. I use ddb for convenience, and as soon as that convenience goes away, I leave.
If I purchased the 2014 edition of the rules, then I should have access to the 2014 edition of the rules in my sheets. Full stop. I was mildly interested in the new rules but you’ve made me completely change my mind on this one.
Seriously, **** y’all. Thanks for ruining the ecosystem of my games with this one.
Remember that other VTT's like Roll 20 and Foundry will not be editing your old information. Personally I have digital copies of all the 5e books as well as many of the books. There are also many open source 5E sites with all of the information you need for free. This just proves they want to force people to upgrade to 6e. Time to stop the lies from them and call it as it is.
Why are you even touching our old character sheets? Just mark them as legacy and move on. This is going to ruin campaigns that don't want to update but ate forced too because half the character sheet has changed.
Let us save character sheets as legacy sheets and just leave them alone.
This ******* sucks, guys. You're altering content we paid for and expected to be able to keep using to comply with a new ruleset many of us did not want.
Yeah, my DM has just announced that our campaign will be leaving DDB because of this. Changes to new characters is one thing, but forcing changes on existing characters is not useful. If I own the old rules, I want to apply those rules to my sheet. And if I can't filter out homebrew because I've had to duplicate all of the spells and magic items, the site loses even more utility for me.
I am a DM of 3 campaigns using 2014 rules that are very important to the foundations of the homebrewed world, and a player in another world that is the same. I've canceled my subscription for this exact same reason, there is no more use for this site and I've wasted every penny that I've spent because of this forced update, and am deleting my account once I copy down my dozens(!!!!!!!) of character sheets that are about to become unusable. Time to go back to pen and paper.
WHAT IF I WANT TO USE THE 2014 VERSION OF A SPELL OR MAGIC ITEM?
If you wish to use the old version of a magic item or spell that has been replaced by its 2024 counterpart, you will need to create a homebrew copy of it and enable homebrew content on your character sheet. Then, you can add it to your character sheet.
------
I need to be very clear that if I am unable to access content that I currently use and have paid for, I will not only be leaving dndbeyond and the Master Tier subscription I have paid for since 2017, I will never purchase another piece of content of WotC ever again. You will have completely broken my trust as a consumer by ensuring I can't access content that I paid you for. Forcing consumers to buy new editions before they're ready to upgrade and being inconsiderate of changing the spells, items, etc that characters have in actively running campaigns is completely unacceptable.
If I have to homebrew everything to keep it, I'll give my money to Foundry instead.
Yeah, my DM has just announced that our campaign will be leaving DDB because of this. Changes to new characters is one thing, but forcing changes on existing characters is not useful. If I own the old rules, I want to apply those rules to my sheet. And if I can't filter out homebrew because I've had to duplicate all of the spells and magic items, the site loses even more utility for me.
Birgit | Shifter | Sorcerer | Dragonlords
Shayone | Hobgoblin | Sorcerer | Netherdeep
I'm not paying for this site anymore. I'm not going to have access to materials I paid for as I paid for them, which I consider tantamount to fraud. You could have simply created a toggle for people who don't want your unnecessary new system, but instead you chose to outright steal from your customer base. Though I guess that is wotc's preferred MO, isn't it?
Despicable.
I am a DM and I really like using DNDBeyond as a lookup function with my in-person team. About half my players use DNDBeyond and the other half use pen-and-paper. I'm not interested in edition chasing - especially a minor update. But what this change does is create a major discrepancy between my two player types. So I'll be 'freezing' my game at the 2014 edition and will be forced to migrate off DNDBeyond. For now, I can homebrew patch the changes, but once DNDBeyond becomes more work than it helps, I will just move over to either a different digital service or, more likely, just bake my content into something like Notion. And that will likely just push my group into a different game system entirely.
I understand that its a digital service and that things change - but when key value proposition of the site goes away so does my business.
I'm fine with this. It seems like a good solution in the age of phones and computers auto-updating, it seems silly how offended people are.
But many (if not all) of the updated spells are originally from the Basic Rules. Will we lose access if we don't own the new Player's Handbook, or just gain free access to the new version?
Yeah, this is really just on you.
If you want a frozen copy of a book, you should have purchased a physical book.
This is the way Digital Works evolve these days. You can't tell Apple that you don't want to ever get an update to your iPhone and expect it to remain supported.
Free access
Free access.
Have you been hiding under a rock? Why didn't you prepare your players for this? The DND team has been extremely transparent that if things have been updated, the game will want you using the new version.
This was announced formally months ago on interviews and press releases. Why would you assume DnD Beyond would be ignoring it?
This is such a stupid, anti-customer decision that makes your site aggressively unusable when character sheets will just change formats and mechanics.
And the ironic part? They are STILL selling material on the website for the 2014 edition ruleset, while screwing over the player base. Why in the world would I buy any of the 2014 books now when you are forcing the 2024 ruleset to be used for character creation and information available on the site such as ALL of the information in the Game Rules tab? Both of those will be useless to anyone working with the 2014 books, not to mention totally mess up any campaigns currently being run through the website that use the 2014 ruleset and information.
This is going to cost WotC and DDB money in the long run. Sure, we'll still have access to all our characters, campaigns, and the digital books we bought, but (if I'm reading the Changelog correctly) the information on the character sheets are going to be 'updated" to the 2024 ruleset, essentially changing the data currently on the sheets. Oh, and we'll only have less than two weeks to either homebrew the spells that are being changed and make pdf's of the sheets if we want to save them with the 2014 information on them, or learn to live with the new material being installed into the system. For someone with a large number of characters, and already set plans for Labor Day weekend that Can Not be changed (I'm sorry, but my Aunt's Funeral in another state DOES take precedence over homebrewing all the material they want me to!) it is unreasonable to expect their clientbase to do all of this in the short period of time DDB has given to their clientbase.
WotC and DDB are being unreasonable, and unrealistic in what they are asking for, and will find that this hurts them in the long run financially when folks stop subscribing to the website, and stop purchasing material. From this point forward, only the 2024 material will be marketable for use with the features available on the website (most notably the top row of the Collections, and the aforementioned game rules tabs). They are cutting off their nose to spite their face by doing this. No one is interested in buying the 2014 material if they're not going to be able to use it on the website. There are other sources they can go to, and they will. In droves.
This is probably the worst way DDB could've handled this. I'm having a hard enough time convincing my players to get on board with the 2024 ruleset at all - the only way I'm getting them onboard is with the understanding they're not forced to use the 2024 content. Except now if we're using DDB, they're being forced to use the 2024 spells and magic items unless I spend huge time home-brewing all the stuff that's already in my paid-for books back in. Which is time I don't have to spend.
Nonsense like this could be the straw that breaks the camels back, and they decide they just want to go back to their old physical books they already own, and we do it with pen and paper exclusively - at which point we cancel all our subscriptions.
Adding a blanket legacy tag would've been so much easier, and have preserved so much more goodwill. Everything we've bought and paid for should be easily accessible through the character builder, as its always been.
The proposed solution of making home-brewed copies is not only incredibly boring and time-consuming, but - in my personal situation - useless.
I'm in a campaign where I'm a player. I'm also the one who has bought the books that are being shared. This means that I'm the only one who can actually make the copies. Unfortunately, private copies are accessible to the other players only if the DM for the campaign has made them. And you can't make the copies public because they are identical to official material.
Fatti non foste a viver come bruti ma per seguir virtute e canoscenza
Oh, I’m absolutely cancelling my subscription right this second then and pulling all my characters off the platform. I use ddb for convenience, and as soon as that convenience goes away, I leave.
If I purchased the 2014 edition of the rules, then I should have access to the 2014 edition of the rules in my sheets. Full stop. I was mildly interested in the new rules but you’ve made me completely change my mind on this one.
Seriously, **** y’all. Thanks for ruining the ecosystem of my games with this one.
Remember that other VTT's like Roll 20 and Foundry will not be editing your old information. Personally I have digital copies of all the 5e books as well as many of the books. There are also many open source 5E sites with all of the information you need for free. This just proves they want to force people to upgrade to 6e. Time to stop the lies from them and call it as it is.
Why are you even touching our old character sheets? Just mark them as legacy and move on. This is going to ruin campaigns that don't want to update but ate forced too because half the character sheet has changed.
Let us save character sheets as legacy sheets and just leave them alone.
This ******* sucks, guys. You're altering content we paid for and expected to be able to keep using to comply with a new ruleset many of us did not want.
Enigmagtic, Entertaining, Informative, Lobsterly.
I am a DM of 3 campaigns using 2014 rules that are very important to the foundations of the homebrewed world, and a player in another world that is the same. I've canceled my subscription for this exact same reason, there is no more use for this site and I've wasted every penny that I've spent because of this forced update, and am deleting my account once I copy down my dozens(!!!!!!!) of character sheets that are about to become unusable. Time to go back to pen and paper.
All I can say is, if they wanted feedback, they sure as heck are getting it!