I'd be totally fine if they defaulted new characters to 2024 and hid the 2014 toggle deep in the settings.
It's the complete and total lack of care for the millions of people playing DND right now, who use this site, whose active characters are being forcefully changed.
It's a punishment to every player who doesn't plan on upgrading to 5.5e on Day 1.
I think what annoys me the most is that "Day 1" is a staggered release from September 2024 to February 2025. The player options are being switched over immediately but the DM is going to have to wait roughly 6 months for the updated monsters so even if you want to play with just the 2024 rules, you're stuck with this weird hybrid system for half a year. I would be still annoyed but probably way less frustrated if the announcement was "we're sunsetting the 2014 tooltips with the launch of the Monster Manual in February 2025" because at the very least you'd have more time to figure out if you want your campaign to migrate over to the new ruleset or jump to a different platform to continue playing the older ruleset. The "we're changing this in less than two weeks" with the announcement buried in the changelog is a fairly terrible way to go about an update.
And yes, the marketing has been pushing backwards compatibility but realistically did that really work out with 3E to 3.5 or 4E to Essentials? When your mid-edition change makes all the new options more powerful, it makes it much harder to balance your game with the less powerful older content.
Is it not hidden if it doesn't work? "This XML file does not appear to have any style information associated with it. The document tree is shown below."
<Code>RequestHeaderSectionTooLarge</Code>
<Message>Your request header section exceeds the maximum allowed size.</Message>
We've provided some clarifications to the changelog! They can be viewed at this link. Also have edited the original post to include the link.
The usefulness of DDB is the character builder and character sheet, which you are destroying for those who are in the middle of 2014 campaigns. We don't give a rat's about reading about the 2014 stuff we lost in some compendium, we have the physical books. We want to be able to create and manage our characters without having to throw away years of game play to start over with 2024 stuff. Anyway you slice it, this is a turd sandwich.
Honestly, nothing here seems like that big of a deal. There’s some minor inconveniences if you want to stick with the older versions of spells, but nothing that seems all that difficult to implement through the homebrewing system. Granted, the fact the inconveniences are minor clearly hasn’t stopped the “we want Wizards to fail for.. reasons…” crowd from making a mountain out of this molehill
It's much bigger than spells, but please, enjoy making molehills out of mountains. SMH...
Folks, you paid for the books. You keep the books. Everything in them stays as it is. Spells and magic items that have been made legacy won't appear in the character creator sheets. Creator != Books
Let's not pretend there weren't easily accessible digital versions of all 5e content. I don't know about others but the boon of D&DBeyond was everything linking very easily to a character creator and digital sheet.
As in places like roll20, etc or pirated? Cause the second I don't take into account, most people don't use pirated sources.
Physical books, of course. Why go straight to pirated?
Folks, you paid for the books. You keep the books. Everything in them stays as it is. Spells and magic items that have been made legacy won't appear in the character creator sheets. Creator != Books
Let's not pretend there weren't easily accessible digital versions of all 5e content. I don't know about others but the boon of D&DBeyond was everything linking very easily to a character creator and digital sheet.
As in places like roll20, etc or pirated? Cause the second I don't take into account, most people don't use pirated sources.
Physical books, of course. Why go straight to pirated?
Physical books have really poor character sheet integration. Everything has to be done manually.
And while browsing them is a superior experience, finding specific stuff leaves a bit to be desired…
looks like our complaints were heard! Fingers crossed this is what it sounds like.
HUZZAH!
Though I will say it also emphasizes just how needless it was for DDB to want to take away our current stuff if they were able to find a way to reverse that so soon. And will definitely be on the lookout for anything that breaks, since I'm going to assume there's weasel-wording until proven otherwise.
Pending the roll out of the new books and things working as described in the latest update, I will be renewing my master tier sub, I don't doubt there will be some issues with the roll out, but knowing the new goal I will roll with any glitches that may arise! Thanks wizbro for listening, I am back to being a happy customer!
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
CENSORSHIP IS THE TOOL OF COWARDS and WANNA BE TYRANTS.
looks like our complaints were heard! Fingers crossed this is what it sounds like.
HUZZAH!
Though I will say it also emphasizes just how needless it was for DDB to want to take away our current stuff if they were able to find a way to reverse that so soon. And will definitely be on the lookout for anything that breaks, since I'm going to assume there's weasel-wording until proven otherwise.
It certainly shows that it was a policy decision rather than a technical one. That doesn't neccessarily mean there were nefarious reasons, but they haven't exactly earned the benefit of the doubt.
I certainly don't believe this was just excitement over the new content. That wouldn't explain why some things were being kept and others were being removed. Also, anyone who has even the slightest involvement in TTRPG's would know that, on the whole, we don't like forced changes to games, no matter how much better the updates may be.
I might be on the extreme end of the "this is kind of ruinous to our table, actually, and that's really not as dramatic a statement as it might sound" sliding scale, but nevertheless, I'm sure a lot of people are looking at this going "we literally can't work with this, everything we already paid for and rely upon no longer does what we pay for it to do and need it to do." So I'm going to go into the deep end of my own side of things, and hopefully it can highlight some of the egregious problems here:
(division line for ease of reading this monster)
At my table, I have been running a series of campaigns for almost 6 years now that all take place in the same worldbuilding setting. We call it "Elsewhere." This has spanned 5 campaigns and multiple mini-campaigns and canonical oneshots.
My current campaign is close to the end, we'll probably be concluding by the end of the year, maybe early 2025, so about a 3 year campaign (Saturday is session 113).
My next campaign ("Converge") is already deep in planning, and it is a massive undertaking even for our experienced group. It brings back prior PCs and NPCs, spans across multiple PC groups concurrently (all played by the same one group of players), and weaves us through the countless remaining mysteries, stories, questions, lore, and all the rest that my players are eagerly awaiting. It brings us to and through the setting's apocalypse. For an idea of the scope and scale of this project, it:
Is expected to last 5+ years (very lowball estimate)
Is billed as "the end of Elsewhere as we know it" - aka the final campaign in the setting
Brings in all the prior PCs of my current players (that's 20-ish PCs across 3 players), ranging from levels 9 to 19, plus one level 22 (homebrew epic levels, which other PCs might also achieve)
Will introduce at least 3-5 new PC groups on top of that; and with 1-2 new players, that's anywhere from 9 to 25 new PCs (or more)
The veritable army of NPCs from across the prior campaigns (we have a google sheet tracking NPCs at this point; 586 as of today, with a ton of notes and notebooks that still need to be gone through)
A minimum of a dozen core NPCs which require character sheets, because they are critical NPCs and are a main or very frequent member of the PC party, and it's easier for everyone to manage them like we would a PC (such as PCs' partners/spouses, siblings, or the ubiquitous and nigh-obligate "we like this random character and are adopting them forever, here's some great gear you are now One Of Us")
A minimum of 50 non-core/not-usually-party-members but still major NPCs that have character sheets for the same reason
(Definitely not a beginner-friendly campaign.)
All of that is relevant to understanding how massively problematic our position is quickly becoming due to the poor decisions on how DDB will treat what should be legacy content.
Our plan, which it seems many others also shared, was to stick with 5e and simply adapt in what we like from 5.5e (we have many strong and varied opinions on 5.5e). Prior announcements gave the impression that this would be simple and easy to do, allowing us to choose which ruleset/legacy content we wanted to use. The fact that this has been reneged upon is clearly already causing a number of subscription cancellations, and a lot of my friends already have their fingers on the unsubscribe button - no less than 3 of us who have had master tier subscriptions for years, and at least one of which who have spent many hundreds of dollars on content, including the legendary bundle, so we could all have access to all the cool fun stuff. The claim implied we'd still be able to use all of that old content as before.
"Go out of your way to make homebrew copies of spells and items, and old rules can be found by opening up links outside of your character sheet and navigating through the books to reference them" is not using old content as before. For a tool meant to be clean and easy to use for what we need it for, this violates the entire point. Is violating your customers' trust (and, frankly, wallets) really the new status quo for WotC? It seems a significant and consistently-growing number of people believe so, and have been given every right to.
It is truly infuriating to be in a position where I have to either a) transition that insane amount of stuff outlined above (and far more) to a whole other system (probably pf2e, which is as close to 5e as possible - and free) with nowhere near enough time to do so, or b) continue financially supporting a company that is happy to snatch our money out of our hands, slather it in mud, and slap us in the face with it while calling it "services appropriately rendered."
(end very long explanation of where my particular points of contrivance burn from)
It's a wonderful thing that D&D - and, thus, TTRPG - has made the comeback that it has. So many people have been brought together through this wonderful hobby. And with the direction WotC has been going and the rate at which it's been speeding there, I think we will see the TTRPG community flourish even more as people look at the choices WotC is making and start to explore alternative TTRPG systems and companies.
Or, yknow, you could stop slapping us in the face with our own money.
(edit for spacing/linebreak weirdness)
This is my exact same scenario, only the campaign I'm currently running is the first intended in a very long line. I prepared for a over a full year while I was running another game, and working, and doing all the things. *Everything* in the game is reliant on the ruleset I had purchased the content for. I have so many npcs, characters (both PC and npc) that will have to be redone and remade just to keep them viable.
I don't know anything about the new rules. So now I have to go and learn a new set just to see if it's even possible to transfer over to the new system and continue to use this tool. And even if it is, I'm screwed anyway, because the amount of homebrew things I'll now have to make is staggering when THEY ALREADY CURRENTLY EXIST.
I’m glad to hear I’m not the only one who would be in this sort of boat. We’re probably in the minority to have so much change to a degree that entire multi-year campaigns &/ planned campaigns are totally upheaved, but we might be the ones most affected by something so drastic. DMs running multiple campaigns, including paid DMs, too. And this new announcement to rollback on their decisions will probably go a longer way for folks like us who were looking at these changes and thinking "what the hell am I going to do?" It’s a relief, but will remain a tentative one. Much like a ton of creators who had an even more drastic and financial problems with the proposed OGL license so recently, I imagine those of us with the most to become upheaved will be keeping an eye out and starting to prepare for a potential system &/ campaign and character management site change. But at least now we don’t have almost no time at all to to do so.
I’m glad that they’ve seemed to listen - maybe they’ve learned something from the OGL scandal after all. But we’ll see. Hopefully it lasts, and they don’t make these changes later in the future. I’ve seen someone comment that it would make more sense, if they refused to hear their customer base regardless, to not enact their plan at least until all three books are released, especially since DMs will be lacking the two books meant for them - the most problematic lack being the monsters, imo. So let’s hope for everyone’s sake - hopefully they realize that includes their own - that they never try to take away from their paying customers again.
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Wizards of the Coast gave us everything they needed to play d&d until we fade to dust with the creative Commons update.
This is a blatant attempt to force everyone to buy their new product by forcing inconveniences upon their customers.
Been a master tier subscriber basically since this site started. So many things are still not finished and you're removing features..
Still can't make custom warlock invocations, still can't make custom common non-magical equipment. And then you pull stuff out and make it harder to use your system?
You are out of touch, this gaming community is not the same as a bunch of Bros playing Halo in 2003.
Out of touch, and not getting my money anymore.
Those touting the new spells as improvements keep forgetting that there are also spells that got nerfed, and some rather drastically.
I was involved in a playtest last week for the 2024 PHB and decided to create a wizard. I took the Find Familiar spell, only to discover that in the 2024 editions the mechanic for Familiars has been so drastically nerfed that the spell went from being a must-have on the wizard's spell list to a why bother. I was told that Familiars can no longer use the help action, they can't deliver touch spells-a major help for a squishy class, and doesn't aid you or your allies with flanking. They went from being an important of the team to nothing more than a decorative shoulder pet that can scout ahead if they're quiet enough.
Find Familiar is not the only spell affected in this manner. Yes, I can homebrew the spell, and most likely will. But, unless a player is aware of the spell changes, they will be in for a rude awakening when they see the new text after the 3rd. Homebrewing, at that point is going to require a lot more than clicking on the current form of the spell and adding it to your homebrew collection. This will be true for all spells with changes.
I also found it very telling that I couldn't find the wording for the 2024 Find Familiar spell when I did a google search. Only the 2014 version came up.
Bro! Whoever told you that lied to you. I am looking at the 2024 Find Familiar spell, and other than a rearrangement of the paragraphs, the spell is almost the same as 2014 (brass brazier no longer part of the material component; you're no longer Blind or Deaf while using the familiar senses). Don't believe me? Check the timestamp (6:06) on this Video
My guess is that they were using the Playtest version of the spell, which was nerfed and no one liked. That version was scrapped.
Thanks for that clarification! We were doing the playtest with a copy of the book someone got at GenCon, and only one of us had had the chance to look through it, but they may have misinterpreted how the help action and other aspects associated with that spell work with the 2024 system. I know there were changes to some things like Help, Hide, etc type of actions that we, as a group, may have gotten wrong. I think once the edition is more widely available these types of things will get worked out.
Thanks for that clarification! We were doing the playtest with a copy of the book someone got at GenCon, and only one of us had had the chance to look through it, but they may have misinterpreted how the help action and other aspects associated with that spell work with the 2024 system. I know there were changes to some things like Help, Hide, etc type of actions that we, as a group, may have gotten wrong. I think once the edition is more widely available these types of things will get worked out.
To clarify, the touch spell bit is specifically there. The familiar just has to be within 100 feet of you. It's easy to miss since it's the second paragraph in a section titled "Telepathic Connection".
The help action is covered under "A familiar can't attack, but it can take other actions as normal"
I've started seeing a lot of TikTok videos about it, too.
I think what annoys me the most is that "Day 1" is a staggered release from September 2024 to February 2025. The player options are being switched over immediately but the DM is going to have to wait roughly 6 months for the updated monsters so even if you want to play with just the 2024 rules, you're stuck with this weird hybrid system for half a year. I would be still annoyed but probably way less frustrated if the announcement was "we're sunsetting the 2014 tooltips with the launch of the Monster Manual in February 2025" because at the very least you'd have more time to figure out if you want your campaign to migrate over to the new ruleset or jump to a different platform to continue playing the older ruleset. The "we're changing this in less than two weeks" with the announcement buried in the changelog is a fairly terrible way to go about an update.
And yes, the marketing has been pushing backwards compatibility but realistically did that really work out with 3E to 3.5 or 4E to Essentials? When your mid-edition change makes all the new options more powerful, it makes it much harder to balance your game with the less powerful older content.
Is it not hidden if it doesn't work? "This XML file does not appear to have any style information associated with it. The document tree is shown below."
<Code>RequestHeaderSectionTooLarge</Code>
<Message>Your request header section exceeds the maximum allowed size.</Message>
<MaxSizeAllowed>8192</MaxSizeAllowed>
Get off my lawn or roll for initiative!
The usefulness of DDB is the character builder and character sheet, which you are destroying for those who are in the middle of 2014 campaigns. We don't give a rat's about reading about the 2014 stuff we lost in some compendium, we have the physical books. We want to be able to create and manage our characters without having to throw away years of game play to start over with 2024 stuff. Anyway you slice it, this is a turd sandwich.
Get off my lawn or roll for initiative!
It's much bigger than spells, but please, enjoy making molehills out of mountains. SMH...
Get off my lawn or roll for initiative!
Nope.
Get off my lawn or roll for initiative!
Physical books, of course. Why go straight to pirated?
Get off my lawn or roll for initiative!
Physical books have really poor character sheet integration. Everything has to be done manually.
And while browsing them is a superior experience, finding specific stuff leaves a bit to be desired…
https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1806-2024-d-d-beyond-ruleset-changelog-update
looks like our complaints were heard! Fingers crossed this is what it sounds like.
HUZZAH!
Though I will say it also emphasizes just how needless it was for DDB to want to take away our current stuff if they were able to find a way to reverse that so soon. And will definitely be on the lookout for anything that breaks, since I'm going to assume there's weasel-wording until proven otherwise.
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We Are Modron
Get rickrolled here. Awesome music here. Track 48, 5/23/25, Immaculate Mary
Pending the roll out of the new books and things working as described in the latest update, I will be renewing my master tier sub, I don't doubt there will be some issues with the roll out, but knowing the new goal I will roll with any glitches that may arise! Thanks wizbro for listening, I am back to being a happy customer!
CENSORSHIP IS THE TOOL OF COWARDS and WANNA BE TYRANTS.
It certainly shows that it was a policy decision rather than a technical one. That doesn't neccessarily mean there were nefarious reasons, but they haven't exactly earned the benefit of the doubt.
I certainly don't believe this was just excitement over the new content. That wouldn't explain why some things were being kept and others were being removed. Also, anyone who has even the slightest involvement in TTRPG's would know that, on the whole, we don't like forced changes to games, no matter how much better the updates may be.
I am happy with the latest announcement, but this action has caused me and my party to lose a lot of trust in DnDBeyond :/
Hey all! They heard us and they’re fixing it!
Hey all, we've heard your feedback and have published an article outlining our plan going forward. You can read it here. Thank you!
I’m glad to hear I’m not the only one who would be in this sort of boat. We’re probably in the minority to have so much change to a degree that entire multi-year campaigns &/ planned campaigns are totally upheaved, but we might be the ones most affected by something so drastic. DMs running multiple campaigns, including paid DMs, too. And this new announcement to rollback on their decisions will probably go a longer way for folks like us who were looking at these changes and thinking "what the hell am I going to do?" It’s a relief, but will remain a tentative one. Much like a ton of creators who had an even more drastic and financial problems with the proposed OGL license so recently, I imagine those of us with the most to become upheaved will be keeping an eye out and starting to prepare for a potential system &/ campaign and character management site change. But at least now we don’t have almost no time at all to to do so.
I’m glad that they’ve seemed to listen - maybe they’ve learned something from the OGL scandal after all. But we’ll see. Hopefully it lasts, and they don’t make these changes later in the future. I’ve seen someone comment that it would make more sense, if they refused to hear their customer base regardless, to not enact their plan at least until all three books are released, especially since DMs will be lacking the two books meant for them - the most problematic lack being the monsters, imo. So let’s hope for everyone’s sake - hopefully they realize that includes their own - that they never try to take away from their paying customers again.
In case folks didn't catch it, DDB has heard our uproar and changed the plan. https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1806-2024-d-d-beyond-ruleset-changelog-update
They posted to Twitter late last night. Our voices were heard!
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> A Greater Monster named a "Top 10 Book of 2012" by Common Ills blog
> Listed in "10 Hot Chicago Reads for Chilly Nights" on Refinery29.com
Bro! Whoever told you that lied to you. I am looking at the 2024 Find Familiar spell, and other than a rearrangement of the paragraphs, the spell is almost the same as 2014 (brass brazier no longer part of the material component; you're no longer Blind or Deaf while using the familiar senses). Don't believe me? Check the timestamp (6:06) on this Video
My guess is that they were using the Playtest version of the spell, which was nerfed and no one liked. That version was scrapped.
Thanks for that clarification! We were doing the playtest with a copy of the book someone got at GenCon, and only one of us had had the chance to look through it, but they may have misinterpreted how the help action and other aspects associated with that spell work with the 2024 system. I know there were changes to some things like Help, Hide, etc type of actions that we, as a group, may have gotten wrong. I think once the edition is more widely available these types of things will get worked out.
To clarify, the touch spell bit is specifically there. The familiar just has to be within 100 feet of you. It's easy to miss since it's the second paragraph in a section titled "Telepathic Connection".
The help action is covered under "A familiar can't attack, but it can take other actions as normal"
I got the book at Gen Con.
I'm glad they finally did the smart thing, and treated 2024 like any other book release.
Hey, maybe we'll be able to go a month without WotC doing something anti-consumer and boneheaded, going forward. That'd be nice.