Today we published a changelog detailing how the D&D Beyond site is going to be updated for the 2024 Player's Handbook. You can take a look at all the details at this link.
Happy adventuring!
You all really need to clarify 100% if people who don't purchase the 2024 rule books will be automatically "upgraded" to the 2024 versions of spells and magic items for free or if it is going to break their character sheets and fill them with "click here to purchase content" links.
You can still create a 2014 elf, have them gain a few levels in the 2014 druid and even select the 2014 shepherd - but you need to create a homebrew version of the 2014 conjure animals spells to summon some of the still accessible 2014 beasts.
Why is that single thing required to be done manually?
Can't even be argued that spells and items are database intensive to keep a double of when you literally force AT LEAST one copy to be made in the homebrew section. If people can communicate on creating one shared release that everyone uses, otherwise every other old campaign will make their own, multiplying the storage in the hundreds.
Just one small campaign toggle to lock out any 2024 content is something that would make everyone content as they can easily opt out of changes.
I have been playing and DMing using DDB as "the best reference" for 5e characters and rules since 2018. I have purchased the Legendary Bundles, I've had a Master Tier subscription for years. And yet this change just flips off everyone who is mid-campaign with 5e or on the fence and not currently looking to update to 5.5e. I play in two games, I DM a third. And this bungled handling of the transition makes me want to unsub and leave your platform.
I cannot BELIEVE the way you are telling your paying customers to hande spells is "homebrew them yourself". You have the power on your end to just slap a legacy label or "(2014)" at the end of all of them and keep them side by side with the new ones. Stick the 2014 spells behind a character sheet toggle option if you want so that your precious new players don't get all confused. But screwing those of us that don't want to upgrade at the moment after having purchased hundreds of dollars of character building options is ridiculous.
I should be able to continue to build a straight 2014 rules character, including spells after 5.5 officially drops. After all, that is the version of the rules I own! I see no reason to remove the option that literally already exists.
And a question to top it off. I saw earlier in the thread that existing spells on a character will stay, but what happens on a level up of this existing 2014 character when you choose new spells? Do you abruptly get forced to take the 2024 ones?
Please rethink this change, DDB/WotC. Because right now it makes me want to unsub, and not purchase anything 5.5e in case it ruins what I already have purchased. Which is not, I imagine, what you want your customers to be doing.
As someone with an ongoing 5e campaign and 11 pages of homebrew that has hyperlinks to 2014 spells and such, I am beyond livid with the changes. DND Beyond's utility is in its ease of use to reference and link materials. I paid for a tool to run my 5e campaigns so that when I make a magic item with a spell attached, my players can hover over it and see the wall of text. All of those would be broken and I either have to go in and manually add all of the spell's info or remake it from scratch as HB. This is so disrespectful to the work I've already put in as a DM and outright contemptuous toward the money I have put in to make use of this tool. This is a bald-faced attempt to force ongoing 5e users who weren't going to switch to switch. After the OGL and other debacles, any who gave benefit of the doubt or trust that they would make community-oriented decisions for the future has been made a fool of. Take this and any upvotes this gets as an ultimatum: if this change (erasing content that was already paid for and still being used) goes into effect you have lost me and my players.
What are we paying for if it is "too difficult" to maintain the features we use? Why would I give you any more money? So you can take everything away from me when you want me to spend more?
Today we published a changelog detailing how the D&D Beyond site is going to be updated for the 2024 Player's Handbook. You can take a look at all the details at this link.
Happy adventuring!
You all really need to clarify 100% if people who don't purchase the 2024 rule books will be automatically "upgraded" to the 2024 versions of spells and magic items for free or if it is going to break their character sheets and fill them with "click here to purchase content" links.
Yeah if people are met with the "purchase content" prompt this is going to be an even bigger debacle.
Today we published a changelog detailing how the D&D Beyond site is going to be updated for the 2024 Player's Handbook. You can take a look at all the details at this link.
Happy adventuring!
You all really need to clarify 100% if people who don't purchase the 2024 rule books will be automatically "upgraded" to the 2024 versions of spells and magic items for free or if it is going to break their character sheets and fill them with "click here to purchase content" links.
Yeah if people are met with the "purchase content" prompt this is going to be an even bigger debacle.
100% will get them in major trouble in certain countries. I do not see how they get around that error because the spells are attached to the book purchase. Unless they are being really sneaky and making it so if you don't buy it you keep the old links. But not telling us that to have people by the new books in confusion. Which would be even more scummy and get them in just as much trouble. If this is not illegal somewhere then it really needs to be. Looking forward to saving a bit of money every month from going back to pen and paper if this goes through without a fix. Will 100% be using that money to buy books to switch to a non predatory system instead.
I'm extremely dissapointed by this decision. I could understand making 2024 the default for functionality. But to start removing 2014 content completely and making it inaccessible? That's absurd. What you're telling me is I no longer get to play with the content I purchased (twice, mind you, because I wanted to use it with the digital toolset instead of just physical).
Having 2014 material marked as Legacy and perhaps hidden by default in searches would have been fine. At least let me use the version of the game I actually want to play. This is a trashy way of handling this. I didn't buy the 2024 book(s), don't want to, and yet the content is being forced on me anyway. Absolutely appalling behavior.
I'm looking forward to Demiplane's 5e Nexus that much more now. Good riddance.
yea this messes me up on multiple campaigns. It seems there could be an elegant solution whereby the 5e stuff is kept, and the new stuff is added. I suggest looking at that option.
They kept the races as legacy which could still be selected in the character editor when those were updated in newer books.
This sounds like the best option here as well. Then throw in a toggle, like they have for partnered content, as to if the character would use legacy content, new, or both. Default it to new and let players change it if they want.
5.5 spells are effectively errata to the 5e version since you get the new version for free, right?
Not really when the advertised use of the original books was use within the toolsets. I paid for those spells and their use in DNDBeyond Character sheets. I subscribed every month to use the linking feature with my group. Which is by far the best in the industry. That's the part that they are removing that is super predatory and causing DM's across the board headaches at the moment. There should be a toggle. People are mid campaign. Balance has been figured out so switching is not some easy update. The only people who buy their books are DM's and they continue to show disrespect towards us. No player is paying them monthly subscriptions. Why they continue to alienate DM's is something I do not understand.
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
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
It does when this is in the description for the digital books.
"Purchasing a digital copy of this book unlocks it for use in the D&D Beyond compendium and toolset. D&D Beyond is the official digital toolset for Dungeons & Dragons. Create characters in minutes, play directly on your character sheets with digital dice, and prep less and play more with Dungeon Master tools like the encounter builder, combat tracker, and VTT."
I paid for the books so I can use the features on the website. If they told us they would be removing it I wouldn't have gotten the books in the first place.
They are aware of how resistant to change people are, I see this as nothing more than a way to coerce players and DMs into purchasing 5.5e books.
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
I believe peoples main use of dndbeyond is for the tool, not for reading the digital books.
Yes people can read the book, yes the old books aren't changing.
But the tool (which is the core of dndbeyond) can no longer be used for playing the 2014 version of the game. They are forcing people who use the tool to play version 2024, with ability for some select elements from 2014 to be carried in. That's not the same as allowing both 2014 and 2024 in their entirety to coexist, and that's what the issue is.
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
Until the books get increasingly buried further and further into the sources section of this website.
Also if we were just paying for the books to be digital then why not just have sold us PDFs? Unless of course we were also paying to use them on D&D Beyond's character creation system... which is exactly what people were paying for.
First of all, thank you for this super detailed update with examples. Kudos to whoever wrote it - it is very well done. The changes themselves are also excellent and exceed my highest expectation of how this was going to be implemented. Well done!
Could you please add a clarification or example regarding Artificer functionality - will there be any change to spell list, will multiclassing with 2024 classes continue to function normally, etc.
Mod already stated earlier that new content that is overwritten with no legacy version (spells, items) is going to be freely accessible as long as you could access the original.
Literally the reason I use DNDBeyond is because of how much easier to keep track of my character sheet compared to pencil and paper. I would not have played DND or gotten invested in multiple years-long campaigns if it weren't for DNDBeyond's ease of use.
"Don't like it, go back to the physical books" kills my enjoyment of the game. I am not going to sit and flip through reams of pages I ALSO have to pay for in order to play. Whereas right now my DM buys the digital books and we players get to enjoy all the features the digital content gives us; except that's going to go away if this change goes through, because it doesn't matter that our campaign is in progress or that we've dialed in our characters and balancing. Will our 2014 Ranger get the 2024 version of Hunter's Mark and have no interaction with it in his toolkit? Why can't we keep our campaigns as-is?
If this change goes through I am not going to keep playing on DNDBeyond, nor will I purchase physical books. There are way better alternatives out there that won't scam you halfway through your game.
Can I get a refund on all the content that is being removed in the condition that I purchased it in?
You all really need to clarify 100% if people who don't purchase the 2024 rule books will be automatically "upgraded" to the 2024 versions of spells and magic items for free or if it is going to break their character sheets and fill them with "click here to purchase content" links.
You can still create a 2014 elf, have them gain a few levels in the 2014 druid and even select the 2014 shepherd - but you need to create a homebrew version of the 2014 conjure animals spells to summon some of the still accessible 2014 beasts.
Why is that single thing required to be done manually?
Can't even be argued that spells and items are database intensive to keep a double of when you literally force AT LEAST one copy to be made in the homebrew section. If people can communicate on creating one shared release that everyone uses, otherwise every other old campaign will make their own, multiplying the storage in the hundreds.
Just one small campaign toggle to lock out any 2024 content is something that would make everyone content as they can easily opt out of changes.
I have been playing and DMing using DDB as "the best reference" for 5e characters and rules since 2018. I have purchased the Legendary Bundles, I've had a Master Tier subscription for years. And yet this change just flips off everyone who is mid-campaign with 5e or on the fence and not currently looking to update to 5.5e. I play in two games, I DM a third. And this bungled handling of the transition makes me want to unsub and leave your platform.
I cannot BELIEVE the way you are telling your paying customers to hande spells is "homebrew them yourself". You have the power on your end to just slap a legacy label or "(2014)" at the end of all of them and keep them side by side with the new ones. Stick the 2014 spells behind a character sheet toggle option if you want so that your precious new players don't get all confused. But screwing those of us that don't want to upgrade at the moment after having purchased hundreds of dollars of character building options is ridiculous.
I should be able to continue to build a straight 2014 rules character, including spells after 5.5 officially drops. After all, that is the version of the rules I own! I see no reason to remove the option that literally already exists.
And a question to top it off. I saw earlier in the thread that existing spells on a character will stay, but what happens on a level up of this existing 2014 character when you choose new spells? Do you abruptly get forced to take the 2024 ones?
Please rethink this change, DDB/WotC. Because right now it makes me want to unsub, and not purchase anything 5.5e in case it ruins what I already have purchased. Which is not, I imagine, what you want your customers to be doing.
As someone with an ongoing 5e campaign and 11 pages of homebrew that has hyperlinks to 2014 spells and such, I am beyond livid with the changes. DND Beyond's utility is in its ease of use to reference and link materials. I paid for a tool to run my 5e campaigns so that when I make a magic item with a spell attached, my players can hover over it and see the wall of text. All of those would be broken and I either have to go in and manually add all of the spell's info or remake it from scratch as HB. This is so disrespectful to the work I've already put in as a DM and outright contemptuous toward the money I have put in to make use of this tool. This is a bald-faced attempt to force ongoing 5e users who weren't going to switch to switch. After the OGL and other debacles, any who gave benefit of the doubt or trust that they would make community-oriented decisions for the future has been made a fool of. Take this and any upvotes this gets as an ultimatum: if this change (erasing content that was already paid for and still being used) goes into effect you have lost me and my players.
What are we paying for if it is "too difficult" to maintain the features we use? Why would I give you any more money? So you can take everything away from me when you want me to spend more?
Yeah if people are met with the "purchase content" prompt this is going to be an even bigger debacle.
100% will get them in major trouble in certain countries. I do not see how they get around that error because the spells are attached to the book purchase. Unless they are being really sneaky and making it so if you don't buy it you keep the old links. But not telling us that to have people by the new books in confusion. Which would be even more scummy and get them in just as much trouble. If this is not illegal somewhere then it really needs to be. Looking forward to saving a bit of money every month from going back to pen and paper if this goes through without a fix. Will 100% be using that money to buy books to switch to a non predatory system instead.
I'm extremely dissapointed by this decision. I could understand making 2024 the default for functionality. But to start removing 2014 content completely and making it inaccessible? That's absurd. What you're telling me is I no longer get to play with the content I purchased (twice, mind you, because I wanted to use it with the digital toolset instead of just physical).
Having 2014 material marked as Legacy and perhaps hidden by default in searches would have been fine. At least let me use the version of the game I actually want to play. This is a trashy way of handling this. I didn't buy the 2024 book(s), don't want to, and yet the content is being forced on me anyway. Absolutely appalling behavior.
I'm looking forward to Demiplane's 5e Nexus that much more now. Good riddance.
5.5 spells are effectively errata to the 5e version since you get the new version for free, right?
yea this messes me up on multiple campaigns. It seems there could be an elegant solution whereby the 5e stuff is kept, and the new stuff is added. I suggest looking at that option.
They kept the races as legacy which could still be selected in the character editor when those were updated in newer books.
This sounds like the best option here as well. Then throw in a toggle, like they have for partnered content, as to if the character would use legacy content, new, or both. Default it to new and let players change it if they want.
Not really when the advertised use of the original books was use within the toolsets. I paid for those spells and their use in DNDBeyond Character sheets. I subscribed every month to use the linking feature with my group. Which is by far the best in the industry. That's the part that they are removing that is super predatory and causing DM's across the board headaches at the moment. There should be a toggle. People are mid campaign. Balance has been figured out so switching is not some easy update. The only people who buy their books are DM's and they continue to show disrespect towards us. No player is paying them monthly subscriptions. Why they continue to alienate DM's is something I do not understand.
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
It does when this is in the description for the digital books.
"Purchasing a digital copy of this book unlocks it for use in the D&D Beyond compendium and toolset. D&D Beyond is the official digital toolset for Dungeons & Dragons. Create characters in minutes, play directly on your character sheets with digital dice, and prep less and play more with Dungeon Master tools like the encounter builder, combat tracker, and VTT."
I paid for the books so I can use the features on the website. If they told us they would be removing it I wouldn't have gotten the books in the first place.
They are aware of how resistant to change people are, I see this as nothing more than a way to coerce players and DMs into purchasing 5.5e books.
I believe peoples main use of dndbeyond is for the tool, not for reading the digital books.
Yes people can read the book, yes the old books aren't changing.
But the tool (which is the core of dndbeyond) can no longer be used for playing the 2014 version of the game. They are forcing people who use the tool to play version 2024, with ability for some select elements from 2014 to be carried in. That's not the same as allowing both 2014 and 2024 in their entirety to coexist, and that's what the issue is.
Until the books get increasingly buried further and further into the sources section of this website.
Also if we were just paying for the books to be digital then why not just have sold us PDFs? Unless of course we were also paying to use them on D&D Beyond's character creation system... which is exactly what people were paying for.
Hi,
First of all, thank you for this super detailed update with examples. Kudos to whoever wrote it - it is very well done. The changes themselves are also excellent and exceed my highest expectation of how this was going to be implemented. Well done!
Could you please add a clarification or example regarding Artificer functionality - will there be any change to spell list, will multiclassing with 2024 classes continue to function normally, etc.
Thanks!
Mod already stated earlier that new content that is overwritten with no legacy version (spells, items) is going to be freely accessible as long as you could access the original.
Literally the reason I use DNDBeyond is because of how much easier to keep track of my character sheet compared to pencil and paper. I would not have played DND or gotten invested in multiple years-long campaigns if it weren't for DNDBeyond's ease of use.
"Don't like it, go back to the physical books" kills my enjoyment of the game. I am not going to sit and flip through reams of pages I ALSO have to pay for in order to play. Whereas right now my DM buys the digital books and we players get to enjoy all the features the digital content gives us; except that's going to go away if this change goes through, because it doesn't matter that our campaign is in progress or that we've dialed in our characters and balancing. Will our 2014 Ranger get the 2024 version of Hunter's Mark and have no interaction with it in his toolkit? Why can't we keep our campaigns as-is?
If this change goes through I am not going to keep playing on DNDBeyond, nor will I purchase physical books. There are way better alternatives out there that won't scam you halfway through your game.