This is anti-consumer. And frankly a spit in the face of the people who have bought content on this platform for 5e over the years. I will no longer be purchasing content here. Alternatives exist.
If I have to make special homebrew versions of every 2014 spell in order for them to appear on the character sheets of my players, then I think it might just be easier to cancel my subscription and stop using D&D Beyond altogether. This is infuriating.
Completely unacceptable. You're throwing a titanic wrench into every ongoing campaign with a massive bait and switch. I didn't buy the 2014-2023 books with all their spells, items, and rules so they could just be discarded and the money I spent p***ed away all because you want to force people into buying the new book. I'm canceling my subscription thanks, I'll use other online tools and not hand over another red cent to WOTC.
Am I understanding correctly that existing sheets etc. will automatically pull the 2024 rules rather than the ones they were created with? So current characters, being played in campaigns built with and designed around the 2014 rules, will have to either be adapted to the new rules or be rebuilt to have every impacted element of the sheet saved as homebrew?
That's a lot of work to foist off on players who want to simply continue to use content that already exists in the site and could (and should!) be easily available. Beyond which, the absolute disrespect to paying subscribers is breathtaking. My gaming group and I have collectively spent hundreds of dollars on content here; to be informed now that those resources are going to be essentially unusable smells a lot like theft. We weren't RENTING those books.
I've been eyeballing subscriptions to cancel and tighten up my budget, and DDB just put themselves at the top of the list with this.
I was planning to finish out my long-term campaign using the old 2014 rules before switching to the 2024 rules whenever we start our next campaign, likely not even purchasing the updated PHB until that time.
What happens in this case? What happens if I don't even own the updated content? When my players go to level up will they simply have zero spells to choose from unless I homebrew 100s of spells? Will the spells and magic items already on their sheets disappear? Or are we getting a free update to the new versions?
More broadly with tool tips, etc, what happens if I hover over something and don't own the new PHB? Will I see anything? Or is the intent here that there'll be a 2024 Basic Rules equivalent that everyone is forced to use?
I really don't understand why there couldn't have been a simple toggle and legacy tag like has already been done for the multiverse races, AND IS EVEN CONTINUING TO BE USED FOR RACES, CLASSES AND SUBCLASSES! Why not do the exact same thing for spells and magic items?
This planned version of things seems to only make using 2014 content as difficult as possible. Either these things and use cases weren't considered at all, or it's intentionally making it more difficult in a thinly veiled attempt to force people to use and purchase the 2024 content before they would have otherwise. So, is it malice or stupidity?
It does suck to lose access to the spells, but who is actually interested in using the older version of those spells? The vast majority very much needed the changes. Could just treat it as errata, no?
The problem is more than just the spells and items, although that’s a problem for established and ongoing characters and campaigns. The bigger problem IMO is the rules and interface updates. It’s that they promised that we could continue to run 1014 games with 2014 characters and rules and while they don’t force users to use DnDBeyond, this is THEIR tool and the tool doesn’t support the promise they made. It’s a slap in the face after players and GMs were starting to get excited about the option to test and dip into the new rules before fully committing to them in their games.
What the ****? So i cant use the spells and items I PAID TO USE in dnd beyond if i dont want to buy the new phb? Will there be free basic rules version of the new phb for this site like there was for the 2014 rules? Why the hell wouldnt they be marked under legacy like EVERYTHING ELSE!
What the ****? So i cant use the spells and items I PAID TO USE in dnd beyond if i dont want to buy the new phb? Will there be free basic rules version of the new phb for this site like there was for the 2014 rules? Why the hell wouldnt they be marked under legacy like EVERYTHING ELSE!
The release notes said that you’ll still have access to the old books in DnDBeyond but essentially if you want to see the way a legacy spell or rule or item or magic item was written, you’ll need to look it up the way you would in a paper book; open the book in the app, flip to the right page, and look up the text entry.
Am I understanding correctly that existing sheets etc. will automatically pull the 2024 rules rather than the ones they were created with? So current characters, being played in campaigns built with and designed around the 2014 rules, will have to either be adapted to the new rules or be rebuilt to have every impacted element of the sheet saved as homebrew?
That's a lot of work to foist off on players who want to simply continue to use content that already exists in the site and could (and should!) be easily available. Beyond which, the absolute disrespect to paying subscribers is breathtaking. My gaming group and I have collectively spent hundreds of dollars on content here; to be informed now that those resources are going to be essentially unusable smells a lot like theft. We weren't RENTING those books.
I've been eyeballing subscriptions to cancel and tighten up my budget, and DDB just put themselves at the top of the list with this.
This. My group decided to at least wait until the DMG was released before switching over, even while most of us are buying the 2024 PHB because we are excited about many of the changes. But we assumed nothing would change on our old character sheets. This is completely ridiculous we do not have an option to “freeze” our characters and have a designation for existing campaigns/PCs with the rulesets that we had purchased.
I really enjoyed using DnD beyond but a forum post basically saying “this is the way it is” two weeks before many of us were getting our copy of the new book is bad PR. Why pay for anything in the future when the company has set this precedent?
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
So, let's say I bought an individual spell from a book I don't own. Can I still use it? Can I even access it somewhere?
We're not using the new spells so... This decision kind of makes D&D Beyond useless to my table? Don't get me wrong power to you if your excited for the new stuff, but it very much feels like a new edition to our table- And if we do switch it'll be in a year or two when we finish our campaign, not immediately cause WotC want to release their product now.
Really gutted that the products I paid for wont be supported on this service anymore. It does make me feel kinda scammed on how the service was advertised? I certainly don't trust any content I purchase now to continue being usable into the future.
It feels like someone in WotC must see D&D more like a video game that can be patched with sweeping version changes rather than a tabletop game- But it is what it is.
For our table I think we'll move back to physical sheets.
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 need to keep the legacy spells and stuff in the system for those of us who paid money for them. Just tag them Legacy like everything else getting that tag.
I don't get folks, how long should D&D beyond support 2014 5e? Ten years? Twenty?
Great breakdown.
How long should they support 5e14 ? Does
"probably a little longer than day 1 of the new edition, so people can at least finish their current campaigns if they don't want to have to switch mid-campaign"
"probably a little longer than day 1 of the new edition, so people can at least finish their current campaigns if they don't want to have to switch mid-campaign"
sound reasonable?
As long as DnDB is online. Otherwise no point in buy anything here. I will go back to in person DMing only, and just use books. If I do that, I will also stop buying WotC published books, and just buy from 3rd parties.
I don't get folks, how long should D&D beyond support 2014 5e? Ten years? Twenty?
Great breakdown.
How long should they support 5e14 ? Does
"probably a little longer than day 1 of the new edition, so people can at least finish their current campaigns if they don't want to have to switch mid-campaign"
sound reasonable?
To add to your point on it being way too soon- It's also worth noting that the "support" we're talking about is continuing to operate a storefront and character building service for digital text assets. I've no idea why some people are talking about tabletop mechanics as if they are 20 year old legacy servers for some forgotten multiplayer video game that are some great burden to support.
I can find free versions of websites "supporting" 3.5 all over the place, some even have the ability for me to read the newer 5e versions of spells. It genuinely doesn't seem that hard to shove all the old content behind a toggle and then just forget about it.
I'll add to this chorus.
This is anti-consumer. And frankly a spit in the face of the people who have bought content on this platform for 5e over the years. I will no longer be purchasing content here. Alternatives exist.
If I have to make special homebrew versions of every 2014 spell in order for them to appear on the character sheets of my players, then I think it might just be easier to cancel my subscription and stop using D&D Beyond altogether. This is infuriating.
This is dumb and everyone who signed off on it is a smelly corporate hack. You have visible stink-lines coming off of you IRL.
Completely unacceptable. You're throwing a titanic wrench into every ongoing campaign with a massive bait and switch. I didn't buy the 2014-2023 books with all their spells, items, and rules so they could just be discarded and the money I spent p***ed away all because you want to force people into buying the new book. I'm canceling my subscription thanks, I'll use other online tools and not hand over another red cent to WOTC.
Am I understanding correctly that existing sheets etc. will automatically pull the 2024 rules rather than the ones they were created with? So current characters, being played in campaigns built with and designed around the 2014 rules, will have to either be adapted to the new rules or be rebuilt to have every impacted element of the sheet saved as homebrew?
That's a lot of work to foist off on players who want to simply continue to use content that already exists in the site and could (and should!) be easily available. Beyond which, the absolute disrespect to paying subscribers is breathtaking. My gaming group and I have collectively spent hundreds of dollars on content here; to be informed now that those resources are going to be essentially unusable smells a lot like theft. We weren't RENTING those books.
I've been eyeballing subscriptions to cancel and tighten up my budget, and DDB just put themselves at the top of the list with this.
Wow. This is going to make dndbeyond absolutely unusable for me. Guess it's time to cancel my subscription.
I was planning to finish out my long-term campaign using the old 2014 rules before switching to the 2024 rules whenever we start our next campaign, likely not even purchasing the updated PHB until that time.
What happens in this case? What happens if I don't even own the updated content? When my players go to level up will they simply have zero spells to choose from unless I homebrew 100s of spells? Will the spells and magic items already on their sheets disappear? Or are we getting a free update to the new versions?
More broadly with tool tips, etc, what happens if I hover over something and don't own the new PHB? Will I see anything? Or is the intent here that there'll be a 2024 Basic Rules equivalent that everyone is forced to use?
I really don't understand why there couldn't have been a simple toggle and legacy tag like has already been done for the multiverse races, AND IS EVEN CONTINUING TO BE USED FOR RACES, CLASSES AND SUBCLASSES! Why not do the exact same thing for spells and magic items?
This planned version of things seems to only make using 2014 content as difficult as possible. Either these things and use cases weren't considered at all, or it's intentionally making it more difficult in a thinly veiled attempt to force people to use and purchase the 2024 content before they would have otherwise. So, is it malice or stupidity?
The problem is more than just the spells and items, although that’s a problem for established and ongoing characters and campaigns. The bigger problem IMO is the rules and interface updates. It’s that they promised that we could continue to run 1014 games with 2014 characters and rules and while they don’t force users to use DnDBeyond, this is THEIR tool and the tool doesn’t support the promise they made. It’s a slap in the face after players and GMs were starting to get excited about the option to test and dip into the new rules before fully committing to them in their games.
What the ****? So i cant use the spells and items I PAID TO USE in dnd beyond if i dont want to buy the new phb? Will there be free basic rules version of the new phb for this site like there was for the 2014 rules? Why the hell wouldnt they be marked under legacy like EVERYTHING ELSE!
The release notes said that you’ll still have access to the old books in DnDBeyond but essentially if you want to see the way a legacy spell or rule or item or magic item was written, you’ll need to look it up the way you would in a paper book; open the book in the app, flip to the right page, and look up the text entry.
How do we get refunds for the previous content we've purchased since it's essentially being removed?
This. My group decided to at least wait until the DMG was released before switching over, even while most of us are buying the 2024 PHB because we are excited about many of the changes. But we assumed nothing would change on our old character sheets. This is completely ridiculous we do not have an option to “freeze” our characters and have a designation for existing campaigns/PCs with the rulesets that we had purchased.
I really enjoyed using DnD beyond but a forum post basically saying “this is the way it is” two weeks before many of us were getting our copy of the new book is bad PR. Why pay for anything in the future when the company has set this precedent?
So, let's say I bought an individual spell from a book I don't own. Can I still use it? Can I even access it somewhere?
We're not using the new spells so... This decision kind of makes D&D Beyond useless to my table? Don't get me wrong power to you if your excited for the new stuff, but it very much feels like a new edition to our table- And if we do switch it'll be in a year or two when we finish our campaign, not immediately cause WotC want to release their product now.
Really gutted that the products I paid for wont be supported on this service anymore. It does make me feel kinda scammed on how the service was advertised? I certainly don't trust any content I purchase now to continue being usable into the future.
It feels like someone in WotC must see D&D more like a video game that can be patched with sweeping version changes rather than a tabletop game- But it is what it is.
For our table I think we'll move back to physical sheets.
You need to keep the legacy spells and stuff in the system for those of us who paid money for them. Just tag them Legacy like everything else getting that tag.
How long should they support 5e14 ? Does
"probably a little longer than day 1 of the new edition, so people can at least finish their current campaigns if they don't want to have to switch mid-campaign"
sound reasonable?
As long as DnDB is online. Otherwise no point in buy anything here. I will go back to in person DMing only, and just use books. If I do that, I will also stop buying WotC published books, and just buy from 3rd parties.
indefinitely is the answer, especially with all the claims of full compatability that have done the rounds
To add to your point on it being way too soon- It's also worth noting that the "support" we're talking about is continuing to operate a storefront and character building service for digital text assets. I've no idea why some people are talking about tabletop mechanics as if they are 20 year old legacy servers for some forgotten multiplayer video game that are some great burden to support.
I can find free versions of websites "supporting" 3.5 all over the place, some even have the ability for me to read the newer 5e versions of spells. It genuinely doesn't seem that hard to shove all the old content behind a toggle and then just forget about it.
How would you even access legacy spells/magic items/etc when you purchased a la carte and not within a book?