Yes, it's technically in the TOS that they can do this. That's not helpful, either. In this digital age, we're stuck with lots of products that we don't technically "own", but that doesn't mean we don't expect the provider we "bought" it from to give us access to it. Steam can probably legally nuke my video game library, but you bet your ass that if they do, I'll be raging.
I'm not sure such ToS would stand up to legal scrutiny, but I'm no lawyer. At the very least, it doesn't pass the sniff test. If a company sells you a digital product and states that you will have access to it in a digital toolset (which is what WotC has done), and then revokes that access without compensation, that *should* be against the law. Were I a judge, I'd ask the question, "What about the person who purchased such goods the day before the platform revoked access to them? Is there no breach of contract there? Could that in any way be considered a fair exchange?" No, no it couldn't, particularly when you specifically and explicitly pay to be able to use that content in a particular tool (e.g. the character sheet).
Now if WotC provided access to digital content via a **subscription** model, that would be a different story. You'd be paying for access to whatever content WotC wanted you to have access to for a time-limited duration. They could switch things up at the end of every subscription period.
But in a model where consumers make one-time purchases, even if it is licensed content (as this is), there ought to be some sort of legal recourse if access is revoked before a "reasonable" amount of time has passed. I mean, it's not fair or reasonable to make a company provide access to purchased digital goods (or tools) in perpetuity (for all eternity, for the purchaser and their heirs, etc.), but it's also not fair or reasonable to argue (or to have it be legal) that access to a purchased digital good can be revoked one second after it's purchased. There ought to be some sort of law that forces sellers of licensed, digital content to provide access to that content for some "reasonable usable time." That would protect both consumers and businesses (by eventually allowing them to sunset stuff). I guess I see this as a consumer protection thing (1-800-SENATOR-WARREN).
I think people need to consider that thousands of people in this community have paid a lot of money to play 2014 characters under the 2014 rules and pulling that rug from undernearth them after assuring them it wouldn't bloody happen is valid reason to be extremely upset with these changes and trying to argue with them otherwise isn't helping and could be antagonistic. Especially considering the huge amount of money people have sunk into this site to play 2014 games and characters.
The embargo on the PHB was only recently lifted as well. People have only just started to dive into the differences in all the spells and how the new rules affect them. So there has been very little time to adjust, and given that the spells are going to change overnight **in the primary tool ddb users use ** upon the PHB's release, WotC has imposed disarray upon weeks' worth of games as people fumble around -- particularly the casual players who don't follow d&d news -- in addition to making the char sheet much less useful for the 2014 crowd.
One of the folks in my local group counted up the number of spells changed in some way, shape, or form, and came up with 191 spells that are being altered in the 2024 PHB. As far as I know, we still don't know the fate of the spells that didn't make it into the 2024 PHB. Are they being wiped from the database, or remaining as Spells that 2014 characters already made can still use? I know Booming Blade and Green-Fire Blade are not in the 2024 spell list, or at least I haven't seen them mentioned.
As far as we know, any spell that doesn't appear in the new PHB will remain unchanged and available for use.
Is there any way you can get that list of changed spells posted here? DDB haven't provided a list of changes themselves, and the 3rd party lists of seen, which they acknowledge are incomplete, only show around 110.
You might check out this spell list. I believe some of the changed spells are bolded that have the 2024 text included, but not all of the altered spells have the new text listed. I know Find Familiar was changed, but the new text is not listed. Anyway here is the best list of the spells for the 2024 edition that I was able to find: https://www.aidedd.org/spell/
Here is what was posted in our discord.
Nerd Immersions' stats about changed spells:
So it took several hours (I thought I could use a pre-existing list of "all the changed spells" to cut down on time, turns out it was totally wrong), but here's my initial breakdown: Spells in the 2024 PHB: 391 New Spells in the 2024 PHB: 7 Spells that were updated in the 2024 PHB: 191 Updates could be removal of a single phrase like "this spreads around corners", a change of spell school (for example most healing Spells are now Abjuration) or in some instances changes of the cost or type of material component. Or it could be basically a whole new spell, like the revamped Conjure Spells or the new Counterspell. Tonight I'll be sitting down to record THE video covering all of these changes. I'll also be working behind the scenes to ensure I have a homebrew version of all the previous versions of them on D&D Beyond.
So look for their video regarding the changed spells would be my advise.
1. You are not going to "reasonably explain" away the issue this thread represents. While the exact specifics one person or another is referencing might be inaccurate the fact is that the functionality we want is being removed. The fact a class action lawsuit is unlikely to succeed doesn't mean it's a good business decision.
2. Because you cannot "reasonably explain" away the outrage you should join the movement to reconcile with those unhappy. You might be happy and you might love DNDBeyond or D&D or Hasbro. Great. If you want them to continue to make money and be profitable and succeed you should encourage them to change their course of action.
To everyone trying to downplay peoples unhappiness.
How is it that tiny Pathbuilder was able to do so with the 2e and 2e revised characters? It was just a click of the button. They have both rulesets available and unless DDB's engine is absolute spit and duck tape, it should not be a difficult lift, just a time consuming lift. Databases should be built off of numeric keys, not text keys. Duplicate text should not be a problem. Afterall, there a many Main Streets in the USA but google maps doesn't blow up.
If you have a system that was architected for it and/or the resources to re-architect the system, nearly anything is possible, given enough time. However, based on the implementation choices being made I'm assuming DDB does not currently have either of those things.
The fact that they did a bad job of running their backend previously doesn't excuse what they're doing now. Mayhaps they should have done a better job, that's capable of handling changes better, hmm?
How is it that tiny Pathbuilder was able to do so with the 2e and 2e revised characters? It was just a click of the button. They have both rulesets available and unless DDB's engine is absolute spit and duck tape, it should not be a difficult lift, just a time consuming lift. Databases should be built off of numeric keys, not text keys. Duplicate text should not be a problem. Afterall, there a many Main Streets in the USA but google maps doesn't blow up.
If you have a system that was architected for it and/or the resources to re-architect the system, nearly anything is possible, given enough time. However, based on the implementation choices being made I'm assuming DDB does not currently have either of those things.
The fact that they did a bad job of running their backend previously doesn't excuse what they're doing now. Mayhaps they should have done a better job, that's capable of handling changes better, hmm?
Exactly, if their backend is in such a bad state then they should have put more resources into fixing it (and maybe not fired a load of devs last year). WotC have been planning 2024 for some time and that should have included plans for updating DDB. Either they should have put more dev time into implementing the new rules properly, or they should have announced months ago that they would not be fully supporting 5th edition going forward.
On a subscription based website I think it's unreasonable to say Hasbro do not have the resources to do something as universal in modern web design as a toggle between an old and a new text file. (They do manage to toggle just fine between historic and standard MTG cards on their other MTG services for example.)
So the question is "Does the business care enough to do it?"
If the answer is yes then I think it's reasonable for the company to ask for time.
If the answer is no then I think it's reasonable for people to be upset that a website they have been paying a subscription fee to has less filter features than a website designed by a crypto scam artist.
Except you're forgetting that they've made the promise that the 2024 rules will be available on 9/3. So it's not as easy as asking for time either. No matter what way they go, they're messing someone up. Unless they fork the site and call it a day. #DDBClassic
From what i understand, they also have promised full compatibility between 2014 and 2024 rules... they are breaking that promise right now~ All in all, they really didnt plan this out..
The problem with the compatibility argument is that they promised compatibility in rules which they have provided fully in the 2024 PHB. The D&D Beyond toolset isn't necessarily part of that promise so far as I've seem. though if you have a source I'd love to get educated.
I agree that they didn't plan this out as well as they should've in terms of customer impact analysis.
#DDBClassic
The toolset uses the rules. Without those rules, it doesn't function. All it's doing is executing the values fed into it by those rules. So the toolset would be compatible by default.
Thanks for helping me with the final push to switch my games away from D&D 5e entirely. With the inability to use DDB without annoying digging through the compendium, this is the easy time to switch fully to a new system instead of just off DDB for my games.
On a subscription based website I think it's unreasonable to say Hasbro do not have the resources to do something as universal in modern web design as a toggle between an old and a new text file. (They do manage to toggle just fine between historic and standard MTG cards on their other MTG services for example.)
So the question is "Does the business care enough to do it?"
If the answer is yes then I think it's reasonable for the company to ask for time.
If the answer is no then I think it's reasonable for people to be upset that a website they have been paying a subscription fee to has less filter features than a website designed by a crypto scam artist.
Except you're forgetting that they've made the promise that the 2024 rules will be available on 9/3. So it's not as easy as asking for time either. No matter what way they go, they're messing someone up. Unless they fork the site and call it a day. #DDBClassic
That is a perfectly acceptable short term solution to this dumpster fire.
Agreed. I've been advocating for that solution all weekend. #DDBClassic
It's even a perfectly acceptable long-term solution.
There might be a case for breach of contract here. For those who have paid money, the agreement was essentially that we'd have access to the stuff we purchased. They're revoking that access in part (in the character sheet) and/or degrading the service we agreed to pay for.
I could definitely see this being an issue in the EU, which has far better consumer protection laws than the US.
Now I wonder if feats like Astral Drifter will auto-point to the new Magic Initiate instead of the Legacy version. Granted, at least we'll have the legacy version of that one, so it's possible.
(The fact we'll have that and that it could point to the old one is only further proof that the architecture is in place for the spells to be fully functional as legacy as well, btw.)
One more Ugly thing Beyond did is - Big sale not so long ago. Imagine Doing a sale on 5e content and then after a bit telling all the people who bought the books on sale that your books are WORTHLESS! We got you! Ha Ha! You thought you were buying stuff for cheap and will be able to use! Well guess what! You`re not! Ha! Now so long sucker! Your money is now ours!
This is inaccurate. The 2014 stuff isn't going away. Some character sheet functionality is being updated to 2024 but all the 2014 stuff is still fully useable outside of DDB AND most of it is still useable in DDB. It's compatible with the 2024 update.
Toolset content is explicitly part of what was purchased during the sale. That is now being removed. It is an outright lie to say that "The 2014 stuff isn't going away".
No, it's an outright lie to say it is going away. Even using your definition, only part of it is going away, which is exactly what I said. You have no standing to call me a liar.
So if someone takes one of the wheels off your car, it's fine. You still have some of them.
Sure, they will let you use that content you purchased for 5e.2014, but only on paper. The integration with character sheets ( which is the only thing you really purchase ) is broken with hopes you will give up having to "home brew" every dang thing you've used for the past 10 years and buy new versions off all the books you already "purchased".
This is my point though, this isn't actually true. It's just spells and items that have the same name as 2014 content. Everything else you have is still working.So at the most you can write down the description of the spells and items you use or just pull up the compendium on them in a separate tab etc..
Other then that all other 2014 content works with the digital character sheet.
Have you ever played on AboveVTT, Owlbear, or Foundry?
DDB rolls the dice, calculates the damage, provides the range of the spell. It speeds up combat way more than rolling physical dice around a table. This is the primary reason why most people bought books on DDB. Its why the PHB, Xanathar's, and Tasha's are among the highest selling books on DDB, even though they aren't the newest. Its why I, and many others pay for a Master Tier subscription to share books with the players. the players don't need to see modules or monsters. But they do benefit from the character builder.
Losing the 2014 monsters is a bummer, but that is much easier for DMs to overcome than the loss of PCs using DDB for their characters. Every ongoing 2014 campaign is done. People who bought Vecna and assorted other modules will not be able to complete them with the current PCs.
If I take 100 dollars out of your wallet, but leave a 1 dollar bill behind, can you charge me with theft?
How many subclasses have zero spells? How many campaigns have zero magic items?
Technically DDB could shut down completely on 2/1/2025 and you lose all the 2024 rules that you just bought. Would you still be defending WorC because you still have physical copies of the digital/physical bundle you ordered?
Hey all, we've heard your feedback and have published an article outlining our plan going forward. You can read it here. Thank you!
Thank you! I suspected that a big enough uproar here would actually get things done. You guys had the time and actually delivered what we were asking for.
I don't see anything about tooltips which makes me think that's still going to be updated, but if the biggest thing we have to deal with is reminder text, I can live with that.
Still going to hold my judgement until after the September 3rd launch to see EXACTLY how the addition of 2024 PHB affects the current character sheets. Once burned, twice shy as they say!
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I'm not sure such ToS would stand up to legal scrutiny, but I'm no lawyer. At the very least, it doesn't pass the sniff test. If a company sells you a digital product and states that you will have access to it in a digital toolset (which is what WotC has done), and then revokes that access without compensation, that *should* be against the law. Were I a judge, I'd ask the question, "What about the person who purchased such goods the day before the platform revoked access to them? Is there no breach of contract there? Could that in any way be considered a fair exchange?" No, no it couldn't, particularly when you specifically and explicitly pay to be able to use that content in a particular tool (e.g. the character sheet).
Now if WotC provided access to digital content via a **subscription** model, that would be a different story. You'd be paying for access to whatever content WotC wanted you to have access to for a time-limited duration. They could switch things up at the end of every subscription period.
But in a model where consumers make one-time purchases, even if it is licensed content (as this is), there ought to be some sort of legal recourse if access is revoked before a "reasonable" amount of time has passed. I mean, it's not fair or reasonable to make a company provide access to purchased digital goods (or tools) in perpetuity (for all eternity, for the purchaser and their heirs, etc.), but it's also not fair or reasonable to argue (or to have it be legal) that access to a purchased digital good can be revoked one second after it's purchased. There ought to be some sort of law that forces sellers of licensed, digital content to provide access to that content for some "reasonable usable time." That would protect both consumers and businesses (by eventually allowing them to sunset stuff). I guess I see this as a consumer protection thing (1-800-SENATOR-WARREN).
As far as we know, any spell that doesn't appear in the new PHB will remain unchanged and available for use.
Is there any way you can get that list of changed spells posted here? DDB haven't provided a list of changes themselves, and the 3rd party lists of seen, which they acknowledge are incomplete, only show around 110.
You might check out this spell list. I believe some of the changed spells are bolded that have the 2024 text included, but not all of the altered spells have the new text listed. I know Find Familiar was changed, but the new text is not listed. Anyway here is the best list of the spells for the 2024 edition that I was able to find: https://www.aidedd.org/spell/
Here is what was posted in our discord.
Nerd Immersions' stats about changed spells:
So some easy logic here.
1. You are not going to "reasonably explain" away the issue this thread represents. While the exact specifics one person or another is referencing might be inaccurate the fact is that the functionality we want is being removed. The fact a class action lawsuit is unlikely to succeed doesn't mean it's a good business decision.
2. Because you cannot "reasonably explain" away the outrage you should join the movement to reconcile with those unhappy. You might be happy and you might love DNDBeyond or D&D or Hasbro. Great. If you want them to continue to make money and be profitable and succeed you should encourage them to change their course of action.
To everyone trying to downplay peoples unhappiness.
The fact that they did a bad job of running their backend previously doesn't excuse what they're doing now. Mayhaps they should have done a better job, that's capable of handling changes better, hmm?
Exactly, if their backend is in such a bad state then they should have put more resources into fixing it (and maybe not fired a load of devs last year). WotC have been planning 2024 for some time and that should have included plans for updating DDB. Either they should have put more dev time into implementing the new rules properly, or they should have announced months ago that they would not be fully supporting 5th edition going forward.
The toolset uses the rules. Without those rules, it doesn't function. All it's doing is executing the values fed into it by those rules. So the toolset would be compatible by default.
Thanks for helping me with the final push to switch my games away from D&D 5e entirely. With the inability to use DDB without annoying digging through the compendium, this is the easy time to switch fully to a new system instead of just off DDB for my games.
It's even a perfectly acceptable long-term solution.
I could definitely see this being an issue in the EU, which has far better consumer protection laws than the US.
Now I wonder if feats like Astral Drifter will auto-point to the new Magic Initiate instead of the Legacy version. Granted, at least we'll have the legacy version of that one, so it's possible.
(The fact we'll have that and that it could point to the old one is only further proof that the architecture is in place for the spells to be fully functional as legacy as well, btw.)
So if someone takes one of the wheels off your car, it's fine. You still have some of them.
Have you ever played on AboveVTT, Owlbear, or Foundry?
DDB rolls the dice, calculates the damage, provides the range of the spell. It speeds up combat way more than rolling physical dice around a table. This is the primary reason why most people bought books on DDB. Its why the PHB, Xanathar's, and Tasha's are among the highest selling books on DDB, even though they aren't the newest. Its why I, and many others pay for a Master Tier subscription to share books with the players. the players don't need to see modules or monsters. But they do benefit from the character builder.
Losing the 2014 monsters is a bummer, but that is much easier for DMs to overcome than the loss of PCs using DDB for their characters. Every ongoing 2014 campaign is done. People who bought Vecna and assorted other modules will not be able to complete them with the current PCs.
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AlumniHey all, we've heard your feedback and have published an article outlining our plan going forward. You can read it here. Thank you!
D&D Beyond Community Manager
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If I take 100 dollars out of your wallet, but leave a 1 dollar bill behind, can you charge me with theft?
How many subclasses have zero spells? How many campaigns have zero magic items?
Technically DDB could shut down completely on 2/1/2025 and you lose all the 2024 rules that you just bought. Would you still be defending WorC because you still have physical copies of the digital/physical bundle you ordered?
Huzzah!
Thank you! I suspected that a big enough uproar here would actually get things done. You guys had the time and actually delivered what we were asking for.
I don't see anything about tooltips which makes me think that's still going to be updated, but if the biggest thing we have to deal with is reminder text, I can live with that.
POWER TO THE PLAYERS! THEY CHANGED IT! https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1806-2024-d-d-beyond-ruleset-changelog-update
Good news :)
Still going to hold my judgement until after the September 3rd launch to see EXACTLY how the addition of 2024 PHB affects the current character sheets. Once burned, twice shy as they say!