These sorts of mistakes are so frustrating, but its part of the business. The lack of clarity about the new edition is a major reason this came up at the last minute, rather than having been talked about months ago.
Now I just need to talk my DM's into continuing the campaigns that they shut down. I suspect it's to late for my Wednesday game as we started the final fight a few days ago.
Far from ideal (see 2dig2dug's comment above this one to see why), and I'm not going to resubscribe until I see the changes myself, but at least it's a step in the right direction.
Still not good enough. As a DM, I don't want to have 2024 tooltips and hyperlinks. You still haven't addressed monsters. I don't want to use 2024 monsters and I don't want 2014 monsters casting 2024 spells. You need a SITE-WIDE toggle. Again, why will I ever pay you money again if you just dump the last edition each time a new edition comes out? You need full support for 2014, 2024 and beyond. This whole "patched 5e" idea is terrible. Support both versions like separate editions because that's what they are.
Let's enjoy a win for now, my guy.
Let's see how the rest is handled, but for now, at least, we won't have to readapt to other platforms/systems to finish ongoing campaigns.
I feel sorry for the people who tried to give this website a chance and lost countless hours researching and making copies of 2014 spells as homebrew as previously suggested.
I literally just unsubscribed, *****ed about it here and looked for alternatives, no way I'm working to fix another person's mistakes. Glad they did though.
I feel sorry for the people who tried to give this website a chance and lost countless hours researching and making copies of 2014 spells as homebrew as previously suggested.
I literally just unsubscribed, *****ed about it here and looked for alternatives, no way I'm working to fix another person's mistakes. Glad they did though.
I copied them, but I had access to just go through and use every spell as a template one by one with just a rename to have " (2014)" on the ends. Except for Summon Dragon (rename of Summon Draconic Spirit) but I have the physical book and the changes were easy using Celestial as a template.
I will be renewing my subscription as soon as the new books roll out and the tool set works as it always has, hell I may even buy the new books now!
ETA: 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!
As wild as the last-minute feature announcements are for the community, I have to imagine they're a lot rougher on the staff who have to implement them... especially when there's literally a week left until the probably-locked-into-the-paper-publishing-cycle deadline.
Thanks to all the testers, engineers, designers, and content specialists who work on this site - hope you're doing ok with this rollout. <3
As others have stated, I'll be awaiting to see exactly how the updates land before considering the status of my currently cancelled subscription. I don't even want to see 2024 terminology changes at a character sheet level, e.g. race vs species, so will have to judge first-hand when the time comes. Can see that change will still be an impact with the revised plan, albeit a minor one. A glimmer of hope, but trust has been broken too many times now to jump back on the wagon.
I'm just going to post what I put in the discord...
Wow. I never expected them to actually listen. This is great news, and is exactly what we wanted, both sets of rules supported and everyone should be happy.
If you're passing on feedback though, please emphasise how abysmal the communication around this has been, and that it needs to improve. We had the news that we were losing content dropped in the changelog, with no announcement or front page notification. We then had a "clarification" post dropped in, that didn't address any of the issues raised, and then no official communication for days, while we were left scrambling to come up with workarounds.
Multiple people on the forums have spent hours of time researching what the ramifications of the changes would be and trying to come up with fixes, and many more have had to spend time looking for alternative services to use (many of whom are unlikely to return). Not to mention the stress for all of us that were facing massive disruption to (or even ending of) our games.
DDB needs to start communicating with it's users properly. That means keeping us informed properly i.e. not leaving announcements until the last minute or when it's too late to change, and not hiding them in changelogs and forums that most users don't visit, and also listening to and responding to our concerns. The current system of leaving mods\CM's to "pass on feedback" but never responding to it needs to be changed. (Not a knock on the mods/CM's)
Even with this reversal, welcome as it is, there's no apology for the distress they've caused, no acknowledgement that what they were proposing was contrary to all their previous messaging, or even an explanation why they thought preserving some aspects but not others would be a good solution. And to add to their point about misjudging the situation, if they had communicated with us before making the announcement they would have known that it was a bad idea, and probably caused much less resentment from the userbase.
As things stand, I'm still unsure whether to resubscribe. I'm pleased they've seen sense over these changes, but unless the level of communication changes I know it's just a matter of time before the next debacle. If the only way we can be heard continues to be through mass unsubscribing then I have no interest in being a customer. I have 3 weeks left on my current subscription, I will see if there's any sign of change by then.
Finally, can I thank spamandtuna & UndyingNoob for their great moderation over the last few days, both in patiently answering questions (from some very irate users, including myself), and for having a light touch with the channel moderation, which helped defuse some of the tension in here.
So surprised and happy with the latest news on this, glad to see they have changed how they plan to implement the new books being integrated on the site!
Hey all, we've heard your feedback and have published an article outlining our plan going forward. You can read it here. Thank you!
If I'm understanding the scope of this, & I hope I am, this is definitely a step in the right direction.
I wonder about implementing a toggle on the searchable compendium itself to change tooltips between the games but this solves the biggest immediate work-intensive game-disruptive headaches & definitely buys much needed time & hopefully reduces the temperature.
For future reference: consultation with dms would have highlighted the issues with your previous proposal that caused you and us a bunch of heartache. If you wish to be considered a reliable subscription service, I suggest adding more customer consultation into your business processes.
Hey all, we've heard your feedback and have published an article outlining our plan going forward. You can read it here. Thank you!
This is a good move. Keeping our spells and items is very important.
Though I will ask a question: Why did DDB decide to go the other route in the first place? If the change was as easy to reverse as it seems to have been, why try to make it in the first place?
Also, just to double-check, will Warlock Invocations that grant spells also remain unaffected?
That said, I'm glad to see the decision to replace our spells and items was reversed.
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!
I think that's a very reasonable stance to take. If fully delivered on, great news from the DDB staff that solves our concerns. But like you, still on guard in case there ends up being any weasel-wording.
It's a pity I had to deleted a handful of characters to fit in the 6 character limit to unsubscribe in the first place, but oh well.
I've never dealt with any subscriptions myself. But if there's something in the future I don't think you actually need to delete the extra characters to unsubscribe. You just choose which 6 to keep access to but the others can still be there in case you resubscribe in the future.
From my DM perspective, it looked more profitable for WoTC to give the opportunity to use which ruleset you want to use on DDB, so you can catch monthly fees from both 2014 and 2024 players. If the concern is: will people buy 2024 products? If the products are good, they will. The products will be good, right? So don't worry, dear shareholders.
My last concern before deciding if I keep using DDB for my games (rather than going back to pen and paper): will the encounter builder be backward compatible also? Will it be possible to use 2014 stats blocks? I didn't find the answer, sorry if it has been said somewhere already.
From my DM perspective, it looked more profitable for WoTC to give the opportunity to use which ruleset you want to use on DDB, so you can catch monthly fees from both 2014 and 2024 players. If the concern is: will people buy 2024 products? If the products are good, they will. The products will be good, right? So don't worry, dear shareholders.
My last concern before deciding if I keep using DDB for my games (rather than going back to pen and paper): will the encounter builder be backward compatible also? Will it be possible to use 2014 stats block? I didn't find the answer, sorry if it has been said somewhere already.
Considering that we already had a stance of Legacy things on monsters and the encounter builder (different from spells and items, which we do not had a stance of those things being legacy), is way more likely that the encounter builder will stay the same with the release of the new monster manual, probably just adding a "legacy" tag on 2014 monsters.
If not, well... we can do all this again until they learn.
I expect that the monsters in the encounter builder will be fine. As I understand it, the issue was that they were going to overwrite the 2014 spells and magic items with the 2024 ones. This would mean that anything 2014 (be it a character reference or a monster statblock) would still link to the same spell or magic item, which would now be the 2024 version.
However, since they are now going to make it so the 2014 and 2024 spells and magic items both exist in the system separately, then I would imagine that anything that currently links to a 2014 spell or magic item (including 2014 monster statblocks) should still link to that same bit of code. Only the 2024 characters and monsters should point to the 2024 bits of code.
Unless I'm misunderstanding something, that ought to be how it works going forward.
I can live with the minor relabeling / renaming of things.
I expect that the monsters in the encounter builder will be fine. As I understand it, the issue was that they were going to overwrite the 2014 spells and magic items with the 2024 ones. This would mean that anything 2014 (be it a character reference or a monster statblock) would still link to the same spell or magic item, which would now be the 2024 version.
Plus the original changelog mentioned the replacement of magic items, noting most of them would be later in the DMG. With no mentions of monsters and the fact that I'd be really surprised if after this they thought "Let's replace your monsters!" was a good idea I have to agree I wouldn't expect the monsters to be deleted, just legacy'd.
However, since they are now going to make it so the 2014 and 2024 spells and magic items both exist in the system separately, then I would imagine that anything that currently links to a 2014 spell or magic item (including 2014 monster statblocks) should still link to that same bit of code. Only the 2024 characters and monsters should point to the 2024 bits of code.
Unless I'm misunderstanding something, that ought to be how it works going forward.
I'm not sure about the direct links though. Tooltips were not mentioned in the new post. Also if you link something like apprentice wizard it links to the legacy Volo's appr wiz instead of the Monsters of the Multiverse appr wiz. To my knowledge there's no way to denote the source with such links. (If there is an someone knows it, please tell me!) So it might be a limitation to only point to one thing.
These sorts of mistakes are so frustrating, but its part of the business. The lack of clarity about the new edition is a major reason this came up at the last minute, rather than having been talked about months ago.
Now I just need to talk my DM's into continuing the campaigns that they shut down. I suspect it's to late for my Wednesday game as we started the final fight a few days ago.
Far from ideal (see 2dig2dug's comment above this one to see why), and I'm not going to resubscribe until I see the changes myself, but at least it's a step in the right direction.
Let's enjoy a win for now, my guy.
Let's see how the rest is handled, but for now, at least, we won't have to readapt to other platforms/systems to finish ongoing campaigns.
I feel sorry for the people who tried to give this website a chance and lost countless hours researching and making copies of 2014 spells as homebrew as previously suggested.
I literally just unsubscribed, *****ed about it here and looked for alternatives, no way I'm working to fix another person's mistakes. Glad they did though.
@DnDBeyond Team,
Thank you very much for reverting the planned changes. I appreciate you listening to and taking positive action based on the community's feedback.
I an sorry for any employees who may have had to do unplanned work during the weekend based on decisions from management that they had no control of.
I copied them, but I had access to just go through and use every spell as a template one by one with just a rename to have " (2014)" on the ends. Except for Summon Dragon (rename of Summon Draconic Spirit) but I have the physical book and the changes were easy using Celestial as a template.
I will be renewing my subscription as soon as the new books roll out and the tool set works as it always has, hell I may even buy the new books now!
ETA: 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.
Petition to give the development teams a bonus!
As wild as the last-minute feature announcements are for the community, I have to imagine they're a lot rougher on the staff who have to implement them... especially when there's literally a week left until the probably-locked-into-the-paper-publishing-cycle deadline.
Thanks to all the testers, engineers, designers, and content specialists who work on this site - hope you're doing ok with this rollout. <3
As others have stated, I'll be awaiting to see exactly how the updates land before considering the status of my currently cancelled subscription. I don't even want to see 2024 terminology changes at a character sheet level, e.g. race vs species, so will have to judge first-hand when the time comes. Can see that change will still be an impact with the revised plan, albeit a minor one. A glimmer of hope, but trust has been broken too many times now to jump back on the wagon.
I'm just going to post what I put in the discord...
So surprised and happy with the latest news on this, glad to see they have changed how they plan to implement the new books being integrated on the site!
If I'm understanding the scope of this, & I hope I am, this is definitely a step in the right direction.
I wonder about implementing a toggle on the searchable compendium itself to change tooltips between the games but this solves the biggest immediate work-intensive game-disruptive headaches & definitely buys much needed time & hopefully reduces the temperature.
Because Robots.
Thanks for adjusting plans.
For future reference: consultation with dms would have highlighted the issues with your previous proposal that caused you and us a bunch of heartache. If you wish to be considered a reliable subscription service, I suggest adding more customer consultation into your business processes.
This is a good move. Keeping our spells and items is very important.
Though I will ask a question: Why did DDB decide to go the other route in the first place? If the change was as easy to reverse as it seems to have been, why try to make it in the first place?
Also, just to double-check, will Warlock Invocations that grant spells also remain unaffected?
That said, I'm glad to see the decision to replace our spells and items was reversed.
This is a signature. It was a simple signature. But it has been upgraded.
Belolonandalogalo, Sunny | Draíocht, Kholias | Eggo Lass, 100 Dungeons
Talorin Tebedi, Vecna: Eve | Cherry, Stormwreck | Chipper, Strahd
We Are Modron
Get rickrolled here. Awesome music here. Track 48, 5/23/25, Immaculate Mary
I think that's a very reasonable stance to take. If fully delivered on, great news from the DDB staff that solves our concerns. But like you, still on guard in case there ends up being any weasel-wording.
I've never dealt with any subscriptions myself. But if there's something in the future I don't think you actually need to delete the extra characters to unsubscribe. You just choose which 6 to keep access to but the others can still be there in case you resubscribe in the future.
This is a signature. It was a simple signature. But it has been upgraded.
Belolonandalogalo, Sunny | Draíocht, Kholias | Eggo Lass, 100 Dungeons
Talorin Tebedi, Vecna: Eve | Cherry, Stormwreck | Chipper, Strahd
We Are Modron
Get rickrolled here. Awesome music here. Track 48, 5/23/25, Immaculate Mary
Lazy
From my DM perspective, it looked more profitable for WoTC to give the opportunity to use which ruleset you want to use on DDB, so you can catch monthly fees from both 2014 and 2024 players. If the concern is: will people buy 2024 products? If the products are good, they will. The products will be good, right? So don't worry, dear shareholders.
My last concern before deciding if I keep using DDB for my games (rather than going back to pen and paper): will the encounter builder be backward compatible also? Will it be possible to use 2014 stats blocks? I didn't find the answer, sorry if it has been said somewhere already.
Considering that we already had a stance of Legacy things on monsters and the encounter builder (different from spells and items, which we do not had a stance of those things being legacy), is way more likely that the encounter builder will stay the same with the release of the new monster manual, probably just adding a "legacy" tag on 2014 monsters.
If not, well... we can do all this again until they learn.
This is welcome news!
I expect that the monsters in the encounter builder will be fine. As I understand it, the issue was that they were going to overwrite the 2014 spells and magic items with the 2024 ones. This would mean that anything 2014 (be it a character reference or a monster statblock) would still link to the same spell or magic item, which would now be the 2024 version.
However, since they are now going to make it so the 2014 and 2024 spells and magic items both exist in the system separately, then I would imagine that anything that currently links to a 2014 spell or magic item (including 2014 monster statblocks) should still link to that same bit of code. Only the 2024 characters and monsters should point to the 2024 bits of code.
Unless I'm misunderstanding something, that ought to be how it works going forward.
I can live with the minor relabeling / renaming of things.
Plus the original changelog mentioned the replacement of magic items, noting most of them would be later in the DMG. With no mentions of monsters and the fact that I'd be really surprised if after this they thought "Let's replace your monsters!" was a good idea I have to agree I wouldn't expect the monsters to be deleted, just legacy'd.
I'm not sure about the direct links though. Tooltips were not mentioned in the new post. Also if you link something like apprentice wizard it links to the legacy Volo's appr wiz instead of the Monsters of the Multiverse appr wiz. To my knowledge there's no way to denote the source with such links. (If there is an someone knows it, please tell me!) So it might be a limitation to only point to one thing.
This is a signature. It was a simple signature. But it has been upgraded.
Belolonandalogalo, Sunny | Draíocht, Kholias | Eggo Lass, 100 Dungeons
Talorin Tebedi, Vecna: Eve | Cherry, Stormwreck | Chipper, Strahd
We Are Modron
Get rickrolled here. Awesome music here. Track 48, 5/23/25, Immaculate Mary