This is the issue. You can play DnD without this website. The reason we use it is because it is convenient. Changing the rules to a game in progress is extremely inconvenient and will make many people reconsider what platform they use to run the game.
Taking away something that people wanted and paid for and replacing it with something that don’t want and didn’t pay for… isn’t better. It’s exactly what they said they were going to do in the first post yesterday and it’s exactly what we had an issue with.
you misunderstanding and thinking they were just removing all spells from your character sheets altogether, was YOU misunderstanding the issue.
giving me something I do not want, for free, and taking away the thing I actually want that I’ve paid hundreds of pounds for… is not a benefit to me and their is no amount of posts you can make that changes that very simple fact.
if I bought linen trousers that I loved and someone took them away and gave me new silk trousers that I don’t like… that isn’t a gift, that’s theft and that’s basically what’s happening here. (And that’s being kind because honestly the spells are not an upgrade)
Is replacing content in the toolset better than simply removing the content entirely, leaving you only the compendium? Do you think there is no meaningful difference at all? Are you trying to argue that 1 is 0?
It is not my misunderstanding. I can cite you hundreds of posts from the other change log thread that communicate that understanding. If you need that proof, here you go.
Degree of benefit is beyond the scope of my position here. I have no interest in that discussion and I have maintained that position consistently for 9 pages now.
Dude, I came here because someone I know linked me here while having a minor meltdown about what I view as a pretty minor issue. I scrolled through the responses to gauge the room and I can indeed say that, from my perspective, most of these responses are insanely overblown.
That being said, I can completely agree with them that your responses feel almost willfully ignorant of what people are arguing. Maybe it's not willful.
Either way, it is clear that in this case, "better" is NOT an objective term. And telling people they're getting the new ruleset for free is "better" makes assumptions about what they intend to do in the future. If I'm undergoing chemo for cancer and they take away my chemo drugs and give me insulin instead, you could argue "Having insulin is better than nothing" but that feels like an intensely bad-faith argument. In that instance, the insulin benefits me not at all. Hoarders use a similar logic to justify their behavior.
I want to be on your side and tell people to chill, but reading your responses frustrated me enough that I had to comment.
Hey guys, I can't read pretty well without my glasses. Can anyone tell me what's written on this page for the Player's handbook (2014) product details?
It appears to say "Purchase a digital copy of this book unlocks it for use in the D&D Beyond compendium and toolset."
Weird. That can't be right. Because they're only giving compendium access. Are you sure you didn't doctor that image?
This isn't better. This was explained in their first announcement. This post has changed nothing. Getting rules I do not want and cannot use with my character is not a good thing.
I never said 'good' a single time in this thread. Please read my posts for what they are.
Unecessary? WOTC is a billion dollar company and doesn't need random forum users to run PR for them.
This doesn't make the changes any better. It's still making it nigh impossible to use the app to play using the 5E.14 ruleset. Why would I use the app if I have to reference the compendium? The entire USP of the app is that the spells are accessible in one place, now it's actually worse than just using a book or searching the spell on google.
Getting updated spells and magic items for free, without giving them a dime for it, does make the changes better. A lot better. Before, it seemed as though you were just up the creek without a paddle and had to homebrew to even make your character sheet functional. Now, it will just be replaced with the most up to date versions. Very different and much better.
The problem is that we're not just getting updated spells and magic items - we're losing the spells and magic items that we have in the process. Not everyone wants the new versions of things. Not every campaign plans on updating to 2024. Forcing character sheets to use the updated version and telling us to homebrew everything in ruins the one thing D&D Beyond has going for it: ease of use (because I can just do that on a sheet of paper).
Agreed. If I was able to keep my current 5.0 spells and items and DDB was just deciding to give me their 5.5 equivalents too even without me purchasing the 5.5 PHB/DMG my thoughts would be, "Weird. But okay. Neat I guess." There'd be zero anger. I might never use it, but I'd have no reason to take issue with the decision.
I'd also have zero anger if they were said, "Just because you own the 5.0 PHB/DMG doesn't mean you'll get 5.5 PHB/DMG content for free." I never expected that either.
The only thing we want is to be able to continue using the 5.0 content we paid for.
The vast majority of us don't care if "we still have access to x, y, and z through the compendium", we're complaining that the materials we have paid for will no longer be available for use without having to go through pain staking work to homebrew them.
This site already houses MILLIONS of homebrew spells, subclasses, monsters, and magic items. Now you're telling EVERYONE who wants to use 2014 spells and magic items to pound sand and make homebrew versions. Those of us with even half a brain already know that because it's already official content, that DNDBeyond will DENY any attempt at publishing said homebrewed 2014 spells. Which means you're going to flood your servers with THOUSANDS if not MILLIONS of different entries for something that is ALREADY IN YOUR DATABASE
Instead of FORCING this change to the 2024 spells and magic items, MAKE LEGACY VERSIONS! Rather than flooding your database with unnecessary duplicate homebrew entries for things you already have, just give us the option to use the original or the new. It may double the official listings, but double is better than increasing it 100 fold or more.
And for rules, just compound the old and new into the same tooltip with a toggle! That way the tooltip can show the old or the new, whichever the player/DM is using, and the official page for it can detail both options. The vast majority of this website looks as though it runs off HTML coding, and while I don't know jack diddly about HOW to do this, I do know that you can make it to where you can toggle between two different entries on the same page. Look at wiki page for the game Elsword, elwiki.net, and you'll see that they do this CONSTANTLY.
Get your heads out of your rear ends and GIVE YOUR CUSTOMERS WHAT THEY WANT. This is how you get people to pirate products and go to free sources. People would LOVE to fund DNDBeyond and WotC, it's the whole reason why people have spent money on this site, even though there are other alternatives. But by doing things like this, you're making it not worth it. What used to be considered the best convenience that was only getting better is now turning into an absolute crap fest.
At this point, I'm about to start investing in Paizo again instead and either go back to Pathfinder, or pick up Pathfinder 2e, because this? This is getting ridiculous.
Hey guys, I can't read pretty well without my glasses. Can anyone tell me what's written on this page for the Player's handbook (2014) product details?
It appears to say "Purchase a digital copy of this book unlocks it for use in the D&D Beyond compendium and toolset."
Weird. That can't be right. Because they're only giving compendium access. Are you sure you didn't doctor that image?
( /s on the "doctoring image" part obviously.)
I don't know, I do think I need to see my doctor, I can't believe what my eyes are seeing. So it says when you buy this you can use it on D&D Toolset as well? WOW, that's amazing!!! I thought I could only access the compendium, which is shit, but since I can use on my sheets on DnD Beyond I will be buying right now! Hope nothing bad ever comes from this.
Dude, I came here because someone I know linked me here while having a minor meltdown about what I view as a pretty minor issue. I scrolled through the responses to gauge the room and I can indeed say that, from my perspective, most of these responses are insanely overblown.
That being said, I can completely agree with them that your responses feel almost willfully ignorant of what people are arguing. Maybe it's not willful.
Either way, it is clear that in this case, "better" is NOT an objective term. And telling people they're getting the new ruleset for free is "better" makes assumptions about what they intend to do in the future. If I'm undergoing chemo for cancer and they take away my chemo drugs and give me insulin instead, you could argue "Having insulin is better than nothing" but that feels like an intensely bad-faith argument. In that instance, the insulin benefits me not at all. Hoarders use a similar logic to justify their behavior.
I want to be on your side and tell people to chill, but reading your responses frustrated me enough that I had to comment.
No, I am refusing to engage in the specific subject of feelings that people continually try to draw me into defending. That is not ignorance, that is a refusal to adopt a position that was never mine.
How one feels about the replacement is not what my post was addressing. Given that the general understanding yesterday was that people were losing content in the toolset and having to use the compendium or homebrew only, and how that compares to the current understanding of us having old content in the toolset replaced with new content for free is what I am arguing. I am sorry that my unwillingness to engage in other conversations not relevant to my initial post has frustrated you.
And for rules, just compound the old and new into the same tooltip with a toggle! That way the tooltip can show the old or the new, whichever the player/DM is using, and the official page for it can detail both options.
That's actually pretty nifty. I'd been thinking about how they have issues when the same tooltip links to the same monster (see apprentice wizard for example where there's a Volo's and MotM.) But having dual sets of rules so you can quick lookup is a decent idea.
Only thing I could see is that WotC has wanted to insist it's just all 5e and having two sets of rules listed would break that illusion. But that's WotC's issue to deal with, not ours.
What if we don't want the free rules? Can the DM set the toggle for what sources are available?
Is there anyway of opting out until we've had a chance to review them? I'd much prefer an option to claim the rules that have them thrust on me.
Spells in the compendium aren't useful to me. The main reason we use dnd beyond is for building and running characters - if I can't do that it's much less useful for me.
I shouldn't have to spend time recreating spells/magic items and functionality to continue my previous level of service.
Hey guys, I can't read pretty well without my glasses. Can anyone tell me what's written on this page for the Player's handbook (2014) product details?
you need to save this. because they will alter that description in a way that it will look like it was never changed. this screenshot will be the only proof that they altered it and people will know they lied.
Also in case it's not clear to some of the contrarian posters here, a lot of spells got minor tweaks that are mostly congruent with existing builds, but then spells like Conjure Animals were changed from a spell that conjured animals to a spell that does not actually conjure animals. Some new spells are also massively overpowered, like Conjure Minor Elementals, which for some inexplicable reason scales ~4x harder than Spirit Shroud with slightly more range.
Your post is written under the assumption that people want to use the 5.24 rules, which they don't, or that the 5.24 rules are better than the 5.14 rules, which they aren't.
But anyway, people saying the compendium is useless clearly don't DM lol. The compendium (for monsters, spells, and magic items) is exceeding useful when doing session prep.
Quote from Erik_Soong >> No, I am refusing to engage in the specific subject of feelings that people continually try to draw me into defending. That is not ignorance, that is a refusal to adopt a position that was never mine.
Hey there, been watching this thread. If you won't engage in bad faith arguments, you've already stated your position and are clogging the thread by repeating it. It might be a good time to walk away and stop engaging. I say this as gently and constructively as possible.
If you reply to me, I'm not going to reply to you. Good luck.
Appreciate you attempting to provide clarity and I realize you're just the messenger here and likely have little to no say or sway over the message itself, but this update is so fundamentally off the mark of the majority of people's concerns with positive intent (obviously there are folks who didn't understand, participating in bad faith, or being straight up rude.)
The concern is my player's character sheets and using the 'legacy' content there. We've been hearing repeatedly from the PR tour WotC has been doing across socials and their own marketing that we won't be forced to move to these updates to 5e when Wizards dictates it. Ginny Di asked this question repeatedly in a dozen different ways in her interview with Jeremy Crawford and he said repeatedly that things would be backwards compatible and we wouldnt be forced into the new version.
And then the decision is made to remove this content from the character sheets and force update it to the new editions.
It literally can't be both possible that we're not being forced by Wizards to use the new versions of things AND Wizards removes support for 2014 spells and items in character sheets. Even if that's not Wizard's intention, you have to understand how that makes the company look like it has renegged on a promise it made to it's customers and you make Crawford look like someone who cannot be relied upon for the truth.
I have cancelled my subscription of over half a decade. This is an entirely unacceptable decision whose motivations I cannot possibly fathom outside of greed, laziness, or bad faith. I don't want to believe that's true, but I am so genuinely baffled by this decision and the way it seems to be so haphazardly handled.
Most of the people posting here are new to the forums with little or no post history. None of them have 1k+ posts. I can imagine thats because most of them were happy playing DND until they found out that what they paid for is being taken from them.
They are posting here to make complaints because Wotc is removing access to content they paid for. Content that clearly states that buying it unlocks it for use with the dndbeyond tools and charactor sheets. Content we have owned and had licence too for years. Content that is designed to work with the dozens of adventure books that are also sold on this site. This "update" will break people's charactors and entire campaigns which are balanced and designed for books using 2014 rules and spells.
You say " I have no interest in that discussion and I have maintained that position consistently for 9 pages now." but if that was the case you would just let people log their valid complaints in this thread instead of trying to defend Wotc's position. I apoligise in advance if that isn't the case.
How many posts have I made here that were not direct responses to direct replies or implied attacks on me? From my count, only one post at all. If people only wanted to log their valid complaints, they would do so. That is not what has been happening though and I have stood in front of no one here trying to do so. In fact, I expressed a non-zero level of dissatisfaction myself early in this thread specifically to address many incorrect assumptions about my person and my motives.
Quit licking the boot. People want what they want. They don't want what someone else tells them they're supposed to want. The reason this is happening is quite clear, Hasbro wants to sell more D&D product, so they're trying to push the new ruleset and make people buy the books that support it. But many of us just want what we already paid for, unchanged like the physical books are. There's literally no reason they can't do that, they've done it before. Doing what they're doing is more work than just leaving things alone and making new entries for the new content.
Your post is written under the assumption that people want to use the 5.24 rules, which they don't, or that the 5.24 rules are better than the 5.14 rules, which they aren't.
But anyway, people saying the compendium is useless clearly don't DM lol. The compendium (for monsters, spells, and magic items) is exceeding useful when doing session prep.
It is not written under any such assumption at all.
I do agree with you that the compendium has value.
Fix this now, or I cancel my subscription and never use your site again. I paid to have access to the 2014 5e version of this game and to use that for character creation and to give my access to my players so we are all on the same page. I have finally got my players to remember their spells and know what they are doing. You want to give me access to the new stuff, sounds great until my player actually wants to cast a spell and it isn't exactly what they expect.
This is the issue. You can play DnD without this website. The reason we use it is because it is convenient. Changing the rules to a game in progress is extremely inconvenient and will make many people reconsider what platform they use to run the game.
Dude, I came here because someone I know linked me here while having a minor meltdown about what I view as a pretty minor issue. I scrolled through the responses to gauge the room and I can indeed say that, from my perspective, most of these responses are insanely overblown.
That being said, I can completely agree with them that your responses feel almost willfully ignorant of what people are arguing. Maybe it's not willful.
Either way, it is clear that in this case, "better" is NOT an objective term. And telling people they're getting the new ruleset for free is "better" makes assumptions about what they intend to do in the future. If I'm undergoing chemo for cancer and they take away my chemo drugs and give me insulin instead, you could argue "Having insulin is better than nothing" but that feels like an intensely bad-faith argument. In that instance, the insulin benefits me not at all. Hoarders use a similar logic to justify their behavior.
I want to be on your side and tell people to chill, but reading your responses frustrated me enough that I had to comment.
It appears to say "Purchase a digital copy of this book unlocks it for use in the D&D Beyond compendium and toolset."
Weird. That can't be right. Because they're only giving compendium access. Are you sure you didn't doctor that image?
( /s on the "doctoring image" part obviously.)
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Unecessary? WOTC is a billion dollar company and doesn't need random forum users to run PR for them.
Agreed. If I was able to keep my current 5.0 spells and items and DDB was just deciding to give me their 5.5 equivalents too even without me purchasing the 5.5 PHB/DMG my thoughts would be, "Weird. But okay. Neat I guess." There'd be zero anger. I might never use it, but I'd have no reason to take issue with the decision.
I'd also have zero anger if they were said, "Just because you own the 5.0 PHB/DMG doesn't mean you'll get 5.5 PHB/DMG content for free." I never expected that either.
The only thing we want is to be able to continue using the 5.0 content we paid for.
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The vast majority of us don't care if "we still have access to x, y, and z through the compendium", we're complaining that the materials we have paid for will no longer be available for use without having to go through pain staking work to homebrew them.
This site already houses MILLIONS of homebrew spells, subclasses, monsters, and magic items. Now you're telling EVERYONE who wants to use 2014 spells and magic items to pound sand and make homebrew versions. Those of us with even half a brain already know that because it's already official content, that DNDBeyond will DENY any attempt at publishing said homebrewed 2014 spells. Which means you're going to flood your servers with THOUSANDS if not MILLIONS of different entries for something that is ALREADY IN YOUR DATABASE
Instead of FORCING this change to the 2024 spells and magic items, MAKE LEGACY VERSIONS! Rather than flooding your database with unnecessary duplicate homebrew entries for things you already have, just give us the option to use the original or the new. It may double the official listings, but double is better than increasing it 100 fold or more.
And for rules, just compound the old and new into the same tooltip with a toggle! That way the tooltip can show the old or the new, whichever the player/DM is using, and the official page for it can detail both options. The vast majority of this website looks as though it runs off HTML coding, and while I don't know jack diddly about HOW to do this, I do know that you can make it to where you can toggle between two different entries on the same page. Look at wiki page for the game Elsword, elwiki.net, and you'll see that they do this CONSTANTLY.
Get your heads out of your rear ends and GIVE YOUR CUSTOMERS WHAT THEY WANT. This is how you get people to pirate products and go to free sources. People would LOVE to fund DNDBeyond and WotC, it's the whole reason why people have spent money on this site, even though there are other alternatives. But by doing things like this, you're making it not worth it. What used to be considered the best convenience that was only getting better is now turning into an absolute crap fest.
At this point, I'm about to start investing in Paizo again instead and either go back to Pathfinder, or pick up Pathfinder 2e, because this? This is getting ridiculous.
I don't know, I do think I need to see my doctor, I can't believe what my eyes are seeing.
So it says when you buy this you can use it on D&D Toolset as well? WOW, that's amazing!!!
I thought I could only access the compendium, which is shit, but since I can use on my sheets on DnD Beyond I will be buying right now!
Hope nothing bad ever comes from this.
No, I am refusing to engage in the specific subject of feelings that people continually try to draw me into defending. That is not ignorance, that is a refusal to adopt a position that was never mine.
How one feels about the replacement is not what my post was addressing. Given that the general understanding yesterday was that people were losing content in the toolset and having to use the compendium or homebrew only, and how that compares to the current understanding of us having old content in the toolset replaced with new content for free is what I am arguing. I am sorry that my unwillingness to engage in other conversations not relevant to my initial post has frustrated you.
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That's actually pretty nifty. I'd been thinking about how they have issues when the same tooltip links to the same monster (see apprentice wizard for example where there's a Volo's and MotM.) But having dual sets of rules so you can quick lookup is a decent idea.
Only thing I could see is that WotC has wanted to insist it's just all 5e and having two sets of rules listed would break that illusion. But that's WotC's issue to deal with, not ours.
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What if we don't want the free rules? Can the DM set the toggle for what sources are available?
Is there anyway of opting out until we've had a chance to review them? I'd much prefer an option to claim the rules that have them thrust on me.
Spells in the compendium aren't useful to me. The main reason we use dnd beyond is for building and running characters - if I can't do that it's much less useful for me.
I shouldn't have to spend time recreating spells/magic items and functionality to continue my previous level of service.
you need to save this. because they will alter that description in a way that it will look like it was never changed. this screenshot will be the only proof that they altered it and people will know they lied.
Also in case it's not clear to some of the contrarian posters here, a lot of spells got minor tweaks that are mostly congruent with existing builds, but then spells like Conjure Animals were changed from a spell that conjured animals to a spell that does not actually conjure animals. Some new spells are also massively overpowered, like Conjure Minor Elementals, which for some inexplicable reason scales ~4x harder than Spirit Shroud with slightly more range.
Your post is written under the assumption that people want to use the 5.24 rules, which they don't, or that the 5.24 rules are better than the 5.14 rules, which they aren't.
But anyway, people saying the compendium is useless clearly don't DM lol. The compendium (for monsters, spells, and magic items) is exceeding useful when doing session prep.
Hey there, been watching this thread. If you won't engage in bad faith arguments, you've already stated your position and are clogging the thread by repeating it. It might be a good time to walk away and stop engaging. I say this as gently and constructively as possible.
If you reply to me, I'm not going to reply to you. Good luck.
Appreciate you attempting to provide clarity and I realize you're just the messenger here and likely have little to no say or sway over the message itself, but this update is so fundamentally off the mark of the majority of people's concerns with positive intent (obviously there are folks who didn't understand, participating in bad faith, or being straight up rude.)
The concern is my player's character sheets and using the 'legacy' content there. We've been hearing repeatedly from the PR tour WotC has been doing across socials and their own marketing that we won't be forced to move to these updates to 5e when Wizards dictates it. Ginny Di asked this question repeatedly in a dozen different ways in her interview with Jeremy Crawford and he said repeatedly that things would be backwards compatible and we wouldnt be forced into the new version.
And then the decision is made to remove this content from the character sheets and force update it to the new editions.
It literally can't be both possible that we're not being forced by Wizards to use the new versions of things AND Wizards removes support for 2014 spells and items in character sheets. Even if that's not Wizard's intention, you have to understand how that makes the company look like it has renegged on a promise it made to it's customers and you make Crawford look like someone who cannot be relied upon for the truth.
I have cancelled my subscription of over half a decade. This is an entirely unacceptable decision whose motivations I cannot possibly fathom outside of greed, laziness, or bad faith. I don't want to believe that's true, but I am so genuinely baffled by this decision and the way it seems to be so haphazardly handled.
How many posts have I made here that were not direct responses to direct replies or implied attacks on me? From my count, only one post at all. If people only wanted to log their valid complaints, they would do so. That is not what has been happening though and I have stood in front of no one here trying to do so. In fact, I expressed a non-zero level of dissatisfaction myself early in this thread specifically to address many incorrect assumptions about my person and my motives.
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Quit licking the boot. People want what they want. They don't want what someone else tells them they're supposed to want. The reason this is happening is quite clear, Hasbro wants to sell more D&D product, so they're trying to push the new ruleset and make people buy the books that support it. But many of us just want what we already paid for, unchanged like the physical books are. There's literally no reason they can't do that, they've done it before. Doing what they're doing is more work than just leaving things alone and making new entries for the new content.
It is not written under any such assumption at all.
I do agree with you that the compendium has value.
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Answer this person, mods!
Fix this now, or I cancel my subscription and never use your site again. I paid to have access to the 2014 5e version of this game and to use that for character creation and to give my access to my players so we are all on the same page. I have finally got my players to remember their spells and know what they are doing. You want to give me access to the new stuff, sounds great until my player actually wants to cast a spell and it isn't exactly what they expect.
Don't make me buy pathfinder 2.