It was very clear already. We just don't liked it. We do not want a lesser version of a .pdf, we don't want to be able to access older spells and items only through the compedium, WE WANT IT IN OUR SHEETS!
We bought the books here to use on our sheets, not to consult in the compendium, overwriting spells and magic items is taking things content that we bought. You sell us this, you sell content to put in their character sheet, and not you are taking away. This is not an update, because this is not the same system. This is robbing us of a product we pay and replacing with half of a product we don't want.
You already have a system in place that works, and instead of duplicating that system for whoever what's to use, you are just forcing everybody to stick with the rules of the new edition. You are going to make thousand of campaigns a lot harder by changing this content for groups that were already established to play 5e, not 5.5e, not 5e2024 or whatever you're calling this.
I will repeat here my other comment:
Today, when you create a character, the first page that you are presented with is this one:
If they could simply make something similar instead of a toggle, not even the legacy badge would be necessary to be visible.
Just let the people creating the character decide if they want to use 2014 or 2024 rules right after they click "Create a New Character". Not a toggle in the home settings of the sheet, but an option before character creation.
If a user chooses to create a 2014 character, they are presented with the same options that always existed in DnD Beyond, you already HAVE that system.
If they choose to create a 2024 character, they instead go to this new character creation and character sheet designed for 2024.
I can't see a reason for not doing that besides wanting to tire users into adapting for 2024, eventually selling more books. If that's the plan, I do hope it fails miserably.
THIS! It should be this!
We have been begging for them to tell us how DDB will change for months, and they finally do so weeks before the release in a CHANGELOG?! All the articles they’ve published on the front page praising the 2024 edition. All the interview videos with smiling faces telling us how it is all better and they listened to feedback! And this is how they respond.
They promised backwards compatibility. Lie. Just let people choose!
adding my name to the list of people who will be cancelling their subscription if the 2014 content is no longer accessible from character creator or character sheets.
I had little interest in moving over to the 2024 5.5e and this is guaranteeing that I never purchase a product on DnDBeyond ever again.
Adding my voice to the ones who will be canceling their subscription if this unwanted change is forced upon us. I'm in the middle of DMing two long campaigns and the players don't want to have to look up spells they are casting because the one on their sheets have been updated without their consent. We don't consent to this being force upon us. I'm sure this is more of a Hasbro decision than Wizards but stop telling us one thing and doing the exact opposite. The first videos for the 2024e talked about how we'd still be able to play our 2014 characters and games without updating to the new rules and now that's a bold face lie unless we just don't use beyond.
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.
This does feel like the marketing people have backed everyone into a corner by promoting it as the same edition just refreshed (because 5e is still moving units), but also not errata (because then you can't sell a whole new set of books)
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Thanks, I hate it. Me and my players are cancelling our subscriptions as soon as possible. I paid for the 2014 PHB so I could be able to create character sheets with easy access to 2014 rules, including spells and magic items. I'm not planning to change to 2024 edition mid campaign, and if I can't have the thing I paid for there is no reason to keep using D&D Beyond.
And the argument "but you're getting something better" doesn't work. I'm getting something I never asked for and losing something I paid for.
This is a very poor decision, impacting those who are still running 2014 ruleset campaigns. Most of us actively using DBB currently will be, whether updating to 2024 rules or not.
I encourage ddb to change this policy, or risk losing *many* customers.
I second what pretty much everyone here is saying. The issue isn’t what you’ve listed here - these are things we’ve been aware of.
The issue is that forcing a loyal customer into using a rule change on your character sheets isn’t OK. People are mid-campaign, or use DnD Beyond because it’s convenient to help new players make sheets and have access to things.
By locking out players who have used this tool for years, you’re telling paying customers they don’t matter, and that you don’t care.
The issue that needs fixed is how you’re treating your customers who have been playing DnD for years, and who have been spending hard earned money on a tool of convenience. When the tool is no longer convenient, it becomes obsolete.
If these changes move forward as planned, count me as someone who will be deleting my subscription and my players will go back to pen and paper.
I cannot stress how much this still screws over my players- they're going to have spells they've been using for six years suddenly get changed on their own character sheets and will have to go searching through the compendium (which, by the way, does NOT have a great search function, honestly) to find the correct wording.
Would it really have been so hard to just put in a toggle switch or fully gate off original 5e content from 5.5e?
It would honestly have been better if WOTC had just gone ahead and a made a whole new edition rather than trying to frankenstein a backwards compatible half-update, because then we could fully gate off the 5e and 6e, rather than getting a muddled 5.5e.
This shit (and every other controversy of the week over the last few years) is exactly the reason people like Critical Role are planning to move to their own systems rather than continue to support WOTC.
The strength of this website was that it was convenient and easy to use. I got an email from Roll20 literally yesterday about how they'll let you use the 2014 OR 2024 character sheets depending on your preference, which sure pretty pointed. If they can do it, why the hell can't you?
This is pretty disappointing. I paid for more than just the compendium content - with these changes I'd be losing integration onto character sheets for the updated spells and magic items. 5e'24 isn't just an errata, and shouldn't be treated as such.
This is souring me on 5e'24, and if I do go forward with the system then my digital integration and VTT almost certainly won't be with D&D Beyond.
This reeks of another underhanded play by WoTC and Hasbro to rectify the "under-monetization" of the brand, not by publishing new creative content, or innovating their product lines with new tools and ways to play that appeal to their fans and players.... but by creating roadblocks, barriers, and cough* licensing cough* their way into our wallets.
Hey, you... you're greedy subversions and blatantly obvious money grabs are building a reputation and frustrating one of the most amazingly creative and fearlessly active communities I've ever seen. They will leave you. Do better.
This is a software company being monumentally stupid. In this case the "custom is right" means nothing to them. This should have been an option on the character sheet to use 2014 rules. If you select this option, spells and items would be pulled from the 2014 rule set.
This will likely push me to leave dndbeyond and d&d overall. Like the optional spells for classes why not just make the spell list a toggleable thing in the character sheet with two different lists of the spells. One with a 14 badge/tag and a 24 badge/tag.
This system already exists in dndbeyond. How do you not just intelligently use the system you already have in place!
WotC 6 months ago: "You still be able to use the 2014 versions of spells and items on your character sheets." WotC now: "That was a lie"
If i had a nickle for every time WotC lied or backpedaled their previous statements, i'd have a concerning amount of nickles. Can't have shit these days.
I am not upset because I misunderstood. I am upset because I will no longer have access to the 2014 spells and magic items in the character builder without a ton of work on my part. Requiring us to homebrew literally HUNDREDS of items and spells is ridiculous. Isn't coding this stuff into the builder YOUR job? Wasn't that the deal? We pay you a ton of money, you do the tedious programming work for us? So you've taken our money and are now dumping the work back on us. Not cool.
Can you at least make the homebrew items yourselves and give us all access to it?
This Exactly. I already have hundreds of homebrew items in my library, if i were to create them all back to back it would take weeks. I'm not going to do that for all of the spells and items that i and my players should have access to since i bought the sourcebook. It should be a non-issue to just brand the old spells and items as "Legacy" as they did with monsters when the new sourcebooks came out. It's just a ploy to potentially force people to completely switch to their new edition for the ease of play. Absolutely disgusting.
It says right in the change log that the old rules will still be accessible In the character builder.
You don't understand the problem. Here, let me quote it to you:
we are updating game materials in the toolset and in tooltips to be in line with the 2024 Core Rulebooks. This change impacts the information you’ll find on your character sheet, in tooltips, and that is linked in the compendium.
Your character has a Greataxe equipped on their character sheet or you hover over the Greataxe tooltip in one of your books. You'll see an updated entry for that weapon that includes mention of the Greataxe’s mastery property, Cleave.
You want to reference the rules for Exhaustion, which were overhauled in the 2024 Player’s Handbook. When you navigate to conditions on your character sheet and click the entry for Exhaustion, you'll see the new rules for the condition, not the 2014 version of them. In a similar vein, any tooltips referencing Exhaustion will show the 2024 rules of the condition. If you want to see the 2014 rules for Exhaustion, you will need to navigate to its entry in the Basic Rules or in the 2014 Player’s Handbook in the compendium.
Your character has Healing Word prepared and you want to cast the spell. When you click on the spell on your character sheet, you will see the new version of Healing Word. However, you can still find the old version of Healing Word in your copy of the Basic Rules and the 2014 Player’s Handbook in the compendium.
Do you see the problem now?
What if I want to use the old exhaustion rules? Well, I can't do that on the character sheet.
What if I want to cast the old Conjure Animals spell? Well, I can't do that on the character sheet.
Etc. You don't lose access to the content in an overall sense, there's still a way to get it. But you do lose access to the content on the character sheet, which is what the complaint is.
it’s not better if you despise the changes like many do. If you like then, that is fine, play with the new 2024 rules. I, and many many people I know, think they are complete garbage, and have ZERO intention of ever playing them and want the content we paid for to be available when we create our characters not in a compendium.
If the solution to people wanting to use old versions of spells and magic items will be "just use the homebrew system", will it be possible to publish and bundle together 2014 versions of items and spells? From my understanding it's not currently possible to publish magic items that are highly similar to officially published items, and if each campaign has to manually write up and include each single spell and magic item they wanna use, that's pushing a lot of unnecessary work onto the players who want to use your platform.
THIS! It should be this!
We have been begging for them to tell us how DDB will change for months, and they finally do so weeks before the release in a CHANGELOG?! All the articles they’ve published on the front page praising the 2024 edition. All the interview videos with smiling faces telling us how it is all better and they listened to feedback! And this is how they respond.
They promised backwards compatibility. Lie. Just let people choose!
adding my name to the list of people who will be cancelling their subscription if the 2014 content is no longer accessible from character creator or character sheets.
I had little interest in moving over to the 2024 5.5e and this is guaranteeing that I never purchase a product on DnDBeyond ever again.
Adding my voice to the ones who will be canceling their subscription if this unwanted change is forced upon us. I'm in the middle of DMing two long campaigns and the players don't want to have to look up spells they are casting because the one on their sheets have been updated without their consent. We don't consent to this being force upon us. I'm sure this is more of a Hasbro decision than Wizards but stop telling us one thing and doing the exact opposite. The first videos for the 2024e talked about how we'd still be able to play our 2014 characters and games without updating to the new rules and now that's a bold face lie unless we just don't use beyond.
This does feel like the marketing people have backed everyone into a corner by promoting it as the same edition just refreshed (because 5e is still moving units), but also not errata (because then you can't sell a whole new set of books)
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Thanks, I hate it. Me and my players are cancelling our subscriptions as soon as possible. I paid for the 2014 PHB so I could be able to create character sheets with easy access to 2014 rules, including spells and magic items. I'm not planning to change to 2024 edition mid campaign, and if I can't have the thing I paid for there is no reason to keep using D&D Beyond.
And the argument "but you're getting something better" doesn't work. I'm getting something I never asked for and losing something I paid for.
This is a very poor decision, impacting those who are still running 2014 ruleset campaigns. Most of us actively using DBB currently will be, whether updating to 2024 rules or not.
I encourage ddb to change this policy, or risk losing *many* customers.
I second what pretty much everyone here is saying. The issue isn’t what you’ve listed here - these are things we’ve been aware of.
The issue is that forcing a loyal customer into using a rule change on your character sheets isn’t OK. People are mid-campaign, or use DnD Beyond because it’s convenient to help new players make sheets and have access to things.
By locking out players who have used this tool for years, you’re telling paying customers they don’t matter, and that you don’t care.
The issue that needs fixed is how you’re treating your customers who have been playing DnD for years, and who have been spending hard earned money on a tool of convenience. When the tool is no longer convenient, it becomes obsolete.
If these changes move forward as planned, count me as someone who will be deleting my subscription and my players will go back to pen and paper.
I cannot stress how much this still screws over my players- they're going to have spells they've been using for six years suddenly get changed on their own character sheets and will have to go searching through the compendium (which, by the way, does NOT have a great search function, honestly) to find the correct wording.
Would it really have been so hard to just put in a toggle switch or fully gate off original 5e content from 5.5e?
It would honestly have been better if WOTC had just gone ahead and a made a whole new edition rather than trying to frankenstein a backwards compatible half-update, because then we could fully gate off the 5e and 6e, rather than getting a muddled 5.5e.
This shit (and every other controversy of the week over the last few years) is exactly the reason people like Critical Role are planning to move to their own systems rather than continue to support WOTC.
The strength of this website was that it was convenient and easy to use. I got an email from Roll20 literally yesterday about how they'll let you use the 2014 OR 2024 character sheets depending on your preference, which sure pretty pointed. If they can do it, why the hell can't you?
Enigmagtic, Entertaining, Informative, Lobsterly.
This is pretty disappointing. I paid for more than just the compendium content - with these changes I'd be losing integration onto character sheets for the updated spells and magic items. 5e'24 isn't just an errata, and shouldn't be treated as such.
This is souring me on 5e'24, and if I do go forward with the system then my digital integration and VTT almost certainly won't be with D&D Beyond.
This reeks of another underhanded play by WoTC and Hasbro to rectify the "under-monetization" of the brand, not by publishing new creative content, or innovating their product lines with new tools and ways to play that appeal to their fans and players.... but by creating roadblocks, barriers, and cough* licensing cough* their way into our wallets.
Hey, you... you're greedy subversions and blatantly obvious money grabs are building a reputation and frustrating one of the most amazingly creative and fearlessly active communities I've ever seen. They will leave you. Do better.
This is a software company being monumentally stupid. In this case the "custom is right" means nothing to them. This should have been an option on the character sheet to use 2014 rules. If you select this option, spells and items would be pulled from the 2014 rule set.
This will likely push me to leave dndbeyond and d&d overall. Like the optional spells for classes why not just make the spell list a toggleable thing in the character sheet with two different lists of the spells. One with a 14 badge/tag and a 24 badge/tag.
This system already exists in dndbeyond. How do you not just intelligently use the system you already have in place!
It says right in the change log that the old rules will still be accessible In the character builder.
WotC 6 months ago:
"You still be able to use the 2014 versions of spells and items on your character sheets."
WotC now:
"That was a lie"
If i had a nickle for every time WotC lied or backpedaled their previous statements, i'd have a concerning amount of nickles. Can't have shit these days.
I will likely also cancel my sub and move to another source if left in place :( id really rather not.
This Exactly. I already have hundreds of homebrew items in my library, if i were to create them all back to back it would take weeks. I'm not going to do that for all of the spells and items that i and my players should have access to since i bought the sourcebook. It should be a non-issue to just brand the old spells and items as "Legacy" as they did with monsters when the new sourcebooks came out. It's just a ploy to potentially force people to completely switch to their new edition for the ease of play. Absolutely disgusting.
You don't understand the problem. Here, let me quote it to you:
Do you see the problem now?
Etc. You don't lose access to the content in an overall sense, there's still a way to get it. But you do lose access to the content on the character sheet, which is what the complaint is.
it’s not better if you despise the changes like many do. If you like then, that is fine, play with the new 2024 rules. I, and many many people I know, think they are complete garbage, and have ZERO intention of ever playing them and want the content we paid for to be available when we create our characters not in a compendium.
If the solution to people wanting to use old versions of spells and magic items will be "just use the homebrew system", will it be possible to publish and bundle together 2014 versions of items and spells? From my understanding it's not currently possible to publish magic items that are highly similar to officially published items, and if each campaign has to manually write up and include each single spell and magic item they wanna use, that's pushing a lot of unnecessary work onto the players who want to use your platform.
Been subscribed for years. Not sure why I'd bother continuing that subscription after this.
I want to build character sheets with the content I paid for, not with the content you think I should want to play with instead.