It says right in the change log that the old rules will still be accessible In the character builder.
It says the exact opposite. In fact the only place old rules will be accessible is in the e-books (compendium). Character builder and sheets will be automatically updated to the new rules without a users say so or way to revert back.
I think part of the consternation here is that after reading the update and this post ... there are some very important facets of this transition that have not been addressed:
1) how will these changes impact my pre-existing character sheet and how that character sheet works? Example: post update I use the character sheet to give my character a level of exhaustion. How will that work?
2) how will these changes impact my active campaign? What, exactly, will my players have to do in my next session to navigate this transition and get on with the game.
I would hope that existing characters and existing campaigns would "just work" ... but that clearly isn't going to be the case.
In a game where ironing out confusion over the rules of the game is the #1 job of DMs ... who are a big chunk of your paid subscriber base ... for a tool that is supposed to make managing that complexity easier to manage ... these updates do not appear to be delivering on that value from the communications so far.
As a software product manager... I know a lot of good folks have been thinking through these changes and there are always going to be edge case issues where the juice isn't worth the squeeze. I also understand y'all have a hard deadline to hit and limited resources to do so ... you have to do the most good with what you have.
If campaigns using DnD beyond are about to go through a bumpy transition for the next year not just because the rules are changing but because the site can't or won't fully support both rule systems ... I encourage WoTC to toss everyone who bought the 2014 books already a bone and just make this a completely free update. Especially if a lot of the work to manage and implement the transition is going to be offloaded to GMs. It's really the least y'all could do.
If we are unable to keep using the 2014 rules in our character sheets I’ll probably have to cancel my membership and just use Roll20. Which would be a waste of the hundreds of dollars I’ve spent on this site for my membership and books for years. This is extremely poorly handled and the 2024 rules should just be their own edition instead of replacing what we all know and love.
This isnt a clarification. It's repeating the problem and bolding the corporate framing about how they want it marketed.
The issue (for easy reference it's the part the mod mentioned but didn't expand on or clarify...the part that is NOT bolded) is that we won't have access to 2014 in the tools like the character sheet. NOBODY complained about having access to the books in the compendium; we complaining about the lose of access in the Character Sheet.
I guess this tacitly does clarify things, actually. You're aware of the issue and the community's complaints and will not address them because they were the intended result.
The people in charge cannot be this obtuse. This has to be a purposeful and thoughtful attempt to prioritize profit over accessibility. First the ability to purchase individual features was taken away, and now the only option is to buy the whole sourcebook. And now this? I've been playing and DMing for over 5 years now, I have many npcs formatted as character sheets in dndbeyond because they're easy to access and navigate. If I want to keep playing 2014 (which I do, for a multitude of reasons), that accesibility is gone. What it sounds like is you're keeping the spells to be searchable but not easily accessible or functional. Which just feels like it's enough to keep people from being able to complain about you deleting the stuff they bought. All of these changes are making 2014 less accessible, which I'm sure is a great goal to have of you want to get people to purchase 2024 material. This is just becoming a list of ways dndbeyond has grown and changed to have different priorities than when it started, and it's causing some major disillusionment in general.
I get why the 2014 stuff will be tagged as legacy, nothing against it. I also that the 2014 races, classes etc are still being an option for character creation, that is very good to hear. What is NOT good to hear is that in the character sheet itself the description will automatically be made into the 2024 version. That is BS. Please for the love of D&D, make it a toggle feature to have 2014 or 2024 as the description/ruleset in the character builder. This way you give the people the ability to use their preference instead of forcing it on them and making a lot of people very unhappy and angry, potentially making huge losses with people leaving or boycotting.
I've had some time now to cool off and reconsider things. Sadly, my conclusions haven't changed all that much. This is interference from either management or parent company.
D&D Beyond have no control over the way WotC market the 2024 rulebooks This is a point I recognise, and is clearly a part of the friction. WotC really ought to be marketing the 2024 books as either a 5.5 or an entirely new edition. The changes are clearly problematic for many people. Having looked at the ruleset and seen the 2024 PHB in person...it's a bit tone deaf to try and reduce the changes down to errata. I saw the PHB in a test game with a DM who was fortunate enough to attend GenCon. In that test game we immediately realised that player tactics in combat and in roleplay do need to change in order to work with the new sourcebook. This point is WotC's fault for the way in which they've marketed this content. I have no doubt that DDB is required to treat the new books as the only rules for 5e by WotC management folks. There is valid debate to be had here over how the audience receives the new books - is it a new edition, or not. What WotC Marketing people say won't be the final say - that will rest with the consumer...something that companies keep forgetting. Personally, I've seen enough of the new PHB to conclude that it is effectively a new edition, not a revision given that there are more imcompatibilities than there are compatibilities. That is however my opinion and as I say there is valid debate ongoing about that.
Sourcebook options on character sheets for D&D Beyond have long been poor This is where D&D Beyond can most definitely improve. Now, I do recognise that this is a fundamental change to how the character sheet functionality works. However, it is so very clearly the superior option, that it borders on obtuse not to implement the ability to toggle on or off different sources. Players and DMs have been asking for this exact thing for at least the last four years I've been using DDB. That's four years of feedback that has been ignored and ultimately that has led to this issue. Had the team at DDB listened at an earlier stage and implemented the very simple option to just toggle sources to allow or disallow content from those sources across everything (as opposed to the half-in/half-out solution that exists now) the work would be so much easier to carry out and give people what they are asking for. If do of course recognise that we have some limited control over this already, but I'm sure that we can all agree that it's never gone far enough. That I can only choose to select or deselect the core books as an entire group is the major weakness here. To my knowledge the core rules comprises no fewer than four individual sourcebooks (PHB, MotM, XGtE, TCoE). It is here that the weakness in development and design occurs. Users of this site have asked for years to be able to be more granular in the sources we can select or deselect, allow or disallow. Again years where, had the feedback been listened to, this entire controversy could have been resolved so much quicker and so much more easily. This to be clear, unless WotC Marketing Depertment have interference here too, is entirely on the D&D Beyond staff.
We're not losing any content we purchased, we're losing amenity This is technically true, but is a political answer not a customer service answer. Software as a service is a creeping problem and I do recognise that is what I was purchasing when I bought digital copies of the books. It is infact why I purchased Digital + Physical bundles rather than just digital. I don't want my purchases to be worthless once that service is withdrawn. However, as pointed out, it's technically true we're not losing content. We are losing amenity. So how do I (and I assume others) use DDB?
Quick reference characters sheets for everyone. In both physical and online games DDB gives a DM an easy way to add things to characters sheets (like new feats or magic items) as well as quickly being able to look up information outside of the game while planning future sessions. For my groups as 2014 rules players, we now have no choice but to look elsewhere for that solution. This amenity has effectively been removed.
Search box to quickly look up a rule, item, condition, monster, spell or anything else for clarification. As a DM there's nothing worse than having to flip through a physical book while silence is all around you. The search box helped with that - a lot. However, compendium content just isn't indexed as well in the DDB searech function, so it will slow down this process and result in me going back to flipping through the physical book. For me, and my 'workflow' the amenity may as well have been removed.
Reading the forums and seeing all the cool ideas other DMs have. That amenity has been kept.
Access to a digital copy of the books that I can read or access from a tablet rather than carrying to physical games. That amenity has been kept.
The big problem isn't the last two reasons for which I use the site. The problem is the first two. Why? Well because they affect my entire gaming groups because it removes the amenity for them as 2014 players.
How could D&D Beyond solve this? Well, I've already mentioned this. Granular ability to select/deselect, or allow/disallow source books on character sheets. Every other service that exists out there uses this method. D&D Beyond is the outlier. Yes, this will require a larger scale change and is probably going to be overruled by the decision makers at WotC. It is however the only way to please everyone. Users have been asking for this for literal years - a book by book selection option for character sheets. This has been implement on the search functions for things like Spells and Feats for years now, where you can choose exactly what sources you want to see results from. So most of the work is already done. Listen to the userbase here, look at the unsubscriptions and future lost revenue as a result. Don't simply overwrite the 2014 versions of things with the 2024 versions. Make them seperate entries and tag the 2014 versions as legacy but allow them to be useable. That is the customer service answer.
As I have said before I don't know if D&D Beyond is still a seperate company in terms of corporate structuring, but if it is then this should be fairly simple to implement in the name of customer service. If DDB is merely a department of WotC then I expect that nothing I have said or written would be acted on even if people agree. WotC have shown a stunning level of tone-deaf to their userbase in the past. That won't change, but frankly I'd be knocking on the door of the marketing manager and providing them with 'feedback' were I in the position of the dev team for DDB.
The shepard druid will no longer functional on dndbeyond after this update.
Most of the subclass ceases to function with the 2024 conjure animals spell as its an intangible spirit. It's not a creature with hit points so it can't be affected by spirit totems or might summoner shepard druid features. The 14th level feature that casts conjure animals at 9th level will summon the spirit but it can't move because your incapacitated and can't move or see anything.
These FORCED changes will break numerous subclasses. This is especially true of the Warlock, druid and cleric subclasses which are incompatible with the changes to the dndbeyond toolset.
This isn't in line with what we been told which was ""2024 update will be fully reverse compatible."
Second/thirding/Nthing everyone else here: we want to keep access to 2014 rulesets, spells, and items in our character sheets. I can access to books elsewhere online or in person easily but the main reason many, many of us are here and buy the content is because your character creation is really, really good particularly for new players. This is by far and away the easiest site (for me) to sort my characters out and read the sheets of. I don't want to go elsewhere but why would I stay when this isn't what I want in my sheets? When I get no say in which ruleset I'm using? Homebrewing is already a ballache and you want us to do that for an entire character sheet (or multiple!) where we'll bloat our spell list and inventory searches with doubled-up homebrew creations? How is that user-friendly?
The quickest way to lose playerbase and loyal customers is to force an update that should (and was promised to) be optional. As others have pointed out you've already implemented legacy toggles elsewhere and it'd do a lot of bandaging to this subscription and user haemorrhage to do it here also. Right now other VTTs and TTRPG sites are capitalising on this ridiculous decision by DnDbeyond and it's working. We want to support you because we love playing DnD, but you make it so so hard.
here are some very important facets of this transition that have not been addressed:
1) how will these changes impact my pre-existing character sheet and how that character sheet works? Example: post update I use the character sheet to give my character a level of exhaustion. How will that work?
2) how will these changes impact my active campaign? What, exactly, will my players have to do in my next session to navigate this transition and get on with the game.
Both of these were already addressed in the original announcement.
It will function the same as always: you get exhaustion, you mark it on your sheet. The only difference is when you hover over it to see what exhaustion does, it will show the new rules, rather than old one.
You'll open the sheet and it will still work like it did... except the descriptions for many of the things will be different than they were before.
here are some very important facets of this transition that have not been addressed:
1) how will these changes impact my pre-existing character sheet and how that character sheet works? Example: post update I use the character sheet to give my character a level of exhaustion. How will that work?
2) how will these changes impact my active campaign? What, exactly, will my players have to do in my next session to navigate this transition and get on with the game.
Both of these were already addressed in the original announcement.
It will function the same as always: you get exhaustion, you mark it on your sheet. The only difference is when you hover over it to see what exhaustion does, it will show the new rules, rather than old one.
You'll open the sheet and it will still work like it did... except the descriptions for many of the things will be different than they were before.
So, mandatory shift to new rules, in ability to use current 2014-era rules, which we paid for, with the character sheets. Neat.
Checking in here the announcement still just says "Only two items" effected.
Like we all play D&D here right? Staff included? So we all know that's not true- Items link to spells, if the spell changes then the item has changed.
Again in the case of a bunch of conjuration items that link to statlbocks the item is effectively just broken, as they link to spells that do not summon the creatures the items link to.
I'm fairly sure the staff here do play D&D so it feels weirdly out of character to get so lawyery "Technically most items have not changed" on us when we know due to the nature of the game that spell changes are also item changes for a couple dozen.
It's easy enough to make a copy of the two dozens or so 2014 PHB spells that function differently from the 2024 PHB versions. If you're playing with friends in a shared campaign, only one of you needs to create a homebrew version of the 2014 PHB spell you'd like to use (Homebew > Create homebrew spell > Create from exisiting spell) and enable Shared Content in the Campaign section.
Rename the spell (ex. Sleep (2014) or -- if you want to make it more interesting -- Efteran's Sleep (named after the original spell creator). If you toggle on the Homebrew toggle in the Character Preferences, the spell will appear with the other 2024 spells. You don't have to go through all the 2024 spells at all at once. Simple the ones that have been revised in a way you and the other players at your table don't like. Hell, the DM can even create revised (nerfed, improved, or clarified) versions of spells that don't match either the 2014 or 2024 versions and simply add a tag to the spell's name.
ex. Hypnotic Pattern ᴮᴹ
D&D Beyond homebrewer tip: in a Word document, you can find all these nice superscript Times New Roman letters to copy/paste after the name of your homebrew to tag your homebrew content :
Supercript ᴬ ᴮ ᴰ ᴱ ᴳ ᴴ ᴵ ᴶ ᴷ ᴸ ᴹ ᴺ ᴼ ᴾ ᴿ ᵀ ᵁ ᵂ (In Word, Insert > Symbol > More Symbols > Font: Times New Roman > scroll down until you find these characters > Insert each character you want to use in your Word document. Save the doc. , then copy/paste the letters to tag your homebrew)
When I tag the name of a feat, subclass, magic item, monster etc., I use ᴴ for homebrew, ᴷᴾ for Kobold Press, ᴸᵁ for Level Up 5e, ᴰᴿ for Drakenheim, and my own initials ᴮᴹ when I want to indicate to my players that they need to pick THAT feat/spell/magic item option instead of the default one.
But if you're not bothering with tags, it takes about 15 minutes of work to copy 30 2014 spells with the homebrew spell creator if you're simply changing the spell name (30 seconds per spell).
Yes, they could've created a TOGGLE 2014 ON/OFF button and 2024 ON/OFF button... Or add the LEGACY option for spells and items, like they do for other things. But they're a company, they want to sell their new toy. Frustrating, but not really unexpected. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
2014 Rulebook Compendiums Players will not lose access to their 2014 content in the Compendium. 2014 content will continue to be accessible on the D&D Beyond site and available for purchase after the release of the 2024 Core Rulebook. The information in them will remain unchanged, and players will not lose access to any of their 2014 content.
..
All 2014 versions of Spells will still be accessible in the D&D Beyond Compendium and available for players to access.
What compendium are these referencing? Which part of it, specifically?
How will this be accessible?
Will I have default access to the 2014 rulebooks that I purchased, or will it now be something I have to add manually, each time I want to use it?
Hey McFLY... The only thing D&D Beyond does BETTER than other sites is the CHARACTER CREATION. If you remove the content from the it or if you force update to the CRAP 2024 character sheets I will NEVER subscribe again. I for sure will never buy the 2024 books now.
It's easy enough to make a copy of the two dozens or so 2014 PHB spells that function differently from the 2024 PHB versions. If you're playing with friends in a shared campaign, only one of you needs to create a homebrew version of the 2014 PHB spell you'd like to use (Homebew > Create homebrew spell > Create from exisiting spell).
Rename the spell (ex. Sleep (2014) or -- if you want to make it more interesting -- Efteran's Sleep (named after the original spell creator). If you toggle on the Homebrew toggle in the Character Preferences, the spell will appear with the other 2024 spells. You don't have to go through all the 2024 spells at all at once. Simple the ones that have been revised in a way you and the other players at your table don't like. Hell, the DM can even create revised (nerfed, improved, or clarified) versions of spells that don't match either the 2014 or 2024 versions and simply add a tag to the spell's name (ex. Hypnotic Pattern ᴮᴹ ).
It takes about 15 minutes of work to copy 30 2014 spells with the homebrew spell creator if you're simply changing the spell name (30 seconds per spell).
Yes, they could've created a TOGGLE 2014 ON/OFF button and 2024 ON/OFF button... But they're a company, they want to sell their new toy. Frustrating, perhaps, but not really unexpected. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
If we wanted to add free versions of all the spells every single person here could have googled "5e spells" and copy pasted it, the whole reason we bought them was to not do that.
And that's to say nothing of the amount of clutter that's going to be on any prep-casters sheet once they have all the homebrew spells and all the new spells on there at once.
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It says the exact opposite. In fact the only place old rules will be accessible is in the e-books (compendium). Character builder and sheets will be automatically updated to the new rules without a users say so or way to revert back.
I think part of the consternation here is that after reading the update and this post ... there are some very important facets of this transition that have not been addressed:
1) how will these changes impact my pre-existing character sheet and how that character sheet works? Example: post update I use the character sheet to give my character a level of exhaustion. How will that work?
2) how will these changes impact my active campaign? What, exactly, will my players have to do in my next session to navigate this transition and get on with the game.
I would hope that existing characters and existing campaigns would "just work" ... but that clearly isn't going to be the case.
In a game where ironing out confusion over the rules of the game is the #1 job of DMs ... who are a big chunk of your paid subscriber base ... for a tool that is supposed to make managing that complexity easier to manage ... these updates do not appear to be delivering on that value from the communications so far.
As a software product manager... I know a lot of good folks have been thinking through these changes and there are always going to be edge case issues where the juice isn't worth the squeeze. I also understand y'all have a hard deadline to hit and limited resources to do so ... you have to do the most good with what you have.
If campaigns using DnD beyond are about to go through a bumpy transition for the next year not just because the rules are changing but because the site can't or won't fully support both rule systems ... I encourage WoTC to toss everyone who bought the 2014 books already a bone and just make this a completely free update. Especially if a lot of the work to manage and implement the transition is going to be offloaded to GMs. It's really the least y'all could do.
If we are unable to keep using the 2014 rules in our character sheets I’ll probably have to cancel my membership and just use Roll20. Which would be a waste of the hundreds of dollars I’ve spent on this site for my membership and books for years. This is extremely poorly handled and the 2024 rules should just be their own edition instead of replacing what we all know and love.
This isnt a clarification. It's repeating the problem and bolding the corporate framing about how they want it marketed.
The issue (for easy reference it's the part the mod mentioned but didn't expand on or clarify...the part that is NOT bolded) is that we won't have access to 2014 in the tools like the character sheet. NOBODY complained about having access to the books in the compendium; we complaining about the lose of access in the Character Sheet.
I guess this tacitly does clarify things, actually. You're aware of the issue and the community's complaints and will not address them because they were the intended result.
The people in charge cannot be this obtuse. This has to be a purposeful and thoughtful attempt to prioritize profit over accessibility. First the ability to purchase individual features was taken away, and now the only option is to buy the whole sourcebook. And now this? I've been playing and DMing for over 5 years now, I have many npcs formatted as character sheets in dndbeyond because they're easy to access and navigate. If I want to keep playing 2014 (which I do, for a multitude of reasons), that accesibility is gone. What it sounds like is you're keeping the spells to be searchable but not easily accessible or functional. Which just feels like it's enough to keep people from being able to complain about you deleting the stuff they bought. All of these changes are making 2014 less accessible, which I'm sure is a great goal to have of you want to get people to purchase 2024 material. This is just becoming a list of ways dndbeyond has grown and changed to have different priorities than when it started, and it's causing some major disillusionment in general.
I just wanna play 5e guys...why must you make it very difficult?
I get why the 2014 stuff will be tagged as legacy, nothing against it. I also that the 2014 races, classes etc are still being an option for character creation, that is very good to hear. What is NOT good to hear is that in the character sheet itself the description will automatically be made into the 2024 version. That is BS. Please for the love of D&D, make it a toggle feature to have 2014 or 2024 as the description/ruleset in the character builder. This way you give the people the ability to use their preference instead of forcing it on them and making a lot of people very unhappy and angry, potentially making huge losses with people leaving or boycotting.
I've had some time now to cool off and reconsider things. Sadly, my conclusions haven't changed all that much. This is interference from either management or parent company.
D&D Beyond have no control over the way WotC market the 2024 rulebooks
This is a point I recognise, and is clearly a part of the friction. WotC really ought to be marketing the 2024 books as either a 5.5 or an entirely new edition. The changes are clearly problematic for many people. Having looked at the ruleset and seen the 2024 PHB in person...it's a bit tone deaf to try and reduce the changes down to errata. I saw the PHB in a test game with a DM who was fortunate enough to attend GenCon. In that test game we immediately realised that player tactics in combat and in roleplay do need to change in order to work with the new sourcebook. This point is WotC's fault for the way in which they've marketed this content. I have no doubt that DDB is required to treat the new books as the only rules for 5e by WotC management folks. There is valid debate to be had here over how the audience receives the new books - is it a new edition, or not. What WotC Marketing people say won't be the final say - that will rest with the consumer...something that companies keep forgetting. Personally, I've seen enough of the new PHB to conclude that it is effectively a new edition, not a revision given that there are more imcompatibilities than there are compatibilities. That is however my opinion and as I say there is valid debate ongoing about that.
Sourcebook options on character sheets for D&D Beyond have long been poor
This is where D&D Beyond can most definitely improve. Now, I do recognise that this is a fundamental change to how the character sheet functionality works. However, it is so very clearly the superior option, that it borders on obtuse not to implement the ability to toggle on or off different sources. Players and DMs have been asking for this exact thing for at least the last four years I've been using DDB. That's four years of feedback that has been ignored and ultimately that has led to this issue. Had the team at DDB listened at an earlier stage and implemented the very simple option to just toggle sources to allow or disallow content from those sources across everything (as opposed to the half-in/half-out solution that exists now) the work would be so much easier to carry out and give people what they are asking for. If do of course recognise that we have some limited control over this already, but I'm sure that we can all agree that it's never gone far enough. That I can only choose to select or deselect the core books as an entire group is the major weakness here. To my knowledge the core rules comprises no fewer than four individual sourcebooks (PHB, MotM, XGtE, TCoE). It is here that the weakness in development and design occurs. Users of this site have asked for years to be able to be more granular in the sources we can select or deselect, allow or disallow. Again years where, had the feedback been listened to, this entire controversy could have been resolved so much quicker and so much more easily. This to be clear, unless WotC Marketing Depertment have interference here too, is entirely on the D&D Beyond staff.
We're not losing any content we purchased, we're losing amenity
This is technically true, but is a political answer not a customer service answer. Software as a service is a creeping problem and I do recognise that is what I was purchasing when I bought digital copies of the books. It is infact why I purchased Digital + Physical bundles rather than just digital. I don't want my purchases to be worthless once that service is withdrawn. However, as pointed out, it's technically true we're not losing content. We are losing amenity. So how do I (and I assume others) use DDB?
The big problem isn't the last two reasons for which I use the site. The problem is the first two. Why? Well because they affect my entire gaming groups because it removes the amenity for them as 2014 players.
How could D&D Beyond solve this?
Well, I've already mentioned this. Granular ability to select/deselect, or allow/disallow source books on character sheets. Every other service that exists out there uses this method. D&D Beyond is the outlier. Yes, this will require a larger scale change and is probably going to be overruled by the decision makers at WotC. It is however the only way to please everyone. Users have been asking for this for literal years - a book by book selection option for character sheets. This has been implement on the search functions for things like Spells and Feats for years now, where you can choose exactly what sources you want to see results from. So most of the work is already done. Listen to the userbase here, look at the unsubscriptions and future lost revenue as a result. Don't simply overwrite the 2014 versions of things with the 2024 versions. Make them seperate entries and tag the 2014 versions as legacy but allow them to be useable. That is the customer service answer.
As I have said before I don't know if D&D Beyond is still a seperate company in terms of corporate structuring, but if it is then this should be fairly simple to implement in the name of customer service. If DDB is merely a department of WotC then I expect that nothing I have said or written would be acted on even if people agree. WotC have shown a stunning level of tone-deaf to their userbase in the past. That won't change, but frankly I'd be knocking on the door of the marketing manager and providing them with 'feedback' were I in the position of the dev team for DDB.
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The shepard druid will no longer functional on dndbeyond after this update.
Most of the subclass ceases to function with the 2024 conjure animals spell as its an intangible spirit. It's not a creature with hit points so it can't be affected by spirit totems or might summoner shepard druid features. The 14th level feature that casts conjure animals at 9th level will summon the spirit but it can't move because your incapacitated and can't move or see anything.
These FORCED changes will break numerous subclasses. This is especially true of the Warlock, druid and cleric subclasses which are incompatible with the changes to the dndbeyond toolset.
This isn't in line with what we been told which was ""2024 update will be fully reverse compatible."
Second/thirding/Nthing everyone else here: we want to keep access to 2014 rulesets, spells, and items in our character sheets. I can access to books elsewhere online or in person easily but the main reason many, many of us are here and buy the content is because your character creation is really, really good particularly for new players. This is by far and away the easiest site (for me) to sort my characters out and read the sheets of. I don't want to go elsewhere but why would I stay when this isn't what I want in my sheets? When I get no say in which ruleset I'm using? Homebrewing is already a ballache and you want us to do that for an entire character sheet (or multiple!) where we'll bloat our spell list and inventory searches with doubled-up homebrew creations? How is that user-friendly?
The quickest way to lose playerbase and loyal customers is to force an update that should (and was promised to) be optional. As others have pointed out you've already implemented legacy toggles elsewhere and it'd do a lot of bandaging to this subscription and user haemorrhage to do it here also. Right now other VTTs and TTRPG sites are capitalising on this ridiculous decision by DnDbeyond and it's working. We want to support you because we love playing DnD, but you make it so so hard.
Both of these were already addressed in the original announcement.
So, mandatory shift to new rules, in ability to use current 2014-era rules, which we paid for, with the character sheets. Neat.
I just love that this is posted as a "clarification" but most of us were clear on what was happening. We're just not happy about it.
Checking in here the announcement still just says "Only two items" effected.
Like we all play D&D here right? Staff included? So we all know that's not true- Items link to spells, if the spell changes then the item has changed.
Again in the case of a bunch of conjuration items that link to statlbocks the item is effectively just broken, as they link to spells that do not summon the creatures the items link to.
I'm fairly sure the staff here do play D&D so it feels weirdly out of character to get so lawyery "Technically most items have not changed" on us when we know due to the nature of the game that spell changes are also item changes for a couple dozen.
This announcement misses the forest for the trees. It's not about the compendiums, it's about the character sheets.
Been playing DND since 2019, If you ruin my sheets I wont change to 5.5, I will just unsubscribe and go play another system with my group.
It's easy enough to make a copy of the two dozens or so 2014 PHB spells that function differently from the 2024 PHB versions. If you're playing with friends in a shared campaign, only one of you needs to create a homebrew version of the 2014 PHB spell you'd like to use (Homebew > Create homebrew spell > Create from exisiting spell) and enable Shared Content in the Campaign section.
Rename the spell (ex. Sleep (2014) or -- if you want to make it more interesting -- Efteran's Sleep (named after the original spell creator). If you toggle on the Homebrew toggle in the Character Preferences, the spell will appear with the other 2024 spells. You don't have to go through all the 2024 spells at all at once. Simple the ones that have been revised in a way you and the other players at your table don't like. Hell, the DM can even create revised (nerfed, improved, or clarified) versions of spells that don't match either the 2014 or 2024 versions and simply add a tag to the spell's name.
ex. Hypnotic Pattern ᴮᴹ
But if you're not bothering with tags, it takes about 15 minutes of work to copy 30 2014 spells with the homebrew spell creator if you're simply changing the spell name (30 seconds per spell).
Yes, they could've created a TOGGLE 2014 ON/OFF button and 2024 ON/OFF button... Or add the LEGACY option for spells and items, like they do for other things. But they're a company, they want to sell their new toy. Frustrating, but not really unexpected. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
My Homebrew: Magic Items | Monsters | Spells | Subclasses | My house rules
Currently playing: Fai'zal - CN Githyanki Rogue (Candlekeep Mysteries, Forgotten Realms) ; Zeena - LN Elf Sorcerer (Dragonlance)
Playing D&D since 1st edition. DMs Guild Author: B.A. Morrier (4-5⭐products! Please check them out.) Twitter: @benmorrier he/him
What compendium are these referencing? Which part of it, specifically?
How will this be accessible?
Will I have default access to the 2014 rulebooks that I purchased, or will it now be something I have to add manually, each time I want to use it?
Hey McFLY... The only thing D&D Beyond does BETTER than other sites is the CHARACTER CREATION. If you remove the content from the it or if you force update to the CRAP 2024 character sheets I will NEVER subscribe again. I for sure will never buy the 2024 books now.
If we wanted to add free versions of all the spells every single person here could have googled "5e spells" and copy pasted it, the whole reason we bought them was to not do that.
And that's to say nothing of the amount of clutter that's going to be on any prep-casters sheet once they have all the homebrew spells and all the new spells on there at once.