- Hello, everyone. I'm Adam with D and D Beyond. Thank you for joining me for this week's development update and community Q and A session. I'm gonna try to start the Streamheroes boss for today, and see if it actually works. We've got, Toby is back again today. So good luck to everyone. Hopefully you will be able to actually defeat him this time. He laughed about it. He snarled about it. He really had just quite an old hoot about you not defeating him the last time we were together. So, hopefully you're gonna have your act together (chuckling) a little bit more today, and you'll be able to be triumphant against Toby the Werewolf. So, good luck with all of that. I think all of the summons are probably already gone. Those go pretty quickly. But I do want everyone to keep in mind, with Streamheroes, you really are all on the same team. Even if you don't get a summon that you can go out there and roll the dice, if you defeat the monster, everyone gets a chance that's in chat. Everyone gets a chance for that legendary bundle giveaway. So, good luck to everyone out there. Everyone's working together here. So please, don't get too jealous over your friends getting those summons, because you're all working together to make this happen. All right, you know the drill at this point. I don't even know why I go through this slide, other than to show off beautiful pieces of art, like these candles. I just, this is actually kinda zooming in on the "Tasha's Cauldron of Everything" cover. And I just wanted to show off the intense, detail that's going on with these candles and books here. Just looks really, really stellar. But, latest updates upcoming, and then of course, as much time for questions as possible at the end. So, latest updates, work in progress is "Tasha's Cauldron of Everything," as it has been for some time. This is a very big book, and the team is working literally nonstop. I mean, we even have all kinds of other things going on in the world right now. The team is just working tirelessly to try to make this happen. I do want to try to set some expectations out there in the community because this book, it is the biggest that we've seen so far for fifth edition, outside of the player's handbook itself. And so, a ton is going into this. Thankfully, we were able to, a couple of months ago, get a preview on class feature variant options, and some of those major, major systems for this book. But I do want to just share with the community that we did not receive the final text for this book until a couple of weeks ago. And so, once we received that final text for the book, there were some new things in there that we were not anticipating, that we had not roadmapped, including things like sidekicks. And so, now that we see exactly how those things work, we're going to do the best that we can, in the time that we have, to get those in place. But this also is the product where we are kinda drawing a line in the sand that we are making that commitment, because it is a very impactful, important product. We are going to make all of the things work, and whether we can get that done by the launch next week or not kinda remains to be seen, but some of those things are going to have to be follows. But we're not going to be, thankfully, there's at least kind of an end-of-the year break before any other books come out, or anything else like that. And so we're gonna be focusing on trying to deliver the functionality that is in here. But unfortunately, we got eyes on it a couple of weeks ago, and had a couple of surprises there. But I do want everyone to be pretty confident that when it comes to subclasses, the class feature options, those kinds of things, we're gonna be in pretty good shape, because, thankfully, we did have a couple of months where we at least got to see a preview. I previously told you that there were some changes from the playtest versions of those. And that is where we saw that with that preview. And so we're working on it. I am very confident that you will be able to play the characters that you want to play, by launch, but we're gonna be working tirelessly to get all those other things in place. So, if you have any questions about that, feel free to ask those in chat, and I'll get to as many as I can at the end. Gifting did go live a couple of weeks ago, but I wanted to call it out again here in an accent that is my own, instead of a ridiculous, grating, irritating, pseudo-trying-at-British vampire accent. But gifting is out there. So, this has been something that we've been looking forward to providing for some time. It's always just fell off the list when it comes to priorities. Thankfully, we were able to squeeze it in this year, ahead of the holiday season. So, please take advantage of that, if you're wanting to help your dungeon masters out, or get someone else kind of onboarded onto D and D Beyond. And then we do have the dice alphas for subscribers live for the mobile app at this point. And then finally, I want to talk through some playtest content and errata updates. So, many of you saw that we have errata that came in this, wow, was that this week? We had a holiday in the middle of the week with Veteran's Day yesterday. And so it has completely messed my schedule up. All of my rhythms are off. But, yeah, I think we got that this week. And so we are working on all of what's happening with that errata, and responding to that. Of course, the priority right now is to get everything handled for "Tasha's" that we can handle. And so we're working on that, but we are going to get the errata in place. And then, if you missed it, we got the "Way of the Ascendent Dragon" and "Drakewarden" playtest content, UA content, up. And then finally, on the "Unearthed Arcana" front, please keep in mind, as "Tasha's Cauldron of Everything" goes live, we are going to end up with a scenario where some of those subclasses, many of those subclasses, that you've been using in "Unearthed Arcana" will go archived. And this is also going to apply to things like spells. So, older versions. I'm trying to think of some that we know are going to be updated, where I'm not spoiling anything, but where, I have publicly seen us talking about that, some of the cantrips in, that were previously released in "Sword Coast Adventures Guide" that are reprinted in "Tasha's," are getting some updates. So, the new, as always on D and D Beyond, we always ever have the most up-to-date version of this content. And so, if for whatever reason, you're wanting to hold on to the old versions of those, then you should create some characters with those options selected, because that will allow you to keep that for those characters, and/or potentially homebrew versions of those that you could use going forward. Otherwise, everything will be updated to what the official rulings are on all of those pieces of content. So, you've got, I think until tomorrow, is when we're gonna start archiving a good bit of that, and updating some of that when it comes to the errata. So, keep that in mind. I think there might be a forum post that is hopefully going around in chat right now that's gonna explain more details about that, and you can let me know if there are any questions as well. All right, so let's look at, so Tasha's has some portrait frames that I think are gonna be pretty cool. I want to take this opportunity, also, to say that we have really kinda been hit hard when it comes to design resources, actually. And so, we are down a couple of designers on D and D Beyond. And with these portrait frames, this time, that actually ended up, these were done by (chuckling) yours truly. So, I had to step in here because we are strapped for designer resources right now. So I am mentioning this, not to talk about and pat myself on the back for doing portrait frames, but to say we are hiring designers. So if you are a designer, or if you know anyone who is awesome, please let them know that we are hiring designers, and you or your friend could be doing these portrait frames in the future. But yeah, we're definitely looking for some great people to work on that. So let's look at, we've got "Tasha's Cauldron of Everything" frames. So, here is a little thing, puzzle thing. We've got dragon tattoos. I like this construct one. (chuckling) That looks pretty fun. A crystal ball, a monkulai, because we just liked that word. And then we've got a couple of animated ones. So we've got a cauldron here. I like how it's bubbling up over the menu there. And then one of the spells that will be there in "Tasha's Cauldron of Everything," one of my favorites, is spirit shroud. And so, we've done something with spirit shroud there. So, you can pre-order today for "Tasha's Cauldron of Everything," any time before the release. And I think we'll have some more information, since our pre-order window is a little smaller. We might extend that a little bit, but if you pick that up, you'll be able to get those portrait frames as well. Oh! We'll go through upcoming. Upcoming, yes. So, "Compendium Quality of Life" updates. We've got the "Tales from the Yawning Portal" stuff has rolled out. I actually meant to take that off of there, but we're gonna continue to look at the next most popular adventure book, and dive into that. So I'll update you next time on that. We've got rolling for ability scores. That has been sidelined due to the work on "Tasha's Cauldron of Everything," but that is something that is upcoming. We talked about special rules and exceptions, that we're kinda drawing a line in the sand with Tasha's, and wanting to really support and cover all of the things there. And we're going back to cover a lot of the others with life domain, and some of those other rules, exceptions, that we haven't covered in the past. And then our friend Laszlo, a couple of weeks ago, gave us a nice little preview of shared dice rolling. Very excited about that. We're gonna have more on that in the next few weeks, and probably show you some kind of demo at some point during that. So, really, really looking forward to that. It's an enormous feature that is going to make life really, really convenient for people playing, whether you're using Zoom to play, or even some of the other VTTs out there. There's a lot that this is going to offer. And we're excited about seeing that come to fruition as well. - [Announcer] Pre-order "Tasha's Cauldron of Everything" on D and D Beyond, and unlock exclusive pre-order rewards, including digital dice.
LATEST UPDATES:
Tasha's Cauldron of Everything - The team is working extra hard to get everything ready for release.
Class Feature Variants and the subclasses should be ready by launch. We are committed to getting as much working from the book at release, but some things may take some extra time. More details to be announced when we have more details.
So one of the things mentioned in the Dev Update very specifically was Sidekicks. Adam said during the update that the D&D Beyond Team really only got a look at the final book a couple weeks ago. For me, Sidekicks is a non-issue but I know for some it is a big deal. Please keep this in mind when purchasing Tasha’s that it does look like Sidekicks is not going to make it in time for the launch. I am glad to hear, like most, that it looks like CFV will be completed!
So one of the things mentioned in the Dev Update very specifically was Sidekicks. Adam said during the update that the D&D Beyond Team really only got a look at the final book a couple weeks ago. For me, Sidekicks is a non-issue but I know for some it is a big deal. Please keep this in mind when purchasing Tasha’s that it does look like Sidekicks is not going to make it in time for the launch. I am glad to hear, like most, that it looks like CFV will be completed!
Makes me wonder how much Tasha's is going to diverge from the UA for sidekicks that they were surprised.
So one of the things mentioned in the Dev Update very specifically was Sidekicks. Adam said during the update that the D&D Beyond Team really only got a look at the final book a couple weeks ago. For me, Sidekicks is a non-issue but I know for some it is a big deal. Please keep this in mind when purchasing Tasha’s that it does look like Sidekicks is not going to make it in time for the launch. I am glad to hear, like most, that it looks like CFV will be completed!
Makes me wonder how much Tasha's is going to diverge from the UA for sidekicks that they were surprised.
Honestly, it was probably more “We know that all the UA subclasses are a thing for the most part and we know the framework for CFV is a thing, we need to focus there” and then Sidekicks was officially announced and they went “Oh. Well, we weren’t prepared for that.”
That is speculation, 100% so take it with a mountain of salt, but that is how I interpret.
Firehawk was just the one posting a text summary of Adam's updates, it looks like Lauren took over for this week.
Hello! I am actually taking over posting the Dev Update Summaries! I'm already doing Summaries for Silver and Steel, so it makes sense for me to continue with similar style posts.
Thank you for that link. The only reason I did ask was becuase the opening was talked about in this thread, otherwise I would have tried another avenue of approach, though I didn't see the Contact Us on the main paige but did not look for either. Thank you for the help though.
Here's the basic summary of the Dev Update for November 11th, 2020.
Watch the Update here: https://youtu.be/9W18H1G_VhU
Watch the Q&A here: https://youtu.be/mSHkCKcbsPo
Transcript of the Update portion:
- Hello, everyone. I'm Adam with D and D Beyond.
Thank you for joining me for this week's development update
and community Q and A session.
I'm gonna try to start the Streamheroes boss for today,
and see if it actually works.
We've got, Toby is back again today.
So good luck to everyone.
Hopefully you will be able to actually defeat him this time.
He laughed about it. He snarled about it.
He really had just quite an old hoot
about you not defeating him the last time we were together.
So, hopefully you're gonna have your act together
(chuckling) a little bit more today,
and you'll be able to be triumphant
against Toby the Werewolf.
So, good luck with all of that.
I think all of the summons are probably already gone.
Those go pretty quickly.
But I do want everyone to keep in mind, with Streamheroes,
you really are all on the same team.
Even if you don't get a summon
that you can go out there and roll the dice,
if you defeat the monster,
everyone gets a chance that's in chat.
Everyone gets a chance for that legendary bundle giveaway.
So, good luck to everyone out there.
Everyone's working together here.
So please, don't get too jealous
over your friends getting those summons,
because you're all working together to make this happen.
All right, you know the drill at this point.
I don't even know why I go through this slide,
other than to show off beautiful pieces of art,
like these candles.
I just, this is actually kinda zooming in
on the "Tasha's Cauldron of Everything" cover.
And I just wanted to show off the intense, detail
that's going on with these candles and books here.
Just looks really, really stellar.
But, latest updates upcoming,
and then of course, as much time for questions
as possible at the end.
So, latest updates, work in progress
is "Tasha's Cauldron of Everything,"
as it has been for some time.
This is a very big book,
and the team is working literally nonstop.
I mean, we even have all kinds of other things going on
in the world right now.
The team is just working tirelessly
to try to make this happen.
I do want to try to set some expectations out there
in the community
because this book, it is the biggest that we've seen so far
for fifth edition, outside of the player's handbook itself.
And so, a ton is going into this.
Thankfully, we were able to, a couple of months ago,
get a preview on class feature variant options,
and some of those major, major systems for this book.
But I do want to just share with the community
that we did not receive the final text for this book
until a couple of weeks ago.
And so, once we received that final text for the book,
there were some new things in there
that we were not anticipating, that we had not roadmapped,
including things like sidekicks.
And so, now that we see exactly how those things work,
we're going to do the best that we can,
in the time that we have, to get those in place.
But this also is the product
where we are kinda drawing a line in the sand
that we are making that commitment,
because it is a very impactful, important product.
We are going to make all of the things work,
and whether we can get that done
by the launch next week or not kinda remains to be seen,
but some of those things are going to have to be follows.
But we're not going to be, thankfully,
there's at least kind of an end-of-the year break
before any other books come out, or anything else like that.
And so we're gonna be focusing
on trying to deliver the functionality that is in here.
But unfortunately, we got eyes on it a couple of weeks ago,
and had a couple of surprises there.
But I do want everyone to be pretty confident
that when it comes to subclasses, the class feature options,
those kinds of things, we're gonna be in pretty good shape,
because, thankfully, we did have a couple of months
where we at least got to see a preview.
I previously told you that there were some changes
from the playtest versions of those.
And that is where we saw that with that preview.
And so we're working on it.
I am very confident
that you will be able to play the characters
that you want to play, by launch,
but we're gonna be working tirelessly
to get all those other things in place.
So, if you have any questions about that,
feel free to ask those in chat,
and I'll get to as many as I can at the end.
Gifting did go live a couple of weeks ago,
but I wanted to call it out again here
in an accent that is my own,
instead of a ridiculous, grating, irritating,
pseudo-trying-at-British vampire accent.
But gifting is out there.
So, this has been something
that we've been looking forward to providing for some time.
It's always just fell off the list
when it comes to priorities.
Thankfully, we were able to squeeze it in this year,
ahead of the holiday season.
So, please take advantage of that,
if you're wanting to help your dungeon masters out,
or get someone else kind of onboarded onto D and D Beyond.
And then we do have the dice alphas for subscribers live
for the mobile app at this point.
And then finally,
I want to talk through some playtest content
and errata updates.
So, many of you saw that we have errata
that came in this, wow, was that this week?
We had a holiday in the middle of the week
with Veteran's Day yesterday.
And so it has completely messed my schedule up.
All of my rhythms are off.
But, yeah, I think we got that this week.
And so we are working on all of what's happening
with that errata, and responding to that.
Of course, the priority right now
is to get everything handled for "Tasha's"
that we can handle.
And so we're working on that,
but we are going to get the errata in place.
And then, if you missed it,
we got the "Way of the Ascendent Dragon"
and "Drakewarden" playtest content, UA content, up.
And then finally, on the "Unearthed Arcana" front,
please keep in mind,
as "Tasha's Cauldron of Everything" goes live,
we are going to end up with a scenario
where some of those subclasses, many of those subclasses,
that you've been using in "Unearthed Arcana"
will go archived.
And this is also going to apply to things like spells.
So, older versions.
I'm trying to think of some
that we know are going to be updated,
where I'm not spoiling anything,
but where, I have publicly seen us talking about
that, some of the cantrips in, that were previously released
in "Sword Coast Adventures Guide"
that are reprinted in "Tasha's," are getting some updates.
So, the new, as always on D and D Beyond,
we always ever have the most up-to-date version
of this content.
And so, if for whatever reason,
you're wanting to hold on to the old versions of those,
then you should create some characters
with those options selected,
because that will allow you to keep that
for those characters,
and/or potentially homebrew versions of those
that you could use going forward.
Otherwise, everything will be updated
to what the official rulings are
on all of those pieces of content.
So, you've got, I think until tomorrow,
is when we're gonna start archiving a good bit of that,
and updating some of that when it comes to the errata.
So, keep that in mind.
I think there might be a forum post
that is hopefully going around in chat right now
that's gonna explain more details about that,
and you can let me know if there are any questions as well.
All right, so let's look at,
so Tasha's has some portrait frames
that I think are gonna be pretty cool.
I want to take this opportunity, also, to say
that we have really kinda been hit hard
when it comes to design resources, actually.
And so, we are down a couple of designers
on D and D Beyond.
And with these portrait frames, this time,
that actually ended up,
these were done by (chuckling) yours truly.
So, I had to step in here
because we are strapped for designer resources right now.
So I am mentioning this,
not to talk about and pat myself on the back
for doing portrait frames,
but to say we are hiring designers.
So if you are a designer,
or if you know anyone who is awesome,
please let them know that we are hiring designers,
and you or your friend
could be doing these portrait frames in the future.
But yeah, we're definitely looking
for some great people to work on that.
So let's look at,
we've got "Tasha's Cauldron of Everything" frames.
So, here is a little thing, puzzle thing.
We've got dragon tattoos.
I like this construct one. (chuckling)
That looks pretty fun.
A crystal ball, a monkulai,
because we just liked that word.
And then we've got a couple of animated ones.
So we've got a cauldron here.
I like how it's bubbling up over the menu there.
And then one of the spells that will be there
in "Tasha's Cauldron of Everything,"
one of my favorites, is spirit shroud.
And so, we've done something with spirit shroud there.
So, you can pre-order today
for "Tasha's Cauldron of Everything,"
any time before the release.
And I think we'll have some more information,
since our pre-order window is a little smaller.
We might extend that a little bit, but if you pick that up,
you'll be able to get those portrait frames as well.
Oh! We'll go through upcoming.
Upcoming, yes. So, "Compendium Quality of Life" updates.
We've got the "Tales from the Yawning Portal" stuff
has rolled out.
I actually meant to take that off of there,
but we're gonna continue to look
at the next most popular adventure book, and dive into that.
So I'll update you next time on that.
We've got rolling for ability scores.
That has been sidelined
due to the work on "Tasha's Cauldron of Everything,"
but that is something that is upcoming.
We talked about special rules and exceptions,
that we're kinda drawing a line in the sand with Tasha's,
and wanting to really support
and cover all of the things there.
And we're going back to cover a lot of the others
with life domain, and some of those other rules, exceptions,
that we haven't covered in the past.
And then our friend Laszlo, a couple of weeks ago,
gave us a nice little preview of shared dice rolling.
Very excited about that.
We're gonna have more on that in the next few weeks,
and probably show you some kind of demo
at some point during that.
So, really, really looking forward to that.
It's an enormous feature
that is going to make life really, really convenient
for people playing, whether you're using Zoom to play,
or even some of the other VTTs out there.
There's a lot that this is going to offer.
And we're excited about
seeing that come to fruition as well.
- [Announcer] Pre-order "Tasha's Cauldron of Everything"
on D and D Beyond, and unlock exclusive pre-order rewards,
including digital dice.
LATEST UPDATES:
Tasha's Cauldron of Everything - The team is working extra hard to get everything ready for release.
Class Feature Variants and the subclasses should be ready by launch. We are committed to getting as much working from the book at release, but some things may take some extra time. More details to be announced when we have more details.
Gifting is now available! https://www.dndbeyond.com/changelog/899-introducing-gifting
Dice Alpha for Subscribers - subscribers can now roll dice in our Player app! https://www.dndbeyond.com/changelog/897-d-d-beyond-player-tools-1-5
Information about Errata Updates - https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/news-announcements/87686-november-2020-errata-changes-on-d-d-beyond
Information about UA being archived on Nov 16th - https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/news-announcements/87101-ua-to-be-archived-november-16th
Way of the Ascendant Dragon and Drakewarden UA subclasses are now available to try on your character sheet!
Adam showed off a preview of the new animated portrait frames! Here's a link directly to where they are being shown off in the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9W18H1G_VhU&t=505s
We are hiring a lot of various positions! Job openings at D&D Beyond can be found on the Fandom careers page: https://www.fandom.com/careers
Compendium quality of life updates continue on popular adventures, just like we did with Curse of Strahd.
Rolling for Ability Scores in the character builder has been sidelined for the moment as we focus on preparing Tasha's Cauldron of Everything.
After Tasha's we are looking to tackle special rules and exceptions in character sheets, like the Life Domain cleric bonuses.
We will have more to talk about with shared dice rolling and a game log in the next few weeks!
Find me on Twitter: @OboeLauren
Firehawk was just the one posting a text summary of Adam's updates, it looks like Lauren took over for this week.
Beat my rolls. I dare you.
Oh ok.
: Systems Online : Nikoli_Goodfellow Homebrew : My WIP Homebrew Class :
(\_/)
( u u)
o/ \🥛🍪 Hey, take care of yourself alright?
So one of the things mentioned in the Dev Update very specifically was Sidekicks. Adam said during the update that the D&D Beyond Team really only got a look at the final book a couple weeks ago. For me, Sidekicks is a non-issue but I know for some it is a big deal. Please keep this in mind when purchasing Tasha’s that it does look like Sidekicks is not going to make it in time for the launch. I am glad to hear, like most, that it looks like CFV will be completed!
Makes me wonder how much Tasha's is going to diverge from the UA for sidekicks that they were surprised.
Honestly, it was probably more “We know that all the UA subclasses are a thing for the most part and we know the framework for CFV is a thing, we need to focus there” and then Sidekicks was officially announced and they went “Oh. Well, we weren’t prepared for that.”
That is speculation, 100% so take it with a mountain of salt, but that is how I interpret.
I know someone who is interested in the design position but doesn’t have any experience. Do you have any entry level positions available?
Hello! I am actually taking over posting the Dev Update Summaries! I'm already doing Summaries for Silver and Steel, so it makes sense for me to continue with similar style posts.
Find me on Twitter: @OboeLauren
Thank you for the clear information on this update!!!!
Not the thread for that question and you shouldn't ask about job openings at a company on their forum.
Clicking Contact Us on the main page would have led you to this:
https://dndbeyond.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360026387434-How-can-I-work-for-D-D-Beyond-
Thank you for that link. The only reason I did ask was becuase the opening was talked about in this thread, otherwise I would have tried another avenue of approach, though I didn't see the Contact Us on the main paige but did not look for either. Thank you for the help though.
Sorry, didn't mean to sound so rude. Good luck to you!
No harm no foul. And thanks.