Honestly, while I'm not surprised, I am disappointed.
Other things talked about: Sidekicks are on the backburner for things like container inventory management and dark mode. Feature System and Halloween were mentioned in the same sentence, but then walked back.
Did they comment on if they might add it when the actual book comes out? Not sure if they're just waiting for the final version on this one or avoiding it entirely.
Did they comment on if they might add it when the actual book comes out? Not sure if they're just waiting for the final version on this one or avoiding it entirely.
It was "We just don't have the tools in place to support something that will be a maybe, and once we know if it's going to be for sure, then we'll develop it and hope its out in time for release with the book", but considering other odds and ends, my personal speculation would be "Don't hold your breath" considering things like Dark Gifts, Piety, Epic Boons from the DMG aren't even enabled.
Did they comment on if they might add it when the actual book comes out? Not sure if they're just waiting for the final version on this one or avoiding it entirely.
It was "We just don't have the tools in place to support something that will be a maybe, and once we know if it's going to be for sure, then we'll develop it and hope its out in time for release with the book", but considering other odds and ends, my personal speculation would be "Don't hold your breath" considering things like Dark Gifts, Piety, Epic Boons from the DMG aren't even enabled.
They are currently working on adding a place for the dark gifts, piety, and boons. I honestly do not blame them for holding off on the Strixhaven stuff. Why allocate resources when the playtest could come back rejecting the multiple subclass idea?
Right, I think there are bigger priorities. That being said, I don't think container management and dark mode should have been priorities. Dark Mode can be fixed with a custom CSS script. Inventory management isn't actually a problem, its a quality of life fix. Why allocate resources to that?
I figured as much from the moment I saw the Strixhaven UA. While I’m excited by the possibilities of the UA, it breaks a lot of assumptions about how subclasses work. No doubt the coding behind the character sheet is built to treat those original assumptions as rules, requiring significant rewrites to implement the Strixhaven classes. They have said before that they are unwilling to spend a lot of developer time on UA concepts given that they are “maybes” that may get thrown in the trash by WOTC, and I can’t blame them for that choice. In their place I’d likely make the same decision. My guess is they do have people thinking about how they could implement it.
[I also find it ironic that they are finally able to work on the generic features system, which was in part supposed to “future proof” them when WOTCs threw curveballs at them, and then WOTC throws a curveball that almost certainly can’t be addressed by the generic features system.]
EDIT: I just watched this week's Dev update, and it sounds like my assumption that the generic/universal feature system wouldn't help them with the Strixhaven multiple class subclasses may be incorrect. Which I find hopeful.
I'd say more robust container/inventory management fits into a basic character sheet functionality, and I believe it's been asked for more than DMG epic boons. However with two books, Theros and VRGtR now making the concept basically more expected by players and DMs to be integrated rather than an option for which to find workarounds, I'm happy to see them now apparently get more developmental potential.
I'm a little disappointed I can't play with the UA on DDB, but also appreciate DDB's position, sort of like CFVs. That said, I'm pretty sure we will see subclasses open to a range of classes in some form. If Strixhaven wasn't announced already I'd be more inclined to think this WOTC floating the concept with the space to retract. The fact that these are out there now, attached to a named book makes me think this UA is being used to advertise another "step" in expanding options for the game. Personally, while the lore of Strixhaven likely isn't my cup of tea, I am curious about this school system, so to speak, and maybe getting one lore on how magic "works" in MtG in D&D terms that will give DMs options for world building magic's place different. Making "magical learnedness" a suite of features available to different classes is interesting.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Right, I think there are bigger priorities. That being said, I don't think container management and dark mode should have been priorities. Dark Mode can be fixed with a custom CSS script. Inventory management isn't actually a problem, its a quality of life fix. Why allocate resources to that?
I sort of agree on the container management but they have been talking about it for a very long time and as pointed out many people have asked for it.
As to dark mode - I find this pretty essential - I would love for them to release a good and complete dark mode site wide. If I just have to apply some tweaks for my preferences/customization instead of doing the majority of it myself that would be fantastic. I feel the same way about UA, saying they don't have the tools to present it in the way they want to, so they just aren't going to do it feels bad. They suggested we homebrew it (as is their suggestion often). In the past they've told us their backend is similar (with slightly more stuff) to the homebrew tools. I would appreciate temporary solutions, such as using the tools they suggest we use, to create temporary content like UA.
If UA isn't pretty or pieces aren't perfect that's understandable but better than shifting all the work onto the community. A few hours of 1 employees time vs the same amount of time multiplied by however many people want to use the content. In addition, with the exception of a few star homebrew community members (like IamSposta), an employee who's job is to work with the tools will likely be much faster at it. D&D is a large part of my life and is a rather substantial time investment. That's why I use this site to begin with - it made it easier and faster to get to the good parts. These days it's getting back to the point where we're spending more and more time outside the good parts.
To play devil's advocate - anything to increase their speed at releasing meaningful content for this site is in my opinion needed at this point. It's just sorely disappointing that more and more seems to get put on the backburner with them being unable to keep/catch up. I'm hopeful the new universal/generic feature system does what they claim it will do and fast track nearly everything else.
I knew the second that UA came out they wouldn't be implementing it. And when the book comes out and they have to implement it, they are going to just make a separate sub class for each class. So there will basically be three copies of each subclass, each tied to specific classes. Anyone remember the optional class features UA? They kept saying 'Working on it, working on it' and finally Tasha's was announced and they begged WOTC to delay digital pre-orders because they weren't sure they'd be able to implement it in time. And then the launch was still a big mess.
Feature system still 'TBD'? That's the biggest disappointment. Still can't implement core features from WOTC books like Piety.
As a dev, I tend to give other devs the benefit of the doubt, but "dark mode" is not a major feature and should not even be on the radar when the site doesn't support multiple features found in published content that is sold on the site. Containers will also have absolutely zero impact on my gaming experience, but I'll give that one a pass since it seems to be important to others.
I can see the reasoning in not coding for this UA as it is one of the more experimental bits of content released lately and may end up changing a lot. Bummer, but it makes sense.
At any rate, the rate of development feels pretty slow. Supposedly the CFV overhaul was also revamping the code so that the site could be more flexible and agile in the future, but that payoff has not been evident yet. The character builder is the reason I'm here. The more content we get that it does not support, the more incentive we have to look elsewhere for a better tool. I hope they're not losing sight of that.
Everybody is going to have different priorities. I desperately want containers as the workarounds for not having containers are annoying, time-consuming, and deeply frustrating, but I personally don't really care at all about 'Official' implementation of Dark/Supernatural Gifts, Piety, or the like as most of those are the work of 'bout three minutes to do as a one-off custom homebrew feat I can slap on a character and go. For me specifically, the workaround for Gifts is vastly easier and less time-intensive than the workaround(s) for Containers so I'm a huge fan of Containers happening, but I also get why people might want it the other way. Some folks love to futz with their sheet and constantly rename/re-weight/retool everything to put it in its proper place; I have no such love and wish the system to allow me to sort items into appropriate containers without spending twenty minutes customizing every item in my inventory every time I pull something out or put something in.
That's gonna hold for just about everybody. There's no possible way to please everybody with the priority list, they gotta pick. And frankly, Containers have been promised for multiple years now. It's our turn, gaiz. Plz. then we just need a toggle for Slow Natural Healing to turn off automatic Wolverine Super Regen on long rest and my table will be golden.
Its a good choice not to include Strixhaven UA in its current form. The time spent on trying to make it work while the final version will look (hopefully) completely different seems like a huge chance to waste gazillion of development time on something that will go to the trash container.
The integration of some soft of inventory management etc. that takes bag of holding and all these things into account is nice. I'll assume you will be able to tick every item in your inventory through the customize box and declare in which container its stored and it gets added as info to the item and the bag or other container.
I wish they would allow for dice rolls without animation.... while my PC doesn't care, my tablet hates the dice rolls cause of performance issues. Not to mention that the rolls are slow.
Everybody is going to have different priorities. I desperately want containers as the workarounds for not having containers are annoying, time-consuming, and deeply frustrating, but I personally don't really care at all about 'Official' implementation of Dark/Supernatural Gifts, Piety, or the like as most of those are the work of 'bout three minutes to do as a one-off custom homebrew feat I can slap on a character and go. For me specifically, the workaround for Gifts is vastly easier and less time-intensive than the workaround(s) for Containers so I'm a huge fan of Containers happening, but I also get why people might want it the other way. Some folks love to futz with their sheet and constantly rename/re-weight/retool everything to put it in its proper place; I have no such love and wish the system to allow me to sort items into appropriate containers without spending twenty minutes customizing every item in my inventory every time I pull something out or put something in.
That's gonna hold for just about everybody. There's no possible way to please everybody with the priority list, they gotta pick. And frankly, Containers have been promised for multiple years now. It's our turn, gaiz. Plz. then we just need a toggle for Slow Natural Healing to turn off automatic Wolverine Super Regen on long rest and my table will be golden.
100% every table and person is going to have different requirements. We don't even all play by the same rules. At my table, for example, no one is going to futz with item weights. We will look at the total weight and subtract 500 for a bag of holding or other appropriate amount for stuff on their mount/mule and if their within their carrying capacity after that their good. It sounds like your table is much more gritty and containers would have a much larger impact. Shared inventories however would be a godsend for our table.
The reason I find dark mode so essential is I used to get headaches on this site when I wasn't using my own custom CSS. Bouncing between a VTT with dark styling and a glaring white page (compendium content as the DM) was rough with the constant refocusing. I find it a crucial accessibility feature. Clearly not everyone agrees with that even just in this thread.
They won't ever be able to please everyone with their choices of what to work on, what to leave to later or, just what they aren't going to do (volume in containers for example).
Even though I find the development pace rather slow, I'll be very happy if it all works as advertised and come the last quarter of this year we see an accelerated release of backlog stuff as they release the first iteration of the universal feature system. I'm also pleased with the saving/resuming of combat coming soon™.
I'm down for dark mode, would be nice to be able to turn off the blinding spotlight of whiteness that is this website sometimes. I was mostly trying to point out to the "why the hell are they working on [X] when [Y] isn't even implemented yet?!" folks that for every player with a huge attachment to [Y] who's frustrated it's not in yet, there's another player who's been waiting on [X] for just as long if not longer and is just thrilled to hear news.
Slow Natural Healing is a base game, DMG option that DDB has not, and never will, implement. We had to abandon it in our game because the workarounds were klutzy and kludgy and ended up being more trouble than they were worth. We'll never get that option, there's no decent way to workaround that option, and we've been waiting for close to three years now for Containers. Dark/Supernatural/Divine Gifts came out maybe a year ago and can be very easily patched in with a few minutes' work in the homebrew tool.
Please exercise the same empathy and patience the rest of us have while waiting for the never-developed features we would like, peoplez of DDB. Every once in a great while, it's okay to go back and fill in missing basic functionality on the sheet rather than chase the newest book as hard as humanly possible.
I'm figuring that they will have to write up a subclass for each class the subclass works for, that way they just have to allow for a choice on subclass features when more then one appears.
I'm down for dark mode, would be nice to be able to turn off the blinding spotlight of whiteness that is this website sometimes. I was mostly trying to point out to the "why the hell are they working on [X] when [Y] isn't even implemented yet?!" folks that for every player with a huge attachment to [Y] who's frustrated it's not in yet, there's another player who's been waiting on [X] for just as long if not longer and is just thrilled to hear news.
Slow Natural Healing is a base game, DMG option that DDB has not, and never will, implement. We had to abandon it in our game because the workarounds were klutzy and kludgy and ended up being more trouble than they were worth. We'll never get that option, there's no decent way to workaround that option, and we've been waiting for close to three years now for Containers. Dark/Supernatural/Divine Gifts came out maybe a year ago and can be very easily patched in with a few minutes' work in the homebrew tool.
Please exercise the same empathy and patience the rest of us have while waiting for the never-developed features we would like, peoplez of DDB. Every once in a great while, it's okay to go back and fill in missing basic functionality on the sheet rather than chase the newest book as hard as humanly possible.
I does drive me a bit nuts that there are so many options in the DMG, all the way back to the beginning of 5e, that still aren't implemented. Sure, they aren't primary rules, but they're right there in the text of the Big 3 Books.
Honestly, while I'm not surprised, I am disappointed.
Other things talked about: Sidekicks are on the backburner for things like container inventory management and dark mode. Feature System and Halloween were mentioned in the same sentence, but then walked back.
Did they comment on if they might add it when the actual book comes out? Not sure if they're just waiting for the final version on this one or avoiding it entirely.
It was "We just don't have the tools in place to support something that will be a maybe, and once we know if it's going to be for sure, then we'll develop it and hope its out in time for release with the book", but considering other odds and ends, my personal speculation would be "Don't hold your breath" considering things like Dark Gifts, Piety, Epic Boons from the DMG aren't even enabled.
They are currently working on adding a place for the dark gifts, piety, and boons. I honestly do not blame them for holding off on the Strixhaven stuff. Why allocate resources when the playtest could come back rejecting the multiple subclass idea?
Right, I think there are bigger priorities. That being said, I don't think container management and dark mode should have been priorities. Dark Mode can be fixed with a custom CSS script. Inventory management isn't actually a problem, its a quality of life fix. Why allocate resources to that?
I figured as much from the moment I saw the Strixhaven UA. While I’m excited by the possibilities of the UA, it breaks a lot of assumptions about how subclasses work. No doubt the coding behind the character sheet is built to treat those original assumptions as rules, requiring significant rewrites to implement the Strixhaven classes. They have said before that they are unwilling to spend a lot of developer time on UA concepts given that they are “maybes” that may get thrown in the trash by WOTC, and I can’t blame them for that choice. In their place I’d likely make the same decision. My guess is they do have people thinking about how they could implement it.
[I also find it ironic that they are finally able to work on the generic features system, which was in part supposed to “future proof” them when WOTCs threw curveballs at them, and then WOTC throws a curveball that almost certainly can’t be addressed by the generic features system.]
EDIT: I just watched this week's Dev update, and it sounds like my assumption that the generic/universal feature system wouldn't help them with the Strixhaven multiple class subclasses may be incorrect. Which I find hopeful.
Trying to Decide if DDB is for you? A few helpful threads: A Buyer's Guide to DDB; What I/We Bought and Why; How some DMs use DDB; A Newer Thread on Using DDB to Play
Helpful threads on other topics: Homebrew FAQ by IamSposta; Accessing Content by ConalTheGreat;
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Containers are love.
Containers are life.
Don't sass my need for containers on the character sheet. I will fyte yew. DX
Please do not contact or message me.
It is also a feature that is commonly requested and been "on the map" for years.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
I'd say more robust container/inventory management fits into a basic character sheet functionality, and I believe it's been asked for more than DMG epic boons. However with two books, Theros and VRGtR now making the concept basically more expected by players and DMs to be integrated rather than an option for which to find workarounds, I'm happy to see them now apparently get more developmental potential.
I'm a little disappointed I can't play with the UA on DDB, but also appreciate DDB's position, sort of like CFVs. That said, I'm pretty sure we will see subclasses open to a range of classes in some form. If Strixhaven wasn't announced already I'd be more inclined to think this WOTC floating the concept with the space to retract. The fact that these are out there now, attached to a named book makes me think this UA is being used to advertise another "step" in expanding options for the game. Personally, while the lore of Strixhaven likely isn't my cup of tea, I am curious about this school system, so to speak, and maybe getting one lore on how magic "works" in MtG in D&D terms that will give DMs options for world building magic's place different. Making "magical learnedness" a suite of features available to different classes is interesting.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I sort of agree on the container management but they have been talking about it for a very long time and as pointed out many people have asked for it.
As to dark mode - I find this pretty essential - I would love for them to release a good and complete dark mode site wide. If I just have to apply some tweaks for my preferences/customization instead of doing the majority of it myself that would be fantastic. I feel the same way about UA, saying they don't have the tools to present it in the way they want to, so they just aren't going to do it feels bad. They suggested we homebrew it (as is their suggestion often). In the past they've told us their backend is similar (with slightly more stuff) to the homebrew tools. I would appreciate temporary solutions, such as using the tools they suggest we use, to create temporary content like UA.
If UA isn't pretty or pieces aren't perfect that's understandable but better than shifting all the work onto the community. A few hours of 1 employees time vs the same amount of time multiplied by however many people want to use the content. In addition, with the exception of a few star homebrew community members (like IamSposta), an employee who's job is to work with the tools will likely be much faster at it. D&D is a large part of my life and is a rather substantial time investment. That's why I use this site to begin with - it made it easier and faster to get to the good parts. These days it's getting back to the point where we're spending more and more time outside the good parts.
To play devil's advocate - anything to increase their speed at releasing meaningful content for this site is in my opinion needed at this point. It's just sorely disappointing that more and more seems to get put on the backburner with them being unable to keep/catch up. I'm hopeful the new universal/generic feature system does what they claim it will do and fast track nearly everything else.
I knew the second that UA came out they wouldn't be implementing it. And when the book comes out and they have to implement it, they are going to just make a separate sub class for each class. So there will basically be three copies of each subclass, each tied to specific classes. Anyone remember the optional class features UA? They kept saying 'Working on it, working on it' and finally Tasha's was announced and they begged WOTC to delay digital pre-orders because they weren't sure they'd be able to implement it in time. And then the launch was still a big mess.
Feature system still 'TBD'? That's the biggest disappointment. Still can't implement core features from WOTC books like Piety.
As a dev, I tend to give other devs the benefit of the doubt, but "dark mode" is not a major feature and should not even be on the radar when the site doesn't support multiple features found in published content that is sold on the site. Containers will also have absolutely zero impact on my gaming experience, but I'll give that one a pass since it seems to be important to others.
I can see the reasoning in not coding for this UA as it is one of the more experimental bits of content released lately and may end up changing a lot. Bummer, but it makes sense.
At any rate, the rate of development feels pretty slow. Supposedly the CFV overhaul was also revamping the code so that the site could be more flexible and agile in the future, but that payoff has not been evident yet. The character builder is the reason I'm here. The more content we get that it does not support, the more incentive we have to look elsewhere for a better tool. I hope they're not losing sight of that.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
Everybody is going to have different priorities. I desperately want containers as the workarounds for not having containers are annoying, time-consuming, and deeply frustrating, but I personally don't really care at all about 'Official' implementation of Dark/Supernatural Gifts, Piety, or the like as most of those are the work of 'bout three minutes to do as a one-off custom homebrew feat I can slap on a character and go. For me specifically, the workaround for Gifts is vastly easier and less time-intensive than the workaround(s) for Containers so I'm a huge fan of Containers happening, but I also get why people might want it the other way. Some folks love to futz with their sheet and constantly rename/re-weight/retool everything to put it in its proper place; I have no such love and wish the system to allow me to sort items into appropriate containers without spending twenty minutes customizing every item in my inventory every time I pull something out or put something in.
That's gonna hold for just about everybody. There's no possible way to please everybody with the priority list, they gotta pick. And frankly, Containers have been promised for multiple years now. It's our turn, gaiz. Plz. then we just need a toggle for Slow Natural Healing to turn off automatic Wolverine Super Regen on long rest and my table will be golden.
Please do not contact or message me.
Its a good choice not to include Strixhaven UA in its current form. The time spent on trying to make it work while the final version will look (hopefully) completely different seems like a huge chance to waste gazillion of development time on something that will go to the trash container.
The integration of some soft of inventory management etc. that takes bag of holding and all these things into account is nice. I'll assume you will be able to tick every item in your inventory through the customize box and declare in which container its stored and it gets added as info to the item and the bag or other container.
I wish they would allow for dice rolls without animation.... while my PC doesn't care, my tablet hates the dice rolls cause of performance issues.
Not to mention that the rolls are slow.
100% every table and person is going to have different requirements. We don't even all play by the same rules. At my table, for example, no one is going to futz with item weights. We will look at the total weight and subtract 500 for a bag of holding or other appropriate amount for stuff on their mount/mule and if their within their carrying capacity after that their good. It sounds like your table is much more gritty and containers would have a much larger impact. Shared inventories however would be a godsend for our table.
The reason I find dark mode so essential is I used to get headaches on this site when I wasn't using my own custom CSS. Bouncing between a VTT with dark styling and a glaring white page (compendium content as the DM) was rough with the constant refocusing. I find it a crucial accessibility feature. Clearly not everyone agrees with that even just in this thread.
They won't ever be able to please everyone with their choices of what to work on, what to leave to later or, just what they aren't going to do (volume in containers for example).
Even though I find the development pace rather slow, I'll be very happy if it all works as advertised and come the last quarter of this year we see an accelerated release of backlog stuff as they release the first iteration of the universal feature system. I'm also pleased with the saving/resuming of combat coming soon™.
I want custom classes most of all because I have at least 2 campaigns with 3rd party classes and I would like to utilize the beyond tools with them.
I'm down for dark mode, would be nice to be able to turn off the blinding spotlight of whiteness that is this website sometimes. I was mostly trying to point out to the "why the hell are they working on [X] when [Y] isn't even implemented yet?!" folks that for every player with a huge attachment to [Y] who's frustrated it's not in yet, there's another player who's been waiting on [X] for just as long if not longer and is just thrilled to hear news.
Slow Natural Healing is a base game, DMG option that DDB has not, and never will, implement. We had to abandon it in our game because the workarounds were klutzy and kludgy and ended up being more trouble than they were worth. We'll never get that option, there's no decent way to workaround that option, and we've been waiting for close to three years now for Containers. Dark/Supernatural/Divine Gifts came out maybe a year ago and can be very easily patched in with a few minutes' work in the homebrew tool.
Please exercise the same empathy and patience the rest of us have while waiting for the never-developed features we would like, peoplez of DDB. Every once in a great while, it's okay to go back and fill in missing basic functionality on the sheet rather than chase the newest book as hard as humanly possible.
Please do not contact or message me.
I'm figuring that they will have to write up a subclass for each class the subclass works for, that way they just have to allow for a choice on subclass features when more then one appears.
I does drive me a bit nuts that there are so many options in the DMG, all the way back to the beginning of 5e, that still aren't implemented. Sure, they aren't primary rules, but they're right there in the text of the Big 3 Books.
Looks like they made the right choice, since those subclasses have been cancelled. The Strixhaven book won't feature them.