I was wondering, if there would be a possibility in the future to homebrew complete classes. As you probably all know it's only possible to homebrew subclasses for now. But there are a lot of fun completely homebrewed classes that I would like to try with the help of dndbeyond and I was hoping this could or would come with the merging of WotC. Does anybody know anything about it?
DnDBeyond is currently working on a general features update. I'm not a coder nor a game designer so I don't fully know what that entails, but a lot of people think it could lead to Homebrew classes.
I would not get your hopes up. Not only are there so many other higher priority items for Beyond to fix and tackle, Beyond focuses on primarily official published content (they took out UA, and they have explicitly stated they cannot work with third party content), and they and Wizards do not seem too keen on expanding homebrew capabilities more than its current state.
Getting any homebrew on the site at all was apparently a massive issue. The Dndbeyond team had to BEG to get homebrew permission from WOTC. I doubt, as Gamma said above me, that they would add any function to homebrew that goes outside of what they have already done (IE allowing us to use the dev tools as they are currently programmed)
Getting any homebrew on the site at all was apparently a massive issue. The Dndbeyond team had to BEG to get homebrew permission from WOTC. I doubt, as Gamma said above me, that they would add any function to homebrew that goes outside of what they have already done (IE allowing us to use the dev tools as they are currently programmed)
It's weird how anti homebrew WotC seems in practice, while also constantly encouraging it in theory.
New classes mean new mechanics. I'm not sure people can appreciate what that would require on a technical level. The only way I could see it working was if they made an interface that basically wrote custom code that would be executed for your character sheet. Considering that's at least 100x the complexity of say, the Piety system that they still haven't implemented, I don't see it happening.
What I could see, if WotC decides to throw a little more funding at the devs here, is a Class Feature Variant system that would allow you to swap out existing class features with your own. This would open up a LOT of design space. But the sheet-compatibility of the features themselves would be limited to existing mechanics, so if you wanted to do something fancy you'd just need to write it out and have the player handle the effects themselves, as you would on a paper sheet.
New classes don't fundamentally need new mechanics any more than new subclasses do. They could technically achieve most of what people want out of new classes by introducing a class with zero class features and then you create a subclass of that class to do everything (in fact, you can mostly already do this by using class feature replacement to delete your original class). There would be some hassle because I don't think subclasses can change hit dice or ASIs, and there's no way to create sub-sub-classes, but it's doable.
It would, however, be a pretty significant chunk of work to implement, and probably a significant hassle to actually use.
Sure, I'm making an assumption about what people want from homebrew classes. But I think it's a pretty safe one. As you illustrate, those who are satisfied with existing mechanics can achieve what they want with the tools we already have, even if it is inconvenient to do so.
New classes don't necessarily have to be complex. There ways to add in dice rolls, and charges for abilities. Beyond that a lot can just be manually imputed, things like Rage are, beyond tracking daily uses, entirely on the user to manage, and until relatively recently so where things like the Life Cleric extra healing.
So I don't really see the need for a hugely complex system, if you keep the features people can use fairly basic and streamlined then I imagine the hardest things to implement would be spell lists and get the class to show up where classes are. Keep in mind I'm not a coding person, just a firm believer in the fact that complex mechanics can just as easily come from a wall of text and a handful of dice as it can from a hundred walls of code.
New classes could use existing class abilities and already supported aspects.
A few simple ones:
1. Changing to the new Ranger
2. Changing the hit die of a class
Slightly more difficult but doable.
1. Create the ability to make your own point system similar to Sorcery points or Ki points but for something different. (example psi points that spend like ki points to boost psychic abilities to create a different kind of "spell" caster).
Probably conflicts with their bottom line of selling more races and subclasses... which doesn't make a ton of sense since we can already make subclasses, but whatever.
You can manufacture features as a subclass and ignore features a class has if you want. I've made Intelligence Warlocks and even Wyrmling race choices. It is a hacknine way to force it though, you better off just writing it on paper, there's little you need from the website.
Probably conflicts with their bottom line of selling more races and subclasses... which doesn't make a ton of sense since we can already make subclasses, but whatever.
You can manufacture features as a subclass and ignore features a class has if you want. I've made Intelligence Warlocks and even Wyrmling race choices. It is a hacknine way to force it though, you better off just writing it on paper, there's little you need from the website.
Yes, I know. I have probably like most, started playing with my Character sheet in front of me and pencil in hand. I was only going for the convenience. Sometimes I find it tedious to traack stuff on paper, like encumberance for example. That is just way easier on dndbeyond.
You can use the character sheet on DDB for simple interactions by copying governing stats into the sheet, but use a paper sheet for details, or a digital sheet elsewhere, I hear a lot of Avrae users bring up Gsheet.
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I was wondering, if there would be a possibility in the future to homebrew complete classes. As you probably all know it's only possible to homebrew subclasses for now. But there are a lot of fun completely homebrewed classes that I would like to try with the help of dndbeyond and I was hoping this could or would come with the merging of WotC. Does anybody know anything about it?
DnDBeyond is currently working on a general features update. I'm not a coder nor a game designer so I don't fully know what that entails, but a lot of people think it could lead to Homebrew classes.
I would not get your hopes up. Not only are there so many other higher priority items for Beyond to fix and tackle, Beyond focuses on primarily official published content (they took out UA, and they have explicitly stated they cannot work with third party content), and they and Wizards do not seem too keen on expanding homebrew capabilities more than its current state.
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Getting any homebrew on the site at all was apparently a massive issue. The Dndbeyond team had to BEG to get homebrew permission from WOTC. I doubt, as Gamma said above me, that they would add any function to homebrew that goes outside of what they have already done (IE allowing us to use the dev tools as they are currently programmed)
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It's weird how anti homebrew WotC seems in practice, while also constantly encouraging it in theory.
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New classes mean new mechanics. I'm not sure people can appreciate what that would require on a technical level. The only way I could see it working was if they made an interface that basically wrote custom code that would be executed for your character sheet. Considering that's at least 100x the complexity of say, the Piety system that they still haven't implemented, I don't see it happening.
What I could see, if WotC decides to throw a little more funding at the devs here, is a Class Feature Variant system that would allow you to swap out existing class features with your own. This would open up a LOT of design space. But the sheet-compatibility of the features themselves would be limited to existing mechanics, so if you wanted to do something fancy you'd just need to write it out and have the player handle the effects themselves, as you would on a paper sheet.
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
New classes don't fundamentally need new mechanics any more than new subclasses do. They could technically achieve most of what people want out of new classes by introducing a class with zero class features and then you create a subclass of that class to do everything (in fact, you can mostly already do this by using class feature replacement to delete your original class). There would be some hassle because I don't think subclasses can change hit dice or ASIs, and there's no way to create sub-sub-classes, but it's doable.
It would, however, be a pretty significant chunk of work to implement, and probably a significant hassle to actually use.
Sure, I'm making an assumption about what people want from homebrew classes. But I think it's a pretty safe one. As you illustrate, those who are satisfied with existing mechanics can achieve what they want with the tools we already have, even if it is inconvenient to do so.
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
New classes don't necessarily have to be complex. There ways to add in dice rolls, and charges for abilities. Beyond that a lot can just be manually imputed, things like Rage are, beyond tracking daily uses, entirely on the user to manage, and until relatively recently so where things like the Life Cleric extra healing.
So I don't really see the need for a hugely complex system, if you keep the features people can use fairly basic and streamlined then I imagine the hardest things to implement would be spell lists and get the class to show up where classes are. Keep in mind I'm not a coding person, just a firm believer in the fact that complex mechanics can just as easily come from a wall of text and a handful of dice as it can from a hundred walls of code.
New classes could use existing class abilities and already supported aspects.
A few simple ones:
1. Changing to the new Ranger
2. Changing the hit die of a class
Slightly more difficult but doable.
1. Create the ability to make your own point system similar to Sorcery points or Ki points but for something different. (example psi points that spend like ki points to boost psychic abilities to create a different kind of "spell" caster).
Probably conflicts with their bottom line of selling more races and subclasses... which doesn't make a ton of sense since we can already make subclasses, but whatever.
You can manufacture features as a subclass and ignore features a class has if you want. I've made Intelligence Warlocks and even Wyrmling race choices. It is a hacknine way to force it though, you better off just writing it on paper, there's little you need from the website.
Yes, I know. I have probably like most, started playing with my Character sheet in front of me and pencil in hand. I was only going for the convenience. Sometimes I find it tedious to traack stuff on paper, like encumberance for example. That is just way easier on dndbeyond.
You can use the character sheet on DDB for simple interactions by copying governing stats into the sheet, but use a paper sheet for details, or a digital sheet elsewhere, I hear a lot of Avrae users bring up Gsheet.