As of right now I DM using physical books, not DDB. I’ve thought about it and I realized how much of an investment it is (for a jobless 13 year old) I currently use the three core rule books as well as Xanathars guide. (Also thinking about getting SCAG) 

I know that the legendary bundle saves you tons of money and let’s you play with ease. But my big question is how smooth does it actually run. If you run a module does it work well? My players are fairly new and I know that they definitely won’t invest that much money just yet. Does it still run smoothly if one player, or the DM has everything DDB has to offer but 5e others don’t? 

Were pretty disorganized as of now and I think eventually as everything becomes more automated, online tools like DDB will become very useful. 

Can you DM solely using DDB? Also the pros and cons of using traditional and DDB.

let me know. Thanks

Well, if someone in the group has the Master subscription (5.99 monthly) then everyone can share content on DDB. The DM can share everything, or even players can buy individual books and share the content with each other. And you only need one subscription; everyone else can use the free account as long as they don't hit the character limit.

You can definitely DM using DDB, but the limiting factor often times is the device you use. You'll want to have multiple tabs open so you can flip back and forth between sheets and books easily, and some tablets start to chug when you have too much stuff open at once. A laptop or tablet with enough memory is kind of a must here. 

Definitely helps with organization, especially during character creation. Instead of having to flip back and forth between multiple books, everything's centralized and it calculates everything for you. It's also great as a DM being able to just type stuff into a search engine without trying to remember what book a particular spell is in.

I felt the legendary bundle was definitely worth it, but I A) bought it fairly early before I'd spent a lot on hardcovers and B) got in on the Critical Role 25% off code. I can definitely understand people hesitant to pull that big expensive trigger, especially if they've already spent a lot, but after you do it the discount is very very nice. It also stacks with the omnipresent coupon codes that seem to be floating around every few months; I used a 25% off code to get the two Waterdeep books, Ravnica, and the Eberron book and the four of them cost me like 62 bucks total. $15 per new book comparatively ain't too bad.

If you have the physical books, remember that you can just buy the bits and pieces that you actually need for your adventures/characters. Beyond that you can also create anything as homebrew, yes even official content as long as you don’t share it publicly. 

Also a not so well known fact about the legendary bundle AND books..  is that the costs roll up. So if you buy $10 worth of content from the PHB and later want to just buy the PHB whole, is will only be $19.99. Similarly if you buy $120 worth of books and want to buy the Legendary Bundle, then priced at say $400, the price in cart will only be $280. Lastly if you wait until coupons are out for any of this, those apply also. 

What I just did was bought everything up to Ravnica using the NEVERWINTER coupon code (25% off). After I bought that I bought the Legendary Bundle and my price in cart was $1.99. So I essentially paid the price of the LG bundle but got two additional books (both Waterdeep adventures) compared to the current bundle. 

As for how useful it is. By far the two biggest uses are being able to have all of the character sheets up (with links for EVERYTHING) and having the adventures up (again with links). You do need a lot of windows. A desktop browser works best (multiple windows) but my iPad works well also, just needing to go to the thumbnails often to pull up the right windows. 

I would start slow and see how it goes.  For some folks the Legendary bundle is great, but for a lot of us it contains more than we need.  I don't need all the published adventures, for example, just the one I'm currently running.  

I'd suggest you take a look at the buyer's guide that is linked in my signature, to give you some ideas about options for purchasing. (You are welcome to read the comments, but the guide is all in the first post).   

I use DDB to help me run an in person game.  Some of my players have free DDB accounts, some of them don't have a DDB account at all, and handle the characters completely on paper.  Two of them have accounts but their characters aren't connected to my campaign on it.  (One has it primarily for spells; her primary character for our game isn't on DDB because she has a free account and that character is a Moon Druid, a subclass that isn't free).  

I use DDB on my tablet and have the adventure up in one tab, my notes (DM private notes in our "campaign" on DDB) in another, plus monster and spell listing tabs.  Sometimes I have a map up in a separate tab.   I also use DDB to track NPCS. I find it helpful for my prep and DMing.  I do not have the Master Tier, so I don't share content with my characters.  I have the PHB, the adventure I'm running (Tomb of Annihilation), some monsters from the MM I need for the adventure (but not the whole Monster Manual),  a subclass and a race I wanted from other books.  

as borghe mentions, you don't lose anything by starting slow and just purchasing the bits you need; it's all credited toward your future purchases in that source and toward the price of the Legendary Bundle.

People say 5e has a good 5-10 years left in it. But when 6e does come out do you know if DDB will just switch to 6e or will there be a whole new website for that? Perhaps I can live out the rest of my 5e days using traditional, before making a full switch when 6e is launched. By then, everything will be more automated, and Depending on how long it takes, I’ll either be a broke college kid or just be beginning a new job. 

Generally I enjoy 5e. It was easy to get into, has a lot of internet support, and it helps deter a lot of issues that were relevant in previous editions. 

Mike Mearls has said any new edition would only come about when there was significant demand for a new edition, and that backwards compatibility would be a high priority. They'd much rather poke and tweak 5e as long as the players remain happy with it. And I don't think we're going to be swamped with content anytime soon even if they have damn near doubled the publishing rate this year. (I ran a shop in the 2e days. My God.)

As I understand it, though, even when 6e comes out, D&D Beyond will just add support for it to the current system and you'll be able to continue running the old stuff if you want.

They haven't said;  What has been said by Wizards of the Coast staff is that IF there is a 6e, it would be backwards compatible.  

If you are uncertain, I'd say play around with the free tools and see what you think; that's where I started.  You can always decide to invest later; you can't get your money back if you buy in and then discover it's not what you want/need.

I'm considerably older than you, but my players are high school students and one college student, when she's home from college.   Of that crew, to my knowledge only my children have purchased anything here; everyone else just uses the free stuff or doesn't have an account at all.  My daughter bought the 3 core books hear when she left for college last year; she got in on the sale when DDB first released, and it was cheaper than buying the physical books.  (All the physical DnD books in our home belong to my son, so she couldn't take them with).   My son bought mostly monsters and magic items for planning purposes.

I've found the overall that the Players Handbook, Dungeon Masters Guide and Monster manual with a Master level subscription to be a good starting point.  Especially if you watch for a coupon.  I share with my players so I'm the only person that has to buy.  I pretty strongly recommend Xanathar's Guide to Everything as that ads a lot of stretch to the players options.

If you have limited budget from there I would recommend just working with the players to buy options as you need them and then saving your money to pay for the subscription.

Since you get credit with your purchase towards the legendary bundle and credit towards the total book from the options you buy its ok to buy slowly you don't lose out.

Just a heads up, D&D Beyond posted on Facebook the code LEGEND25 for 25% off the Legendary Bundle.

(Also HERO25 for non-LB purchases.)

It's a solid maybe.  It is smooth, and master tier content sharing is definitely the way to go so your group doesn't all have to buy the bundle.  I generally don't run modules, but it's definitely worked for my purposes. 

The one catch though: I'm not sure if I'd have gone for the LB if I owned more than the core rulebooks in hardcopy.  As it was, I was ready to make the investment, and was getting the content for the first time, so it was a fantastic deal.  I'm not sure it would have made sense if I was just purchasing the DDB functionality, though, because it is a pretty sizable chunk o' money.

Yeah had I Already owned the core rules in paper... aw who am I kidding. I still would have (a big reason I DON'T own any of the stuff in paper)

As much as I love all of my old AD&D stuff (that I haven't touched in forever) I'm just at that point in my life where I don't need a new library of 19 books (current size of LB).

Though I wish they would improve DNDB a bit more yet. Specifically how they still call out "any time you see a monster in bold, it means it has a data block in the MM or appendix" So....... why not just link it!?! D:

The short answer is Yes !

the long Answer is still yes, but heres why !
- 15% off every other books you buy from that point on. literally saving you on future books.
- the total cost of all books at regular prices would be next to about 800$ but it only costed you about 400$ thats a big bad 50% price reduction for you my friend.

these two are the only really worth piece of info you need... if you are not sold by a 65% price reduction then i think nothing will change your mind.

Quote from DnDPaladin >>

The short answer is Yes !

the long Answer is still yes, but heres why !
- 15% off every other books you buy from that point on. literally saving you on future books.
- the total cost of all books at regular prices would be next to about 800$ but it only costed you about 400$ thats a big bad 50% price reduction for you my friend.

these two are the only really worth piece of info you need... if you are not sold by a 65% price reduction then i think nothing will change your mind.

 That's only the case IF you need/can really use all the adventures.  For a player (who never DMs), the total cost for books with character options is $180 if you buy all the source books with character options; less if you buy piecemeal those options from books (like Mordenkainens) that are mostly for DMs.  That's a lot less that the current price of $378 for the Legendary Bundle.

For a DM that never uses published adventures, the outlay--for purchasing entire books--is $240.   $60 More than for players, but still considerably less than the Legendary Bundle.  And, that assumes they want all the player options.

For those folks who want EVERYTHING, the Legendary Bundle is a great thing.  But the "is it worth it" question is so much more complex than a simple "yes" or "no" answer:  It depends on what sources one needs, how they want to use DDB, what their personal finances are like, etc.  I can tell you that the Legendary Bundle is NOT worth it to me, because there's too much stuff I wouldn't use.  It's cheaper for me to buy what I want at "full" DDB prices than to buy the LB.  That's not a complaint, it's not knocking the LB for those who need/want it; it's just my reality, based on my needs.  

It is not complex at all, is it worth it, yes it is, there is no in between ! because if you start doing in between i'll also say that you should just spend 0$ and just have a friend buy it all for you and use him instead of buying anything. that argument is moot because the reality is, the legendary bundle is worth it. because the literal question that was asked, was "is the legendary bundle worth it?". the answer is yes !

as for adventures, they do have many character options and magic items in them, so the answer is still yes. its great to have the adventures. i also buy the adventures as a DM to read them, see what they did and give myself ideas. even as a DM that do not do premade adventures, i would stil say its the right call when it comes to buying the legendary bundles.

for someone who still only wants the charcater options, it is still a great way to get everything... including the backgrounds, magic items and races of the adventures.