While I don't mind shelling out a couple bucks a month to have online access to the rulebooks (they are parsed out very well... so quick to look something up during combat!), this app seems kinda limited right now. Although it's cool to have a "campaign" where my players can get online and connect with me so we all have access to the homebrew stuff I want to give them during play -- and the character sheet is hands-down PHENOMENAL!!! -- I really find myself wanting to integrate all this with a campaign manager where I can not only have an initiative tracker which will port in monsters and NPCs from the books with a click of the mouse, but can also pre-create "modules" that are different chapters of adventures complete with encounters, maps, and treasure. Although I've never used it, it seems like Fantasy Grounds has all this (though I have no desire right now to play virtually... I still like playing around the table with people I can see). Will DnD Beyond eventually as well?
I really like the "smoothness" of this app so far. Just wanting to know where it's eventually going.
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C. Foster Payne
"If you get to thinkin' you're a person of some influence, try orderin' somebody else's dog around."
DDB is still extremely young as a platform and service (we are not even one-year into its life since release) and the team have big plans for this place.
Better/deeper campaign management tools have been asked since the beginning, and the reply has always been "it's on the roadmap"/"yes it will be done"/"it's on the list". So, things will be coming, but the dev team is (still) relatively small, and they want to focus on one/two things at a time.
For the past few months the focus has been on the Character Sheet revamp we will be seeing soon (possibly within this month), which will make the digital sheet (and its dreaded PDF export) even better, and the Homebrew subclasses we can now play around with. This is because they want to (rightly, imho) focus first on what the users use the most, and the sheet and Homebrew options are definitely the most used features.
If I remember correctly from the latest Dev livestream (that I would advice to always follow ;) ) the development of more "DM oriented" tools and content is going to be tackled right after the revamp goes live, so we can expect to have something maybe within this year (if not hopefully sooner).
Hope the above has been useful info to you, and I'd suggest you to go over to the Feedback area of the forums and add your ideas to the suggestion thread, which the team always keeps an eye on.
I find the evolution of D&D online products to be incredibly frustrating. I've been a paying member of the D&D community since the 1990s. I remember when the TSR CD-Rom debacle was going on.
Anyway --- enough of my own negativity. I see great potential for D&D Beyond. It's the most well-rounded version of D&D Online (for tabletop games). I have bought the core rulebooks and a limited amount of other content (which I had already purchased in physical form), but WotC's business model not wrong.
They just to stay consistent. They had great 4e D&D tools which largely fell by the wayside once they did online-only access.
I find the evolution of D&D online products to be incredibly frustrating. I've been a paying member of the D&D community since the 1990s. I remember when the TSR CD-Rom debacle was going on.
Anyway --- enough of my own negativity. I see great potential for D&D Beyond. It's the most well-rounded version of D&D Online (for tabletop games). I have bought the core rulebooks and a limited amount of other content (which I had already purchased in physical form), but WotC's business model not wrong.
They just to stay consistent. They had great 4e D&D tools which largely fell by the wayside once they did online-only access.
L
Hi Iron_Theurge o/
Just to clarify, DDB is not owned by WotC. It is developed by Curse (subsidiary of Twitch, which in turn is a subsidiary of Amazon), who is working under license from WotC. The current need to purchase content is due to two main factors:
1-it is a different medium and there is no way (and no will from WotC to implement this in the future apparently) to validate a physical copy purchase, due to the lack of a unique code associated with each copy;
2- what is offered with the content here is much more than just a digitalised version of the book, considering the integration and cross-referincing available, also the manuals are heavily discounted when compared with the base pricetag from WotC.
That being said, you technically do not NEED to buy anything, as now that the subclasses system using place, you can recreate in an integrated way everything that is in an official book, as long as it is used for personal use (read: can't make it public), that means all subclasses, feats, monsters, magic items, backgrounds and spells can be available to you without buying the digital manuals, as long as you are willing to spend time "coding" them in.
On a last (personal) note: given how it went, I am not sure anything related to 4ed is a positive example :p
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Born in Italy, moved a bunch, living in Spain, my heart always belonged to Roleplaying Games
Just to clarify, DDB is not owned by WotC. It is developed by Curse (subsidiary of Twitch, which in turn is a subsidiary of Amazon), who is working under license from WotC. The current need to purchase content is due to two main factors:
1-it is a different medium and there is no way (and no will from WotC to implement this in the future apparently) to validate a physical copy purchase, due to the lack of a unique code associated with each copy;
2- what is offered with the content here is much more than just a digitalised version of the book, considering the integration and cross-referincing available, also the manuals are heavily discounted when compared with the base pricetag from WotC.
That being said, you technically do not NEED to buy anything, as now that the subclasses system using place, you can recreate in an integrated way everything that is in an official book, as long as it is used for personal use (read: can't make it public), that means all subclasses, feats, monsters, magic items, backgrounds and spells can be available to you without buying the digital manuals, as long as you are willing to spend time "coding" them in.
On a last (personal) note: given how it went, I am not sure anything related to 4ed is a positive example :p
Thanks for the clarification. I hadn't been aware of a lot of what you mentioned. I really like D&D Beyond, so Twitch/Curse angle is interesting. had never heard of Twitch until I signed up for D&D Beyond last year.
That explains why I have to have multiple accounts to use WotC services and D&D Beyond I suppose.
I still play 4e as well as 5e. I honestly still like aspects of 4e (just not the slow combat) -- that being said I probably only play it to stay connected to my friends (most of whom won't switch to 5th Edition). 5th Edition reminds of 2nd Edition with lots of great options and improvements, and that's a good thing, IMO.
Both opinions are not mutually exclusive. One of the main things I like about 5e (and this wasn't done in previous editions) is that they keep the splatbooks on a relatively long-term release schedule. Bot 3E and 4E went totatlly overboard with crunch.
2E was prolific, but moreso on the world-building side.
Anyway, I think all the three previous editions inspired some of the best aspects of 5e.
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While I don't mind shelling out a couple bucks a month to have online access to the rulebooks (they are parsed out very well... so quick to look something up during combat!), this app seems kinda limited right now. Although it's cool to have a "campaign" where my players can get online and connect with me so we all have access to the homebrew stuff I want to give them during play -- and the character sheet is hands-down PHENOMENAL!!! -- I really find myself wanting to integrate all this with a campaign manager where I can not only have an initiative tracker which will port in monsters and NPCs from the books with a click of the mouse, but can also pre-create "modules" that are different chapters of adventures complete with encounters, maps, and treasure. Although I've never used it, it seems like Fantasy Grounds has all this (though I have no desire right now to play virtually... I still like playing around the table with people I can see). Will DnD Beyond eventually as well?
I really like the "smoothness" of this app so far. Just wanting to know where it's eventually going.
C. Foster Payne
"If you get to thinkin' you're a person of some influence, try orderin' somebody else's dog around."
Hi FossMaNo1 o/
DDB is still extremely young as a platform and service (we are not even one-year into its life since release) and the team have big plans for this place.
Better/deeper campaign management tools have been asked since the beginning, and the reply has always been "it's on the roadmap"/"yes it will be done"/"it's on the list". So, things will be coming, but the dev team is (still) relatively small, and they want to focus on one/two things at a time.
For the past few months the focus has been on the Character Sheet revamp we will be seeing soon (possibly within this month), which will make the digital sheet (and its dreaded PDF export) even better, and the Homebrew subclasses we can now play around with. This is because they want to (rightly, imho) focus first on what the users use the most, and the sheet and Homebrew options are definitely the most used features.
If I remember correctly from the latest Dev livestream (that I would advice to always follow ;) ) the development of more "DM oriented" tools and content is going to be tackled right after the revamp goes live, so we can expect to have something maybe within this year (if not hopefully sooner).
Hope the above has been useful info to you, and I'd suggest you to go over to the Feedback area of the forums and add your ideas to the suggestion thread, which the team always keeps an eye on.
Born in Italy, moved a bunch, living in Spain, my heart always belonged to Roleplaying Games
I really appreciate the response. I really like what I'm seeing of this product so far. Keep up the great work!
C. Foster Payne
"If you get to thinkin' you're a person of some influence, try orderin' somebody else's dog around."
I find the evolution of D&D online products to be incredibly frustrating. I've been a paying member of the D&D community since the 1990s. I remember when the TSR CD-Rom debacle was going on.
Anyway --- enough of my own negativity. I see great potential for D&D Beyond. It's the most well-rounded version of D&D Online (for tabletop games). I have bought the core rulebooks and a limited amount of other content (which I had already purchased in physical form), but WotC's business model not wrong.
They just to stay consistent. They had great 4e D&D tools which largely fell by the wayside once they did online-only access.
L
Born in Italy, moved a bunch, living in Spain, my heart always belonged to Roleplaying Games
C. Foster Payne
"If you get to thinkin' you're a person of some influence, try orderin' somebody else's dog around."