Hi. I looked around and could not find an answer to this question. Apologies if I missed an answer already given.
I am creating homebrew items and monsters / NPCs for a campaign I am running. I want to be able to add the monsters / NPCs into my Encounters using the Encounter Builder, but I do not want my players to see the stat blocks. The items will come available after side quests or milestones and therefore I do not want them to see the items until those quests are completed. In an in-person paper-based campaign, revealing the homebrew item would be done by passing the piece of paper to the player and I do not want to have the reveal spoiled.
At this point, I do not know if my players will be able to see the homebrew items or not. The guidance in the FAQ and what is displayed on the Homebrew page for my monster / NPC clearly says that my players will be able to see what I have homebrewed, with "automatically shared" being the key phrase:
Remember, private homebrew is automatically shared with other users in your campaigns and does not need to be shared with the community for players to access.
However, the FAQ seems to contradict this when it says the following, with "be able to select" being the key phrase:
Q: Can I share my homebrew with others in my campaign, without submitting it as public homebrew? A: Absolutely! The DM of a campaign will be able to select which homebrew is in use within their campaign and this included any homebrew items they have created, whether they have made them public or not.
So which is it? Can they see it as soon as I create it? Or can they only see it when I make it available to them? (Technically speaking, since I created it as a public item they could find it by searching the homebrew catalog. My concern is with the "automatically shared" comment on the homebrew page.
Anything in your “Collection” is automatically shared and is accessible for your use in encounters as well. Anything you remove from your collection is not, but will remain if already added to a character or encounter. You can add/remove homebrews at will.
Thanks. This helped. Sorry for not saying thanks earlier.
To build on this, let's say I am running two games. If I create a homebrew item and add it to my Collection, then players in both games will see that item. Correct? What I am looking for is some granularity in who exactly can see each item, but it seems to be all-or-nothing. Do I have that right?
Just because your players see that you have a magic item,does not mean they will think it's for them. If they see your next quest reward and ask you about it,just say it's something you are working on for someone else/ the next campaign/for fun. (Feel free to ignore me if the homebrew is a spoiler mugguffin, like " the magic eye of BOSS located at the bottom of insert the next dungeon the PCs are going to here".)
People have been asking for more control over this for a little while, hopefully it'll get added at some point, e.g- multiple collections that can be assigned to specific campaigns.
In the mean-time the best thing to do is to keep your collection as small as possible, and only add items to it when they're needed, then remove them from your collection once a player has added it to their character sheet (as once homebrew is attached to a character sheet it doesn't matter if it's in your collection anymore).
One thing to keep in mind is that content on D&D Beyond is cached, so if a player has already searched for equipment recently (within the last 20 minutes) then newly added items won't appear right away, so you may want to add some items in advance (e.g- while approaching the end loot of a dungeon) or just tell the players what they need to know in the short term, and sort out the items after the session.
If you use homebrew items created by the community (i.e- not your own) then you may need to bookmark them in your browser to easily find them again without keeping them in your collection.
Unfortunately this is the best we can do for the moment, either that or you just keep everything in your collection that isn't a potential spoiler, as players should never add anything to their sheet that you didn't give them.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
I'd also love to have some granularity in this - e.g. multiple collections and a possibility to set each as private/shared separately, or possibility to hide certain items etc.
yeah this is the first thing i noticed is the inability to hide it from my campaign as well, it could be as simple as a hide option that pops out to ask all campaigns or to select campaigns to hide it from, i love the reveal aspect and for it to be able to be seen minutes after i added the item kinda sucks. pls help us, we DMs love to surprise!
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Hi. I looked around and could not find an answer to this question. Apologies if I missed an answer already given.
I am creating homebrew items and monsters / NPCs for a campaign I am running. I want to be able to add the monsters / NPCs into my Encounters using the Encounter Builder, but I do not want my players to see the stat blocks. The items will come available after side quests or milestones and therefore I do not want them to see the items until those quests are completed. In an in-person paper-based campaign, revealing the homebrew item would be done by passing the piece of paper to the player and I do not want to have the reveal spoiled.
At this point, I do not know if my players will be able to see the homebrew items or not. The guidance in the FAQ and what is displayed on the Homebrew page for my monster / NPC clearly says that my players will be able to see what I have homebrewed, with "automatically shared" being the key phrase:
Remember, private homebrew is automatically shared with other users in your campaigns and does not need to be shared with the community for players to access.
However, the FAQ seems to contradict this when it says the following, with "be able to select" being the key phrase:
Q: Can I share my homebrew with others in my campaign, without submitting it as public homebrew?
A: Absolutely! The DM of a campaign will be able to select which homebrew is in use within their campaign and this included any homebrew items they have created, whether they have made them public or not.
So which is it? Can they see it as soon as I create it? Or can they only see it when I make it available to them? (Technically speaking, since I created it as a public item they could find it by searching the homebrew catalog. My concern is with the "automatically shared" comment on the homebrew page.
Many thanks in advance.
Anything in your “Collection” is automatically shared and is accessible for your use in encounters as well. Anything you remove from your collection is not, but will remain if already added to a character or encounter. You can add/remove homebrews at will.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Thanks. This helped. Sorry for not saying thanks earlier.
To build on this, let's say I am running two games. If I create a homebrew item and add it to my Collection, then players in both games will see that item. Correct? What I am looking for is some granularity in who exactly can see each item, but it seems to be all-or-nothing. Do I have that right?
The only way currently to achieve that semblance of granularity is to regularly move things in and back out of your collection between sessions.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Just because your players see that you have a magic item,does not mean they will think it's for them. If they see your next quest reward and ask you about it,just say it's something you are working on for someone else/ the next campaign/for fun. (Feel free to ignore me if the homebrew is a spoiler mugguffin, like " the magic eye of BOSS located at the bottom of insert the next dungeon the PCs are going to here".)
People have been asking for more control over this for a little while, hopefully it'll get added at some point, e.g- multiple collections that can be assigned to specific campaigns.
In the mean-time the best thing to do is to keep your collection as small as possible, and only add items to it when they're needed, then remove them from your collection once a player has added it to their character sheet (as once homebrew is attached to a character sheet it doesn't matter if it's in your collection anymore).
One thing to keep in mind is that content on D&D Beyond is cached, so if a player has already searched for equipment recently (within the last 20 minutes) then newly added items won't appear right away, so you may want to add some items in advance (e.g- while approaching the end loot of a dungeon) or just tell the players what they need to know in the short term, and sort out the items after the session.
If you use homebrew items created by the community (i.e- not your own) then you may need to bookmark them in your browser to easily find them again without keeping them in your collection.
Unfortunately this is the best we can do for the moment, either that or you just keep everything in your collection that isn't a potential spoiler, as players should never add anything to their sheet that you didn't give them.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
I'd also love to have some granularity in this - e.g. multiple collections and a possibility to set each as private/shared separately, or possibility to hide certain items etc.
yeah this is the first thing i noticed is the inability to hide it from my campaign as well, it could be as simple as a hide option that pops out to ask all campaigns or to select campaigns to hide it from, i love the reveal aspect and for it to be able to be seen minutes after i added the item kinda sucks. pls help us, we DMs love to surprise!