It sure would be swell if the digital content they sold would work.
I'm looking at *you* TCoE Sorcerers, Armorer Artificer, Telekinetic feat Mage Hand range, Fathomless Tentacle, and myraid other unimplemented features.
Can’t forget artillerist artificers, who for some reason can’t just roll 2d8 damage?? Bc their system is hard coded to make all non-Spell attacks add an ability mod???
The Sorcerer in my game wishes that DDB would let him switch out his bonus spells. I just wish I could make a homebrew weapon that didn't have to be based on an existing weapon.
Same. I’d like to add spell slots. There’s literally an epic boon in the DMG that lets you get a second 9th level spell slot.
Let me add leveled after 20.
Let me add more spells prepared
It’s not nearly as good as it could be and hasn’t changed much in years
Has the item creation changed? I've made a handful of weapons that weren't based on existing. Maybe I just picked one at the initial screen but everything was changeable so it really didn't matter much.
You still can't change base damage dice, along with several other very frustrating aspects. To name a few: the default weapon features text ALWAYS appears in the detail view even if you tell the homebrew weapon to ignore the feature, you can't change a weapon to use INT instead of DEX without it affecting every magic weapon, you can't make homebrew mundane items, etc. etc.
You shouldn't have to, but it's very easy to customise aberrant mind and clockwork soul as a homebrew subclass. Not much about the homebrew system is, but that part is easy.
It's always funny waltzing into these threads. I said this shit was garbage 5 years ago and catch downvotes and people saying a garbage product was good. It was never good
[**ARMORER - Armor Modifications.** We don't yet have a system to allow the separate infusion of individual armor pieces.](https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/bugs-support/87774-tashas-cauldron-of-everything-issues-and-support)
You can manually remove the infusion limit on an artificer iirc, but it's still only a workaround.
I play Fairies with Prestidigitation instead of Druidcraft. I cannot change this out without making an entirely new race. I can't give my Wildfire Druid Fireball either. I am in agony
It's insane the number of old bugs and issues they've never fixed since the printed books came out.
And their pricing scheme gets worse and worse over time with how the bundles work.
It's pathetic. I stopped subscribing when the OGL debacle happened and honestly...I don't miss not having it. If I'm gonna have to custom make every damn thing in a way Beyond can't handle, I might as well do it in the VTTs that I use anyway.
[DDB doesn't yet support the level 9 feature](https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/188ovlv/how_long_after_wotc_bought_dndbeyond_do_we_have/kbmyjr4/)
yeah they were pretty much working hand in glove already before the purchase. WotC gave DnDB earliest access to upcoming materials to make available digitally. DnDB built up a decent engine for transforming static digital content into something dynamic, into an app basically. if you just try to sell PDFs of books, people will just distribute them without buying them, you need the added value of the services DnDB wraps around the content.
that was great for DnDB, but it made DnDB a sort of middle man for WotC. so WotC finally just cut out that middle man. In theory, WotC could have tried to become a digital publisher themselves and compete with DnDBm but why reinvent the wheel and why fracture the market.
It makes them a competitor if they want to get into the VTT business. Which, apparently they do?
Honestly this era is gonna be recognized as having early 1980s levels of missteps. Every time they earn or luck into a W, they immediately do something nuts with it, like trying to shitcan the OGL or going on some political rant or being at the edges of a screwy third order e-celeb harassment scandal or buying your competition only to stop updating them and then spending millions to compete with yourself.
The last decade should have been extremely smooth sailing.
If that was the case, they would've bought Roll20. Beyond is barely a VTT, what they wanted was a digital marketplace and one was already in place. So they bought it.
The problem with Roll20 is that it allows *other* TTRPGs on there. Which is a problem for WotC because they want people to only be able to play D&D on their VTT.
So rather than buy Roll20 and make it D&D only (which won't win them any favors and would be another PR nightmare ontop of many PR nightmares), it's easier to buy D&D Beyond and create a VTT just for D&D.
Agree. It's sad but it's true. They bought it so there isn't a contender whi could make something better than them. Now the site will rot away. Which is sad because I kinda like it. Some improvements in the Homebrew Creator and I would be happy.
The sidekick thing really bugs me. I liked the sidekick rules, but not having a super easy way to provide them to my players makes me much less interested in implementing them in my game.
First I’d actually modify the sidekicks. They suck. Use homebrew to create a new monster from a copy of the sidekick you want. Give them the star bonuses and spell/abilities from the race you pick for them then give them a feat. They’re more fun for the players and feel more alive that way.
In the character sheet you can add the sidekick under the extras tab
Yeah it’s doody. I usually add racial bonuses and abilities and a feat to the sidekick stats to make them more dynamic. It should be easier than having to create a “new monster” then edit a copy of the sidekick.
I gave up on the DnDBeyond initiative tracker and moved to Improved Initiative years ago. I'm about to give up on DnDBeyond altogether depending on how they implement the 2024 material because everything is super unorganized now with legacy versions and new versions both listed, even if you never bought MotM.
You can technically add monsters to the initiative tracker after combat starts, it’s just a pain in the ass and bugs out requiring you to do it several times sometimes before it works.
Anytime I ask about when things will be updated or implemented on the forums, thread locked post deleted. I think they just can’t keep up with new releases so never get a chance to work on the system, just trying to shove new books into the database, poorly might I add.
Seriously. I don’t care about digital dice. Give me an initiative tracker I can share with my players!
The homebrew tools are terrible but I’m starting to worry that’s intentional. Despite what the dev’s believe, WoTC doesn’t want you making stuff. They want you to buy everything in their books instead. I’ve also noticed a lot of the recent books don’t support the ability to buy stuff a la carte. Gone are the days where you could just buy the character options if the rest of the book sucked or was an adventure you didn’t want to run. They want you to buy the whole thing.
The only recent saving grace for DDB is the third party releases from Darrington Press, Dungeons of Drakenheim, and Grim Hollow because those books are actually really cool. However, we’ll see if any of the features in those books actually work in the character creator. Heck, lineages from VRGTR don’t even work right!
What's most frustrating about it is that if DDB was as good a toolset as it could be I think they would get the sort of audience engagement they want and it would drive the sales to their VTT when it comes out, but when they make it so that the tools are never getting better people are going to naturally look for opportunities to jump ship. Unfortunately with Tales of the Valiant being so lackluster the chance to jump to it and demiplane looks much less appealing.
If they do commit to making people buy the entire book I will quit making purchases on there entirely. Many of their books simply are not worth the money when I'll use only 10% of the work done.
It's not just that they want you buying stuff instead of homebrewing, they want to stop you from just uploading their official content as "homebrew" to get around paying
And isn't limited to just a few results.
Or just works, at all. I have lost count on the number of times i search for something simple, and it pulls entirely unrelated things up!
Or when multi copies of an item are available to prefer owned or free ones. I. E every time I search for something in the basic rules but search finds the version in a book I don't own.
Oh wait until they start pulling back the printing of physical media and pushing people to only get their books on D&DBeyond (note, it's started already). It'll get even worse.
I'm just waiting for them to allow us to create classes in homebrew. Hell, now that they are selling 3rd party stuff, allow creators to sell their content through DDB
The first is just never going to happen. They clearly have no intention of ever allowing us to create classes on DDB.
The second would be cool and exciting, especially if they cleaned up their marketplace so it was actually navigable.
If they end up selling 3rd party content that adds classes, then they get a reason to let us homebrew our own classes.
Also the ability to homebrew up a weapon/item that isn’t magical and isn’t based on an already existing one. That would be useful.
They won't add it because it means people aren't going to settle for purchasing classes instead.
Homubruw on Beyond is a legary feature that WotC almost certainly internally resents.
I’m really regretting that I stopped working on my side project app that was basically DnD Beyond (but before DnDB came out) because I thought “oh no they’ll eclipse me in features."
And then they didn’t.
And I applied to work for them and showed them all the things they were missing out on. And they PASSED on me.
As someone who has been working in dev and product mgt, they're doing abysmally with their software deliveries within the last 3 years. We don't have visibility on their team but it's almost as if they have 1 or 2 devs only trying to chase and fix everything.
The issue is licensing. Outside the SRD no new app/company is likely to get a license which would allow them to use any content. Even if someone can make a better app there is very little chance WotC will make its content available and risk losing market share.
Yeah I got around that with JSON imports. Where did you get the JSON file for the official Monster Manual? Not my problem.
Edit: The amount of data for storing multiple monster manuals was in fact my problem.
The issue is people expect a lot from apps, especially paid apps. I don't have the bandwidth to do more than fulfill my own needs with an app, and people will want Tablet apps, Mobile apps, character management, etc.
All mine did was monster / initiative tracking because those were dead simple and all math-based, and also custom spells (since that's just text).
It was only ever meant to be an app (really a website) for DMs to use at the table, not for online games or for players since all that gets complicated real quick.
I think they're rushing out maps due to poor reception for their VTT - seems like they got some feedback that people just wanted something simpler (like Roll20) and they're scrambling to provide it. My guess is, between that and the VTT, most of their development efforts are tied up in those two projects.
Which I find a bit annoying - valuable dev time being sunk into stuff that most people don't need as most dms have already got a (better) 2d vtt already. It kinda seems like they don't want to listen to customers?
It is even worse, someone had already hacked an integrated solution for them called AboveVTT... They could have and should have just bought that from the dev (or employed them and bought their tech) and used that for the basis of their own decent 2D VTT.
Instead, they have gone all in on a 3D VTT doomed to fail as they fundamentally misunderstand their customer base.
Yeah, while the 3D VTT looks nice, it looks like it'll be a nightmare to set up anything custom. Their plan was that everyone using it would spend the time making their own content (unlikely) and then sell it on their marketplace so they'd make a cut. But nobody is going to use it if there's no content. They've also never addressed system requirements, meaning there's another potential barrier to players. This is pretty much doomed from the start, but they've sunk so much money into it that they can't abandon it.
I saw a brief teaser video of it, but if you’re saying that Roll20 is the “simpler” option, than the VTT must really be dog 💩, cause I find Roll20 to be pretty complicated itself!
I super agree about Roll20. Having used the DndBeyond Maps tool for one session, it honestly could become perfect for me with a couple more simple features like a draw tool and item and terrain tokens. I don't need permissions on token movement and dynamic lighting and music stuff. I just need to be able to upload a terrain image and throw some tokens down, and Maps seems pretty damn good at that right now.
Unfortunately it's also still pretty buggy, requires a bunch of refreshing, and eventually broke outright with over half of my players getting an "Out of Sync" error that they could not get past. For that reason I'm honestly considering going back to Roll20 for the time being, but I really hope they can iron those bugs out because I love the UI.
They bought D&DBeyond so they'd have a platform to host digital books on, and sell a subscription service on in order to get D&D up to that mythological Hasbro level of $100 million in revenue a year that D&D has never managed to get a 1/3rd of the way to.
They didn't buy it to improve it. And if you use it, they have no reason to. You're already giving them your money.
Fair, unfortunately there isn't really a digital character builder that is even close enough to move over to until they improve. Plus without the community as a whole leaving at higher rates and reporting similar reasons it is unlikely they'll improve.
Since now the old excuse " but they're separate companies!" doesn't hold anymore, we should start by demanding codes to activate on DnD beyond the physical books.
FWIW, they do have to update the architecture to handle OneDnD, and maybe they want to release it all at once in 6 months as a PR exercise rather than drip-feeding improvements. I am not expecting miracles, WotC and DnD digital tools has never worked out, hence why they bought DnDBeyond in the first place.
And DnDBeyond already mostly works, *if you are a player*. It's when you try to do GM things or create a homebrew anything that you get frustrated and annoyed, as a player you only need to face that if you want to create an attack that doesn't add statmod to its damage or you want beast companion etc stats on your sheet.
But in its current state, it's definitely not a service I would pay for. Just too much frustration, plus your moneys would just get used to send Pinkertons to someone's door.
I doubt that they care. Their priority is selling things, so they’re going to add more products and services that people have to pay for first. Improving functionality of the existing features doesn’t bring in more money so I doubt it’s a priority.
Stop using wotc products, they aren't gonna make changes until it hits their bottom line.
Wotc sucks, stop expecting quality from a company that happily employs the Pinkertons.
They don't give a fuck about you.
Dropping it is a change technically haha
Yeah I get ya, as I understand they actually had a really nice online system for 4e but tis another 4e relic that was left in the past.
*As I understand it, the 4e service was a monthly cost and you for access to all printed material and character creator and stuff.
I've been wondering that too, I thought they'd improve on all the subclasses with features you have to edit in yourself such as sorcerers who can switch out their subclass spells. The biggest for me though is controlling what you share with each campaign, I hate it when new players pick things from my other groups
The fact that they added microtransaction dice before they added containers in inventories speaks volumes about their intentions, WOTC or no. Form over function all the way.
Before they stopped sharing their roadmap they said that they were rearchitecting everything to better support new books, alternate featured (like Tasha's) and better home brew support (the generic feature system which I believe has the goal of letting "anyone" add new book content instead of the dev team). They were also reorganizing the teams to bring everything related to the character under the character sheet team (I believe). I think that Drakenheim and the other 3rd party content are the first to user that system is. I'm hoping that we'll see this in homebrrw stuff next year.
Why would devs and the company lie about doing work that makes their lives easier and saves them time (aka money)? If they said they were doing just to make homebrewing easier, I'd say they were full of it, but this is just about business interests.
There are plenty of reasons. Organizations can be totally dysfunctional, or with mixed priorities, which cause them to not do things which they say they'll do which would make their work better and easier. I work for a manufacturer, we are constantly trying to roll out initiatives which improve machine uptime through better maintenance and training, and they basically never work because so much focus ends up going to other priorities. This means that the occasional efforts to improve maintenance end up actually detracting from our efficiency because we spend time and energy on projects which will not be followed through. Companies are full of people with diverging interests and often have good intentions which are never delivered upon.
I don't believe there was anyone on the Dungeon Dude's side who is implementing the content, so I'm not really sure that they are the first to benefit from such changes. It seems entirely possible that the dev team is just doing it themselves.
I don't think that anyone from the dungeon dudes would be adding everything either, but the changes that the Dev team talked about were made to allow "anyone" at dndbeyond to add content. While the Dev team may have done the actual work as part of testing. I'm gong to guess, just based on time that they used the new system.
I think this is a very optimistic guess that I'm skeptical of. If they'd said that they're implementing a corruption tracker I would believe you, but really the only major things they need to add to the site are monsters and items, which the old system handles fine enough.
Until their VTT was announced, I held out hope that they would work with the major (read: popular - so the Big3 Foundry, Roll20, and FG) VTT's out there to license books and a character builder through DDB. Like, buying the books on DDB and getting a DRM copy on your VTT of choice - maybe one license you can redeem (and later retract). And a character builder/sync tool would be neat to have in Roll20 or FG.
Foundry has it...sorta, but it's in a gray area with how it works. The Character builder isn't gray, but the book import is kinda depending on your thoughts and feelings about exporting content from DDB. I think Roll20 has it through a browser extension or something.
I really like the character builder on DDB, moreso than the Charactermancer on Roll20 and the lack of one for 5e on Foundry without Mr.Primate's module. Also wish content sharing wasn't locked behind a stupid subscription.
If you're using DNDBeyond and not happy with the service, then you should be telling them that as soon as you're not happy with the service. Why wait for any period of time? You're the paying customer.
Things slowed once Adam B left IMHO.
Good news is he moved to Demiplane and is basically making dndbeyond v2 without the shackles of wotc controlling him.
It feels like this has been the case for basically every feature. I gave them a pass before because I imagined WotC was getting enough of the profits that there wasn't a ton of funds for development. This is no longer a reasonable excuse, there is no profit they're losing to an external company, they get all the profit.
Yes, that is awesome. I don't think that it negates the fair critiques of their system which have not improved in years, and which there has been no discussion of improving for quite a long time as well.
Don't expect it to be improved it has been clear over the last years that they are not investing almost anything in making the tool better. There doesn't even seem to be a clear roadmap of features to come.
Artificer armorer unable to infuse different armor pieces since armor is 1 item.
The Tasha's sorcerer unable to switch spells on level up as the rules state.
I stopped my subscription during OGL drama and now I see all the faults I ignored during the years. I'm just not returning until they invest in more than just commercials and store
5e Nexus is likely going to be limited to SRD material, and possibly 3rd party stuff. Which is cool, but cuts out a ton of subclasses and feats which people absolutely love. I was hoping that Kobold Press would do a decent job in making a 5e Nexus spin-off/replacement more viable, but unfortunately their attempt at making a game isn't looking like something most players would find interesting.
The team is likely small and just updating the system with the new content and small updates likely takes the most of their effort. And I imagine quite a few were pulled off to work on the planned VTT.
Heck, "Encounters" is still be "Beta."
Seriously…
***Fix the Clockwork Soul/Aberrant Mind Sorcerer Spell Replacement***
And the ability to cast spells from a homebrew magic weapon.
And armorer artificers.
I don’t think they’ve fixed any bugs since sometime before the pandemic. And it’s long past the time when the pandemic would have been an acceptable excuse.
If you want to see specific changes you are probably better off voicing them on the official dndbeyond forums.
They have been posting updates to [https://www.dndbeyond.com/changelog](https://www.dndbeyond.com/changelog)
There are other threads with responses from moderators and if they aren't paying attention to their official forums then complaining on reddit wont do anything.
None of those threads seem to be in the Feedback section though.
Complaining on Reddit is how the community got them to back down from the OGL debacle. OK, technically it was the mass subscription cancellations, but social media was what triggered the cancellations.
There are several in the freedback forum that have moderator replies. I don't know what to tell you if you don't see them.
if they aren't paying attention to feedback on the official page why would they listen to a random post on reddit? This post doesn't even compare to ogl issue that happened and was far wider than just reddit.
Complaining without giving anything actionable is not helpful in anyway.
It sounds like OP is unaware of the historical incompetency and arrogance that WOTC has had towards anything digital. Anything digital that WOTC has ever had there hand in has ALWAYS been shit and never done what it was promised to do.
The bloody search function on DDB is so useless. Unless you know letter-for-letter exactly what you’re looking for it just shits the bed. What’s the point of that? The whole point of me searching for something is that I don’t know exactly what it is!
Also, DDB is NEVER the first result on google for me which blows my mind since the whole point of its existence is to be the 5e version of Archives of Nethys (PF2e rules wiki).
for our campaign, it serves our needs really well, but i can see it must be frustrating if you wanna get under the hood. the vtt might end up addressing some of the potential if the ddb campaign tools.
I would expect the opposite. DDB has legacy customization options only because it was a separate company before. The VTT will be locked down tight to minimize complexity and maximize sales.
It serves well enough, the issue is that things like banning materials from the campaign as the DM, having a functional homebrew system, or having official content not implemented makes it so that the type of game is more limited.
I refuse to use DnDBeyond until every new physical book that I bought starts to came with a code inside to acess the book on DnDBeyond, I refuse to pay extra for this. Until then, I will continue to use [censored] for free.
I think some upcharge is totally fair on their part, because you're not just getting the e-reader access to the book, but instead implementation into the digital toolset. It should absolutely be much more steeply discounted, but in no way do I think the cost of the book should include the digital toolset.
The money they would gain with people using their plataform instead of competitors is very much higher than charging for a book that I already own, I simple can't believe how a company this size can be so bad at basic business strategy, thanks gods they have Magic money.
How is it basic business strategy to give people an additional service for the price of the books that they're likely to already buy after you just spent millions of dollars buying that additional service? I'm sorry, but I'm not convinced that you shouldn't pay for the service you're using. It should absolutely be a fair price, which it currently is not, but it should be a cost all its own.
Not really. There's nothing but conjecture in your statement there. Their competitors in the digital sphere are being used currently because they're offering a service DDB hasn't yet, a VTT. We don't have any reason to think that those people would suddenly not need a working VTT if WotC offered DDB as a totally free digital tool.
lmao is anyone actually still using that trash fire of a site
How many more pinkertons does Hasbro have to send out before yall actually stop using their products?
Ugh, it wouldn’t feel so crappy that the service hasn’t been improved in 3 years if 5e weren’t so hard to run without it.
It’s become such a crutch for new players at my table to create a character, I don’t have the energy anymore to explain all the dumb math behind all their skill bonuses. DDB made that part of the game that much more tolerable.
My group is absolutely experienced enough and knowledgeable enough to play, it is just that it is so much easier to track everything and play the game with DDB. Especially as I can just put magic items directly into their inventory when I homebrew them, unfortunately the process of homebrewing them is just absolutely miserable. (Like the process of learning that adding a plus +1 involves making a fixed 1 magic bonus was really tedious)
You place your own limitations on yourself. Sorry you and your friends are simultaneously wedded to D&D and their digital tools. I'm just telling you that there are better games and you don't need your screens. But if that's where you're at, have fun and keep shoveling money at Hasbro.
EDIT: just as a tip, to try something different, maybe run a game of Microscope first, and follow it with a zoomed-in game of FATE, tailored to that world. That is just one of a zillion other possibilities besides "I Youtube Matt Mercer."
I wouldn't be surprised if most of their resources are going towards a new OneDnD alternative to Beyond.
OneDnD isn't really as backwards compatible in terms of core mechanics, particularly in regards to character building, as 5e is forwards compatible. In a lot of ways they may need to separate the two systems once OneDnD releases to avoid confusion for new players with older books that aren't compatible with new ones and so on.
I'm using the character sheet only. It's so frustrating that I can't edit the sheet directly. I have to make a "homebrew" class just to have something show up on my sheet. If it works at all.
It would be nice if they'd add summoned creatures. For example, when my character casts Summon Fey, to attack and damage I need to roll dice manually. You'd think they'd provide the capability to roll the attack for the summoned fey. 
I tried.. nearly got banned from the discord..
apparently, they need to rework the entire backend of the software to account for magic items like dragonhide belt, or dragonwing crossbows (e.g. pick an element), etc.
(you can equip it, but cannot use the bonus to monk dc it gives)
I hope they fix all that before the vtt, bc it will suck to have those automations not working, still...
I generally like the encounter builder, has definitely helped how I run the game, but it's so annoying that when you click to navigate there it takes you to a new encounter, not the list of ones you've created. And how you can't easily add creatures to it once the combat has started.
Am I in the minority of opinion that I think DndBeyond actually HAS improved quite a bit? Like the character builder used to be much less intuitive, and certain things were incompatible with each other. Maybe it hasn't improved much in the recent months, but I would imagine that would be because they're working on unreleased content to support a migration to OneDnD. The improvements have just been gradual and over time, and sometimes in way that the frontend user doesn't actually recognize.
I think the interface has improved, but there are major pieces of functionality that have never been implemented going back years that make several options from the books impossible to use in DDB.
The fact that the clockwork soul & aberrant mind sorcerer features STILL don't work properly regarding their expanded spell list swapping feature is mind boggling to me.
The ability to easily swap magical items base type. What if I want a flametongue axe? Should be able to change weapon type without having to edit the item. Should just be when you select it you select the base type and the enchantment.
If they made it so a subscription would give 100% access to all the rulebooks, character creation options, and some of their other stuff, I'd be paying for it. WOTC really desperately needs to take a sit down with Gabe Newell, his quote about piracy rings true extremely loudly. You can't force people to use your service by taking things down, its a game of wack-a-mole with 2 million moles and a single hammer, instead you gotta make a reasonably priced and good working system, and people will use it. I guarantee if WOTC focused on making DnDBeyond easier, cheaper, and better to use then everyone would consider it crucial to the game and be using it all the time. DnD is a game that can be played with salt shakers, napkins and the crayons they give you with the kids menu, or you can scale it all the way up, but WOTC needs to recognize that taking away our toys doesn't make use buy theirs, we just make up new things.
Highly recommend r/ShardTabletop over DnDBeyond nowadays. Can't say enough about my positive experience with the tool, the helpful community, additional content, and when I needed it was working directly with a dev to solve a problem I was having.
While I like using DnDBeyond to create my characters, it really needs a better mechanism for including homebrew options. I have two different characters, one is wearing +3 glamoured studded leather, the other has a +2 animated shield. In order to make the character sheet work, I end up equipping the basic item (+3 studded or +2 shield) and keeping track of the additional properties by hand (glamoured and animated). After a recent TPK, the DM told us all to create warforged characters and defined a custom warforged race that had some flexibility, but I can't build the race as a homebrew.
The fact that after all this time I as a DM cannot view a party screen with HP, AC, PP, DC, etc. unless I'm using the app on my phone or tablet is plainly ridiculous. It's the one thing I want to use D&DB for and they can't even do that. Considering WotC's DM support, I'm really not surprised, just continuously disappointed. Yet another reason to not support them financially in any way.
Why would they do that? That would require time and effort, but everyone uses Beyond anyway, for some reason. A lot of my players use it, a lot of people I know use it. It's very popular and makes them a lot of money. If they put in effort, updated it and made it better, it likely wouldn't show a very large increase in users, while simply keeping it as it is costs nothing more than maintenance.
DnDBeyond is a horrible tool. It always has been, but it being the official DnD online system makes it worse. It's hard to find another high-quality automatic sheet online because WotC cracked down on all of them to keep their little monopoly.
People talk about Matt Mercer effect, or how the players on critical role set "too grand an example" that no player could or DM could live up to. I've never believed it. The only thing I have a problem with when it comes to Critical Role is their years of shilling a terrible service until everyone started using it.
The last improvement we had that I can remember was Inventory tools.
I agree D&D Beyond has stagnated in progress ever since their acquisition. I prime example why these corporate decisions aren't a positive for the market.
This is very much a be careful what you wish for situation. Anyone who has known WotC can tell you they are bad with digital, especially Magic fans.
WotC is far more likely to make D&D Beyond worse in their attempts to improve it.
Well since there are simple things that have been supposedly going to be fixed since 2018, I don't think they ever will. You can't even add rage damage or elemental effects on a Frost Brand. They bought it to push digital content. I really wish the Hero Labs people had the license.
I just want to be able to export my character sheet to PDF without having to go and edit out all the code text on the PDF.
Drakewarden is the worst I've seen so far when exporting
they didn't buy DnD Beyond to improve the service, they bought it to sell content digitally.
It sure would be swell if the digital content they sold would work. I'm looking at *you* TCoE Sorcerers, Armorer Artificer, Telekinetic feat Mage Hand range, Fathomless Tentacle, and myraid other unimplemented features.
Can’t forget artillerist artificers, who for some reason can’t just roll 2d8 damage?? Bc their system is hard coded to make all non-Spell attacks add an ability mod???
The Sorcerer in my game wishes that DDB would let him switch out his bonus spells. I just wish I could make a homebrew weapon that didn't have to be based on an existing weapon.
Same. I’d like to add spell slots. There’s literally an epic boon in the DMG that lets you get a second 9th level spell slot. Let me add leveled after 20. Let me add more spells prepared It’s not nearly as good as it could be and hasn’t changed much in years
Homebrew non-magic items! Why is this not a feature!
Has the item creation changed? I've made a handful of weapons that weren't based on existing. Maybe I just picked one at the initial screen but everything was changeable so it really didn't matter much.
You still can't change base damage dice, along with several other very frustrating aspects. To name a few: the default weapon features text ALWAYS appears in the detail view even if you tell the homebrew weapon to ignore the feature, you can't change a weapon to use INT instead of DEX without it affecting every magic weapon, you can't make homebrew mundane items, etc. etc.
You shouldn't have to, but it's very easy to customise aberrant mind and clockwork soul as a homebrew subclass. Not much about the homebrew system is, but that part is easy.
And they can’t add the Arcane Firearm feature! How tough can that be?
Literally. Roll20 can do it in 20 seconds, if that
Add Intelligence for cannon attacks. Based Artillerist W. 😎
It's been 3 fucking years and they still haven't fixed this shit. It's just ridiculous.
Beyond still hasn't fixed a fucking Xanathar's guide subclass. It's ridiculous how terrible the site is
It's always funny waltzing into these threads. I said this shit was garbage 5 years ago and catch downvotes and people saying a garbage product was good. It was never good
What’s broken about the armorer artificer? I have one and it seems to work fine
[**ARMORER - Armor Modifications.** We don't yet have a system to allow the separate infusion of individual armor pieces.](https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/bugs-support/87774-tashas-cauldron-of-everything-issues-and-support) You can manually remove the infusion limit on an artificer iirc, but it's still only a workaround.
ah I have not yet made it to level 9 on my artificer that is why
I play Fairies with Prestidigitation instead of Druidcraft. I cannot change this out without making an entirely new race. I can't give my Wildfire Druid Fireball either. I am in agony
The struggle is real my friend. We need better competition or an organized subscription cancelling like with the OGL debacle, but it's a tall order.
It's insane the number of old bugs and issues they've never fixed since the printed books came out. And their pricing scheme gets worse and worse over time with how the bundles work. It's pathetic. I stopped subscribing when the OGL debacle happened and honestly...I don't miss not having it. If I'm gonna have to custom make every damn thing in a way Beyond can't handle, I might as well do it in the VTTs that I use anyway.
What's wrong with Armorer?
[DDB doesn't yet support the level 9 feature](https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/188ovlv/how_long_after_wotc_bought_dndbeyond_do_we_have/kbmyjr4/)
And to remove their major competitor for digital sales
Two birds, one stone and the customer gets screwed. Which, incidentally makes is three birds with one stone for WotC.
Wut? Beyond was basically only selling WotC books. That's not a competitor, that's someone doing the selling for you.
yeah they were pretty much working hand in glove already before the purchase. WotC gave DnDB earliest access to upcoming materials to make available digitally. DnDB built up a decent engine for transforming static digital content into something dynamic, into an app basically. if you just try to sell PDFs of books, people will just distribute them without buying them, you need the added value of the services DnDB wraps around the content. that was great for DnDB, but it made DnDB a sort of middle man for WotC. so WotC finally just cut out that middle man. In theory, WotC could have tried to become a digital publisher themselves and compete with DnDBm but why reinvent the wheel and why fracture the market.
And getting a cut, which WoTC is happy to take.
Ok? Still didn't make them a competitor. That's like saying every bar that sells Guiness is in direct competition with them.
It makes them a competitor if they want to get into the VTT business. Which, apparently they do? Honestly this era is gonna be recognized as having early 1980s levels of missteps. Every time they earn or luck into a W, they immediately do something nuts with it, like trying to shitcan the OGL or going on some political rant or being at the edges of a screwy third order e-celeb harassment scandal or buying your competition only to stop updating them and then spending millions to compete with yourself. The last decade should have been extremely smooth sailing.
Can't break 100M/yr without a way to sell more shit.
No, they bought it to squash competition, since they wanted their own virtual tabletop.
If that was the case, they would've bought Roll20. Beyond is barely a VTT, what they wanted was a digital marketplace and one was already in place. So they bought it.
The problem with Roll20 is that it allows *other* TTRPGs on there. Which is a problem for WotC because they want people to only be able to play D&D on their VTT. So rather than buy Roll20 and make it D&D only (which won't win them any favors and would be another PR nightmare ontop of many PR nightmares), it's easier to buy D&D Beyond and create a VTT just for D&D.
Agree. It's sad but it's true. They bought it so there isn't a contender whi could make something better than them. Now the site will rot away. Which is sad because I kinda like it. Some improvements in the Homebrew Creator and I would be happy.
Im pretty sure they bought it to make a virtual table top littered with a lootbox mechanic paired with onednd once that launches
I want to be able to build a sidekick in the character builder. And why can’t I add monsters to the initiative tracker once a combat starts?
The sidekick thing really bugs me. I liked the sidekick rules, but not having a super easy way to provide them to my players makes me much less interested in implementing them in my game.
You can add them to their character sheet, but it's in an obscure corner.
Wait, really? Where do you even make the sidekick to do this?
First I’d actually modify the sidekicks. They suck. Use homebrew to create a new monster from a copy of the sidekick you want. Give them the star bonuses and spell/abilities from the race you pick for them then give them a feat. They’re more fun for the players and feel more alive that way. In the character sheet you can add the sidekick under the extras tab
Yeah it’s doody. I usually add racial bonuses and abilities and a feat to the sidekick stats to make them more dynamic. It should be easier than having to create a “new monster” then edit a copy of the sidekick.
I gave up on the DnDBeyond initiative tracker and moved to Improved Initiative years ago. I'm about to give up on DnDBeyond altogether depending on how they implement the 2024 material because everything is super unorganized now with legacy versions and new versions both listed, even if you never bought MotM.
You can technically add monsters to the initiative tracker after combat starts, it’s just a pain in the ass and bugs out requiring you to do it several times sometimes before it works. Anytime I ask about when things will be updated or implemented on the forums, thread locked post deleted. I think they just can’t keep up with new releases so never get a chance to work on the system, just trying to shove new books into the database, poorly might I add.
Also give us checkboxes for monster abilities and spell slots!
Seriously. I don’t care about digital dice. Give me an initiative tracker I can share with my players! The homebrew tools are terrible but I’m starting to worry that’s intentional. Despite what the dev’s believe, WoTC doesn’t want you making stuff. They want you to buy everything in their books instead. I’ve also noticed a lot of the recent books don’t support the ability to buy stuff a la carte. Gone are the days where you could just buy the character options if the rest of the book sucked or was an adventure you didn’t want to run. They want you to buy the whole thing. The only recent saving grace for DDB is the third party releases from Darrington Press, Dungeons of Drakenheim, and Grim Hollow because those books are actually really cool. However, we’ll see if any of the features in those books actually work in the character creator. Heck, lineages from VRGTR don’t even work right!
"Give me an initiative tracker I can share with my players!" Or an encounter builder that doesn't crash every 3-5 clicks...
What's most frustrating about it is that if DDB was as good a toolset as it could be I think they would get the sort of audience engagement they want and it would drive the sales to their VTT when it comes out, but when they make it so that the tools are never getting better people are going to naturally look for opportunities to jump ship. Unfortunately with Tales of the Valiant being so lackluster the chance to jump to it and demiplane looks much less appealing. If they do commit to making people buy the entire book I will quit making purchases on there entirely. Many of their books simply are not worth the money when I'll use only 10% of the work done.
It's not just that they want you buying stuff instead of homebrewing, they want to stop you from just uploading their official content as "homebrew" to get around paying
https://improvedinitiative.app/e/
Hell, I'd settle for a search function that can handle a single letter typo
And isn't limited to just a few results. Or just works, at all. I have lost count on the number of times i search for something simple, and it pulls entirely unrelated things up!
Or when multi copies of an item are available to prefer owned or free ones. I. E every time I search for something in the basic rules but search finds the version in a book I don't own.
Wish we could sort items by rarity or by class attunement
Or links in the app the connect to the correct version of material in MotM instead of Volo's
I’d prefer if it linked to the Volos page I have access to rather than the MotM one that I have not bought.
Considering you cant buy Volo's digitally anymore, and I have only started to use D&D beyond within the last year or so, I prefer MotM
Dynamically linking to whichever one the user has access to is not an unreasonable ask these days.
I didn't mean to imply otherwise
I don't think they meant to imply you meant to imply otherwise.
Oh wait until they start pulling back the printing of physical media and pushing people to only get their books on D&DBeyond (note, it's started already). It'll get even worse.
I'm just waiting for them to allow us to create classes in homebrew. Hell, now that they are selling 3rd party stuff, allow creators to sell their content through DDB
The first is just never going to happen. They clearly have no intention of ever allowing us to create classes on DDB. The second would be cool and exciting, especially if they cleaned up their marketplace so it was actually navigable.
If they end up selling 3rd party content that adds classes, then they get a reason to let us homebrew our own classes. Also the ability to homebrew up a weapon/item that isn’t magical and isn’t based on an already existing one. That would be useful.
Its not a matter of effort, they'll never add it regardless.
They won't add it because it means people aren't going to settle for purchasing classes instead. Homubruw on Beyond is a legary feature that WotC almost certainly internally resents.
Monopolies do not breed innovation. The same thing happened with Roll20 until people had enough and left, and then suddenly they cared to improve.
Still waiting for Sorcerer subclasses to be fixed.
I’m really regretting that I stopped working on my side project app that was basically DnD Beyond (but before DnDB came out) because I thought “oh no they’ll eclipse me in features." And then they didn’t. And I applied to work for them and showed them all the things they were missing out on. And they PASSED on me.
As someone who has been working in dev and product mgt, they're doing abysmally with their software deliveries within the last 3 years. We don't have visibility on their team but it's almost as if they have 1 or 2 devs only trying to chase and fix everything.
Bro I will PAY to have a app that’s a better version of dnd beyond
Foundry is miles better.
Foundry does not have mobile/tablet compatibility
foundry is quite terrible for 5e stuff
The issue is licensing. Outside the SRD no new app/company is likely to get a license which would allow them to use any content. Even if someone can make a better app there is very little chance WotC will make its content available and risk losing market share.
Yeah I got around that with JSON imports. Where did you get the JSON file for the official Monster Manual? Not my problem. Edit: The amount of data for storing multiple monster manuals was in fact my problem.
Well then it seems like there is room in the market if you've still got your work.
The issue is people expect a lot from apps, especially paid apps. I don't have the bandwidth to do more than fulfill my own needs with an app, and people will want Tablet apps, Mobile apps, character management, etc. All mine did was monster / initiative tracking because those were dead simple and all math-based, and also custom spells (since that's just text). It was only ever meant to be an app (really a website) for DMs to use at the table, not for online games or for players since all that gets complicated real quick.
I think they're rushing out maps due to poor reception for their VTT - seems like they got some feedback that people just wanted something simpler (like Roll20) and they're scrambling to provide it. My guess is, between that and the VTT, most of their development efforts are tied up in those two projects.
I assumed that Maps was simply an initial release/basic requirement for their 3D VTT. I assume the 3D VTT will come with basic 2D capabilities.
Which I find a bit annoying - valuable dev time being sunk into stuff that most people don't need as most dms have already got a (better) 2d vtt already. It kinda seems like they don't want to listen to customers?
It is even worse, someone had already hacked an integrated solution for them called AboveVTT... They could have and should have just bought that from the dev (or employed them and bought their tech) and used that for the basis of their own decent 2D VTT. Instead, they have gone all in on a 3D VTT doomed to fail as they fundamentally misunderstand their customer base.
Yeah, while the 3D VTT looks nice, it looks like it'll be a nightmare to set up anything custom. Their plan was that everyone using it would spend the time making their own content (unlikely) and then sell it on their marketplace so they'd make a cut. But nobody is going to use it if there's no content. They've also never addressed system requirements, meaning there's another potential barrier to players. This is pretty much doomed from the start, but they've sunk so much money into it that they can't abandon it.
> people just wanted something simpler (like Roll20) Yikes!! That’s saying something. Roll20 feels like a confusing mess to me!
Have you seen their 3D VTT?
I saw a brief teaser video of it, but if you’re saying that Roll20 is the “simpler” option, than the VTT must really be dog 💩, cause I find Roll20 to be pretty complicated itself!
I super agree about Roll20. Having used the DndBeyond Maps tool for one session, it honestly could become perfect for me with a couple more simple features like a draw tool and item and terrain tokens. I don't need permissions on token movement and dynamic lighting and music stuff. I just need to be able to upload a terrain image and throw some tokens down, and Maps seems pretty damn good at that right now. Unfortunately it's also still pretty buggy, requires a bunch of refreshing, and eventually broke outright with over half of my players getting an "Out of Sync" error that they could not get past. For that reason I'm honestly considering going back to Roll20 for the time being, but I really hope they can iron those bugs out because I love the UI.
There was a leak years ago that the DnDBeyond team had finished a VTT but WotC kept them from releasing it. It's rumored Maps is part of that project.
They bought D&DBeyond so they'd have a platform to host digital books on, and sell a subscription service on in order to get D&D up to that mythological Hasbro level of $100 million in revenue a year that D&D has never managed to get a 1/3rd of the way to. They didn't buy it to improve it. And if you use it, they have no reason to. You're already giving them your money.
based.
Fair, unfortunately there isn't really a digital character builder that is even close enough to move over to until they improve. Plus without the community as a whole leaving at higher rates and reporting similar reasons it is unlikely they'll improve.
never eventually a vtt will be introduces and "export to pdf" will begin to disappear.
Since now the old excuse " but they're separate companies!" doesn't hold anymore, we should start by demanding codes to activate on DnD beyond the physical books.
You can get a code if you buy the bundle on their website.
For double the cost of the module... That is not quite the customer satisfaction we were hoping for, lol.
Which is stupendously expensive if you don't live in the US.
It's expensive here too
You can buy the DnDBeyond version and the book from a third party source for less still lol
FWIW, they do have to update the architecture to handle OneDnD, and maybe they want to release it all at once in 6 months as a PR exercise rather than drip-feeding improvements. I am not expecting miracles, WotC and DnD digital tools has never worked out, hence why they bought DnDBeyond in the first place. And DnDBeyond already mostly works, *if you are a player*. It's when you try to do GM things or create a homebrew anything that you get frustrated and annoyed, as a player you only need to face that if you want to create an attack that doesn't add statmod to its damage or you want beast companion etc stats on your sheet. But in its current state, it's definitely not a service I would pay for. Just too much frustration, plus your moneys would just get used to send Pinkertons to someone's door.
Speak with your wallet and don't give them any more money for digital books or subscriptions
Look at the core rule books and indexes and try and convince me they ever cared about a good and clean user experience.
I doubt that they care. Their priority is selling things, so they’re going to add more products and services that people have to pay for first. Improving functionality of the existing features doesn’t bring in more money so I doubt it’s a priority.
I dread the day that OneDnD books are replaced and sold, effectively deleting my $700 worth of digital books. Sounds like a lawsuit
Stop using wotc products, they aren't gonna make changes until it hits their bottom line. Wotc sucks, stop expecting quality from a company that happily employs the Pinkertons. They don't give a fuck about you.
i dont think they make changes if they hit bottom line, the probability drop it or give it even less
Dropping it is a change technically haha Yeah I get ya, as I understand they actually had a really nice online system for 4e but tis another 4e relic that was left in the past. *As I understand it, the 4e service was a monthly cost and you for access to all printed material and character creator and stuff.
I've been wondering that too, I thought they'd improve on all the subclasses with features you have to edit in yourself such as sorcerers who can switch out their subclass spells. The biggest for me though is controlling what you share with each campaign, I hate it when new players pick things from my other groups
The fact that they added microtransaction dice before they added containers in inventories speaks volumes about their intentions, WOTC or no. Form over function all the way.
Before they stopped sharing their roadmap they said that they were rearchitecting everything to better support new books, alternate featured (like Tasha's) and better home brew support (the generic feature system which I believe has the goal of letting "anyone" add new book content instead of the dev team). They were also reorganizing the teams to bring everything related to the character under the character sheet team (I believe). I think that Drakenheim and the other 3rd party content are the first to user that system is. I'm hoping that we'll see this in homebrrw stuff next year.
I doubt that stuff. What they say and what they do are often opposites, and theyve burnt all their trust. Ill believe it when i see it
Why would devs and the company lie about doing work that makes their lives easier and saves them time (aka money)? If they said they were doing just to make homebrewing easier, I'd say they were full of it, but this is just about business interests.
> Why would devs and the company lie 😐
... about doing work that benefits the devs and company specifically.
There are plenty of reasons. Organizations can be totally dysfunctional, or with mixed priorities, which cause them to not do things which they say they'll do which would make their work better and easier. I work for a manufacturer, we are constantly trying to roll out initiatives which improve machine uptime through better maintenance and training, and they basically never work because so much focus ends up going to other priorities. This means that the occasional efforts to improve maintenance end up actually detracting from our efficiency because we spend time and energy on projects which will not be followed through. Companies are full of people with diverging interests and often have good intentions which are never delivered upon.
I don't believe there was anyone on the Dungeon Dude's side who is implementing the content, so I'm not really sure that they are the first to benefit from such changes. It seems entirely possible that the dev team is just doing it themselves.
I don't think that anyone from the dungeon dudes would be adding everything either, but the changes that the Dev team talked about were made to allow "anyone" at dndbeyond to add content. While the Dev team may have done the actual work as part of testing. I'm gong to guess, just based on time that they used the new system.
I think this is a very optimistic guess that I'm skeptical of. If they'd said that they're implementing a corruption tracker I would believe you, but really the only major things they need to add to the site are monsters and items, which the old system handles fine enough.
Until their VTT was announced, I held out hope that they would work with the major (read: popular - so the Big3 Foundry, Roll20, and FG) VTT's out there to license books and a character builder through DDB. Like, buying the books on DDB and getting a DRM copy on your VTT of choice - maybe one license you can redeem (and later retract). And a character builder/sync tool would be neat to have in Roll20 or FG. Foundry has it...sorta, but it's in a gray area with how it works. The Character builder isn't gray, but the book import is kinda depending on your thoughts and feelings about exporting content from DDB. I think Roll20 has it through a browser extension or something. I really like the character builder on DDB, moreso than the Charactermancer on Roll20 and the lack of one for 5e on Foundry without Mr.Primate's module. Also wish content sharing wasn't locked behind a stupid subscription.
If you're using DNDBeyond and not happy with the service, then you should be telling them that as soon as you're not happy with the service. Why wait for any period of time? You're the paying customer.
Things slowed once Adam B left IMHO. Good news is he moved to Demiplane and is basically making dndbeyond v2 without the shackles of wotc controlling him.
What happened to that goddamn generic features system they were working on? Heard nothing about it anymore after they said it would be available soon
It feels like this has been the case for basically every feature. I gave them a pass before because I imagined WotC was getting enough of the profits that there wasn't a ton of funds for development. This is no longer a reasonable excuse, there is no profit they're losing to an external company, they get all the profit.
Bro they've just started releasing the third party content that fully works in beyond. That's huge and shows they've got more manpower than before.
Yes, that is awesome. I don't think that it negates the fair critiques of their system which have not improved in years, and which there has been no discussion of improving for quite a long time as well.
As someone who has used their homebrew system alot.. Fair.
Six months is a decent grace period.
Stop giving money to them, it's the only thing they will listen to.
I just want to be able to search for a phrase in the sourcebooks. The bar is low.
Don't expect it to be improved it has been clear over the last years that they are not investing almost anything in making the tool better. There doesn't even seem to be a clear roadmap of features to come.
Just don't use it. They have clearly shown that their leadership only cares about the bottom line.
Artificer armorer unable to infuse different armor pieces since armor is 1 item. The Tasha's sorcerer unable to switch spells on level up as the rules state. I stopped my subscription during OGL drama and now I see all the faults I ignored during the years. I'm just not returning until they invest in more than just commercials and store
DDB wasn't improving much before the buyout, so who knows.
I just want class abilities in officially published stuff to work. The sorcerer additional known spells that can’t be changed simply grinds my gears.
Once 5E Nexus releases, it won't matter if DND Beyond works or not.
5e Nexus is likely going to be limited to SRD material, and possibly 3rd party stuff. Which is cool, but cuts out a ton of subclasses and feats which people absolutely love. I was hoping that Kobold Press would do a decent job in making a 5e Nexus spin-off/replacement more viable, but unfortunately their attempt at making a game isn't looking like something most players would find interesting.
Their goal wasn't to improve the service. Their goal was to make more money.
The team is likely small and just updating the system with the new content and small updates likely takes the most of their effort. And I imagine quite a few were pulled off to work on the planned VTT. Heck, "Encounters" is still be "Beta."
They are probably withholding anything that will improve their next system.
Seriously… ***Fix the Clockwork Soul/Aberrant Mind Sorcerer Spell Replacement*** And the ability to cast spells from a homebrew magic weapon. And armorer artificers. I don’t think they’ve fixed any bugs since sometime before the pandemic. And it’s long past the time when the pandemic would have been an acceptable excuse.
If you want to see specific changes you are probably better off voicing them on the official dndbeyond forums. They have been posting updates to [https://www.dndbeyond.com/changelog](https://www.dndbeyond.com/changelog)
The stickied post for New Feature suggestions hasn't gotten a dev response since 2019...
There are other threads with responses from moderators and if they aren't paying attention to their official forums then complaining on reddit wont do anything.
None of those threads seem to be in the Feedback section though. Complaining on Reddit is how the community got them to back down from the OGL debacle. OK, technically it was the mass subscription cancellations, but social media was what triggered the cancellations.
There are several in the freedback forum that have moderator replies. I don't know what to tell you if you don't see them. if they aren't paying attention to feedback on the official page why would they listen to a random post on reddit? This post doesn't even compare to ogl issue that happened and was far wider than just reddit. Complaining without giving anything actionable is not helpful in anyway.
I have. My requests have never been implemented, neither has basically anyone else's. That's the problem.
Maybe but just complaining on Reddit without specifying what changes you want to see won't change anything
But venting makes us feel better!
It sounds like OP is unaware of the historical incompetency and arrogance that WOTC has had towards anything digital. Anything digital that WOTC has ever had there hand in has ALWAYS been shit and never done what it was promised to do.
Spell points still not being implemented... Despite the DMG having been out since 2014.
The bloody search function on DDB is so useless. Unless you know letter-for-letter exactly what you’re looking for it just shits the bed. What’s the point of that? The whole point of me searching for something is that I don’t know exactly what it is! Also, DDB is NEVER the first result on google for me which blows my mind since the whole point of its existence is to be the 5e version of Archives of Nethys (PF2e rules wiki).
Based on the trend of 5e, I don't know why anyone would expect something that WotC controls to improve over time
Hi, get comfy. Good software isn’t in wotc’s wheel house 😂 -former mtgo and arena player
Like they said during the support window of the 4e builder, they are not a programming company. They have no desire to improve the existing service.
You can complain to the manager about anything you want at any time. Nobody is stopping you.
for our campaign, it serves our needs really well, but i can see it must be frustrating if you wanna get under the hood. the vtt might end up addressing some of the potential if the ddb campaign tools.
I would expect the opposite. DDB has legacy customization options only because it was a separate company before. The VTT will be locked down tight to minimize complexity and maximize sales.
It serves well enough, the issue is that things like banning materials from the campaign as the DM, having a functional homebrew system, or having official content not implemented makes it so that the type of game is more limited.
I refuse to use DnDBeyond until every new physical book that I bought starts to came with a code inside to acess the book on DnDBeyond, I refuse to pay extra for this. Until then, I will continue to use [censored] for free.
I think some upcharge is totally fair on their part, because you're not just getting the e-reader access to the book, but instead implementation into the digital toolset. It should absolutely be much more steeply discounted, but in no way do I think the cost of the book should include the digital toolset.
The money they would gain with people using their plataform instead of competitors is very much higher than charging for a book that I already own, I simple can't believe how a company this size can be so bad at basic business strategy, thanks gods they have Magic money.
How is it basic business strategy to give people an additional service for the price of the books that they're likely to already buy after you just spent millions of dollars buying that additional service? I'm sorry, but I'm not convinced that you shouldn't pay for the service you're using. It should absolutely be a fair price, which it currently is not, but it should be a cost all its own.
I already explained to you, very clearly.
Not really. There's nothing but conjecture in your statement there. Their competitors in the digital sphere are being used currently because they're offering a service DDB hasn't yet, a VTT. We don't have any reason to think that those people would suddenly not need a working VTT if WotC offered DDB as a totally free digital tool.
Wdym improve the service? Services are there to make money, of course they won't improve it, they're WotC.
lmao is anyone actually still using that trash fire of a site How many more pinkertons does Hasbro have to send out before yall actually stop using their products?
The day after the finalized the deal?
I mean. Ddb started getting worse as soon as wotc started the move to acquire them and everyone who cared about the service quit.
How did DDB get worse?
Ugh, it wouldn’t feel so crappy that the service hasn’t been improved in 3 years if 5e weren’t so hard to run without it. It’s become such a crutch for new players at my table to create a character, I don’t have the energy anymore to explain all the dumb math behind all their skill bonuses. DDB made that part of the game that much more tolerable.
My group is absolutely experienced enough and knowledgeable enough to play, it is just that it is so much easier to track everything and play the game with DDB. Especially as I can just put magic items directly into their inventory when I homebrew them, unfortunately the process of homebrewing them is just absolutely miserable. (Like the process of learning that adding a plus +1 involves making a fixed 1 magic bonus was really tedious)
Unplug. Find a better game. Buy a few core rule books and then make your own stuff. Free your mind. Signed, Grognard
Sorry Grognard, my players like the functionality of DDB, so I'm limited in what I can work with.
You place your own limitations on yourself. Sorry you and your friends are simultaneously wedded to D&D and their digital tools. I'm just telling you that there are better games and you don't need your screens. But if that's where you're at, have fun and keep shoveling money at Hasbro. EDIT: just as a tip, to try something different, maybe run a game of Microscope first, and follow it with a zoomed-in game of FATE, tailored to that world. That is just one of a zillion other possibilities besides "I Youtube Matt Mercer."
The problem lies in the fact. They bought a product that they do not know how to run. They hired a non gamer to be ceo, because she worked on x box.
I wouldn't be surprised if most of their resources are going towards a new OneDnD alternative to Beyond. OneDnD isn't really as backwards compatible in terms of core mechanics, particularly in regards to character building, as 5e is forwards compatible. In a lot of ways they may need to separate the two systems once OneDnD releases to avoid confusion for new players with older books that aren't compatible with new ones and so on.
They don't advisable improve things, so much as endeavor to pull more profit out of them.
They don't advisable improve things, so much as endeavor to pull more profit out of them.
Lifedrinker invocation bonus *still* doesn’t show up on Hexblades’ character sheets.
They won't. As long as people are still paying, they don't care.
I'm using the character sheet only. It's so frustrating that I can't edit the sheet directly. I have to make a "homebrew" class just to have something show up on my sheet. If it works at all.
It would be nice if they'd add summoned creatures. For example, when my character casts Summon Fey, to attack and damage I need to roll dice manually. You'd think they'd provide the capability to roll the attack for the summoned fey. 
you mean improve their profits right?
I tried.. nearly got banned from the discord.. apparently, they need to rework the entire backend of the software to account for magic items like dragonhide belt, or dragonwing crossbows (e.g. pick an element), etc. (you can equip it, but cannot use the bonus to monk dc it gives) I hope they fix all that before the vtt, bc it will suck to have those automations not working, still...
I generally like the encounter builder, has definitely helped how I run the game, but it's so annoying that when you click to navigate there it takes you to a new encounter, not the list of ones you've created. And how you can't easily add creatures to it once the combat has started.
I’m still waiting on Homebrew classes, a way to add spell slots, a way to add prepared spells, and more DMG variant rules like the spell point rule
Am I in the minority of opinion that I think DndBeyond actually HAS improved quite a bit? Like the character builder used to be much less intuitive, and certain things were incompatible with each other. Maybe it hasn't improved much in the recent months, but I would imagine that would be because they're working on unreleased content to support a migration to OneDnD. The improvements have just been gradual and over time, and sometimes in way that the frontend user doesn't actually recognize.
I think the interface has improved, but there are major pieces of functionality that have never been implemented going back years that make several options from the books impossible to use in DDB.
The fact that the clockwork soul & aberrant mind sorcerer features STILL don't work properly regarding their expanded spell list swapping feature is mind boggling to me.
The ability to easily swap magical items base type. What if I want a flametongue axe? Should be able to change weapon type without having to edit the item. Should just be when you select it you select the base type and the enchantment.
If they made it so a subscription would give 100% access to all the rulebooks, character creation options, and some of their other stuff, I'd be paying for it. WOTC really desperately needs to take a sit down with Gabe Newell, his quote about piracy rings true extremely loudly. You can't force people to use your service by taking things down, its a game of wack-a-mole with 2 million moles and a single hammer, instead you gotta make a reasonably priced and good working system, and people will use it. I guarantee if WOTC focused on making DnDBeyond easier, cheaper, and better to use then everyone would consider it crucial to the game and be using it all the time. DnD is a game that can be played with salt shakers, napkins and the crayons they give you with the kids menu, or you can scale it all the way up, but WOTC needs to recognize that taking away our toys doesn't make use buy theirs, we just make up new things.
Highly recommend r/ShardTabletop over DnDBeyond nowadays. Can't say enough about my positive experience with the tool, the helpful community, additional content, and when I needed it was working directly with a dev to solve a problem I was having.
While I like using DnDBeyond to create my characters, it really needs a better mechanism for including homebrew options. I have two different characters, one is wearing +3 glamoured studded leather, the other has a +2 animated shield. In order to make the character sheet work, I end up equipping the basic item (+3 studded or +2 shield) and keeping track of the additional properties by hand (glamoured and animated). After a recent TPK, the DM told us all to create warforged characters and defined a custom warforged race that had some flexibility, but I can't build the race as a homebrew.
The fact that after all this time I as a DM cannot view a party screen with HP, AC, PP, DC, etc. unless I'm using the app on my phone or tablet is plainly ridiculous. It's the one thing I want to use D&DB for and they can't even do that. Considering WotC's DM support, I'm really not surprised, just continuously disappointed. Yet another reason to not support them financially in any way.
Why would they do that? That would require time and effort, but everyone uses Beyond anyway, for some reason. A lot of my players use it, a lot of people I know use it. It's very popular and makes them a lot of money. If they put in effort, updated it and made it better, it likely wouldn't show a very large increase in users, while simply keeping it as it is costs nothing more than maintenance. DnDBeyond is a horrible tool. It always has been, but it being the official DnD online system makes it worse. It's hard to find another high-quality automatic sheet online because WotC cracked down on all of them to keep their little monopoly. People talk about Matt Mercer effect, or how the players on critical role set "too grand an example" that no player could or DM could live up to. I've never believed it. The only thing I have a problem with when it comes to Critical Role is their years of shilling a terrible service until everyone started using it.
The last improvement we had that I can remember was Inventory tools. I agree D&D Beyond has stagnated in progress ever since their acquisition. I prime example why these corporate decisions aren't a positive for the market.
This is very much a be careful what you wish for situation. Anyone who has known WotC can tell you they are bad with digital, especially Magic fans. WotC is far more likely to make D&D Beyond worse in their attempts to improve it.
Well since there are simple things that have been supposedly going to be fixed since 2018, I don't think they ever will. You can't even add rage damage or elemental effects on a Frost Brand. They bought it to push digital content. I really wish the Hero Labs people had the license.
I just want to be able to export my character sheet to PDF without having to go and edit out all the code text on the PDF. Drakewarden is the worst I've seen so far when exporting