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D&D Beyond Launches -- Electronic Tools For D&D Are Here!

D&D Beyond, the official online toolkit for 5th Edition D&D, is now live - just in time for Gen Con! With a character builder, online rules compendium, digital character sheet, and more, the software has been in beta testing for a while. D&D's relationship with electronic tools has never been an easy one -- Master Tools, Gleemax, DungeonScape all being failed initiatives - but D&D Beyond looks like it might be the one which actually breaks that curse.

D&D Beyond, the official online toolkit for 5th Edition D&D, is now live - just in time for Gen Con! With a character builder, online rules compendium, digital character sheet, and more, the software has been in beta testing for a while. D&D's relationship with electronic tools has never been an easy one -- Master Tools, Gleemax, DungeonScape all being failed initiatives - but D&D Beyond looks like it might be the one which actually breaks that curse.


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Here's their launch announcement:

This morning, we launched D&D Beyond - an official digital toolset for Dungeons & Dragons fifth edition.

For over 40 years, Dungeons & Dragons has been bringing players together at tables all over the world. D&D Beyond, our new digital companion web app, aims to enhance the D&D experience by making game management easier by putting all of the game information you need to tell fantastic stories with your friends into a digital format, eliminating the need to manually search through books, and taking the load off of players through other features.

At launch, D&D Beyond offers a compendium with all the game rules, lore, and adventures, as well as sought-after tools like a character builder and an interactive digital character sheet. It’s built with official D&D content and the ability to create and add your own custom homebrew spells, magic items, and monsters. Groups can play with digital versions of every official D&D sourcebook within the compendium. They can build characters using all the material published by Dungeons & Dragons for fifth edition, while adding custom magic items or spells created using the homebrew system. That homebrew content can then be shared with the community for other players to use in their own games.

We never could have gotten to where we are without the incredible support of over 200 thousand beta testers. For all of the help, for enduring "Basic Rules only" content and the accompanying forum posts for all these months, we sincerely thank you. You have already built nearly 300 thousand characters and 25 thousand homebrew creations. You have shared feedback that has been vital to the development of the toolset, and we have taken great strides to build confidence that we not only listen to that feedback, but we move quickly to act on it when it's needed.Our team has an extensive roadmap for D&D Beyond, including implementing features such as a native mobile app, monster and encounter building, digital dice rolling, combat tracking, and much more. D&D Beyond is excited to continue to work closely with the D&D team at Wizards of the Coast to introduce all new adventures and rules material into the toolset, such as Tomb of Annihilation and Xanathar’s Guide to Everything coming this fall, the new mystic and artificer classes and other Unearthed Arcana playtest material, and Adventurers League support.

With the launch of the toolset, we are also excited to also unveil our new video and content initiative. We have a vision for DDB to be your hub for all things D&D - your companion both at the table and between sessions - whether you're looking up spells or watching Mike Mearls geek out about ogre magi. We'll tell the story of Dungeons & Dragons and help you play out your own D&D stories. We can't wait to see where all of it leads.

This truly is only the beginning for us and for what D&D Beyond will become in the upcoming weeks, months, and years. We welcome you to the adventure. Pack your gear and let's hit the trail!


Check it out over at the official website.

The pricing is subscription based, with costs ranging from $2.99 per month to $5.99 per month, depending on the features you require. You also buy official D&D content (rulebooks and adventures) for $24.99 for adventures and $29.99 for rulebooks, or you can engage in micropurchases and grab single classes, races, feats, monsters, etc. for $1.99 to $3.99. Full pricing info can be found here.

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Remathilis

Legend
Discussed it with my group. They basically fell into the "I'm not paying for the same book twice" camp with a heavy dose of "I can get free/low cost alternatives" to boot. So if I wanted in, I'd have to pony up the money myself, which is not in my budget.

Sad, but that's life.
 

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SkidAce

Legend
Supporter
I've gone ahead and bought the PHB, the DMG, the races from VGtM, and the backgrounds, subclasses, and spells from SCAG. That should have me set - it's all the player facing content that I need, with the exception of the Haunted One background from CoS and the bizarro subraces (Duergar, Ghostwise, "Feral" Tieflings) from SCAG. I thought about buying the MM and the rest of VGtM and SCAG on it, but right now there isn't really any point; being able to look up monsters is really nice and cool, but without an encounter builder or combat tracker there isn't a lot of actual in-game value for me in doing so. SCAG is the most likely one for me to buy, if only because I'd only have to pay $14 for the rest of it, and having the ability to refer players to the compendium to find out about the setting would actually be really helpful, since I run games on the Sword Coast.

The character builder is really good. I mean, it should be, right? I've also found this to be a good tool to let the players experiment with ideas; for an upcoming campaign, one player has made three separate characters just to see how they'd look, which is certainly easier to do now.

Otherwise, with my big spend done - and my wife irate at the sudden deduction in funds - I'm going to wait and see what tools they add, before I revisit the idea of buying more content. I own all the 5e books and run my games five feet away from my D&D shelf, so nothing that I've read online about the dndbeyond implementation of them has made me think that rebuying the adventures has any utility or benefit.

I did the same. I support this endeavor.

Purchased the DMG, PH, and MM.

Will wait to see how things develop further before committing more.
 

Just started work on putting my hombrew giant elites into my D&D Beyond account, and it's incredibly simple to do so. I converted the fire giant duke within about 5 minutes, and it looks all nice and neat in an official-looking format now. Once I'm done with conversion, I'll make them public homebrew there...


EDIT. Converted five of them (Hill Giant Chief, Frost Giant Reaver, Fire Giant Pyromancer, Fire Giant Duke, and Cloud Giant Oathguard) and submitted them for public use under my username there (trinschler). I'll get to work on the others when I get time!
 
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Just started work on putting my hombrew giant elites into my D&D Beyond account, and it's incredibly simple to do so. I converted the fire giant duke within about 5 minutes, and it looks all nice and neat in an official-looking format now. Once I'm done with conversion, I'll make them public homebrew there...


EDIT. Converted five of them (Hill Giant Chief, Frost Giant Reaver, Fire Giant Pyromancer, Fire Giant Duke, and Cloud Giant Oathguard) and submitted them for public use under my username there (trinschler). I'll get to work on the others when I get time!

I had a glance, but it seems like they've not been approved yet. Everything gets vetted to make sure it's not just lifted from the books, I think. I did see one by dropbear8mybaby though, so ENWorld did get represented...
 


I wonder if we'll see a future link between DMsGuild and dndbeyond. After all, at the moment, there is no way for a content creator to add their homebrew monster to the platform without giving it away for free. So that means, in effect, that any nice content you buy from DMsGuild you'll have to then add yourself to the platform. I presume that it would be possible to to add the ability to 'hide' content unless you have a specific link or have a certain code, thus allowing DMsGuild products to have added-value content on the Guild. Whether taking the time to add that is in the best interests of the dndbeyond team, though, is another question.
 

Koren n'Rhys

Explorer
One of the things that's been asked for/suggested in the Campaign Manager thread is the ability to write full adventures within DDB using the Compendium format as a template. I think that would be an amazing tool, and could cross with the PDFs over on DMsGuild.
 

Koren n'Rhys

Explorer
There are a number of things that I like about these adventures. First, they are not as grand as the hard cover adventures. There are a number of threads going on in each adventure, and the characters can choose which to deal with and which not to (and in which order). Each thread in the adventure has just about the right amount of substance. So, they are not overwhelming in scope and the party doesn't lose interest as easily. Also, for the DM, prep time is reduced because of the way the adventure is broken up.

With all of the threads of activity, it can be a bit difficult to keep things straight... especially if your group doesn't play regularly. I am not sure I am crazy about the 2nd half of LotCS. We'll see. I may transition the group into another adventure before they finish. But, the first half is great.

I hope they make these adventures available in D&D Beyond. As you mentioned, they are available for FG (I have purchased them there and in physical form where available).
Thanks for the response. I'll have to look at those old Next adventures more closely I guess. Sounds like it'll be worth the time to read them more closely.
 

gendernihilist

First Post
When I'm not poor and broke I'll probably end up grabbing a few of the books and subscribing at the Master tier level (since lord knows I end up being DM nine times out of ten) but for now I'm satisfied with tinkering around with the free version and the basic ruleset loaded into it. I'm hoping my financial situation can improve before November, since that's when the UA content is going to hit in the form of Codex: Unearthed Arcana 2: WotC Boogaloo...uhh...I mean Xanathar's Guide to Everything.

I'm actually pretty pleased with it so far, both what it is now and how quickly they jump on things the userbase highlights for them to focus on. Their forums are pretty great in terms of responsiveness of devs and forum admin folks both.
 

ddaley

Explorer
I picked up the 3 core books while they are on sale, but haven't subscribed yet. I too am pretty pleased with it so far. I hope they enhance the note taking features soon... 'cause I would definitely make use of that.

When I'm not poor and broke I'll probably end up grabbing a few of the books and subscribing at the Master tier level (since lord knows I end up being DM nine times out of ten) but for now I'm satisfied with tinkering around with the free version and the basic ruleset loaded into it. I'm hoping my financial situation can improve before November, since that's when the UA content is going to hit in the form of Codex: Unearthed Arcana 2: WotC Boogaloo...uhh...I mean Xanathar's Guide to Everything.

I'm actually pretty pleased with it so far, both what it is now and how quickly they jump on things the userbase highlights for them to focus on. Their forums are pretty great in terms of responsiveness of devs and forum admin folks both.
 

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