D&D Reader App Coming This Fall? [UPDATED]

Many people have been asking for official D&D PDFs, and WotC has been addressing the need for electronic reference materials at the table in various ways. According to Mashable, WotC is releasing a D&D Reader App this fall. It's not a PDF, but it's basically a D&D-specific Kindle-esque app for iOS and Android. Mashable reports that "Each book is broken up into different sections. So with, say, the Player's Handbook, you can tap on little thumbnails in your library to check out the introduction, a step-by-step guide to character creation, a rundown of races, individual sections for each character class, equipment, and all the other pieces that, together, form the D&D Player's Handbook."

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It's possible they are just referring to D&D Beyond (some of the details below correspond very closely with that), but it may be that a separate D&D Reader is in the pipeline.

UPDATE -- EN World member TDarien asked Adam Rosenburg (the author of the article) whether this was different to D&D Beyond, who replied "Yup. Beyond is more activity-oriented, so it can handle stuff like dice rolls. Reader is basically Kindle, with good, clear chapter divides."

UPDATE 2 -- EN World member kenmarable has spotted that Polygon also has an article about this. It is a separate app called D&D Reader - not D&D Beyond - being made by Dialect, the company which does Dragon+ for WotC. They tried a beta version, although it wasn't complete at the time.

Other items from the report include:

• You can favourite specific pages.
• Some of it is free, and the rparts of books are paywalled. "If, for example, you'll only ever care about rolling a bard, you can just buy that. Prices for individual sections are $3 or $5 (depending on what you buy) and the three full rulebooks — Player's Handbook, Monster Manual, and Dungeon Master's Guide — are $30 apiece for everything."
• If you buy parts of a book then buy the full thing, the cost is pro-rated.The free sections include "character creation, basic classes, gear, ability scores, combat, spellcasting, and all the other sort of ground-level features that everyone needs to understand in order to play."

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[Hollow Man]

It sure sounds like these are the apps for D&D Beyond (some of it is free, pieces are a few bucks each, a whole book is $30, price decreases if you bought pieces previously).

-HM

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[AriochQ]

So buy a physical book, buy D and D Beyond, and buy the same material a third time for the reader app. What a deal! (sarcasm)

 

[TDarien]

I'm about 90% positive this is about the D&D Beyond apps, especially since the pricing model is exactly the same. Makes zero sense otherwise.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Mistwell]

Wow, I'm impressed. At a cost of multiple years of delays and tens of thousands of dollars, they've made a thing that doesn't remotely address any of my reasons for wanting PDFs. That's brilliant!

You are never going to get legal PDFs of 5e until 6e comes out. It's time to start going through those stages of grief on that issue. It's time man. Time to accept.

 

[Mistwell]

So buy a physical book, buy D and D Beyond, and buy the same material a third time for the reader app. What a deal! (sarcasm)

Pretty sure this IS D&D Beyond. [Edit - Ninja'ed many times]

 

[ZeshinX]

I'll stick to the books and continue to politely ignore most attempts by WotC to embrace technology.

 

[darjr]

IF this is really like a PDF trapped in an app? I'll consider it.

 

[ArwensDaughter]

Maybe the article is actually referring (in a confusing way) to the apps that D&D Beyond has announced?

Yeah, I wondered about that. But it's an extraordinarily poorly written article it that's the case. Or, the author didn't know the apps were connected part of the DDB project? If that's true, it doesn't speak well for the reliability or authenticity of the information.