With a subscription to DDi Character Builder, buying a PHB2 isn't necessary.

[Verys Arkon]

I'll be buying the PH2 and have a DDI subscription as well. There is just something nice about having the physical product in my hands, in a portable format that doesn't run out of battery in 30 minutes.

Plus, I'm sort of a collector, and my shelf looks better with each new book...the laptop just looks the same.

A DDI subscription is like having the Ultimate Index for every D&D book when you need to find something specific.

And lets face it, the paper indexes are....lackluster.

PS I'll be getting this summer's power books too, but I think I'll pass on Eberron and thank DDI for the artificer.

 

[Zaukrie]

I've been debating this, to some extent. I could see not buying the power source books (martial power.....) from now on. But, I'm 99% sure I'll be buying the PHB, MM, DMG books, and the more fluffy books.

I really like DDI, but I miss the print versions. The excess "art" in the online versions are ink hogs (I'm pointing at the useless bars/borders here), so printing the whole thing just seems like a bad idea.

 

[Dire Bare]

You know what would solve the dilemna for me? If PDFs of the books and adventures were included in a D&DI subscription! I'm ready to go all digital!

Of course, WotC couldn't do this for $5-8 per month. If I purchased all of the 2009 books & adventures in PDF off of DrivethruRPG.com and paid for a one-year sub to D&DI, that would run me an average of $40 per month. If WotC could offer me a one-year sub of D&DI plus all the PDFs for less than that, I'd jump!

I know that they are worried about PDF sales impacting physical book sales, but I wonder how much the two customer groups overlap?

 

[Alaxk Knight of Galt]

Probably a pipe dream, but I would love to be able to access a Compendium of purchased items. I own PHB, MP, and AV. I'd love to be able to use the compendium just for those item. In fact, I'd pay a one time fee for this ($15 or $20 dollars) to have books I purchase accessible to me in the DnD Compendium. There a lot of questions (and piracy) to overcome to make this work, but I'd love to see this.

I'll pay a monthly fee for an MMO, I won't pay a monthly fee for WotC's DnD On-Line material.

 

[Dire Bare]

Probably a pipe dream, but I would love to be able to access a Compendium of purchased items. I own PHB, MP, and AV. I'd love to be able to use the compendium just for those item. In fact, I'd pay a one time fee for this ($15 or $20 dollars) to have books I purchase accessible to me in the DnD Compendium. There a lot of questions (and piracy) to overcome to make this work, but I'd love to see this.

I'll pay a monthly fee for an MMO, I won't pay a monthly fee for WotC's DnD On-Line material.

I have a lot of friends who have a negative knee-jerk reaction to the idea of paying a monthly subscription to a game . . . . either an MMO like World of Warcraft or something like D&DI. They've expressed similar sentiments as yours, they'd pay a one-time fee for digital access to a book, but not a monthly fee for digital access to ALL the books. (not saying that your own feelings are knee-jerk or invalid or anything)

So you'd pay $20 for access to one book? Why do that when that same $20 will get you 4 months of D&D access which gives you all books up to date? Even if you only purchase the "big three" each year (PHB, DMG, MM), you'd actually pay less by subscribing to D&DI than purchasing individual access to those books.

I think the current setup of $5/month (if you pay for an entire year at once) to get access to the crunch of ALL D&D releases plus the magazines is a steal! If WotC could work out a deal to include the PDFs of the monthly book releases (for a higher yet reasonable price, of course) I'd be completely in their thrall. I just don't get some folks aversion to the idea of a subscription for web access, especially when many already paid just about as much for subscriptions to the physcial mags.

 

[Ktulu]

I'll buy a copy regardless. It's one thing to have the compendium for times when I'm at work (or, like this week, where I'm stuck in Phoenix without even my own PC), but at the table, it's faster to flip the page than deal with a computer.

 

[thundershot]

The only other thing I'd like at this point (and I AM buying at least one PHB2), is that originally, there was going to be some code in the book that let you get the PDF version of the book for real cheap... That never happened...

 

[NMcCoy]

I want to see the art galleries integrated into Insider properly - let me search for all published images of Dragonborn for use as character portraits, for example, and I'll be very happy.

(Bought a one-month subscription to get the Character Builder dataset and snag the Dungeon pdfs; Will probably be buying PHB2.)

 

[Fifth Element]

I wish I had a copy of PHB2 on my desk, instead there's a copy of the income tax act...

Hey, me too. Is yours Stikeman, Practitioner's, Ernst & Young or something else?

Tax nerds unite!

 

[eryndel]

deleted

My bad, I didn't notice the other thread on 4e and kids.