D&D 5E D&D Beyond Will Delist Two Books On May 17th

D&D Beyond will be permanently removing Volo’s Guide to Monsters and Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes on May 17th in favor of the upcoming Monsters of the Multiverse book, which largely compiles and updates that material.

As per the D&D Beyond FAQ for Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse:

Can I still buy Volo’s Guide to Monsters or Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes on D&D Beyond?
Starting on May 16, you can acquire the streamlined and up-to-date creatures and character race options, as well as a plethora of exciting new content, by purchasing Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse. On May 17, Volo's Guide to Monsters and Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes will be discontinued from our digital marketplace.

If you already own these two books you will still have access to your purchases and any characters or encounters you built with them. They won’t be removed from your purchased sourcebooks. Therefore, if you want the "fluff" and tables in those two tomes in D&D Beyond, you need to purchase them soon.

This is the first time books have been wholesale delisted from the D&D Beyond Platform rather than updated (much like physical book reprints are with errata and changes).

There’s no word from WotC on whether physical books will be discontinued and be allowed to sell out.

 

[Parmandur]

No cause 5e does not require conversion. That's why it's supposed to have full compatibility.

And none of them affect compatibility. New options do not automatically make the old stuff incompatible with them. You can still use a Rogue without Steady Aim.

And Steady Aim makes no difference, anyways.

 

[JEB]

I've just noticed that the manuals are now listed on DDB as "legacy content" and there is a "warning" that they have been superseded. The statement otherwise confirms what we already know: they won't be available for purchase but they will remain available for those who already own them.

Interesting. "Legacy content" is exactly what they use to describe older-edition content on the DM Guild site.

 

[JEB]

WotC has put out new Printings of 5E Adventures recently, and they have no motivation to invalidate anyone's pirchases or cut off sources of future revenue.

They also just put out new printings of VGTM, and that's clearly not sticking around for 2024 edition. And they have a very strong motivation, as demonstrated by MOTM - repackaging 5E "legacy content" with updates to match 2024 aesthetics and design preferences, and hoping to get both new and veteran players to buy the update. It's worked before, after all. It's even working right now!

 

[GreyLord]

This is weird.

2e EXPLICITLY was stated by the designers to be able to GRANDFATHER ANYTHING from 1e that was desired. If you wanted it from 1e...it was in 2e.

There were no restrictions.

In that light, 2e WAS 1e if one wanted it to be.

TSR just stopped selling the 1e stuff, but if you had it and wanted it in your game, it was OFFICIALLY approved to be in the game, at least up until the PO books.

No idea why anyone is arguing that 1e and 2e were not compatible.

As for T.H.A.C.0

That is the abbreviation for what was utilized in the DMG (as pointed out before....To Hit A.C. 0, or To Hit Armor Class 0). It's the SAME thing, just using the abbreviation.

That's like saying the U.S.A. did not exist before 1900 because the abbreviation was not in use and they used the United States of America instead.

Or that the U.K. does not officially exist because official documents call it the United Kingdom instead.

the only mistake made was not making 5e a continuation/improvement on 4e

I enjoyed 4e as much as the next guy over. I liked it. I still have copies of the books.

5e takes a LOT of stuff from 4e (more than many realize, more than some will admit) and in some ways, they focused some central tenets of 4e into a more concentrated form within 5e.

What they took away in many areas was the CHOICE of power you got. Basically, simplifying everything in 4e down to it's more basic and component parts.

I find it ironic how people praise 5e as being more like 3e or going back further (it is in NO way compatible with older editions) because 5e IS built upon a 4e base, but simplified down (instead of a Bounded bonus going to +15, it is only up to +6...though technically it could be +9 if the game went up to 30th level instead).

It didn't follow the path that many 4e gamers would have preferred though.

You could see the beginning of the simplification in Heroes of the Fallen Lands though, and it just continued (though far more strictly in how deep the cuts were).

Compatibility is a playability thing. If you can't play that way it doesn't matter what the math says.

if the math says you can play a troll that is batman... but no table lets you play a troll or batman let alone a troll that is batman... You can't play it.

if the math says you can play a Mt Dwarf from 2014 that is a rogue from 2014 but no table useing the 2024 book lets you play it, then it doesn't matter about the math,

I suppose that is true, which would apply to the 1e and 2e items above as well. If you were at a table where they only used 2e rulebooks and didn't allow 1e stuff (though, a lot of 1e stuff was reprinted in different manuals, such as the 1e Ranger in the Ranger Book, the 1e Druid in the Druid book, the Monk and the Assassin in the Scarlet Brotherhood book...etc) the same would apply.

Actually, it would apply if you were at a 1e table and they didn't allow Unearthed Arcana to be used in a 1e game.

It could apply to a 5e game. I have tables where I run Basic rules only, though I may allow classes from the PHB, I won't allow feats. I may also not allow other books beyond the PHB so no Volo, no Xanathar's and no Tasha's.

Does that mean that the Supplemental books are no longer compatible with 5e?

I'm not so certain that simply not allowing someone to use information from a splatbook automatically means that splatbook is no longer compatible.

 

[Parmandur]

I'm not so certain that simply not allowing someone to use information from a splatbook automatically means that splatbook is no longer compatible.

I'm quite certain that doesn't hold water. There were people refusing to allow SCAG in 2015, doesn't mean it's not compatible.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I see no reason to suspect that 5.5/6/anniversary edition and the 2014 5e phb is any different then teh above.

Really?

No reason at all? Not like, their hard work over the last decade to make and maintain a game that doesn’t need a new edition, or the fact that the 5e PHB still sells well and D&D is still actively growing?

Or the fact that we’ve seen what they’re working on right now, and it’s unambiguously compatible with the 2014 core?

A house rule that requires no changes = complete compatibility.

You could just use them as is, I hear thst people did.

I've seen people saying that they were compatible as a criticism of 3E, 3.5, 4E, Essentials, and even 5E. It's out there, man.

Thac0 and the matrices are compatible: that's the point. The d20 approach of 3E broke compatibility, but Thac0 did not.

Then why complain...?

The point us, if two mathematical constructs work together in same structural framework...which the new options do with the 2024 rules...then they are mathematically compatible, or completely compatible, fully compatible, fundamentally compatible. However you want to ohrase it, the compatibility is baked in with no work required.

Is character creation in Part 2 of the PHB...? The chapter with the actual rules of the game? Characters are a bundle of mathimatical rules exceptions, not part of the fundamental structure of the game. They could utterly replace all of those options, but if 2024 options can plug and play, or 2024 options plug and play in a mostly 2014 campaign...then they are compatible. We know that the rules we have work this way, and that they are releasing the intro product for the new rules this year..for use with both older and newer material in the future.

A great example is race feats.

A MotM Deep Gnome can take the Deep Gnome Magic feat, or the Squat Nimbleness feat. No conversion required. How powerful those feats are has changed a little, but they are completely compatible with earlier deep gnomes.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

no

Your opnion has nothing to do with the facts and definition of Compatible.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

This is a vocabulary issue. By "core" what I think @Parmandur is referring to is the actual rules of play. What in the 5e PHB would be in chapters 7-10 with a smattering of what's in Chapter 5 (equipment).

Every actual new edition of the game - from 1e -> 2e -> 3e -> 3.5e -> 4e -> 5e has changed the fundamental core rules of play in major ways.

For myself, there are two things that will cause me to say that it's actually a new edition of the game rather than an "Essentials" like revision (which you'll note - I don't consider a new edition of the game, though I do consider 3e and 3.5 to be different games):

1. Changes to the "core rules of play" as outlined above.
2. Changes to the basic class structure of the classes that result in incompatability with already published class material that is recognized as 5e. These would be big changes like changing when they get their subclasses, when they get class features, the number of class features they receive, etc. (Note that there can still be major changes that don't violate this assumption - the Tasha's Ranger is still a 5e ranger, for example, and I don't think Tasha's makes the game a new edition in any meaningful sense of the word).

And incidentally that's why I consider 3e and 3.5e to be two different editions, while I don't consider 4e and Essentials to be different editions. 3e to 3.5e was a pain in the neck switchover where fundamental rules of the core game were changed (1) AND major changes were made to classes that made them incompatible with their 3e versions (2). Essentials just gave a bunch of stuff that was presented in a different way but was compatible with what 4e already had done. I'm suspecting and hoping that the Anniversary edition will be much more like the 4e->Essentials move than a 3e to 3.5e one.

Exactly all of this.

In 4e? You could use essentials options and pre-essentials options when building the same character. The Scout and Hunter had Ranger utility powers, and new powers, and you could just give your Twin Strike spamming PHB Ranger some primal utility powers built for the Scout and Hunter. I played an Executioner with Assassin’s Shroud and the Covenant Agent PP which was built for MC Avenger/Assassins. He had stuff from PHB 1, the assassin dragon articles, and the essentials books.

No conversion required. If a feat worked off opportunity attacks, it didn’t matter when it came out, you could just use it.

I had a buddy who played a Vampire|Warlord hybrid with MC feats for…I think Ranger? He had feats from all over, and powers old and new, and was very fun.

That’s the sort of thing I think we will see in 2024.

 

[JEB]

A MotM Deep Gnome can take the Deep Gnome Magic feat, or the Squat Nimbleness feat.

Interesting example, considering that the MOTM Deep Gnome largely integrates Svirfneblin Magic into the base race; the only benefit to a MOTM Deep Gnome would be the once-per-day Blindness/Deafness and Blur. So you could certainly make this choice, but it wouldn't be a very good one, and it's also clearly not one you're expected to be making under MOTM design guidelines.

 

[Parmandur]

A great example is race feats.

A MotM Deep Gnome can take the Deep Gnome Magic feat, or the Squat Nimbleness feat. No conversion required. How powerful those feats are has changed a little, but they are completely compatible with earlier deep gnomes.

That's a good example.