D&D 5E D&D Beyond: No More À La Carte Purchases But US Customers Can Buy Physical Books

WotC has announced some changes to D&D Beyond's marketplace. These include physical products (for US customers), the removal of à la carte purchases, and various navigational changes.

You can no longer buy individual feats, subclasses, etc. -- you'll need to buy the whole book. The full list of changes includes:

• US shoppers can now buy physical books
• More info on product listings, including previews
• UI improvements to makee finding your purchased content and redeeming keys easier
• No more à la carte purchases (though your previous ones still count)

 

[Henadic Theologian]

So much for the fear of microtransactions

I don't view that as micro transactions.

 

[Scribe]

I don't view that as micro transactions.

Buying individual spells/feats/species vs the whole book? Would sure fit the bill for me.

 

[J-H]

Why would I want to buy all of SCAG to get 3 subclasses? I have used the a la carte fairly extensively to support character-building.

Counter-point:
Why would WOTC want to sell me 5 pages of a book instead of the whole book? You can't do that with paper books.

 

[Mistwell]

So the primary existing means of making microtransaction purchases has been removed?

Buying physical books, and a discount on Physical with Digital, is interesting.

So two myths/rumors are countered in this announcement - that WOTC is moving more towards microtransactions, and away from physical books.

 

[Mistwell]

I don't view that as micro transactions.

But it is. It's very much a microtransaction.

 

[Stormonu]

Pretty glad I recently just bought all the monsters a la carte that I could. There were some books I didn't have an interest in the whole thing and just wanted the monsters out of. There's enough monsters that are just in the adventure books they could release a stand-alone monster book out of it.

Now, before the 2014 stuff completely vanishes, I need to find a way to screen-scrape the monsters so I can put them on index cards to go with my discontinued GF9 cards...

 

[mamba]

Counter-point:
Why would WOTC want to sell me 5 pages of a book instead of the whole book?

because they are better off selling me 5 pages at a disproportionate price than nothing at all

You can't do that with paper books.

good thing this is not a paper book then... should we always be limited by the least flexible technology we ever used for something? I do not see you asking for stone tablets instead of books

 

[mamba]

So two myths/rumors are countered in this announcement - that WOTC is moving more towards microtransactions, and away from physical books.

there is always the VTT, the whole microtransaction thing is 95% about the VTT, not DDB

 

[mamba]

Pretty glad I recently just bought all the monsters a la carte that I could. There were some books I didn't have an interest in the whole thing and just wanted the monsters out of.

I was debating doing this, now I have my answer, I won't be buying any of them

 

[Clint_L]

Pretty glad I recently just bought all the monsters a la carte that I could. There were some books I didn't have an interest in the whole thing and just wanted the monsters out of. There's enough monsters that are just in the adventure books they could release a stand-alone monster book out of it.

Now, before the 2014 stuff completely vanishes, I need to find a way to screen-scrape the monsters so I can put them on index cards to go with my discontinued GF9 cards...

Getting rid of microtransactions sucks!

However, if you are worried about your stuff vanishing (I don't think it will, but I guess you never know), just put the DnDBeyond app on your phone and download anything you are worried about. I currently have all of my stuff downloaded, basically. DDB could vanish tomorrow and I wouldn't lose anything.