D&D (2024) How D&D Beyond Will Handle Access To 2014 Rules

D&D Beyond has announced how the transition to the new 2024 edition will work on the platform, and how legacy access to the 2014 version of D&D will be implemented.

• You will still be able to access the 2014 Basic Rules and core rulebooks.
• You will still be able to make characters using the 2014 Player's Handbook.
• Existing home-brew content will not be impacted.
• These 2014 rules will be accessible and will be marked with a 'legacy' badge: classes, subclasses, species, backgrounds, feats, monsters.
• Tooltips will reflect the 2024 rules.
• Monster stat blocks will be updated to 2024.
• There will be terminology changes (Heroic Inspiration, Species, etc.)

D&D (2024) - Wizards of the Coast Backtracks on D&D Beyond and 2014 Content

Wizards of the Coast posted an overnight update stating that they are not going forward with previously released plans to require those wishing to use some 2014 content on D&D Beyond to use the Homebrew function to manually enter it. Instead, all the content including spells and magic items will...

www.enworld.org

 

[Zaukrie]

Hey now! I have on good authority that they are also giving you a free U2 song that you can't delete with your DDB account as well.

what a fun time that was on the internet. How'd you like your Bon Jovi?

 

[Burnside]

So Roll20 will offer exactly the functionality that is apparently just too technically difficult for DNDBeyond to implement.


When creating a character, you can just choose whether you want to use 2014 or 2024 rules. Either will be fully supported.

 

[mamba]

So Roll20 will offer exactly the functionality that is apparently just too technically difficult for DNDBeyond to implement.

it’s really not that hard, any VTT that supports multiple TTRPGs and supplements already has pretty much everything that is needed for this. The problem with DDB is that they never did that, so who knows what they are missing to get there… not much of an excuse though, they have known for years that this day would come and especially the last two that it was fast approaching, yet they sat on their hands

 

[DinoInDisguise]

it’s really not that hard, any VTT that supports multiple TTRPGs already has pretty much everything that is needed for this. The problem with DDB is that they never did that, so who knows what they are missing to get there… not much of an excuse though, they have known for years that this day would come and especially the last two that it was fast approaching, yet they sat on their hands

They have no real incentive to support 2014. They want people to buy 2024. Roll20 has no such conflict of interests.

 

[mamba]

They have no real incentive to support 2014. They want people to buy 2024. Roll20 has no such conflict of interests.

sure, I do not consider that a good reason however, and if they ever want to grow beyond supporting the latest version of D&D only and become the equivalent to Steam in the TTRPG space they will have to make that step eventually. So all I see is them shooting themselves in the foot here

If people want to stay with 2014, this might be enough for them to drop DDB, I am not seeing them gaining anything with this

 

[Burnside]

They have no real incentive to support 2014.

FWIW, this issue will likely keep me on Roll20 instead of moving over to DNDBeyond's Maps, for the foreseeable future. That's a potential incentive.

 

[DarkCrisis]

I can’t believe WotC would prefer us use the new stuff over the old. Surely this is a mistake.

I can’t believe no one told us over and over that this stuff would happen. Why did no one see this coming? Someone like older gamers who have been around the track a few times. Just blindsided!

Im sure WotC will fix it. What’s more important? Getting our money or something else?

 

[DinoInDisguise]

sure, I do not consider that a good reason however, and if they ever want to grow beyond supporting the latest version of D&D only and become the equivalent to Steam in the TTRPG space they will have to make that step eventually. So all I see is them shooting themselves in the foot here

If people want to stay with 2014, this might be enough for them to drop DDB, I am not seeing them gaining anything with this

Do we have any indication that is a goal of theirs? If so, you are likely correct. But if their goal is purely a walled garden, as theorized during the OGL, I'm unsure they care.

FWIW, this issue will likely keep me on Roll20 instead of moving over to DNDBeyond's Maps, for the foreseeable future. That's a potential incentive.

This will keep me on roll20 as well. I disagree with many of 2024's changes already, so not supporting 2014 is a big deal to me.

I've been a pretty outspoken critic of rules over rulings on this forums since joining. So the move 2024 makes in that direction, is a bit concerning for me. Luckily Kobold press is wonderful and I love them <3

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Hey now! I have on good authority that they are also giving you a free U2 song that you can't delete with your DDB account as well.

Ahhh wow I'd forgotten about that magnificent self-own from both Apple and U2. Good grief. I know people love to mock U2 for absolutely and completely drinking their own Koolaid, but even that ridiculous documentary didn't prove it as conclusively as agreeing to this and the things they said about this did!

 

[Velderan]

yea... the thing about them ONLY killing 5.0 spells and items is thats what they are changing SO FAR.
They have a good legacy system and could easily mark the 5.0 versions of them as legacy, but they dont want to. This is a very standard marketing strategy in software - making things annoying and difficult to force users to upgrade. Apple does this by killing battery life of older devices for example.
If not enough buy 5.5 books, expect more 5.0 stuff to become unavailable in ddb in 6 months.
This is 100% a marketing strategy to neg and force players to upgrade and pay more money

I don't think so. If you look at the NPC statblocks in adventure books, they don't hyperlink many things but they do hyperlink spells and (I'm pretty sure...) magic items so this is about future proofing NPC statblocks in adventures to make sure they point at the current version of a spell or magic item. Same with monsters if they do the same thing when the 20242025 Monster Manual is released.

No idea why they couldn't do something to allow people to toggle on or off which ruleset they want to use, probably some bean counter in accounting that sets the budget to work on projects decided that would cost too much to implement.