D&D 5E Any word on (Full) 5e PDFs?

[Pandamonium87]

If one's not worried about legalities, the chances are 100%. There's a good B&W OCR scan of the PHB already.

And claims of a color MM scan.

WotC is losing out.

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/newreply.php?p=6391557&noquote=1#ixzz3EJuMJYz6

This.

15$ PHB and 9.99$ MM PDFs what's the difficult?

 

[Sunseeker]

If they don't want them to compete, all they have to do is make pdf's part of your purchases of the books in Dungeonscape.

You unlock the full PHB in dungeonscape, you get sent a pdf of it as well.

While I do agree with this philosophy, I can't say I have come up with a good way to do it.

Is there a code in the book? If so, what stops Bob from simply walking into the bookstore and flipping to the page with the code and then getting his free pdf?
Is it based on the barcode? We've already got barcode scanners in cell-phones. There are plenty of other ways to abuse this too, especially by store employees.
Something on the receipt maybe? Why not buy and return? How would DungeonScape know?
It could work like Pathfinder, but you'd be limited to buying ONLY from WotC, and while that works for some companies, that's clearly not their business strategy.

Honestly, short of making a nearly $50 book even more accessible than the MSRP already makes it, I don't see a good way to get a free PDF with purchase.

 

[Jester David]

While I do agree with this philosophy, I can't say I have come up with a good way to do it.

Is there a code in the book? If so, what stops Bob from simply walking into the bookstore and flipping to the page with the code and then getting his free pdf?
Is it based on the barcode? We've already got barcode scanners in cell-phones. There are plenty of other ways to abuse this too, especially by store employees.
Something on the receipt maybe? Why not buy and return? How would DungeonScape know?
It could work like Pathfinder, but you'd be limited to buying ONLY from WotC, and while that works for some companies, that's clearly not their business strategy.

Honestly, short of making a nearly $50 book even more accessible than the MSRP already makes it, I don't see a good way to get a free PDF with purchase.

I think he means you buy the PHB for use with DungeonScape (rather than just Basic) which unlokcks the PDF.
Which is fine so long as it's a regular you can view anywhere and not tied to the app.

But, more than likely, the DungeonScape app won't be a PDF but an app version of the DDI Compendium. Much like the assorted Pathfinder apps.

 

[drjones]

I have to admit, I've only seen Dungeonscape from afar. But if the only way to get their PDF is via some in app purchase that doesn't give me PDF I can download on my own, then piracy will just keep on truckin'. It happened with 4e, and its already happening with 5e. I'm interested in Dungeonscape, but it needs to give me what I want.

And it happened with every RPG book available for purchase as a PDF. Some people are cheap, some people are entitled, some people just suck. Whatever the personal reason, you could sell the PDF for 5 cents and it would still be torrented immediately upon release and no armchair marketing executive here knows how that effects real sales for a company like wotc. If it is going to be pirated no matter what they do then they have a strong incentive to try to provide something better than the scanned PDF that anyone can already get, which is what Dungeonscape is an attempt to do.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

Evil Hat and others manage just fine with http://www.bits-and-mortar.com/. No reason WotC couldn't do the same thing, and as a bonus it would furhter support their WPN stores.

 

[mcbobbo]

Don't mean to be a downer but the Basic PDFs are the plan! And they are free and searchable.
...
The free Basic PDFs are the single smartest thing Wizards has ever done with the D&D property. Enjoy them.

1) The Basic PDFs are incomplete, so (obviously) they're not so great for searching unless they happen to contain the answer. They're missing something from just about every section of the game.

2) I am willing to pay, so I don't care about 'free'.

3) I agree, they're smart, but they're just a gateway drug. They're necessarily superseded by the full rules. So if you use any of the full rules at your table, you can't rely simply on Basic.

 

[aramis erak]

1) The Basic PDFs are incomplete, so (obviously) they're not so great for searching unless they happen to contain the answer. They're missing something from just about every section of the game.

Outside of classes, races, and backgrounds, I don't see it. Well, spells, too.

The Playing the game and Combat chapters are identical as far as I can tell.

 

[Laznabog]

I am glad to see something digital in the works. I hadn't heard of this. I would much rather buy it than hard books if it actually does have everything the book has. That being said, I had to stop reading on their site when I saw the words "Tabletop digital companion tools arehard to build, and until recently, the sheer cost of production on tools like these has been difficult to justify." They failed to include the caveat, unless we allow other people to do it for free and charge nothing for it..

 

[Iosue]

I am glad to see something digital in the works. I hadn't heard of this. I would much rather buy it than hard books if it actually does have everything the book has. That being said, I had to stop reading on their site when I saw the words "Tabletop digital companion tools arehard to build, and until recently, the sheer cost of production on tools like these has been difficult to justify." They failed to include the caveat, unless we allow other people to do it for free and charge nothing for it..

I hardly think Trapdoor is or was in a position to allow people to develop digital companion tools for D&D...

 

[Stormonu]

WotC may be slow to pull the trigger, but I've already got mine. Which is good because I can't wrestle the 5E PHB away from my wife. :/