D&D 5E (2014) D&D Beyond Phase 2 and 3 are open beta!

[SkidAce]

Phase 2 AND 3 have gone live!


https://www.dndbeyond.com/

 

[SkidAce]

The announcement;

https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-...-release-notes-phase-2-3-character-builder#c1

 

[Demetrios1453]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKQJBJE7ti4

I'm getting more and more intrigued as we get more and more information is released. If they can pull this off reasonably successfully with all the bells and whistles they are mentioning, it will be an extremely helpful resource. Hopefully the pricing will be fairly reasonable...

 

[pukunui]

How do you access the character builder part? I have a Twitch account, but when I try to access it, I just get a "403 Forbidden" message.

 

[Staccat0]

How do you access the character builder part? I have a Twitch account, but when I try to access it, I just get a "403 Forbidden" message.

I got on it and then the page crashed. It seemed really cool too

it had 3 options, one to auto-create a character using reccomended stuff. Another to make a completely random character and another to make a custom character.

 

[pukunui]

I got on it and then the page crashed. It seemed really cool too

it had 3 options, one to auto-create a character using reccomended stuff. Another to make a completely random character and another to make a custom character.

Cool. I found the answer on the announcement thread linked to above. Someone reported a problem and so they locked it all down until they fix it. Hopefully it'll be back up again soon, as I'd quite like to give it a try.

 

[Dausuul]

Hmm. Well, can't try out the character builder yet.

The monster/item/spell reference is already loads better than 4E's DDI Compendium... literally loads, as in it loads instantly. Might benefit from some more sophisticated filter/search tools, especially as more content gets released, but it's solid just as is (and I know from personal experience what a pain in the neck it is to build good search tools).

The magic item editor looks really spiffy. Can't wait to play with homebrew items on a working character sheet.

Spell editor is equally spiffy. I'm assuming it will give you the option to use those "modifiers" for stuff like auto-rolling damage? Again, need a working character sheet to see this in its full glory, but I like what I'm looking at.

The monster editor is... not so spiffy. Oh, it gets the job done, but it doesn't seem to autocalculate anything. It doesn't even do the very simple stuff like computing average hit points, let alone the complex math that goes into estimating CR (granted, there's no way you can fully automate CR, but you could allow the DM to estimate damage values and other modifiers on the monster's abilities, then calculate CR off that). This will need to improve significantly for me to want to use it.

The campaign editor is little more than a placeholder. From the announcement, it sounds like they're aware of that and it's on the roadmap, so no complaints there.

All in all, assuming the character builder is solid, I like what I'm seeing. It's nowhere near finished yet, but an excellent start.

 

[Demetrios1453]

The monster editor is... not so spiffy. Oh, it gets the job done, but it doesn't seem to autocalculate anything. It doesn't even do the very simple stuff like computing average hit points, let alone the complex math that goes into estimating CR (granted, there's no way you can fully automate CR, but you could allow the DM to estimate damage values and other modifiers on the monster's abilities, then calculate CR off that). This will need to improve significantly for me to want to use it.

From what it sounds like from the YouTube video I linked, this sounds like something they realize and are still putting major work into. I can only hope so, since one of the few major pain points I have as a DM for 5e is modifying monsters (unlike 3e, where the rules for modifying monsters were simple and straightforward, although the end results might not have always matched the expected CR) and custom monster creation. If they can come up with an electronic way to streamline the current annoying and initially counter-intuitive process, I will be eternally grateful and be willing to make a purchase then and there...

 

[Dausuul]

Okay, after playing with the character builder/sheet for a bit: Not bad, not great, at least in its current state. No glaring issues, but lots of little nuisances. The ones I encountered:

• Lack of guardrails. I tried building a 12th-level high elf wizard and assigning all three ASIs to Intelligence, then putting a base score of 15 in Int. No warnings that I noticed; my Int was simply capped at 20 and the extra points lost. I picked Arcana and History as my proficiencies, then chose the Sage background, which comes with Arcana and History. Again, no complaints about the overlap, the builder just silently let me waste my proficiencies.
• Unable to undo some character choices. I added a second class, then couldn't get rid of it. Likewise, couldn't reduce my level to 11 after starting into the build process at 12. I could change races, though.
• "Manage Spells" UI is tolerable when building a 1st-level wizard, but horrible for a high-level one. Giant scrolling list of every spell you're eligible to learn, and the only way to filter it down is by name? [Darth Vader]NOOOOOOOOOOOO![/Darth Vader] Either the UI needs a serious revamp, or the "Spells" section of the app (where there are decent search and filter tools) should have a button that lets you choose a character and put that spell on his/her list.
• "Manage Equipment" has the same issues.
• Character sheet on mobile is in dire need of a hamburger menu, or some other way to quickly navigate to The Thing I Want. Way too many "cards" to flip through when I'm trying to look something up quick at the table.
• On the flip side, the mobile-friendly "cards" feel clunky on a PC. Of course, one has to optimize for mobile first, but it sure would be nice to have a more integrated character sheet when the screen is big enough to accommodate it.

I'm sure many of these are already being addressed, of course. Stuff I did like:

• The option to use milestones instead of XP made me happy.
• The mobile interface feels pleasant to use. Very polished.
• I like that features are shown in the relevant card; e.g., Fey Ancestry shows up on the card where I look up my saving throws. Though this doesn't work for all features. I don't get the Evoker features anywhere on the spellcasting card, for example.
• The spell card does a very nice job making it easy to manage spell slots.

 

[gyor]

Fun, but it's clearly a work in progress. I built a Tiefling Dragon Sorceror and I had no access to metamagic and after the first three cantrips it wouldn't let me choose any more spell period, so I couldn't select a fourth cantrip or a first level spell. It also simply listed dragon types instead of letting me pick one.

I did however get to pick Sphinx as a language thanks to Noble background, so the character knew Common, Infernal, Draconic, and Sphinx, an interesting array of languages. What alaphbet does the Sphinx language use?