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.

 

[Maxperson]

I mean, yhe core of those tables was to be D&D compatible.

Any attempt to use them as they were was pretty much guaranteed death to PCs and a bunch of incompatible rules. I mean, one of the weakest Slash crits on the A table forced the victim to parry(doesn't exist in D&D) next turn and gave the attacker +10 to hit. There were viscously long stuns, +20s on swings, hearing at -50(what does that even mean in D&D) and instant death. And that was the weak crit table. Going to the mid strength C crit table and a weak hit forced you to parry at -20, a roll of 66 put the victim at -90 and knocked you over for 3 rounds, resulted in broken backs, severed legs or stunned you and left you unable to parry for 30 rounds. For that matter, there were no rules in D&D for how to get onto the A, B, C, D or E crit tables. There is no compatibility there, though they could be used if the DM decided to.

 

[Parmandur]

Any attempt to use them as they were was pretty much guaranteed death to PCs and a bunch of incompatible rules. I mean, one of the weakest Slash crits on the A table forced the victim to parry(doesn't exist in D&D) next turn and gave the attacker +10 to hit. There were viscously long stuns, +20s on swings, hearing at -50(what does that even mean in D&D) and instant death. And that was the weak crit table. Going to the mid strength C crit table and a weak hit forced you to parry at -20, a roll of 66 put the victim at -90 and knocked you over for 3 rounds, resulted in broken backs, severed legs or stunned you and left you unable to parry for 30 rounds. For that matter, there were no rules in D&D for how to get onto the A, B, C, D or E crit tables. There is no compatibility there, though they could be used if the DM decided to.

But you could.

Alogjt kidding aside, they weren't designed to work together. The ongoing D&D rules revisions are designed, on the structural level, to work together. We've already seen this in practice.

 

[CleverNickName]

The marketing for 4e was literally focused on how different it was mechanically.

Yep. And the marketing campaign had a weirdly aggressive spin on it too, if I remember right. The whole vibe was "we fixed your clunky, dull game for you, you're welcome." That didn't sit right with a lot of their fans.

 

[Parmandur]

In retrospect, this might be worth looking st:

"But there is no system!
Some people do not think WOTC has a secret in-house system for me to reverse engineer. I believe that there is a system because WOTC is investing millions based on detailed math created and maintained by a team that is likely to have a shifting membership over several years, WOTC is going to want records to ensure the continuity of future products. Probably information gleaned from practical play concerns etc. are fed back into the evolving document at WOTC. Therefore what I have reverse-engineered is a ‘snapshot’ of that evolving document taken at the time the EEPC was released. My confidence is buoyed by my work predicting that some traits were zero point before the release of Waterborne Unearthed Arcana wherein the designer's confirmed they used zero point traits which they call 'ribbons'. Furthermore the beta version accurately priced most of the EEPC races when that document was released."

D&D 5E - Second Edition Reverse Engineered D&D 5e race design and over 40 example races

After another year of play-testing and numerous changes and fixes I present a new edition of the Race Creation rules! After a couple of years of work I ask the following as a courtesy. You may use this to create races for publication if I am credited as “Additional game design by Karl David...

www.enworld.org

 

[JEB]

“This ability allows you to cast nondetection on yourself at will, without needing a material component. You can also cast each of the following spells once with this ability: blindness/deafness, blur, and disguise self. You regain the ability to cast these spells when you finish a long rest.”

Nothing in this feat is “wasted”. Being able to cast any one of these spells an extra time per day is decent, all three plus making non-detection at-will is very good.

Two points:
1) The MOTM Deep Gnome can already burn spell slots for additional castings of Nondetection and Disguise Self. Svirfneblin Magic is still technically an upgrade to the MOTM Deep Gnome, sure - but this further emphasizes that MOTM's revamp of the Deep Gnome is intended to make that feat obsolete.
2) Whether or not a MOTM Deep Gnome would get a second use of Disguise Self after taking that feat is an interesting question, RAW. There's no rule I'm aware of that addresses getting two copies of the same racial feature. The multiclassing rules suggest you wouldn't be able to stack them, but this is new territory. Would be an interesting question for one of the designers on Twitter!

And you presented it as evidence that the new content won’t be compatible with the old.

I invite you to reread my post and point to where I said that. I only noted that you chose an interesting example for your point, when there are many less debatable choices. (Say, MOTM Duergar being able to take dwarf racial feats from Xanathar's.)

As for racial feats “surviving”, of course they will. They already haven’t been making more of them, but they aren’t going to remove content from one of their main game expansion books. Because it isn’t a new edition.

I meant that 2024 edition will likely not include any new racial feats; that will only remain as a "legacy" aspect of 2014 5E. That's my prediction anyway, from the evidence thus far; I could be wrong.

 

[JEB]

did away with bonus actions like Mike Merles talked about in one of his design blogs

Hmm. Does any of the MOTM material include bonus action features?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

“The game will remain the same” said in a Pepe lapeu voice

I don't know what this means.

Yep. And the marketing campaign had a weirdly aggressive spin on it too, if I remember right. The whole vibe was "we fixed your clunky, dull game for you, you're welcome." That didn't sit right with a lot of their fans.

I always read it more as a "hey this game has a lot of weird idyoncratic holdovers that make it less fun, we redesigned it from the ground up to streamline away those pain points and offer a game that gets to the fun part!" and people took it as an attack on past editions and those who liked them.

 

[JEB]

Not long after that I found people who had print outs from an old AOL style website...

Off-topic, but I'm assuming that was from TSR Online? I still have some ancient print-outs from there as well... I even posted my own homebrew there.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Two points:
1) The MOTM Deep Gnome can already burn spell slots for additional castings of Nondetection and Disguise Self. Svirfneblin Magic is still technically an upgrade to the MOTM Deep Gnome, sure - but this further emphasizes that MOTM's revamp of the Deep Gnome is intended to make that feat obsolete.

You....those are only half of the spells in the feat, and the feat gives additional uses per day of each spell. this isn't complex. The motm deep gnome is built to not need the feat in order to feel like a deep gnome, but still very much benefits from the feat. Literally nothing is redundant in the feat, because when you take it you gain 1 more free use of one of the two spells granted by your race, the other race-granted spell turns into an at-will, and 1 free use each of two other spells!

2) Whether or not a MOTM Deep Gnome would get a second use of Disguise Self after taking that feat is an interesting question, RAW. There's no rule I'm aware of that addresses getting two copies of the same racial feature. The multiclassing rules suggest you wouldn't be able to stack them, but this is new territory. Would be an interesting question for one of the designers on Twitter!

It's not an interesting question at all, because it isn't in question. The RAW is incredibly obvious, here. They are two separate features. The feat isn't a racial feature. It's a feat. There is no rules question, here.

I invite you to reread my post and point to where I said that. I only noted that you chose an interesting example for your point, when there are many less debatable choices. (Say, MOTM Duergar being able to take dwarf racial feats from Xanathar's.)

You replied into a discussion of compatibility with this:

and it's also clearly not one you're expected to be making under MOTM design guidelines.

This implies a percieved break in game design continuity, wherein a new mechanical element obviates an old one. Which would be...an incompatibility. If it were true, which it isn't.

I meant that 2024 edition will likely not include any new racial feats; that will only remain as a "legacy" aspect of 2014 5E. That's my prediction anyway, from the evidence thus far; I could be wrong.

They aren't going to be separate editions. By default, everything published under 5e will remain part of 5e. They aren't going to make it so that xanathar's guide isn't part of the same game as the 2014 PHB or what gets published after it.

 

[JEB]

You....those are only half of the spells in the feat, and the feat gives additional uses per day of each spell. this isn't complex. The motm deep gnome is built to not need the feat in order to feel like a deep gnome, but still very much benefits from the feat. Literally nothing is redundant in the feat, because when you take it you gain 1 more free use of one of the two spells granted by your race, the other race-granted spell turns into an at-will, and 1 free use each of two other spells!

The MOTM Deep Gnome gets weakened versions of two components from the feat. Meanwhile, the Svirfneblin Magic feat is absent entirely from MOTM, despite being in Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes. And MOTM is very heavily implied to supersede Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes, so the feat's omission from the newer book was most certainly intentional.

So yes, you can have your MOTM Deep Gnome take the feat, and still even benefit from the feat. But it's very difficult for me to believe that's the designers' intent, considering the overlapping traits, and the feat being relegated to "Legacy Content".

It's not an interesting question at all, because it isn't in question. The RAW is incredibly obvious, here. They are two separate features. The feat isn't a racial feature. It's a feat. There is no rules question, here.

Eh, I still think it's an interesting question, even if you don't. If I had Twitter, I'd probably ask myself.

This implies a percieved break in game design continuity, wherein a new mechanical element obviates an old one. Which would be...an incompatibility. If it were true, which it isn't.

MOTM is full of new mechanical elements that obviate old ones - namely new versions of nearly every race 5E has produced outside the core, and nearly two full books of monsters. I don't see those new versions as incompatibilities, but they are blatantly intended to replace the old stuff despite being technically compatible. But if you see obsolete elements as signs of incompatibility, well, that's a book full of new elements making old ones obsolete...

They aren't going to be separate editions. By default, everything published under 5e will remain part of 5e. They aren't going to make it so that xanathar's guide isn't part of the same game as the 2014 PHB or what gets published after it.

Being even clearer, then: I doubt that any product after the 2024 revision will include racial feats. But again, I could be wrong.