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

 

[FrogReaver]

Yes there is. A5e's 5e compatible ruleset is 100% independent. It does not even reference the 5.1 CC document. The EN world publishing team spent a bunch of work last year making it completely independent and releasing it – an SRD 5x bigger than the 5.1 SRD.

Black Flag is a 5e compatible SRD that is independent from D&D yet compatible with other 5e systems, supplements, adventures, and campaign books.

Even the 5.1 SRD no longer represents the current core books of D&D. They've gone down another path with D&D 2024 and now plan to release another SRD, the 5.2 SRD. Which means WOTC themselves will have two different SRDs compatible with different versions of 5e.

So yeah, there are existing rulesets compatible with 5e that are not D&D.

Right. I said there were no 5e rulesets that were not 5e d&d. I didn’t say there weren’t any 5e compatible rulesets…. So not sure how any of that disproves my claim.

 

[FrogReaver]

Because we can recognize the incredible breadth and diversity of 5e products published from hundreds of publishers. We can mix and mash up the best ideas for the game we want to run. We don't have to hope a single company goes the direction we want them to go – we can take ideas from lots of different publishers with different philosophies and choose what we want.

Change 5e to 5e compatible and I’m good

Just look at monsters alone. We have the original D&D 2014 Monster Manual. We have A5e's Monstrous Menagerie which adds knowledge checks, loot parcels, related monster encounters, and more streamlined baseline monster math. We have MCDM's Flee Mortals with crunchy tactical 4e-ish style monsters for 5e. We have Forge of Foes which offers simple improvised monsters enriched with custom monster powers. We have the Monster Vault with streamlined but super-sharp-teethed versions of core monsters. You might like some of these. You might hate some of these. But you have lots of options to choose from. That's fantastic.

Change 5e to 5e compatible and we are good here too.

The same is true with character options, GM guides, campaign sourcebooks, published adventures, and a slew of supplements.

If we treat all of this stuff as "lesser" than the core D&D 2014 books, we're really missing out. Because they're not.

No one here is saying 5e compatible is ‘lesser than 5e’.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I do not consider PHB core books to be compatible, they are replacements. You could maybe use them alongside, depends on the case I guess, @Imaro was saying Symbaroum is not compatible with D&D 5e despite being a 5e ruleset

You may not consider them compatible, but every author of those books seems like they do consider them to be compatible. If they didn't, they wouldn't sell them as products that are compatible with 5e DnD.

 

[Chaosmancer]

for you 5e compatible is D&D 5e compatible and they are not additions to D&D but separate core books, so in your characterization they are being swept under the rug

No, you are forcefully throwing a rug over them, because you want 5e to somehow not mean "the 5th edition of Dungeons and Dragons". Those authors who wrote those core books consider them compatible.

they were built on top of the 5e SRD, no one but WotC can build on top of D&D 5e.

Nope, that isn't true. Especially since "5e SRD" literally means "The System Reference Document for 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons". And not everything made for 5e, used the SRD to begin with.

the brackets are you confusing the issue, EN Publishing was very clear about them being compatible with the 5e ruleset, you turned that into D&D 5e, which is something else. Notice the 'this new game' at the end of your screenshot.

A new game that is the same as 5e? How do you propose that works?

it is no product, but it establishes a standard that others can use. D&D is a product that no one else can use

That isn't even accurate if you mean "D&D is a product that no one else can sell under" since you don't need to reference the SRD to make and sell products on the DMs Guild.

that is not what I am saying at all, that is you twisting what I am saying into the point you are trying to make, just like you twisted what A5e is saying about its game

Except... didn't you already agree that 5e means Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition? All I'm doing is undoing the abbreviation, how is that twisting anything?

 

[Chaosmancer]

What's the point of disputing it? All that does is give WotC an unwarranted degree of authority over the 5e ruleset.

No, it really doesn't. I don't understand how acknowledging that 5e is Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition gives WotC ANY authority over the rules that they do not currently hold. I own multiple 3rd party books, my stating that DnD 5th edition and 5e are the same ruleset does not suddenly rebrand all those books as WotC books, or give them the legal right to rip the money I spent on them from the bank accounts of the creators.

Just like they can't do for quite literally THOUSANDS of products.

 

[mamba]

You may not consider them compatible, but every author of those books seems like they do consider them to be compatible. If they didn't, they wouldn't sell them as products that are compatible with 5e DnD.

they are predominantly replacements that are compatible with all the 5e supplements rather than a second set of mostly similar races, classes and subclasses, and spells that are intended to be added to the D&D PHB ones

If you want to emphasize their compatibility, be my guest, to me they are intended as replacements / alternatives and not as additions

 

[Chaosmancer]

None of that is more important to me than the points I made. WotC's game is now a version of 5e, not all of it. That they started it is irrelevant. The ruleset has moved on and expanded.

IF your criteria is just that the ruleset has expanded beyond what WotC wrote.... that happened before the SRD was ever penned. That happened before 2014 when DnD 5e was published. I know that for a fact, because I started writing rules for 5e that were not WotC rules during the Next playtest.

By this definition of "the rules expanded without their consent and their version was not the only one" then DnD 5e never even existed, because there were always alternative versions out there.

 

[SkidAce]

OK so going back to the original premise of this thread, here are some things I've noticed:

Inspiration has been changed to Heroic Inspiration and the tooltip refers to the new rules. This was to be expected.

The Description tab has been relabeled "Background". It otherwise has the same content as before for 2014 characters. This was to be expected.

However, the text for Unarmed Strikes has been fully updated to the 2024 rules even for 2014 characters. This I did not expect.

View attachment 378834

Potentially helpfull info: My 2014 characters Unarmed Strike has not changed, which is logical sine I havent bought 2024 yet.

But it bothers me that 2014 characters will change automagically.

 

[SkidAce]

If we treat all of this stuff as "lesser" than the core D&D 2014 books, we're really missing out. Because they're not.

I would never treat them as "lesser". In fact some parts are superior!.

However, I look at it like this (to use Tales of the Valiant as an example).

Tales of the Valiant is compatible with 5e.

not...

Tales of the Valiant is 5e.

Having said that, there is no judgement of quality in either of those statements. In reference to the rest of your post, I pull ideas and parts from almost every compatible source out there, and thoroughly enjoy the breadth of options.

 

[mamba]

No, you are forcefully throwing a rug over them, because you want 5e to somehow not mean "the 5th edition of Dungeons and Dragons". Those authors who wrote those core books consider them compatible.

they are compatible with the 5e standard, they are intended as replacements to the D&D PHB, not as something to be used alongside it

Nope, that isn't true. Especially since "5e SRD" literally means "The System Reference Document for 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons". And not everything made for 5e, used the SRD to begin with.

that no one can build on D&D 5e while everyone can build on the 5e SRD is very much true.

You can also build a rather similar system independently, agreed, but if you copy over anything, it either is from the SRD or a copyright violation…

A new game that is the same as 5e? How do you propose that works?

since it is not the same game I do not need a solution for this

That isn't even accurate if you mean "D&D is a product that no one else can sell under" since you don't need to reference the SRD to make and sell products on the DMs Guild.

the DMsG has its own license, you pay WotC for the privilege to use their IP beyond the SRD. Didn’t realize that saying ‘no one else can use’ needed to include ‘without a separate license’ but I guess here we are.

Except... didn't you already agree that 5e means Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition?

no, I said the 5e is a reference to the 5e of D&D 5e and that the two started out as largely the same since D&D was the only implementation of the 5e SRD. Since we now have several implementations of it, the scope of what 5e means has expanded while the scope of D&D 5e has not (and before you try to score a cheap point by pointing out the obvious again, that means it consists of WotC products, Xanathar, Tasha, etc have expanded D&D 5e…)