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

 

[Nikosandros]

That's an extremely strange one. More than anything else, D&D has a tradition of "legacy" magical item, and further, I know it's easy to have multiple versions of a magical item in the system Beyond uses.

I strongly suspect this is a technical issue that they're passing off as an editorial decision. Like maybe they forgot to code in an ability to make magic items "legacy". It's pretty crap either way.

Yeah, I don't know the reasons either, but it does suck. I'm not even clear if we should start making home-brewed copies of all spells and items now (gasp!) or just the two spells and the net that are going to be archived.

Also it's rather pathetic that we still can't create homebrew versions of mundane equipment in 2024, when Beyond said they were working on that in like, 2017, and said it was coming soon in 2019.

Not to mention the so-called "general feature manager". In development for years and now gone. Perhaps it met a sphere of annihilation or maybe it wandered by mistake in the crystal sphere of Doom Space.

 

[Baumi]

I simply hope that there will be an option to use just one Version (2024 or 2014). I will certainly restrict to only 2024 when I will test out the system and don't want a mixture of legacy and new rules when I am just learning the new options..

P.S.: I just saw in the full Article that you can disable Legacy content. So my main problem is no more

 

[J-H]

I don't particularly care for it but from a "managing data" perspective it makes sense.

Bets on whether or not they'll get Barbarian Rage damage bonuses in there correctly?

 

[Cergorach]

And the likelihood is $71m is a gross underestimate of how much Beyond is pulling in because it doesn't include book sales. WotC are making insane profits here, and they're clearly completely failing to reinvest them in Beyond.

That is not how 'profit' works. You take all sales and the subtract all costs of the whole company, what's left is profit. Hasbro isn't making insane profits. They made a loss. And even before that, the profits they made weren't stellar.

When you have a family, you also don't just look at what dad and/or mom makes and what they cost. You look at what the whole family costs (and kids are expensive!).

So yeah, that means that WotC is probably propping up the rest of Hasbro, but that's the advantage of buying something 25 years ago that turns out to be successful...

I simply hope that there will be an option to use just one Version (2024 or 2014). I will certainly restrict to only 2024 when I will test out the system and don't want a mixture of legacy and new rules when I am just learning the new options..

P.S.: I just saw in the full Article that you can disable Legacy content. So my main problem is no more

That of course will only work when all the core books are available, which with MM will happen in February 2025. Till that time you'll have to work with legacy magic items and monsters I suspect...

 

[Nikosandros]

Yeah, I don't know the reasons either, but it does suck. I'm not even clear if we should start making home-brewed copies of all spells and items now (gasp!) or just the two spells and the net that are going to be archived.

I've had "official" clarification. If you want to preserve 2014 spells and magic items, better start copying them now, because after the "upgrade" you'll have to write them from scratch (possibly by "retro" modifying the new version). Quite awful.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

That is not how 'profit' works. You take all sales and the subtract all costs of the whole company, what's left is profit. Hasbro isn't making insane profits. They made a loss. And even before that, the profits they made weren't stellar.

When you have a family, you also don't just look at what dad and/or mom makes and what they cost. You look at what the whole family costs (and kids are expensive!).

So yeah, that means that WotC is probably propping up the rest of Hasbro, but that's the advantage of buying something 25 years ago that turns out to be successful...

I don't think I'm the one who is confused.

The "family" analogy is so bad and irrelevant to what's being discussed that it's actively obfuscatory. The reality is that Beyond generates significant revenue for WotC whilst incurring few costs, thus is a "centre of profit". If you don't understand that, then I can't really help you.

Beyond is clearly not receiving significant reinvestment despite being such a centre of profit. This is hardly surprising. In fact it's a pattern with companies buying other companies with successful subscription-based products, then just taking that revenue and using it elsewhere, whilst leaving the subscription-based product underinvested and underdeveloped. It is however disappointing that despite WotC and Beyond initially signalling that WotC would improve Beyond significantly after purchasing it, and make it an even better product, that it's basically exactly the same as it was when they bought it, more than two years later.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I've had "official" clarification. If you want to preserve 2014 spells and magic items, better start copying them now, because after the "upgrade" you'll have to write them from scratch (possibly by "retro" modifying the new version). Quite awful.

That is truly astonishingly crap. What kind of skeleton crew do they have running this?

 

[Longspeak]

Never used D&D Beyond. I guess now I don't need to.

 

[Micah Sweet]

So basically - people who want to stick with the 2014 rules should stop using D&D Beyond because it's not really going to be supported anymore. Yes, you can still access your 2014 content, but one of the main benefits of the digital character sheet - the tooltips - will only point you to the 2024 rules.

I also note that it says if a 2014 option has been updated to 2024, you won't be able to use the original version with the new character sheet. At least you can still use the 2014 base classes, but then all the tooltips will be "wrong" ...

Since I've invested so much into D&D Beyond, I guess I've got no choice but to switch to the revised rules and just house rule the stuff I don't like! (I was most likely going to do that anyway, but I had wanted to wait until the 2024 DMG was out at the very least if not also the 2024 MM.)

That does seem to have been their plan all along. Feels manipulative, huh?

 

[Velderan]

That is truly astonishingly crap. What kind of skeleton crew do they have running this?

Which is even sadder because Pathbuilder is a 1 man operation and the developer managed to figure out how to make the legacy PF2e OGL material and the Remaster material both available with a toggle to allow Core Rulebook/Advanced Player's Guide material.

Toggling that on allows me to use both the CRB spells and the Player Core spells, even if they're the same thing renamed (Magic Missile and Force Barrage for example).