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

 

[Belen]

About what we expected.

What I don't see mentioned, though, is whether they're going to continue selling the 2014 books. It would make sense that they wouldn't (they're also not selling Volo's or the original Starter Set, for instance), but I suspect there will be people who wish they had purchased them once they're no longer available.

You've got about a week and a half to purchase the 2014 PHB, if you want it on DDB and haven't done so already.

I know. I created DDB accounts for my kids and bought them the old core books.

 

[Belen]

I wonder if you can toggle between 2014 character sheets and 2024 character sheets. I'd be surprised if there isn't an option for this considering how many character sheets are on Dndbeyond.

If you read the article, then the answer is no.

 

[Belen]

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.

This bites. I just used the copy function for Healing Word and doing all of the spells will be horribly time consuming.

 

[SpellObjectEnthusiast]

This bites. I just used the copy function for Healing Word and doing all of the spells will be horribly time consuming.

The UX is going to be painful on purpose in an attempt to force everyone to upgrade to the new books.

 

[Burnside]

This annoys me. I'm gonna have to learn and use the 2024 rules because I am a pro DM and players will expect it (which I get). But I personally am not convinced that the new rules represent a better game and am unsure whether I will really choose to use them given the option not to do so - and I really wish DNDBeyond would support that (although it doesn't shock me that they won't).

My biggest objection is that the 2024 game is crunchier overall, with a heavier emphasis on tactical combat (especially for martial characters), and combat will be slower, and character creation will take longer. NONE of my players (and I have more than 40 regulars) have ever expressed to me that they wish 5E was more complex/crunchier. I realize that there are hardcore players who do want that, but they represent a small minority of players.

I wish they would respect that there are a ton of casual players who are never going to eat, drink, and breath this stuff. People just want to play a fun game with their friends for the most part, enjoy a good story, make meaningful choices, and see their characters grow. Very, very few people are interested in system mastery and are going to pay a ton of attention to optimizing, tactical play, or even tbh reading the Player's Handbook.

I foresee a lot of table-time taken up with "Burnside, how does this work?" in my future.

And sentences like "Well, IDEALLY you should be using your Two-Weapon Fighting Feat so that for your Action you can Crush with your main hand and then Nick with your dagger using your off-hand WITHOUT using your Bonus Attack so that you can then use your Bonus Action to activate your I Always Get Temporary Hit Points Ability and then as a Reaction, Disengage without drawing an Opportunity Attack for up to half your Movement! Doesn't that sound romantic?"

Also, I would very, very much prefer they just continue to let us run all-2014 rules until all the new books are out. Being forced to run a hybrid of the old and new rules for 6 months is very annoying to me.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

No, it's not. Millions have run games using it, it seems to have pretty high approval and utility. My groups have used it for nearly a decade now.



You can it's just not as easy as you want. You need to start with the skeleton of something else, and then modify many elements to suit you.



You homebrew subclass is add a new feature call "Additional Invocations" and have the feature contain Options for each of you new Invocations with all the actions, spells, or modifiers that option allows



You can. See this thread.



Not sure on this one?



LOL this is not a common opinion. And for it to be embarrassing I think it needs a pretty meaningful number of people viewing it that way around you.

My thanks for finally solving the 2d8 damage weapon, but all of that is absurdly more complicated than it needs to be. Foundry shows what a decent product looks like. D&D Beyond is trash in comparison.

Actually the 2d8 weapon still doesnt work. You simply can't edit items, you can only rename another item. Which is great if you want a 2d8 longsword that's actually just a renamed pistol with all the wrong weapon tags. Likewise, no 4d6 giant size greatswords or anything else.

For many of us, D&D exists beyond officially published material, no pun intended.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

This bites. I just used the copy function for Healing Word and doing all of the spells will be horribly time consuming.

That's because the site is more focused on selling content than delivering a quality product and experience. They want custom content to be difficult, because otherwise you could just create houserule copies of the 2-3 mechanical bits you actually use from any sourcebook.

Same reason they removed ala carte. They want to sell the SCAG for $30, not the few blade cantrips and bladesinger for significantly less.

 

[mamba]

My biggest objection is that the 2024 game is crunchier overall, with a heavier emphasis on tactical combat (especially for martial characters), and combat will be slower, and character creation will take longer. NONE of my players (and I have more than 40 regulars) have ever expressed to me that they wish 5E was more complex/crunchier. I realize that there are hardcore players who do want that, but they represent a small minority of players.

same, I was looking for better balance and less crunch, instead I get more crunch and even more superheroic characters… not the direction I am interested in. Well, since I am no pro DM I can jump off the train at least

 

[FitzTheRuke]

D&D Beyond would have been embarrassing 10 years ago. It's an insult today.

I don't disagree that it's pretty terrible - but it's a dream compared to every other attempt D&D has ever made at any sort of digital or online tools. I'm not forgiving it for not being better - a hundred and fifty million dollars they paid for it, and that has nothing to do with what it cost to build, or how there's supposedly a huge staff for it. It's kind of crazy.

 

[Cergorach]

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

Why not build your own VTT? Others have done so and have even gotten a D&D5e license. let's see how fast, how well and how profitable you can make this...

A one man team is extremely agile/fast.
A small team is already slower and less agile.
A multinational is a slow cumbersome beast.

When you've worked in all three places for many years, you see that there are very few exceptions to this rule. Especially not in the multinational sized businesses.

In the VTT space, how many have failed? How many are truly successful? And expecting anything else from WotC with it's 25 year track record regarding these this is naive imho.

And also the question is, why 'fix' something when people just give you money anyway? Throwing money at the problem generally doesn't solve the issue. You're already at a scale where using 9 pregnant women won't get you a kid in a month.

WotC has all the incentive to get you asap to the new rules set. That they are even showing token support for the old version is more then I expected. I'm wondering how long that token support will last? Will they phase it out when they start redoing existing books?

Could things be 'fixed'? Absolutely! But smarter, richer and more experienced people have tried in big organizations and they fail more often then not. I could point to all the previously failed WotC attempts. I could point at organizations like Microsoft where actual change/improvement also goes very slowly, sometimes taking many years to fix a broken product.