D&D 5E Pre-Order DLC comes to D&D with D&D Beyond and Xanathar's Guide to Everything pre-order

[Jester David]

So, were paying for Homebrew stuff now eh?

D&D is a homebrew tweak of Gygax's Chainmail rules...

 

[JRedmond]

I love the people who complain who haven't purchased anything on D&D Beyond yet. The stuff they're giving away is useless outside of D&D Beyond so why does it even affect you? They are not game designers, they created some feats which anyone can do and releasing a different sheet for their digital tool.

 

[ddaley]

I love the people who complain who haven't purchased anything on D&D Beyond yet. The stuff they're giving away is useless outside of D&D Beyond so why does it even affect you? They are not game designers, they created some feats which anyone can do and releasing a different sheet for their digital tool.

Yeah. It is mind boggling. People seem to be worried about others having something that they don't have.

Update: I just pre-ordered it. My group will enjoy our free feats

 

[guachi]

Huh, that's bizarre. I know it said 284 when I checked earlier, and none of the surrounding posts have numbers close to that. Are there any known forum bugs that could cause a post count to be misrepresented? As it stands it seems I am in error, and that is an extremely new account only commenting on this topic.

Ddaley probably had 284 posts. Maybe that's what you saw and who you were referring to.

As for me, if you told me someone was being paid to discuss DDB, I'd put my money on dropbear8mybaby considering how often he posts in threads about it. (And, no, I don't actually believe he is) And how often he makes baseless attacks on people who criticize DDB.

He's accused me of being too poor to afford the service and downloading pirated PDFs simply for not finding DDB a useful service.

Please, dropbear8mybaby, give me the trifecta and accuse me of being a puppet of Putin. I hear he's really a Pathfinder fan.

Well, gotta run. I'm off to sow dissension in Catalonia with my Russian bot friends.

 

[Doctor Futurity]

As someone who has suffered (tolerated) DLC in video games for a very long time now, I'll just state "I would be disappointed" at this move.....except for one problem....(I don't think it's really DLC).

Video game publishers have experienced a similar issue in what they market as DLC....and some publishers moved to a model where content that is paywalled needs to be content people want, but don't need. This model puts cosmetic items in the shop and then releases map content for free, as a way of not dividing the community. Not everyone does that (the big two, Battlefield and Call of Duty don't) but most everyone else (Overwatch, Lawbreakers, TF2, CSGO, etc.) does. People seem to like the latter model better, because you don't fracture your base over lots of restricted maps.

One thing none of the respectable video game publishers do though is sell "pay to win" content. Stuff which actually changes your stats or make you better.....that is considered incredibly bad form, and the games which do it are mostly Korean MMOs that everyone despises (in the west, at least). The reason is simple: it creates a dynamic where paying for content rewards you with greater odds of success. A less invasive approach is taken by other MMOs which may not sell "pay to win" content but instead sell "pay to level faster" content instead....XP boosts, potions and other effects that make gameplay smoother. The value of these is a bit more debatable, depending on whether they allow such boosts to impact PVP as opposed to PVE gameplay.

Now, in thinking about this "DLC" for D&D Beyond I think the only reason it's considered controversial is because they are offering it as a sign-up bonus content for their electronic copy of the book. If they had simply offered it as a $3 purchase exclusively through their app I am not sure it could be regarded as anything more than a set of feats that are not available at the dmsguild.com and therefore harder to get....and also harder to use unless your DM is kind and will let you access them so long as you have a copy of the content at the game table.

Yeah, I really hate to say it, but I think this is a non issue created entirely out of the inaccurate use of the DLC term.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

Interestingly when asked about kobold press material (like tome of beasts or deep magic) the Beyond crew mentioned they were sort of working on making that possible but didn't have anything to announce yet. We also have confirmation that the community will be voting on homebrew classes and such for the team to add (since it turned out homebrew classes inputted by the user isn't in the cards right now) I'm hoping Sterling Vermin's Pugilist makes it in.

 

[Inchoroi]

Uh, no. Screw that.

 

[jimtillman]

Anyone who plays videos games knows pre-order bonuses for those willing to pay in advance of product launch. WotC's official toolset, D&D Beyond, is adopting this practice with 16 bonus feats exclusive to those who pre-order Xanathar's Guide to Everything on D&D Beyond.

View attachment 89175​

Here's what they're offering:

We're excited to announce the bonuses you will receive for pre-ordering Xanathar's Guide to Everything on D&D Beyond:
Expanded Racial Feats

You'll get access to 16 new racial feats for all the races available on D&D Beyond outside the Player's Handbook - from the aaracokra to the yuan-ti pureblood. Created by the D&D Beyond team, these feats can be used in your home games or as inspiration for your own upcoming homebrew racial feats.
Digital Character Sheet Customization

Get access to new digital character sheet image backgrounds and portrait frame options from artwork in Xanathar's Guide to Everything.
Alpha Access to the D&D Beyond Mobile App

Get early alpha access to the D&D Beyond mobile app release later this year, which will include compendium/reader offline access for all the sources you've unlocked on D&D Beyond. Be among the first to help us test an exciting part of D&D Beyond's future!

The book comes out on 10th November, 2017.

may just have to preorder this

 

[jimtillman]

Figures this scummy practice would come to roost in this hobby sooner or later, though it's a small comfort that it's not wizards directly engaging in it. Pre-order bonuses will always be an under-handed and anti-consumer practice entirely predicated on said consumer riding the hype train enough to buy sight-unseen. What little benefits they do offer are usually easy enough to acquire after you can find out definitively whether or not the product is worth it, and I would discourage buyers from engendering this practice in the hobby.

that's ridiculous
thing about being an adult is making your own choices, if a person dislikes likes preorders, no biggy don't preorder.
but if they choose to preorder, no one made them do it
if hype train is to strong for them to resist and pre orders are making them buy things against there will, then they probably should not be allowed to make decisions about money.

 

[jimtillman]

Yes it is third party content.
No, that doesn't make it crap.

There's a wealth of fantastic stuff for 5e out there by third parties.
WotC doesn't have special magical game design powers that makes their content automatically superiour.


Where does it say this is AL legal?

This is just like if the DMsGuild included a free promo PDF with a ore-order of an official PDF. It's more content for the game being done by a license partner.

I'm sure that this won't be the only time the team at D&D Beyond makes or even sells their own content. Why wouldn't they sell all much as possible?

considering that wizards wont even allow there own unearthed arcana in adventure league , i am not seeing any issues here your getting some 3rd party feats for your non adventure league games or your relaxed adventure league games and of course your personal games with gm approval.

sorry did not mean to multi post ,
how can i delete the extra ones and just merge the content of the extra posts? not seeing a delete option.

hmm how do i delete the