D&D 5E Question for folks who use D&D Beyond: How well does it work with the new rules?

[Charlaquin]

I’m considering using D&D Beyond for my next campaign, which is going to use the post-2024 rules. But I remember hearing talk of the character creator not always playing nicely with the new rules. If anybody has tried using it for a 2024 game, I’d be interested to hear your experience with it so far. What works, what doesn’t, what jury-rigged solutions have you come up with for things that don’t? Do you like the digital character sheet? Why, or why not? Also, how difficult is it to do skills with different ability scores in D&D Beyond?

Thanks in advance for sharing your insights!

 

[OB1]

My latest campaign has a mix of 14 and 24 PCs and the biggest issue we've run into is the need to have the spellcasters filter their spell selection by the correct rule set every time (you can't set up a default). Party is a 2014 Wizard and Barbarian, and 2024 Ranger and Paladin. Otherwise it's working flawlessly.

We're also using Maps, which is straight up awesome. Easiest VTT I've ever used. Doesn't have every bell and whistle I'd like yet, but the ease of setting up combats on the fly is worth it.

As for skills with different ability scores, I have them roll their ability check and then just add their prof bonus to the result if they have a skill that would be relevant to the situation.

 

[Charlaquin]

My latest campaign has a mix of 14 and 24 PCs and the biggest issue we've run into is the need to have the spellcasters filter their spell selection by the correct rule set every time (you can't set up a default). Party is a 2014 Wizard and Barbarian, and 2024 Ranger and Paladin. Otherwise it's working flawlessly.

Awesome! That seems like an easy enough problem to work around.

We're also using Maps, which is straight up awesome. Easiest VTT I've ever used. Doesn't have every bell and whistle I'd like yet, but the ease of setting up combats on the fly is worth it.

That’s awesome! I might play around with it a bit, but the campaign will be in-person and my players really like physical minis, so it probably won’t be needed. Still, potentially useful for if I ever run a remote campaign.

As for skills with different ability scores, I have them roll their ability check and then just add their prof bonus to the result if they have a skill that would be relevant to the situation.

Makes sense. I imagine my players will prefer rolling real dice anyway, so no big deal.

 

[DragonLancer]

My limited experience is this... if you use it for just 2014 or 2024 then it works fine. If you try and combine the two, it has occasional issues.

 

[Willie the Duck]

There are a few issues that need to be fixed (unless they have since I last checked). I think the Resilient feat lets you give a +1 to an attribute other than the one in which you are gaining save proficiency, and warlocks cannot pick the Lessons of the First Ones invocation more than once. That's all I've caught so far.

 

[AlViking]

We've been using it since the new rules were released. We've hit a couple of really minor things here and there but for the most part it's just that you need to turn off the 2014 rules. We do use a custom background "2024 Generic Background" that lets you pick skill proficiencies and ability score increases, but that's about it.

It seems like the little issues we've hit are slowly being fixed. I still always tell people to double check the PHB though just to be certain. For example I have a character with great weapon master and it doesn't add the +2 to damage because it's optional as to whether or not you add the damage for unknown reasons. It's not a glitch with the system, just an odd rule.

 

[OB1]

Awesome! That seems like an easy enough problem to work around.

That’s awesome! I might play around with it a bit, but the campaign will be in-person and my players really like physical minis, so it probably won’t be needed. Still, potentially useful for if I ever run a remote campaign.

Makes sense. I imagine my players will prefer rolling real dice anyway, so no big deal.

Since you're not using maps, I'd recommend the encounter builder for running encounters. Very easy to add monsters, it keeps track of your party (if they are part of a campaign) and allows you to either manually enter die rolls for initiative or have the system roll (allows you to choose just montsters or PCs for this. You can also track all monster HP and see the full stat block of the monster as you're running the encounter. Way easier than having several tabs open to the monsters your using.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Since you're not using maps, I'd recommend the encounter builder for running encounters. Very easy to add monsters, it keeps track of your party (if they are part of a campaign) and allows you to either manually enter die rolls for initiative or have the system roll (allows you to choose just montsters or PCs for this. You can also track all monster HP and see the full stat block of the monster as you're running the encounter. Way easier than having several tabs open to the monsters your using.

Encounters has been a super useful tool for my IRL game.

 

[Charlaquin]

Awesome, thanks for the feedback everyone!

 

[pedr]

They recently changed the rules sources options on the first page of character creation, so there's more control over what items a character can choose from. This really helps, and means you can do PHB 2024-only if you want.

I think there are some 2024 rules elements which aren't supported yet (apparently there are still some 2014 rules in the same position). Unless they've fixed it very recently the custom background option doesn't work properly, but someone's coded a homebrew one so if you allow homebrew on the options page and add this to each player's homebrew collections they can choose a background which prompts for feat, ability score options, and skill/tool proficiencies: https://www.dndbeyond.com/backgrounds/407050-custom-2024-background