Why I use D&D Beyond for D&D 5e

[@daracaex]

Their homebrew function is also free, so it is possible to add things you own from physical books as personal homebrew if you want.

[@MannonMartin]

Homebrewing can be very confusing, but also very powerful and I have made use of it not only for adding in actual homebrew, but also for things such as getting around the broken Artificer Homunculus which doesn't take the right stats from your character, and in a game I'm DMing I gave my players a sidekick using the rules from Tasha's which was easy to do by simply copying a monster and adding the things granted by their sidekick levels. The easiest way I've found to get homebrewing to work is to copy content already in the game. Find a monster or item that's similar to what you want to create and strait copy it, then get to modifying it. If you want to add something but aren't sure how, if you can find another item or monster that has what you want to add copy that too, then edit it to see how it's accomplished. You can often just copy/paste actions and attacks, and such directly from one to the other. Note: You won't be able to publish any homebrew content that is too similar to D&D official content, but that only means it won't appear publicly, you can still use it for your character and in any campaigns you're a part of. Also Note: You CAN add third party content for your own use, but don't publish it. That would be against the ToS as it would be in violation of the third party's copyright. Adding it for yourself and your campaigns is 100% legit, though. The same probably applies for artwork. You can upload whatever images you want, but if you're publishing it and you just stole the art online it's probably a copyright violation... though I doubt anybody's gonna care too much. I don't think they are quick to ban, though. More likely your homebrew just won't get approved to be published, but I can't speak from personal experience as I don't publish anything.

[@brynwtsn]

I really like dndbeyond. I use it all the time. And I didn't expect to learn anything new from this video. But, alas, I did. Thank you!

[@TreantmonksTemple]

Great to hear!

[@MannonMartin]

Same here. Though I do wish some other topics were covered a little such as managing inventory, adding companions, setting up Beyond 20. But hell, the video's already long so KISS is a good idea. Maybe a part 2 would be in order? I find there are lots of players that just get very confused by DNDBeyond and I think Chris has a very nice, conversational way of explaining things that would work great for new players. Not that this is a tutorial style channel, of which there are plenty... But still.

[@soldierswitheggs]

Why "alas"? I'd think learning something new would be good.

[@thedude0000]

I drank the D&D Beyond Kool Aid years ago I love the fact you link all your builds to D&D Beyond as well.

[@elementzero3379]

I've tried watching other channels whose creators don't use DnD Beyond. Almost invariably, they use some wonky, difficult to parse scheme. For a content creator, DnD Beyond feels like a must.

[@jay_caspian2050]

I’m so pumped you made this video. The encounter builder is the best tool I’ve ever used to help me as a DM. Whenever I try and explain it to people, I make it seem complicated. From now; I’ll just send this video! Thanks Chris!

[@OGPedXing]

The homebrew builder, especially for character classes), is AMAZING. As a software engineer myself, much respect for the platform. I made a homebrew class for Divine Soul Sorcerer that gives them spells are certain levels just like Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul. It allows picks at the same levels but only cleric list spells. Amazing the level of flexibility the builder provides out of the box!

[@mhelvens]

You can also add summoned creatures / familiars / side-kicks / etc. in the Extras section of your character sheet, and then roll their attacks from there. (If that was mentioned in the video, I missed it.)

[@TreantmonksTemple]

It wasn't mentioned. I should play around with that, I am not familiar.

[@masterd4964]

@@TreantmonksTemple i see what you did there. Familiar, get it? Badum tsh!

[@TheMadJestyr]

I am learning all kinds of things today about DnD Beyond. I didn't know that.

[@christopherwolf3102]

I am presently playing a Circle of the Moon Druid in my campaign, and under Extras, then Manage Extras has a fantastic feature that allows you to select Wild Shape as a category and then filter by Wild Shape rules, and will show all available options correctly by your level and subclass. It’s a life saver as a 10 level Moon Druid.

[@notallwhowanderarelost4797]

Wow, thanks, I had no idea! Just added a familiar to my current sheet. I had been just pulling up the DnD B stat pages for my familiars in separate tabs and rolling from there. I'll probably still do it that way during games because I think it will be easier for me, but I like knowing how to add such things to my sheets.

[@ChristnThms]

I gotta add a BIG thumbs up for the ability to share content. I'm about the same age as Chris, and a few books is easy for me to afford. But I play with a lot of teens and young adults at a FLGS. Being able to quickly share character building options with those who can't afford the books is a nice feeling. By keeping these players engaged, hopefully they'll be able to return the favor for a younger player when they're old and gray.

[@Athkore]

DnD Beyond is truly an amazing tool. One super useful game-changing trick is adding emojis to spell/item/attack names this allows, you to sort features while also making them visually distinguished. For example, all abjuration spells start with 🛡 while healing spells start with a 💖, now when looking at your spells you can instantly pick them out instead.

[@kafka6666]

Pro tip: in the encounter builder, the difference between upping the quantity of the monster on the right hand side, vs. adding new monster of the same type, is whether they share initiative or not. Initiative will be shared across all monsters in the monster "card" on the right hand side. So you can have one group of 10 goblins or two groups of 5

[@Trumpeter42]

Thanks so much for this video! I've used it a lot for my campaigns, but I definitely learned a couple new tips. Thanks again, great video as always!

[@chrishousenick6105]

I think the one thing that I would add is that D&D Beyond has sales from time to time. If you are patient, you can get some discounts on certain items throughout the year (such as when they discounted Curse of Strahd and Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft at Halloween).

[@tommartin1223]

Thank you for sharing this. I never would have thought I wanted tbis until you shared it

[@royjaskowski905]

Above VTT is an awesome 3rd party tool which uses your DDB character sheet and books for data. As a DM on pen and paper I often did avg monster damage to speed things but Above VTT speeds combat with initiative counter, and clickable stat blocks for all rolls for fast resolution.

[@CoreyTyhurst]

100 agree with this comment. Big fan of AboveVTT

[@adriangoetz5108]

The best way to homebrew in D&D Beyond in my experience is slight tweaks to existing content. I find creating things from scratch to be very confusing, they have so many options of what to put in and they're not all self-explanatory. But if you want to create a Pit Fiend with extra HP or spells, you can create a monster using the Pit Fiend template and just augment it. I find this most easy/useful with Magic items, which is more important to me than monsters because players would need to add them directly to their sheets. Example 1) I hated that the Moon Sickle was a Sickle - really a strength-based 1d4 weapon for Druids/Rangers? Just use it as a template and make a Moon Bow or Moon Staff. Example 2) the Dragon's Wrath Weapon from Fizbans says it can be any weapon, but D&D Beyond only offers the Longsword variation. You can use it as a template to quickly switch it to the weapon type you want and save that. Example 3) A major item in one of the modules had descriptor text that gave away its whole plot, which the player could see if they added it to their sheet. So I made a copy of that, changed its name and descriptor text, and saved that to prevent the spoilers. As a note, the players will need to have Homebrew Content enabled under Sources on their sheet to be able to see/add these custom weapons. I sometimes go into their sheet (I can access it if it's in one of my campaigns) to stealth-enable homebrew so the player doesn't get tipped off if I don't it to be obvious (did this in the case of Example 3), that way it just shows up like any other weapon. However, you can't control which Homebrew creation of yours is available, so they will be able to see anything you've made or added to your homebrew from the catalog.

[@TaylorHodgsonScott]

I didn't know about some of these bits, multiclass requirements & the GWM customization on player-side. Thanks for the overview!!

[@Jaqolantern]

My only strife with D&D Beyond is that they yet to support a full homebrew class. It's such a great service that when you can't use it for whatever reason it hurts to look at another online character sheet. Great video as always!

[@TreantmonksTemple]

Yeah, I struggle with D&D Beyond when dealing with high amounts of homebrew.

[@matthewcrowther890]

For anyone thinking of starting on dnd beyond, my best advice would be to try to decide what your character is going to be (class, background etc) and then make your character. You basically get the benefit of the site with only £3-4 sunk. It should give you long enough to try it out to decide if you want to use it or not for cheap. One thing I think was worth mentioning for the drawbacks- the tasha’s additional class spells, unlike basically everything else, can’t be bought individually. You can only gain access by buying the full book

[@aerodash84]

I wanted to add about the Encounter Builder is nice if people aren't using D&D Beyond, you can create encounters with set players and manually enter initiative values.I tend to run a lot of existing adventure books, so in my prep I'll create the encounters and name them based on corresponding room number/letter/name so I can easily start up combat. I love reading physical books for prep but D&D Beyond is a great tool of making the game run smoother and less I need to carry for running it.

[@mikecarson7769]

Wonderful review! I like how you added the time stamps, so that we all can go straight to certain of the functions that we have not yet used until now. You covered so much information all in one video

[@windycitydoodler]

Quick note on heroic vs. master tier subscription content sharing: IF a character is in your campaign/if you are given access to a character via 'assign character' to someone in your campaign, HEROIC tier can still share/edit-in any content, the same way as master-tier. The only limitation is it will be limited to characters in an owned/shared campaign, but that's the most that the majority of players will need.

[@michaelpackard6953]

Thanks for the walkthrough! I haven’t used the encounter builder before, because I run my sessions in person. I now know what a great help it can be!

[@Kreegah]

Loved the guide on making special attack weapons at 40:20 Thanks!

[@MarkScheiffley]

If anyone is considering buying a bundle, D&D Beyond has historically offered their biggest sales on the book bundles at United States Thanksgiving time. They have also offered somewhat lesser sales in the Spring.

[@MannonMartin]

I have found a great strategy is throughout the year just purchase what you need at the time, be it a book, or a class, or whatever. Then when the Black Friday sales hit purchase your bundle or full book then. Whatever dollars you spent when you paid for stuff not on sale will be subtracted dollar for dollar, so you still get the full discount for the sale. Warning... this can lure you into purchasing bundles you don't really need... as it is very satisfying to expand your DNDBeyond library... DND's a helluva drug.

[@backcountry164]

The books are usually 20 bucks on Black Friday. There is one issue with buying them on sale. If you buy a bundle later on, they subtract the actual amount you paid, not the bundled value of the books you own. So basically, you lose the sale price.

[@MannonMartin]

@@backcountry164 That's why you do it the other way around. Buy smaller chunk off sale and the bigger chunk on sale. So you can buy part of a book off sale and get the book on sale. Or you can buy a book off sale and get a bundle on sale. Doing it that way will get you sale price for the whole thing. Even so I'd argue that it's still okay to buy a book on sale and the bundle off sale. You still got a discount on the book for a while at least. If you just can't wait for a sale to buy the bundle then that's kinda tough luck. On the other hand, if you get one of the smaller bundles, then later buy a larger bundle that includes the content from the first bundle, you could still get the entire bigger bundle for sale price... Though there are only a few bundles you can upgrade to like that before you hit Legendary.

[@FryMinis]

Hey Blorp!!!! As always, this is a great video!

[@TreantmonksTemple]

Thanks Eric!

[@DarklordofBarovia]

I've been so happy buying the big motherlode with all the books with a 25% discount. Sharing it with all my friends and some of my students. Great website 🧛🏻‍♂️

[@rumguk]

Thanks for this introduction, its very nice and I am thinking indeed to even use it for playing non-virtually. The fact to quickly go to spells/abilities and read them rather than having to write EVERYTHING down somewhere is very nice The Encounter buider seems nice too for the same reason not having to flip the pages or write everything down somewhere. It certainly speeds up the game, especially combat to allow more time for actual roleplay.

[@Tigerblade11238]

I love D&D Beyond. I've been a Master Tier subscriber for almost 3 years. Their site/tool is fantastic! I have two items on my "Wishlist" and one of them is coming: 1) bundle books and digital for those of us that buy both. Even $10 off adds up for someone like me who typically buys both copies is an appreciated gesture. This is coming soon, so I am being patient. 2) a tabletop/map tool. Right now, having to use D&D Beyond and something like Owlbear or Foundry or w/e. My understanding, this is on their "to do" list as well. But I am a big fan of their product and their customer service was also great the one time I had to contact them. So nice and helpful.

[@CoreyTyhurst]

Highly recommend you check out the ‘AboveVTT’ Chrome extension. It’s basically the VTT that beyond should have built right in. I loved owlbear but when I found AboveVTT it was a no brainer since it’s directly integrated with beyond.

[@Tigerblade11238]

@@CoreyTyhurst my friend just sent me a link to a video about that! That's such good timing! 🤣

[@jonathanhaynes9914]

I had a big check for Christmas 2 years ago and dropped 700 on a new year's sale for legendary

[@TreantmonksTemple]

Ooooh, jealous!

[@Gafizal1]

I found the discussion of the encounter builder very helpful as well as explains the fixed value when customizing a weapon etc as that is counterintuitive lu named. thanks

[@comfortablegrey]

I don't have any liquid funds, but I still use D&D Beyond to build characters. I homebrew any premium content I need, but don't publish it, and then I tweak the PDF for myself or my players.

[@LightPink]

4:43 the phb has been $23 on amazon since April

[@TreantmonksTemple]

For me it shows $57.42, maybe because I'm in Canada?

[@reedsmith8975]

Came to say the same. You can usually find the D&D books for well under the cover price. Many books were $10-20 on Amazon for Black Friday.

[@staxus]

One thing that flew under my radar for awhile is DnD beyond will take initiative rolls from the players now. If you hit run encounter and then ask the players to roll initiative on their character sheets (using specifically the initiative box) it will load it into the tracker automatically. My issue is i never have the encounter open before asking them to roll initiative like a dope lol.

[@evannewell7985]

The icing on the cake is the additional functionality offered by Beyond20. It makes running PCs and monsters in Roll20 a breeze.

[@villesavolainen5793]

I haven't seen any issues lately, but about a year ago when I was running a GoS campaign, the Encounter Tracker sometimes crashed or passed on erroneous dice rolls with non-core monsters from less tested sources. Might have been that the monster stat blocks themselves were buggy for the embedded dice rolling syntax.

[@steeplewiththesnakes]

Big fan of DNDbeyond. I do a lot of stuff on foundry these days but importing content from dndbeyond is just great. And the content sharing is reaaal nice

[@danielluna9213]

I don't know why people make such a big deal of paying for services. D&DBeyond is a really good deal imo. I'm sure these people have a pile of VHS that they never watch too

[@MannonMartin]

Yeah I'm not generally a fan of subscriptions, but D&DBeyond is well worth it for me and pretty cheap. And if I do decide I'm not using it for a while I can pause and restart it whenever. If I compare it to a streaming service, while I'm playing I definitely get more value out of D&DBeyond. If I'm between games I could probably let the subscription slip as I'll still have access to the content. If I do I'll bel limited to six characters, but it looks like you get to pick the six and the others aren't deleted, just blocked.

[@luckmaker6250]

Homebrew is fairly powerful, I used it to create variants of all the pre-tasha's sorcerer subclasses to add known spells to them since that is one of my homebew tweaks. I took the base subclass and renamed them with + at the end (i.e: Wild Magic+). Can't share with the community but works with the subscription to share with players. Can do a lot with the tool.

[@keithcurtis]

"Purchasing a license to access a book with the services D&DBeyond provides" vs "purchasing a book". Excellently stated. I am a Forum Champion on Roll20, and I run into this confusion all the time, usually phrased as "I already purchased the PHB. Why do I have to buy it again?" This is an excellent way to answer that question. Thanks!

[@raghnallmacaodh3220]

Ran across this and learned a few things. Thanks.

[@jamiedorsey4167]

The Beyond 20 box that appears when that extension is added has a lot of functionality. Hover over it and click the cog to be able to add hotkeys to toggle on and off things like sneak attack, bladesinging, sharpshooter, etc. or custom dice rolls.

[@stephensahl7669]

One of the biggest problems I have run across with D&D Beyond, is the new backgrounds that provide a free feat at level one. I am actually surprised you didn't mention this. Other than that, I agree that D&D Beyond is an excellent platform to use.

[@brynwtsn]

He did mention how to add a feat, which works with the backgrounds that add feats.

[@TreantmonksTemple]

I didn't even think about that. Yeah, you have to add the feat.

[@TheMadJestyr]

You also have to go into the manage feats section to add the spells also. The biggest problem I have with DnD Beyond is the issue with the subclass' not working correctly. Divine soul sorc you can't change the spell you get with Divine magic, and of course Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell casting feature doesn't work. I know there are work around's with creating a homebrew class but that feels bad to have to do. And if you have more than one character using any of those subclasses you need to make a homebrew for each.

[@deadmanfred]

Arcane tricksters and Eldritch knights can select any spells, not just the ones they are limited too. You can pick up some exotic weapons on character creation even though they are 100+ gold.... some bugs but still a great system to use

[@richardboyd1790]

You actually sold me on the encounter planner big time. Just the ease of tracking the non player initiative and hp makes it look worth it. Certainly worth a month sub to play around with it.

[@MannonMartin]

And the Beyond20 integration still works, so you can make all your monsters rolls and have them communicated to Roll20, ect. I usually use Roll20's initiative so my players can see it, but it can still be useful to build the encounter in DNDBeyond so you don't have to have each monster's stat blocks open in different tabs. And you also don't have to track your monster's HP in Roll20 if you don't want to, as setting that up can be a tad fiddly. Just make sure you know which goblin is which if you have like 5 of them. heh

[@Pharoom]

When I started playing D&D during the pandemic, I chose dndbeyond as the place where I bought my sourcebooks. Turns out to have been a great decision, even if it was uninformed at the time. My only complaint with the site is the low effort on fixing existing bugs instead of making new content. I mean, the sorcerer classes from Tasha's still don't work properly!

[@kimco31st]

I searched, but I didn't see any video's by you on Roll20. I would be interested in you doing Roll20 content.

[@justinschmelzel8806]

Ya the encounter builder is why I had so many filled notebooks. I would build an encounter and arrange it on paper very similar and would write the creature stats down and then after rolling initiative i had people in columns and would put check marks next to players and npc's as their turns ended to keep track of who's turn it was and what round it was.

[@Duranous.]

Now that WotC owns D&D Beyond, I hope they implement a way to buy the physical book and have access to it online. I was always baffled why there was no companion pdf and I was told (by non insiders) that it's 'because D&D Beyond". Idk, I like the physical book and I like the convenience of online but it bugged me that the online offering cost the same as the physical and if you want both you had to spend double.

[@willbarron6999]

Have you tried using Above VTT for your virtual table top instead of using beyond 20? The restriction on the base maps needing to be publicly accessible can be frustrating but I find otherwise it’s much more convenient. Thanks for a great video more people should definitely use dnd beyond :)

[@TreantmonksTemple]

I haven't. The only VTT's I've used up to now are Roll20, Foundry and Fantasy Grounds.

[@CoreyTyhurst]

2nd the plug for AboveVTT. It’s the best one out there if you are using DnDBeyond for your camping IMO.

[@androlgenhald476]

There is also an app for DD&B. It is still a work in progress, but one of the benefits if it is that it will work, even if you are not connected to the internet. So as long as you have updated it recently, it will allow you to access all of your characters and books even if the DD&B website is down, since all of the data is stored on your device.

[@TreantmonksTemple]

That would be awesome. I've had 2 occassions where "shut down for maintenance" has led to a delay for me.

[@fynnkessels2488]

I just checked: you can access your character sheets using the app without internet connection and it will use the version from your last time opening the sheet in the app (I don‘t know what would happen to any changes made while offline). This should also work during maintenance (at least after manually disconnecting from the internet)

[@tarlendo]

Maybe add a video of homebrew classes to fix divine soul sorcerer or the other class where you can swap the spells you get for others. Its a pain to do it without looking really deep on reddit and stuff. Thanks for the video!

[@edwinostroot3040]

It'd be great if you did a Playlist of DNDBeyond tutorials. I'd like to see how to add the homebrew rules that you suggest (called shot, no shield spell, etc.) as well as some of the other popular ideas from the community.

[@peterjrgensen2792]

I will quick (before i see the video i admit) say : The reason i do not use Dnd Beyond, is that i like to support my local Game shop here in denmark. And im not rich enough to buy the books twice . . If i could buy local, and get access on DnD Beyond too .. i would do that.

[@MannonMartin]

Now that WotC owns DNDBeyond that sort of thing might be coming... but it's also difficult to do for anything not sealed as including a code in a book would easily be stolen. There are potentially ways around it, but that adds complexity that currently isn't baked in. Still... I'm kinda hopeful they'll work something out. It would be great to be able to do both.

[@pranakhan]

Good collection of info. And a thank you for having more characters than me lol. I'm at 95(?) atm, including copies and important NPC templates. I would still appreciate more options in regards to Campaign building, but D&DB has been a helpful option for me & our group who mostly play on Zoom

[@TreantmonksTemple]

Full disclosure, a fair number of those characters aren't even completed to level 1

[@xMancio_]

I know this comment is unrelated to the matter of the video but would you explore an offensive type of barbarian? I have thought about a beast build that i would let you examinate, even if only in a short: a beast barbarian with PAM. After level 5 while using the claw form (which doesn't need to use BOTH claws) we can attack twice with it using just 1 of our "base attacks" and we can use the other to attack with our polearm (which requires to be hold with two weapon only while we are phisically attacking with it) unlocking also the bonus action attack. At level 5 we can have 5 attacks per turn delievering extra damage with our flat modifiers. I run some numbers and this path is theoretically superior even after taking GWM (always using the called shot and using rekkless attack) and even with a +1 Polearm. The advantage of this "mixed fighting style" keeps growing as we gain more rage damage and strenght modifier. Also, if we forego the called shot from GWM choosing to be a little tankier this fighting style is BY FAR superior to a simple PAM build. All of this considered i'ld like to hear your opinion.

[@Sarnican]

I began playing D&D during 2nd edition and started using D&D Beyond in the last year. I'm running my first in person campaign with it as an enhancement and it is invaluable for myself and my players. All my players are new and it's cut the learning curve in half. P.S. the D&D doomer videos are everywhere in my feed and they drive me crazy. You are such a positive and objective content creator, I can't thank you enough for that!

[@TreantmonksTemple]

Those videos are very popular right now.

[@ArticleNoun]

I’ve been using Roll20 exclusively up to this point and pretty happy with it but this videos was still interesting. Especially the encounter builder .

[@TreantmonksTemple]

I use both Roll20 and D&D Beyond together. Beyond20 is a free chrome extension that allows you to combine them.

[@dougerickson3362]

Yeah, I'm a Roll20 exclusive user but was interested in DND beyond. Love this video. But I don't allow players to use it for Roll20 games as I need to see their characters so they have to use the Roll20 sheets. Also, I've invested heavily in the books in Roll20 and don't want to spend that money again. I LOVE the DDBeyond initiative tracker though!

[@MannonMartin]

@@TreantmonksTemple Heckin' great Chrome extension that honestly makes Roll20 much more user friendly by borrowing DNDBeyond integration.

[@jonathanhaynes9914]

Thanks Chris.

[@edwinostroot3040]

I'm on the fence a bit. I'm definately going to get a master subscription account. I used to DM in the 80s and 90s. I want to start again. I really like the direction that One DND is heading. I am leary of dropping $200 on source books a year before One DND releases. Advice?

[@notallwhowanderarelost4797]

Amazing timing! I'm about to introduce DnD Beyond to a new group 🙂 Question about the sorcerer bug - couldn't you just go back into the character builder to change spells, as the video recommended to work around one of the other bugs? Still a hassle that shouldn't be necessary, but a lot easier than creating a custom subclass, if it can be done that way?

[@MannonMartin]

The issue with that is initially you are granted specific spells, not just extra spells you can choose. However the subclass rules allow you to swap those spells when you level up, and DNDBeyond doesn't have a way to do that for those specific spells.

[@notallwhowanderarelost4797]

@@MannonMartin Ohhh, yeah, I kinda knew that but forgot (never played a sorcerer) thanks for explaining

[@CloakerDM]

Without toggle functions for all PHB/DMG variant rules and the ability to create homebrew rules, DND Beyond will never be fully realized. That being said, no other 3rd party product will ever be able to lure 5e players away or most importantly, engage them when they are not at the table, if their digital offerings are not comparable to DND Beyond. 13 million userbase will only grow and siphon players away from prospective new DMs looking to run something besides DND.

[@elzed2667]

I just google class features or monsters and then keep track of statistics on Roll20 and physical character sheets.

[@backcountry164]

Just as an fyi, the 5e PHB is 23 bucks on Amazon right now. Volo's is only 20, probably the last chance to pick up a new one.

[@TreantmonksTemple]

The price I showed is what is showing up in Canada right now, my understanding is it's much cheaper in the US

[@brucecurtis9368]

Good job Chris! I learned a few new tricks. Thanks! I would like to point out that although you got most of the drawbacks and the benefit of using Roll20 for better customization and a built-in VTT, another major drawback (especially for new players) is the countless roadblocks you hit if you don't buy a master account and all the sourcebooks you intend to use. This is a large investment for many people. I don't see why they don't just offer a subscription option with at least the core rules included to get past this.

[@TreantmonksTemple]

I wouldn't be surprised at all if that subscription option gets added at some point here.

[@PjotrFrank]

I can't afford the monthly fees and micro-transactions of D&D Beyond, so I still use the old FightClub5 app. Sure, It's more difficult to set up, but it's more customizable and works all the time. IMO not bad for a much cheaper one-time purchase.

[@StarRightStarTight]

(Control + F) > (running my finger across a page)

[@Typical7]

as for character creation dndbeyond is king, if there's anything you think is better i would love to hear what it is

[@benjaminrheault4998]

Good video! You seem to just be comparing DnD Beyond to using physical books though. As far as accessing monster stat blocks go, I agree it's the only real option for finding them quickly. For character creation though, I find it just as easy to use online resources like wikidot or Roll20 and avoid paying to have more than 6 characters. I think you should at least bring up these alternatives Edit: This is all with the bias of someone who likes paper character sheets, uses a good amount of homebrew, and knows the rules well enough to know exactly what to look for online.

[@justinschmelzel8806]

I am stuck on you having the first printing of pathfinder 2. Did you mean the playtest? Because they did release a hard back of the very first playtest release and that would be extremely different from the final release and current product.

[@TreantmonksTemple]

It wasn't a playtest version. My book was the first original printing and in it the wizard has a class feat at 1st level. After presenting my character I was informed that got errata very soon after the first printing.

[@justinschmelzel8806]

@@TreantmonksTemple ah that is cool to know.

[@matthewwade8849]

As a DM, I enjoy making magic items. Just the other day, I was searching for videos to aid me in using the beyond creator to do so, not allot help out there for that particular function. Does anyone know a good source for that?

[@willmena96]

I still remember when they did dev updates and all that. It's been like 7 months since last time we got something new. Now they just ignore you if you ask about it lol :/

[@TreantmonksTemple]

Are you talking about Tasha's bug updates? If so, I think they've given up.

[@willmena96]

@@TreantmonksTemple that and other stuff. They were working on a big update before: it was going to enable Haste, Rage, Shield, Bladesong, Mage Armor, Boons, etc. When WoTC bought DDB, they said they were going to pause the dev updates (the streams) for a while. I fear they stopped working on all of that because they're preparing for ONE D&D :(

[@MannonMartin]

@@willmena96 I doubt they have stopped working on it, as they were generally improving they system's dynamic capability to add content and that was part of it. I think if anything they're going to need to make the system more and more flexible to accommodate whatever One D&D becomes. I think WotC just wanted to take the reigns on communication and are internally controlling what information gets released and how.

[@willmena96]

@@MannonMartin I really want to believe that, but it's been months since they announced any important changes to the tools we have. They said they were working on the feature system so that it was released during 2022 and then it disappeared. Maybe they'll make an announcement soon and everything will be alright, but they decided to just be silent about it, so people get worried about those unfulfilled promises.

[@davec1]

DnDBeyond is great in many ways. I do wish, however, that they finally fixed subclasses like Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul to allow spell swapping. It’s been a long time since those came out and it’s particularly irritating because managing spells is one of the things that DnDBeyond is super convenient for, normally. It loses a lot of its value if it doesn’t track ALL of your spells. The other thing I find is that I have the feeling is that the app is not great to teach DnD to new players. The choices are overwhelming because filtering sucks and players might never actually learn the system, they just press the button in the app.

[@LordNerfherder]

I use DND5e via DND Beyond because there are no even remotely professional competition. It is vastly better than buying physical books and no digital alternatives offer even nearly the same ammounts of use-cases, updates and features. It is simply beating all competitions without a fight.

[@Throrface]

I use D&D Beyond for all of my campaigns and I would recommend it to anyone, but the some of the issues are real. The lack of customizability of the character sheets really hits me sometimes, since I like to put a lot of homebrew magic items and stuff into my games. An issue from Tasha's that I find particularly aggrevating is the selection for artificer infusions for replicate magic item. It is filled up with crappy common magic items and there is no way to filter them out so I can only see the good stuff. I also hate how every infusion that can be put on a variety of items has every single variant listed in the dropdown menu where you pick your infusions. It's nonsensical, the artificer should only be picking the infusion itself and choose what kind of item he wishes to put it on later when he actually uses it. This way, some infusions that should be taking 1 spot in the dropdown take like 12 spots instead. It's just a horrible menu and it's tremendous pain when you are introducing a new person to D&D and want to help them make an artificer. Can you even imagine asking a newbie player to create an artificer without personal guidance of the DM, with the dropdown menus that give you hundreds of options? If the list could be filtered so it would only contain uncommon rarity magic items or better, it would be a short neat list that would be exorbitantly easier to navigate for a new player. Adding pets to your character sheet doesn't work properly either.

[@MannonMartin]

For seeing what common magic items you have to choose from I recommend going to Game Rules>Magic Items and setting the filters manually. And for seeing what bespoke items you can create I always just go to the class rules page and look at the Replicate Magic Item infusion. The dropdown is a mess, but if you know where to look it's not hard to get a good look. PS. There actually are common magic items with some interesting utility for an artificer for example the Masque Charm is a once a day disguise self, but you can give it a 6 hour duration. That renders the item nonmagical, but you can reapply the infusion every day. The Medal of the Meat Pie grants 2d4+2 temporary hit points... every day. Basically you turn common consumable magic items into once a day magic items by reinfusing them every day. And you can swap them out since you always know twice as many infusions as you can actually infuse. And I haven't even mentioned Spellwrought Tattoo... There are many bugs with Artificer, for sure. For one the rules say you can learn Replicate Magic Item multiple times which DNDBeyond does allow, but it does not allow you to pick the same item, even though there's no rule that says you have to pick a different magic item for each instance of the infusion. (Though that would be a good way to limit some fairly broken things Artificers can do, it's not RAW.) You can get around it by just adding the extra magic item to your inventory and selecting a placeholder infusion. There are also issues with applying an infusions bonuses to your primary weapon if you're an Armorer with the built in armor weapon. A custom attack can be used as a workaround. Also the homunculus doesn't use the right stats, and I'm not sure about the Eldritch Cannons. I added a homebrew homunculus to fix this, which I quite like as I gave him a custom image too. Though I will need to edit him when I level up as he does not link to my character sheet for his stats. Artificer is definitely a fiddly class to play in DNDBeyond, though I imagine it's even worse on paper. On the other hand, it's not the most beginner friendly class design to begin with, but definitely expect to give a new player much more support than most other classes.

[@thereaIitsybitsyspider]

My experience so far is that it is clunkier than other less expensive software. It's nice for creating strictly by the book character sheets, but the encounter manager pales in comparison to Improved Initiative, your character sheets are not compatible with improved initiative without paying and Dice Cloud is infinitely more customizable, although Dice Cloud 2 will cost a subsctiption fee

[@PowderKeg3838]

Roll20 has all DnD Beyond has and is a VTT.

[@-Xabash-]

My biggest complaint is the search feature. Some simple things will occasionally not come up in results despite being spelled correctly. Otherwise love dndbeyond.

[@MannonMartin]

Yeah, sometimes have to result to google searches to find something, or to figure out what you need to know to find it in DNDBeyond, but overall it's a great service. Hopefully they improve search at some point.

[@intigeral727]

You will own nothing, you will pay for this privilege, and you will like it.

[@TreantmonksTemple]

This is correct, you are paying for an online service, not purchasing products. If you wish to purchase D&D products without any service provided, go to Amazon or Ebay.

[@PsyrenXY]

Owning a static dead tree edition with no automated features doesn't have the draw for me that it used to honestly

[@meatcube5238]

@@PsyrenXY That'll change when WotC drops D&D Beyond like they do with damned near every digital service they've ever offered. They've burned me too many times for me to ever trust them like that again.

[@PsyrenXY]

@Meatcube and that's fine, if the features TM is talking about aren't enough for you then don't buy anything there. They're very worth it for me and I'm hardly destitute. If I lose all my digital books one day I'll still be playing D&D.

[@because4337]

Eventually 5e will become unsupported. It's good to have a physical copy if you want to keep playing when you have no support, internet, or electricity.

[@ZachC-130]

As a in-person only player. This is cool but way less useful. I used it one time and found that I spend too much time messing with a laptop and less time engaging with the players. This is one reason I don't watch virtual games everyone clicking and reading different tabs. Plus, I personally enjoy the excitement build up of preparing everything for the upcoming session.

[@jmolyneauxful]

Is there a way to add just D&D one content?

[@Sabrina-xi4ne]

How can I copy and paste a campaign link to discord?

[@CK-ys3tu]

But didn’t you hear? D&D Beyond is controlled by a company whose intention is to MAKE MONEY. So how can you use their platform?

[@TreantmonksTemple]

I am part of the problem

[@sleidman]

This is a great video but honestly, I think Roll20 does most of this way better than DnD beyond. The charactermancer feature is a lot easier to use, especially for new players and allows for customization and macro building in ways that DnD beyond just can't. Considering that Roll20 is already a VTT so you can run your game on it as well and have easy access to your player's characters sheets during combat, I put my money there instead of DnD beyond the use the free spell/item/monster search function if needed.

[@TreantmonksTemple]

I use Roll20 all the time, though for character building, unless there is a bunch of homebrew, I find D&D Beyond to be the far superior character building tool.

[@shapshane8241]

i didnt get the aberrant mind/clockwork soul bit, like i know i can make it work by replicating them with a homebrew subclass but how? i couldnt get it to work!

[@TreantmonksTemple]

I can link a video (not mine) that does a walkthrough: kzbin.info/www/bejne/iGeUgKF6lqyjack

[@shapshane8241]

@@TreantmonksTemple thanks!

[@dougerickson3362]

The red switch for ON is counterintuitive. Should be green.

[@goodgulfgas]

I think D&D isn't investing in any more upgrades into D&D Beyond as is. If there were, the Encounter Builder would be out of beta by now, along with a bunch of other things (like better filters). I bet they are focusing on rebuilding for 6E (I mean, they'd better be).

[@MannonMartin]

I don't think they are uninterested in adding and improving features on the site, but their focus pretty much always has to be on integrating new D&D content published by WotC, and that's no small feat. I'm pretty sure they do have a team constantly working on the back end stuff, but I think it's a small team given the slow release of updates and features. They are going to be under an even bigger crunch once the next version starts being finalized, especially if they plan to continue to support 5e and not just shift completely to whatever they call this next iteration. Though we know there's gonna be a lengthy testing process before they really have to integrate any of that.

[@scottmorgan5212]

This didn't age well.

[@HighmageDerin]

I was going to use the ND beyond, even download the app to my phone and was waiting for DND1 to come out before I purchased anything considering why buy all the old rule books in digital form when I already have the role books. When the new books are coming out soon anyways. Then wizards open their big fat mouth and told us what they think of their consumers....... I refuse to deal with whales in my video games I'm not going to deal with them in my table top ones. Going to move on to Pathfinder 2.0 or go back to palladium Or white wolf!.....

[@KnicKnac]

Mentioning the Rol20 character sheet made me twitch a bit that thing is so bad. The formatting and layout of it is terrible. I avoid games if the DM doesn't allow D&DB. I want a clean sheet that actually works and has spots for thing like attunement and statuses. Only thing I want to figure out is how to add the improved divine smite the paladin gets in D&DB without having to scroll down and click.

[@jamiedorsey4167]

If you have the Beyond 20 extension you can add a toggle for that (as well as many other things). If you hover over the Beyond 20 box on the character sheet the box will expand, then click on the cog to add a hotkey and select Paladin: Improved Divine Smite. It can be a little buggy at times and not always work properly, for example adding symbiotic entity causes that feature to be always on and I need to select it to turn it off.

[@macdd7257]

Are the prices shown in the video in USD or CAD ?

[@TreantmonksTemple]

Amazon -> CAD, D&D B -> USD

[@Pyromanemac]

Buying the physical books is not "significantly" more than dnd beyond. I paid the same or a few dollars more for them all from amazon, new. But, if you buy a kindle book it's pennies compared to the physical book? DND beyond and eventually wotc's vt is just hasbro turning a pen and paper game into a mobile gacha game. Scam really.

[@mwhearn1]

This video didn't age well.

[@Kapuzki]

Don't know what the draw of this thing is... I tried if once out of curiosity. It's slower than other assistant apps, mostly uglier, does not have any extraordinary features that you cannot be better served with in other media... The only thing it has going for it, aguably, is integration. It's not worth the money.

[@seanfaherty]

How much does it cost ? They want to charge me to buy a book I already own ? I don’t think it’s for me but I’m glad it works for you

[@homm3bonedragon242]

I'm not sure I would call the physical copy "significantly" more expensive than the D&D Beyond copy, given that you actually get a physical item.

[@falkor6922]

Still gonna use it? Lol

[@ericnickols9471]

Hasbro/Wizards of the Coast just tried to revoke the 23 yr Open Game License and steal 25% off most creators and make content creation unprofitable. 50 yrs of D&D just died due to corporate greed. Everyone is going to Paizo's ORC or their own systems. If you have a D&D Beyond subscription, please unsubscribe.

[@theprecipiceofreason]

DnD beyond ruined D&D. Those of you who could never see that should understand that now.

[@switters8679]

I'm sorry for your loss.