Using D&D Beyond’s digital toolset will get worse before it gets better

When Hasbro acquired the D&D Beyond toolset in April 2022, it set in motion a chain of events that saw that platform and its associated forums become the front page of 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons on the internet. As the pandemic continuedwere funneling new users to the platform, to the point where it remains the primary point of contact with the rules of the iconic game for many active groups. This is clearly intentional, as there has been increasing momentum for the rules to be sold digitally, but it’s also very convenient to have a fully functional character – dice rolling and all – on your phone.

Unfortunately, it is becoming increasingly difficult to work with these tools.

In a long, Update of 2,411 words On the D&D Beyond forums, the developers have detailed for the first time what the transition from the 2014 version of the Players Manual will look and feel like the 2024 version. What it presents is a borderline Byzantine series of steps required to make characters based on the 10-year-old version of the rules work perfectly in the modern, web-based app. They provide good guidelines for many edge cases, but workarounds will likely be needed for every group of players in the short term.

The most egregious, in my opinion, is the fact that you have to rebuild a number of spells and magic items from the 2014 era so that they work alongside the digital character sheets from the 2024 era. No, I’m not making this up. Here’s the relevant part, in full:

If you want to use the old version of a magic item or spell that has been replaced by its 2024 counterpart, you’ll need to make a homebrew copy of it and enable homebrew content on your character sheet. You can then add it to your character sheet.

This isn’t the only inconvenience lurking for D&D Beyond users, and a thorough reading of this changelog is highly recommended. The biggest problem I can foresee, however, is that there will suddenly be an assumption that players who’ve sunk their teeth into the 2014 ruleset will need to understand the 2024 rules overhaul in order to get the most out of the D&D Beyond platform at the table. The outcome will likely mean even more heavy lifting for already overworked Dungeon Masters.

Personally, the plan is for my Aasimar wizard (former coldwater fisherman Sigismund “Sig” Haansuhn) to track down the new 5th edition character sheets as soon as they’re available for free download. Then I’ll just rebuild my character by hand and houserule the rest as I go until it all makes sense for my group.

Expect more info on how these changes will roll out to D&D Beyond after the scheduled maintenance window for August 27, which will take down the toolset for an entire morning — from 5 a.m. to 9 a.m. Pacific. Players Manual (2024) will be released digitally for early access starting September 3rd and in local game stores in a collectible special edition book. Wide release will follow later, on September 17th, both online and at major retailers. An update to the freely available System Reference Document (the subject of last year’s OGL debacle) is also in the makingwhich will offer some of these rule changes completely free of charge.