Those buying Tasha's off D&D Beyond

[jaappleton]

Prepare for a little disappointment.

Not everything will be ready to go when the book is launched tomorrow.

https://twitter.com/BadEyeAdam/status/1328383988747145216?s=20

Subclasses, spells, feats, and 'customizing your origin' will be good to go. Mechanically, specifically, what does 'customizing your origin' entail, I can't say. If I were to guess, that'd be the "Feat, +2 to a stat, darkvision or skill" custom race.

However, sidekicks and lineage (put your stats wherever) WILL NOT BE READY at launch tomorrow.

Personally? I fully expected this. I set the bar pretty darn low, honestly, and they still managed to go under it.

[Grey Watcher]

Prepare for a little disappointment.

Not everything will be ready to go when the book is launched tomorrow.

https://twitter.com/BadEyeAdam/status/1328383988747145216?s=20

Subclasses, spells, feats, and 'customizing your origin' will be good to go. Mechanically, specifically, what does 'customizing your origin' entail, I can't say. If I were to guess, that'd be the "Feat, +2 to a stat, darkvision or skill" custom race.

However, sidekicks and lineage (put your stats wherever) WILL NOT BE READY at launch tomorrow.

Personally? I fully expected this. I set the bar pretty darn low, honestly, and they still managed to go under it.

It's almost like she's laughing at us. It's hideous!

[TheMango55]

If you expected it then how did it go under your expectations?

Anyway won’t be a big deal mechanically, just use a custom entry in the ability score page to manually adjust where your bonus is.

[CMCC]

Apparently they had some resource issues with people leaving, so they were really under the crunch. I had a feeling, when I heard that, that they weren't going to make it happen.

[jaappleton]

If you expected it then how did it go under your expectations?

Anyway won’t be a big deal mechanically, just use a custom entry in the ability score page to manually adjust where your bonus is.

I have a litany of issue with Beyond and how certain things have been handled. From the UA Summon ______ Spirit spells not calculating ("Do it yourself", they said) to the Class Feature Variants from last November never being added, to the Dragonmarked Races from Eberron (Again, released last November) not working properly until.... I think it was May....? of this year...

My bar with them is set fairly low.

[ProsecutorGodot]

I've been disappointed with how DND Beyond has been implementing new content recently, the UA feats highlighted it best where instead of making any sort of selection box they opted to make a separate feat for each ability score or class option.

Now, of course I'm no web designer myself, but it really seemed lazy. In the back of my mind I'd hoped it wasn't going to be a set precedent but I kind of figured it would be. Hopefully they don't make this a habit, though it seems they already have.

I'm kind of stuck with a system that's slowly going downhill in quality though, it's still by far the best option for sharing books between group members since all of my groups are across state lines.

[jaappleton]

I've been disappointed with how DND Beyond has been implementing new content recently, the UA feats highlighted it best where instead of making any sort of selection box they opted to make a separate feat for each ability score or class option.

Now, of course I'm no web designer myself, but it really seemed lazy. In the back of my mind I'd hoped it wasn't going to be a set precedent but I kind of figured it would be. Hopefully they don't make this a habit, though it seems they already have.

I'm kind of stuck with a system that's slowly going downhill in quality though, it's still by far the best option for sharing books between group members since all of my groups are across state lines.

I'm in an incredibly similar situation.

My DM is in the pacific northwest, I'm on the east coast. I pay for the content (Since I also DM my home group).

And there's no better way of sharing content, legally.

But that doesn't give Beyond license to be lazy with implementing things in the character builder.

[x3n0n]

However, sidekicks and lineage (put your stats wherever) WILL NOT BE READY at launch tomorrow.

To be fair, even the user interface for "put your stats wherever" and "trade all of your proficiencies" seems like it would be a pain to implement, especially if you need to preserve the existing behavior for users that don't have access to the new rules.

I don't envy them that job. I hope they started planning the moment the AL doc came out.

That said, I will certainly be happy to have it implemented. I'm looking forward to moving my scores around.

Adding the Sidekick classes for PCs (without starting from a monster) seems like it shouldn't be too bad, although there would still be UI challenges. Are they really "classes" that should appear on the top menu like everything else, or are they special? Starting from a monster is a completely new model. It's not even clear what that workflow should look like.


I've been disappointed with how DND Beyond has been implementing new content recently, the UA feats highlighted it best where instead of making any sort of selection box they opted to make a separate feat for each ability score or class option.

Now, of course I'm no web designer myself, but it really seemed lazy. In the back of my mind I'd hoped it wasn't going to be a set precedent but I kind of figured it would be. Hopefully they don't make this a habit, though it seems they already have.

Well, for the UA, they specifically said they weren't going to invest in making them "smart" until they knew what the final version would look like.

Are you disappointed that you need to choose "Resilient (Constitution)" in the Feats drop-down (and have had to since PHB)?
If you're not disappointed about that, then I don't know why "Fey Touched (Wisdom)" is any different.

(FWIW, I think the issue is in the data back-end. Resilient needs to give you an *additional* bonus besides the half-ASI, and that bonus needs to match the selected attribute, and I don't think their back-end/homebrew system lets you force sub-features to correlate across the same feat.)

[nickl_2000]

I've been disappointed with how DND Beyond has been implementing new content recently, the UA feats highlighted it best where instead of making any sort of selection box they opted to make a separate feat for each ability score or class option.

Now, of course I'm no web designer myself, but it really seemed lazy. In the back of my mind I'd hoped it wasn't going to be a set precedent but I kind of figured it would be. Hopefully they don't make this a habit, though it seems they already have.

I'm kind of stuck with a system that's slowly going downhill in quality though, it's still by far the best option for sharing books between group members since all of my groups are across state lines.

I'm actually not bothered by UA content being put in a quick and lazy way. Content from UA is not intended to be long term, it is test material that will be replaced at some point. As a company, DNDBeyond is giving it away for free and doesn't really want to put a lot of money into something that will never see the light of day. Instead, they are focused on features that will make them money and have more of a long term significant impact on their user base.

I don't blame them for that at all, but it is frustrating that they won't have this available. My DM allowed for ret conning current characters due to Tasha's coming out and I would like to build it in the tool that I have available. Oh well, if need be I can manually do things until the real tools become available.




As a side note, I am a web designer and web developer (although not for DNDBeyond, despite applying). I can tell you that lineage is a significant change to how their program is set up and requires a significant re-design of the race module to make it work. Sidekicks are even worse, that is a completely new module with 3 new classes and a new way of displaying it possibly. Beyond that, you don't have the design of class/multiple subclasses, which is how they build the other. Now you have a single class with no subclasses, and don't forget that this can be applied to any race humanoid and any other creature under a certain CR. That is a massive amount of effort in comparison to a new subclass or a new feat.

[jaappleton]

To be fair, even the user interface for "put your stats wherever" and "trade all of your proficiencies" seems like it would be a pain to implement, especially if you need to preserve the existing behavior for users that don't have access to the new rules.

I don't envy them that job. I hope they started planning the moment the AL doc came out.

That said, I will certainly be happy to have it implemented. I'm looking forward to moving my scores around.

Adding the Sidekick classes for PCs (without starting from a monster) seems like it shouldn't be too bad, although there would still be UI challenges. Are they really "classes" that should appear on the top menu like everything else, or are they special? Starting from a monster is a completely new model. It's not even clear what that workflow should look like.

The sidekick stuff I totally understand not being done in time. I don't think any of us expected that to be in the book prior to its announcement.

I do wish that WOTC would work a little more closely with their digital partners like Beyond, Fantasy Grounds, etc. so that they could have sufficient time to work on this sort of stuff.

The 'put your stats anywhere' thing is what irks me. But again, full clarity, I think that could be alleviated a lot if WOTC would give them more of a heads up.

[EggKookoo]

Subclasses, spells, feats, and 'customizing your origin' will be good to go. Mechanically, specifically, what does 'customizing your origin' entail, I can't say. If I were to guess, that'd be the "Feat, +2 to a stat, darkvision or skill" custom race.

However, sidekicks and lineage (put your stats wherever) WILL NOT BE READY at launch tomorrow.

What about class feature variants? I mean things like spell versatility and so forth? Or did those not make the cut at all?

[x3n0n]

I do wish that WOTC would work a little more closely with their digital partners like Beyond, Fantasy Grounds, etc. so that they could have sufficient time to work on this sort of stuff.

That would be great; I know I was surprised to hear that WotC hadn't given near-complete info to Beyond around the time the paper contents were locked in, if not earlier.

However, I suspect that the leak won't encourage Hasbro/WotC to give *more* info to their partners earlier.


What about class feature variants? I mean things like spell versatility and so forth? Or did those not make the cut at all?

Based on their techie livestreams of a few months ago, I am hopeful that most of them made it. (They basically said that "adding things to spell lists is the hardest part of what's in the CFV UA, so we'll do the hardest part first", which is why Dragonmarks and Ravnica backgrounds work now.)

I will be curious to see how they determine which CFVs to add to a given character. Just a checkbox on the "Home" tab for the character for all-or-nothing on Tasha's variants? Per-feature checkbox/radio in the builder?

[jaappleton]

What about class feature variants? I mean things like spell versatility and so forth? Or did those not make the cut at all?

From the tweet that I linked where Adam Bradford had responded to me, I believe that falls under 'class feature options', which should indeed be good to go.

[EggKookoo]

Based on their techie livestreams of a few months ago, I am hopeful that most of them made it. (They basically said that "adding things to spell lists is the hardest part of what's in the CFV UA, so we'll do the hardest part first", which is why Dragonmarks and Ravnica backgrounds work now.)


From the tweet that I linked where Adam Bradford had responded to me, I believe that falls under 'class feature options', which should indeed be good to go.


Thank you both!

[MaxWilson]

I'm in an incredibly similar situation.

My DM is in the pacific northwest, I'm on the east coast. I pay for the content (Since I also DM my home group).

And there's no better way of sharing content, legally.

I'm curious about this statement. Clearly it's not illegal to make a Google doc with your character sheet in it. Nor is it illegal to explain to someone how a spell or feat works. Is this about being able to share the exact spell/feat text? (A legal grey area. Wouldn't even be necessary if 5E wasn't so lawyery about exact wording, and isn't necessary if your DM is the type to let you cast Eldritch Blast at a door despite "objects" not being mentioned in the spell description, only "creatures".)

What kind of content sharing do you end up actually needing to do?

[x3n0n]

I'm curious about this statement. Clearly it's not illegal to make a Google doc with your character sheet in it. Nor is it illegal to explain to someone how a spell or feat works. Is this about being able to share the exact spell/feat text? (A legal grey area. Wouldn't even be necessary if 5E wasn't so lawyery about exact wording, and isn't necessary if your DM is the type to let you cast Eldritch Blast at a door despite "objects" not being mentioned in the spell description, only "creatures".)

What kind of content sharing do you end up actually needing to do?

If you're in a shared campaign, the DM and all PCs in that campaign have access to all of the features in the books you have purchased.

That includes full text and any automation that the website provides (correctly-tracked HP, correct die rolls, spell options to prepare/learn, feats and subclasses to select in the character builder, and more).

[Pex]

What about class feature variants? I mean things like spell versatility and so forth? Or did those not make the cut at all?

You can already change what spells you know when you edit your character.

[MaxWilson]

If you're in a shared campaign, the DM and all PCs in that campaign have access to all of the features in the books you have purchased.

That includes full text and any automation that the website provides (correctly-tracked HP, correct die rolls, spell options to prepare/learn, feats and subclasses to select in the character builder, and more).

Ah, so it's more about automation sharing than data sharing.

[EggKookoo]

You can already change what spells you know when you edit your character.

Yeah, there's a bunch of other stuff that goes along with it but I couldn't remember their proper names... Things like Instinctive Pounce.

[ProsecutorGodot]

Well, for the UA, they specifically said they weren't going to invest in making them "smart" until they knew what the final version would look like.

Are you disappointed that you need to choose "Resilient (Constitution)" in the Feats drop-down (and have had to since PHB)?
If you're not disappointed about that, then I don't know why "Fey Touched (Wisdom)" is any different.

(FWIW, I think the issue is in the data back-end. Resilient needs to give you an *additional* bonus besides the half-ASI, and that bonus needs to match the selected attribute, and I don't think their back-end/homebrew system lets you force sub-features to correlate across the same feat.)

Perhaps I could have phrased this better: This is in large part only a problem in the actual feats tab of the site, when choosing feats out of the dropdown in character creation I don't mind the options being listed separately as they are. I would prefer if it were done better, but to an extent having them separated here is better because there is no quick preview to tell you what certain half feats give you a bonus to or what elements are eligible for Elemental Adept.

The listing of feats on the feats page was organized prior to recent UA, but had since been cluttered by duplicate entries that don't need to be there. It appears they've removed the UA versions though, hopefully when they're re-implemented they aren't done so poorly. This is primarily where my problem was.

On the note of "we'll do it right when its in print." I think that's a poor mindset. At least, if the posts above are any indication, they do recognize what work would be most difficult and did work on some of this ahead of time so I guess I can't be too harsh about it.


I'm actually not bothered by UA content being put in a quick and lazy way. Content from UA is not intended to be long term, it is test material that will be replaced at some point. As a company, DNDBeyond is giving it away for free and doesn't really want to put a lot of money into something that will never see the light of day. Instead, they are focused on features that will make them money and have more of a long term significant impact on their user base.
I would agree if much of this UA hadn't sat on the site from publish date to Tasha's release, these entries ranged anywhere from 4 to 10 months old. In some cases, even longer. That's ignoring that Sidekicks are published material already, something that probably should have been worked on and implemented already.

Also, you might be able to shed some light on one of the statements I made above, whether it's reasonable thinking or not since you do web design - Would it have been all that bad if they had put effort to properly implement these UA's just in the event that it did see print... Wouldn't that have made their job easier now? Because lets be honest here, it's surprisingly infrequent nowadays that a UA doesn't end up seeing print on some form, having a base set of infrastructure waiting around for possible slotting in seems like good practice to me.

[trctelles]

Will that be a thing only on D&D beyond? I was hoping to buy the PDF version somewhere, but I honestly don't know where to look. I THINK Roll20 will have it available too, but is it possible to download the book, or is it only available on the site?

Never bought an online version of a book xD

[nickl_2000]

Will that be a thing only on D&D beyond? I was hoping to buy the PDF version somewhere, but I honestly don't know where to look. I THINK Roll20 will have it available too, but is it possible to download the book, or is it only available on the site?

Never bought an online version of a book xD

There will not be a legal PDF version of the book that you can directly buy. However, you can get a virtual version of Tasha's from either Roll20 or DNDBeyond and be able to read and reference the book. This thread isn't saying that there won't be a virtual version of the book, that will be done and will be readable. The issue is applying all the things in the book to the character builder on DnD Beyond.






Also, you might be able to shed some light on one of the statements I made above, whether it's reasonable thinking or not since you do web design - Would it have been all that bad if they had put effort to properly implement these UA's just in the event that it did see print... Wouldn't that have made their job easier now? Because lets be honest here, it's surprisingly infrequent nowadays that a UA doesn't end up seeing print on some form, having a base set of infrastructure waiting around for possible slotting in seems like good practice to me.



I can try, but remember this is only speaking from an outside viewpoint not as someone who is inside the organization. It would be ideal to be able to perfectly code an UA and make it available in the best possible way from the beginning. That way, when something was made official it would take tweaking to make it production worthy. The issue comes down to this, there are only so many working hours in the day and DnDBeyond has a list a mile long of things that they want to do.

So, you a decision is made in what would be better for the business. Is it better for them to implement and perfect the DM Tool of the encounter builder or is it better to perfect the UA that may never go live. Is it better to mobile app and the dice that people pay for, or is time better spent on UA? Were I a business I would be looking to get the UA in the quick and dirty way since there is no guarantee that it will ever go live (and the majority or players don't care about UA). Then use the extra hours in the day giving content that you know will be useful forever. That being said, if there is an outcry over the Tasha's content not being available, they may choose to do differently in the future. This is exactly why they have the forums though.

[jaappleton]

There will not be a legal PDF version of the book that you can directly buy. However, you can get a virtual version of Tasha's from either Roll20 or DNDBeyond and be able to read and reference the book. This thread isn't saying that there won't be a virtual version of the book, that will be done and will be readable. The issue is applying all the things in the book to the character builder on DnD Beyond.

All of this is correct.

As a side note, your new avatar photo really threw me off, my friend. Didn't recognize you for a moment there! :smallbiggrin:

[MaxWilson]

Also, you might be able to shed some light on one of the statements I made above, whether it's reasonable thinking or not since you do web design - Would it have been all that bad if they had put effort to properly implement these UA's just in the event that it did see print... Wouldn't that have made their job easier now? Because lets be honest here, it's surprisingly infrequent nowadays that a UA doesn't end up seeing print on some form, having a base set of infrastructure waiting around for possible slotting in seems like good practice to me.

It depends. Every time you add a new feature (not just a new feat) it adds complexity, and that complexity has a maintenance cost that makes other, future changes more expensive. If you refactor your model to support a new kind of feat, e.g. feat prerequisites for psionic feats, and then those new feats don't wind up getting published in a form that uses that new feature, you're stuck with that useless complexity until you do MORE work to remove it. It's like... rewriting the Pythagorean theorem as a matrix operation, but then not doing any _other_ linear algebra to take advantage of that matrix representation. It just makes everything pointlessly harder.

On the other hand, supporting half-feats linked to specific attributes wouldn't just enable Fey-Touched (Wisdom), it would also let them remove what sounds like a kludge for Resilient (Wisdom) and Elven Accuracy (Wisdom). So in that case the risk of doing useless work is mitigated and the benefit is higher.

[nickl_2000]

All of this is correct.

As a side note, your new avatar photo really threw me off, my friend. Didn't recognize you for a moment there! :smallbiggrin:

I got a new toy that is in beta after backing it on kickstarter :smallbiggrin: So, it seemed like it would be fun to make my avatar.



@ProsecutorGodot see my response to you above. I edited and added it to avoid double posting.

[x3n0n]

Ah, so it's more about automation sharing than data sharing.

IMO, they offer two main services:

digital access to the full book contents: hyperlinked, searchable, filterable/sortable within category, updated with errata, with conveniences like hovering on a spell name or monster/NPC name to see the full description or stat block pop up.
a mostly-faithful implementation of the character builder, which tracks your inventory/resources and accurately reflects the effect of (nearly) all of a PC's features "live" on the character sheet. As trivial examples, it understands what spellcasting ability and associated save DC go with each of your spells, what effect they have when upcast, how big your Sneak Attack bonus is, which weapons get Dueling bonus, and what your AC is based on your class features, equipped armor, and any magic items (attuned or otherwise). (Some of the obviously-tricky things aren't there at all: Wild Shape just lets you filter available stat blocks and doesn't attempt to help you figure out how any of your existing character features interact with that stat block, like Unarmored Defense or Extra Attack.)


You can choose to buy content as "compendium-only", which is just the first bullet, but "nobody does that" because the fun is all wrapped up in the second bullet: build a character, experiment with different options (race/origin, subclass, ASIs, feats, etc), and see the numbers change in "real time"; as a bonus, roll dice for a specific action and have it reflect your bonuses in the result.


On the other hand, supporting half-feats linked to specific attributes wouldn't just enable Fey-Touched (Wisdom), it would also let them remove what sounds like a kludge for Resilient (Wisdom) and Elven Accuracy (Wisdom).

A nit that may help illustrate the issue: Elven Accuracy is only one feat in their system, not 4. That's specifically because there is no additional feature within Elven Accuracy that depends on the attribute selected for the half-ASI. By contrast, the spells provided by Fey Touched are specifically tagged as using the spellcasting modifier that you increased with the half-ASI.

They actually have pretty advanced tools for integrating homebrew elements, and I believe they're fundamentally the same as what they use to build the back-end implementation of official features.
When a new official feature (subclass, feat, race) is created, they modify their rules system to accommodate it. You can actually "clone" any official option that you "own" as homebrew to see how they implemented it.

From my experiments there, there's no concept of having a sub-feature (say, an added proficiency or added spell) be able to identify a "sibling" (or other "related") sub-feature (say, an ASI), let alone to "introspect" on the second feature to influence the behavior of the first one.

Such a (framework) feature would be very powerful, but it's apparently not trivial.

[Dork_Forge]

THis only affects the implementation of the content into the character builder right? Everything will still be viewable on the actual info pages?

I don't use Beyond for sheets, but not having a product ready on launch (especially such a big one) is certainly a shame.

[ProsecutorGodot]

THis only affects the implementation of the content into the character builder right? Everything will still be viewable on the actual info pages?

I don't use Beyond for sheets, but not having a product ready on launch (especially such a big one) is certainly a shame.

I've found that it makes building characters easier for other online play methods as well, we make characters using DND Beyond first and then manually transfer them to Roll20.

In the event that the Roll20 Charactermancer was... Lets say "more useable" to be nice here, my mind might change on this.


@ProsecutorGodot see my response to you above. I edited and added it to avoid double posting.

I'll admit, I forgot that a lot of their dev time is probably going to the player companion app right now. I'd much rather see that feature complete than see a handful of UA working in top form on the main site.

Hopefully the app being more or less complete will expedite the process rather than cause delays making content work for both.

[Dork_Forge]

I've found that it makes building characters easier for other online play methods as well, we make characters using DND Beyond first and then manually transfer them to Roll20.

In the event that the Roll20 Charactermancer was... Lets say "more useable" to be nice here, my mind might change on this.


A lot of my players like using Beyond (and some use the extension to roll in Roll20), the charactermancer is awful, I just build my sheets manually into Roll20 personally *shrug*

The only reason I got the book on Beyond was to make video content about it, so as long as the actual info is in their... compendium? Then I'll be satisfied (separate note I'm not satisfied that they're an international business that operates soley on EST, that's just lazy).

[EggKookoo]

So DnDBeyond's Twitter account just posted:

"It's almost time! Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything will start to go live tonight on D&D Beyond at midnight EST with compendium & listings content. Character sheet options & integration with the toolset will be available in the morning with full team support! Thank you!"

Emphasis mine. Not sure how comprehensive they mean those options will be.

[CMCC]

Wow they are down to the wire there.

[Dork_Forge]

It's incredibly disappointing that they release internationally all at once on a US timezone to begin with, but by the look of things they need all of the time they can get to actually implement things. They need to invest in more staff perhaps?

[jaappleton]

Apparently, awhile back, a lot of the D&D Beyond staff.... uhh.... quit?

Not certain how long ago this was.

But I do know that the team has been working a ton of crunch in the last couple months to try to get this done.

If you’ve seen me on Twitter you’re aware I’ve crossed proverbial swords with their team leader a couple times... They are still human, and I legitimately despise whenever someone is forced into crunch to meet a deadline.

I feel bad for their team. They’re owned by Fandom, which has a bunch of money. At the same time, the team has to work tons of hours to meet this deadline because.... Well, let’s face it, if they don’t then not only will their user base be livid, it serves as a demerit on their record so people on the fence about what digital service to go with give a harder look at the competition like Fantasy Grounds or what have you.

Hope they fill out their team again, in full capacity, very soon. Because crunch sucks, regardless of the industry.

[Spartan_MD]

It's almost like she's laughing at us. It's hideous!

You funny 😄

[Draz74]

I mostly want the features that are supposed to be there today, fortunately.

But apparently the Superior Technique Fighting Style isn't fully implemented yet; it doesn't give me anywhere to pick a manuever known or allow me to check off a Superiority Die or anything.

[EggKookoo]

But apparently the Superior Technique Fighting Style isn't fully implemented yet; it doesn't give me anywhere to pick a manuever known or allow me to check off a Superiority Die or anything.

The devs mention that one in particular. Apparently it's quite the overhaul to make something like that work with their system.

My first big disappointment is the Personalizing Spells section. Five or so paragraphs to tell us that we can make magic missile purple or something? Really? No system for changing damage types ("Yer an ice wizard, Harry!") or otherwise theming magic in a mechanical sense? Houserule, here I come...

[x3n0n]

For all of the worry, they got almost everything. I'm impressed with how close they are on day 1.

[jaappleton]

The devs mention that one in particular. Apparently it's quite the overhaul to make something like that work with their system.

My first big disappointment is the Personalizing Spells section. Five or so paragraphs to tell us that we can make magic missile purple or something? Really? No system for changing damage types ("Yer an ice wizard, Harry!") or otherwise theming magic in a mechanical sense? Houserule, here I come...

Well that’s not Beyond, that’s Tasha’s.

[EggKookoo]

Well that’s not Beyond, that’s Tasha’s.

Yeah, I'm probably confusing context. This thread is about how Tasha's is being implemented on DnDBeyond, not about the content in general. Sorry about that...

[jaappleton]

I'm actually fairly happy with what they have available in the character builder.

Is it EVERYTHING? No. And in fairness, they did have the transparency to tell us beforehand.

But there's some stuff I didn't expect that they have done a pretty solid job with. Wildfire Spirit, the Summon spells, etc. All that I'm pretty happy with.

[GlenSmash!]

I would not want to be a dndbeyond dev right now. This is a massive overhaul of services they didn't expect to change a year ago.

[Dork_Forge]

I would not want to be a dndbeyond dev right now. This is a massive overhaul of services they didn't expect to change a year ago.

What didn't they expect to change? Class Variants came out in UA at the beginning of last November, that's a pretty significant lead time.

[ProsecutorGodot]

What didn't they expect to change? Class Variants came out in UA at the beginning of last November, that's a pretty significant lead time.

We also had confirmation that races would become customizable in some way well in advance, the specifics of how being released later but still in advance.

If they don't mean to actually implement all of the UA that might cover through it might still be good practice in the future to at least ask themselves the question "what would we need to do if this becomes official?"

[GlenSmash!]

What didn't they expect to change? Class Variants came out in UA at the beginning of last November, that's a pretty significant lead time.

These aren't additional options do existing functionality, they are often when selected a fundamental change in function. When something works they same way every time it's relatively easy to code, but every exception becomes a new switch case or if statement which doubles complexity each time. After enough dependency changes it's often better to fundamentally rework how your service is architected rather than end up with spaghetti code. The difficult of that partly depends of if things were tightly or loosely coupled in the code.

For example, previously martial maneuvers were only dependent on a single class feature and were a selection from a static list, with the exception of a single feat. Pretty much a one to one relationship with one exception. Now that a fighting style allows maneuvers, you need to get two sections of your code that previously never worked with each other to now do so. So you have to change your dependencies, your contracts, possible change the types of certain variables (depending on the language used) or consider switching to a one to many architecture from a one to one.

I'm not intimately familiar with their code base obviously and I don't know the size or number of their dev teams, but I've worked in enough places where these requested changes set of a lot of warnings for me. If the rumor of the original dev team that built dndbeyond having left is true it makes it so so much worse as the new devs would be learning the code base as they mage big changes to it.

Edit: I just remembered regression testing. That's gonna be a whole 'nother can of worms

[x3n0n]

I would not want to be a dndbeyond dev right now. This is a massive overhaul of services they didn't expect to change a year ago.

The only TCoE things I'm aware of that didn't make it into the D&D Beyond tools are the Superior Technique (maneuvers) fighting style, the from-scratch custom race/origin (although they mention that you can homebrew it straightforwardly), and Sidekick building.

The Optional Class Features are all in, the race/origin stat/proficiency changes are almost all in.

(And the new feats appear nicely on the Feats page now. :) )

Are there other things?

[Dork_Forge]

These aren't additional options do existing functionality, they are often when selected a fundamental change in function. When something works they same way every time it's relatively easy to code, but every exception becomes a new switch case or if statement which doubles complexity each time. After enough dependency changes it's often better to fundamentally rework how your service is architected rather than end up with spaghetti code. The difficult of that partly depends of if things were tightly or loosely coupled in the code.

For example, previously martial maneuvers were only dependent on a single class feature and were a selection from a static list, with the exception of a single feat. Pretty much a one to one relationship with one exception. Now that a fighting style allows maneuvers, you need to get two sections of your code that previously never worked with each other to now do so. So you have to change your dependencies, your contracts, possible change the types of certain variables (depending on the language used) or consider switching to a one to many architecture from a one to one.

I'm not intimately familiar with their code base obviously and I don't know the size or number of their dev teams, but I've worked in enough places where these requested changes set of a lot of warnings for me. If the rumor of the original dev team that built dndbeyond having left is true it makes it so so much worse as the new devs would be learning the code base as they mage big changes to it.

Edit: I just remembered regression testing. That's gonna be a whole 'nother can of worms

I understand that it is a lot of fundamental change, the point was that these changes were telegraphed a year ago in the case of Class Variants and 6 months ago for the races (with more firm info from the AL document). If they cannot complete this kind of work in that kind of timescale then that's a worrying reflection on the business, they build the platform around a game that releases content in different forms multiple times a year.

The original dev team leaving would be a blow, but I'm sorry if they just left and there was no one trained to fill those shoes that's another worrying sign for the business. I've worked parallel to development teams for years, anyone that had any real impact on a product or service had an extended notice period to ensure a stable handover.

So they've had a year to figure out how to do this, in that time they've also released digital dice packs as a side money grab opportunity. They clearly weren't ready for these changes, but that seems like a top of the food chain problem, resources need to be focused where they're needed and a mismanaged business that still manages to make new cash grabs whilst failing to keep up their core functionality won't be getting any sympathy from me.

[GlenSmash!]

I understand that it is a lot of fundamental change, the point was that these changes were telegraphed a year ago in the case of Class Variants and 6 months ago for the races (with more firm info from the AL document). If they cannot complete this kind of work in that kind of timescale then that's a worrying reflection on the business, they build the platform around a game that releases content in different forms multiple times a year.

The original dev team leaving would be a blow, but I'm sorry if they just left and there was no one trained to fill those shoes that's another worrying sign for the business. I've worked parallel to development teams for years, anyone that had any real impact on a product or service had an extended notice period to ensure a stable handover.

So they've had a year to figure out how to do this, in that time they've also released digital dice packs as a side money grab opportunity. They clearly weren't ready for these changes, but that seems like a top of the food chain problem, resources need to be focused where they're needed and a mismanaged business that still manages to make new cash grabs whilst failing to keep up their core functionality won't be getting any sympathy from me.

Oh I never said I had sympathy for the business. My sympathy is for the devs. They don't control whether they are told to make new digital dice, or fundamentally rework their solution, or control whether or not they have enough resources to get either of those done in the timeline they are given.

Edit: One last though in regards to timelines. It's often helpful to remember the The Mythical Man Month (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month)

[jaappleton]

Their team leader, Adam Bradford, had confirmed that a lot of their staff ended up quitting over the last year. No idea at what point, if it was a mass walkout, etc

[samcifer]

At least there wasn't an actual delay like with the physical copies.
Something (not sure what, exactly) happened to the phys. copies that released in my area (Twin Cities, Minn.) and many of them were damaged, so many have gone without. I was lucky enough to get my pre-order alt cover last night from the game store I'd pre-ordered from (as well as a regular one the night before at a Barnes & Noble across the street from them) the night before.

Many had damage to the spine, apparently.

[Monster Manuel]

One thing I haven't quite figured out yet, but may be an item that hasn't made it to prime-time yet, is how to retrofit an existing character to the new class features. A brand new character, on the Class tab, will have a new Optional Feature Manager, where you can select which features you want, divided up by Replacement features and Enhancement Features. I like this.

If you go into an existing character, though, that Optional Feature Manager tab isn't there. So, if you wanted to add, say, the expanded Ranger spell list or Fighting Style options to an existing ranger, you can't. Not sure if this is working by design, a yet-to-be-added update, or a bug. But I'm glad they were able to get the features in at all, and I like the way they implemented them in general.

[EggKookoo]

One thing I haven't quite figured out yet, but may be an item that hasn't made it to prime-time yet, is how to retrofit an existing character to the new class features. A brand new character, on the Class tab, will have a new Optional Feature Manager, where you can select which features you want, divided up by Replacement features and Enhancement Features. I like this.

If you go into an existing character, though, that Optional Feature Manager tab isn't there. So, if you wanted to add, say, the expanded Ranger spell list or Fighting Style options to an existing ranger, you can't. Not sure if this is working by design, a yet-to-be-added update, or a bug. But I'm glad they were able to get the features in at all, and I like the way they implemented them in general.

Did you enable Optional Class Features under the character's Home tab? Once you do that, the Optional Feature Manager will appear under the Class tab.

[Monster Manuel]

Did you enable Optional Class Features under the character's Home tab? Once you do that, the Optional Feature Manager will appear under the Class tab.

Nope, I hadn't! That worked, thanks for the tip.