At least they have it, unlike Roll20, who thinks all we need is new icons!

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I somehow simultaneously do things old fashioned and newfangled at the same time. I use talespire, everyone fills out a character sheet pdf that gets checked once at the start of the campaign and you just trust they aren’t putting wild shit on there throughout, and any homebrew items are shared via typing up a description and screenshoting it.

It’s like we’re literally digitally re-creating old school tabletop play before tools and apps existed.

It’s why i appreciate the basics. Roll20 basically just streamlines how the paper character sheet works, and it’s very easy to just plug things in.

All tools on DNDB are dreadful. Between the lag, the brain dead search function that can’t handle a space, and more, it’s pretty apparent they aren’t trying very hard to make it better.

Even just changing the skills and tools on a background requires making a custom background. It’s a right pain in the butt. Seems really silly for a feature that’s there in the PHB allowing characters to do this, and it’s not even an “optional rule” like Feats.

I suspect that any interest in improving it died when WoTC bought it from the original team.

I can almost hear the Hasbro bean-counters:

“Tools that allow players to make their own monsters and items instead of buying ours will eat into our profits, probably.”

Or “Justify the investment required to make this into a decent product.”

that’s because Wizards doesn’t WANT you to homebrew. They want you locked into their ecosystem of content they can sell you. I wish you luck finding something better than dndbeyond that works for you.

So… The key tactic/process is… Only create what you will actually need and actively use in the coming sessions/next session.

WHY do you need 50 magic items coded up? Are you players REALLY going to be taking 5 feats in the next session? AND three subclasses?

(Yes, I know the tool should be better… But in reality, it is not, and it is unlikely to get better… You are free to complain to them though if you want).

IS it easier for players to learn via D&DB? I don’t know how that could be. You can curate the experience at your table to teach them the game way better than D&DB ever could.

Yep. I loved creating homebrew items before we switched to using DND beyond. Now I don’t normally bother, half the stuff you want to do with it is broken, the other half doesn’t even exist.

Personally I hate the whole dnd beyond experience. So many broken things that don’t work but you have no idea they aren’t working unless you know what to look for.

Maybe it’s because I’m an old fart but I would much rather just do it on paper with an app just for using as a spell book if your a caster.

I found dndbeyond extremely unfriendly as a new user the first time I used it lol, and ended up never going back!

Just use a note taking app like obsidian that has internal links, hastags etc everything is much better plus you can use pngs jpegs and pdfs in app