DnD Beyond has reversed its decision to overwrite 5e spells and magic items with new 2024 content, after this announcement got a large amount of negative feedback from Dungeons and Dragons fans.
An update from the DnD Studio posted on August 26 explains that the 2024 rules rollout will no longer impact 5e players’ character sheets, with magic items and spells remaining unchanged. If players purchase the 2024 books, they’ll then have the choice to pull features, like DnD 5e feats or subclass abilities, from either source.
“We misjudged the impact of this change, and we agree that you should be free to choose your own way to play,” the update explains.
Fans were riled by a DnD Beyond changelog posted last week, which revealed that while other 2014 ‘legacy’ content would stick around, 5e spells and magic items were going to automatically update to the new 2024 versions.
While the old spells and magic items would still technically be available on DnD Beyond via the 2014 DnD books, this change would have made it inconvenient to use them on the platform. DnD Beyond suggested players make homebrew versions of the content they wished to preserve for their character sheets.
According to its new statement, the company had viewed “these planned updates as welcome improvements and free upgrades to existing content”. But it was wrong; fans did not take kindly to the news. There was an outpouring of outrage on social media, with some players promising to jump ship and abandon DnD Beyond entirely. Taking advantage of the situation, rival virtual tabletop Roll20 announced that it was keeping all 2014 content just the way it was.
On August 24, a DnD Beyond community manager attempted to placate irate customers with a forum post, pointing out that only two DnD magic items – Potion of Healing and Spell Scroll – would actually be altered, and they would only see minor text updates at that. It emphasized that while character sheets would be affected, no one would actually be losing content they’d already bought.
It was fair enough to point this out, as there was some misinformation flying around. However, it didn’t really help matters because players still had a problem with what was actually happening. “So they’re just saying the same thing the original statement said,” pointed out one commenter, Reddit user ValuableCurious. The statement also did not address the fact that even if only two magic items were changed, many more spells would be impacted.
Wizards of the Coast clearly listened to feedback and reversed its decision. You’ll now only get the 2024 magic items and spells on DnD Beyond if you buy the new books, and you’ll then be able to choose which versions you want to use.
This may well be the largest controversy to rock Dungeons and Dragons since the OGL debacle of early last year, and it’s followed a similar pattern: initial announcement, enormous backlash, quibbling rebuttal, sheepish retraction.
In its aftermath, it’s become very clear that players want the option to keep all of their old 5e content accessible, and choose what portion of the new rules to adopt. We wonder if this bodes ill for the 2024 rules update.
Upon reflection, last week was a big one for tabletop RPGs backtracking on unpopular changes in the face of fan pressure. On August 23, Pathfinder pulled back on a new fan content policy that would’ve allowed players to sell Pathfinder material containing Paizo lore, but restricted them to publishing that content through Paizo’s own licensed storefront.
For more great content, check out out our DnD 2024 Player’s Handbook review, or our dense, extensive guides to all the DnD classes and DnD races (or species).