This app if helpful for people brand new to D&D, but it doesn't even have all of the base content included. (Not in the free version, at least.) And if you spend $50 on a sourcebook at a bookstore? Too bad for you, there is no code to unlock any of that content on the app. But you are more than welcome to pay twice, once for the physical book and again to unlock content online.
Reviews for D&D Beyond
← Back to D&D BeyondGreat app, it is very helpful when planning for and managing campaigns. 2 complaints. 1 recent: The search bar is no longer accurate. When you click a link from a search, it does not go to the labeled link about half the time. 2. You pay full price but do not own the information. If I'm not "buying," then adjust the cost. If I pay full price, then it is not too much to ask to own the information as if I bought the same thing physically.
The most obviously frustrating thing is that you can't port your previous purchases, which was clearly a greed-based decision. Unfortunately, the issues don't end there. I won't bore you too much with details, it's just not a well-built app. Still feels clunky 1 year on and is not intuitive at all. I often find out about free downloads via my newsfeeds... I get nothing about it in the actual app. Even then, good luck finding said free stuff, as the in-app search engine kinda doesn't work.
The overall help and organization of the character sheets are great, most of the time. But in order for you to actually fully utilize this apps/website to its full potential, it REQUIRES YOU TO PURCHASE ANY AND ALL BOOKS related to any character build you make and any items(weapons, gear, magic, spells, etc...) in order for you to even know that they exist, let alone adding them to your sheet without having to essentially entering a manual override entry that doesn't mesh with your sheet
I can no longer read what I'm typing because the text entry font color no longer contrasts with the character sheet's black background. Also, there's no way to account for Mage Armor on self without having to customize AC. Inventory management also doesn't allow me to exclude items (such as magic armor I earned but can't use) from a session without having to add a large enough container to put them in, also forcing customizations. And new characters can't be created under a campaign in this app.
Too much missing from the regular browser version to be actually useful. All you can do is buy/view books and pull up your character profiles. Can't even edit them. It's been this way for a long time so I doubt any of that's going to be fixed. Don't install and just stick to the mobile browser version.
Very good if you're new and don't go too deep into dnd, but you have to buy the books for anything besides the basic gameplay. Free access is just the bare bones content. My biggest gripe is that you can't make and use custom content (classes, races, archetypes), but you can make custom items. And you also can't choose what version of DND you want to play.
The app used to be pretty okay, sometimes buggy, but mostly okay. Now, it's more likely than not to glitch out or freeze than display what you are looking for. Players have had several issues ranging from not being able to load their characters, values not calculating correctly, to items not showing up in inventory or fields. Lately, it seems that the app will crash roughly 3 out of 4 times attempting to use it.
Clumsy and mixed bag. It needs to refresh sources most times you open it, which takes 2-60 seconds and doesn't always connect. directs you to a clumsy interface for leveling. Over all it has a large amount of info with links to different information but other tasks are in weird places or can't be done at all.
Since the recent books came out, the character sheet is full of bugs. The spell list lags the whole character sheet. Good luck if you want a 2024 bard lvl 10, it's almost impossible for the spell list to load. You're able to select lvl 19 epic boons in a lvl 4 feat slot if you over level your character for experimentation purposes. Some species related skills are completely broken and/or are impossible to select. It was fine before, but now I'm forced to create characters on my PC.
It is extremely annoying and honestly you don't need this app. Itis pretty much very base stuff. If you wanted to be an artificer, you'll have to pay 29 bucks. This is completely dumb because you can just look up online to access it, especially DND stuff. It is a good app, but I can't recommend it. also, it didn't save my password or anything, so after I got signed out, I practically lost all my homebrew work. that may be on me, but it shouldnt be this hard to recover my account.
If I could leave no stars I would. had the service for 7 years (paid) and was kicked out of my account seemingly because of some new login measures. Lost access to all of my campaigns and paid content. took 3 months just to get them to cancel the subscription (because I couldn't since their site didn't let me enter the subscription page). Just ignored me even after I sent them all of the verifications they asked for. Customer Service was nonexistent. 7 years. Should have just burnt the money.
Used to be great, but Hasbro/WotC greed ruined everything. When they got rid of the option to buy single character classes, subclasses, etc. instead of buying the full book, that's what ruined it for me. I already bought most of the books, I'm not paying another $30+ every time a new book comes out so I can use the app. Homebrew is also a huge pain to add and get it to work properly. The UI is also terribly organized. I moved to paper character sheets and I'm never looking back.
can kinda be clunky and sometimes just won't update. some features you really need to be on a pc to use, like checking weight, and sometimes features are more easily used while on the app, like writing backstories. All in all, it could use some work, but what it does well is done exceptionally well.
It's convenient, yes, but its also clear that not much time or energy is spent to make this more user-friendly or move from mediocre to good or even great. Additionally, not actually owning any of the digital media through digital "purchases" on this app (which is actually just renting) and needing to pay a subscription fee is just one more way this company wants your money more than they care about the quality of the product or your experience with it.
Works well, I used it for several years now, and it's got third party publishers added, but the recent wizards of the coast actions makes me wary of buying digital things. Yes they backtracked twice now but I don't think they're trustworthy anymore. So I can't recommend you use anything other than the basic free version, which only has the bare bones basic races and class features, so you might as well find another program. (That I won't list because wotc likes to nuke sites)
Requires purchasing $29.99 ebooks to gain access to all features. I foolishly spent $60.00 for 2 of the required ebooks and STILL don't have access to full content. Customer service appears to be nonexistent. The app itself is good for character building and inventory management, but you won't have access to all the classes and subclasses , spells, weapons, and many other items. It does generate a good character sheet.
Error prone loading simulator. Has tons of potential with a very useful data structure, but the execution is severely lacking. I usually tend to resort to using a pen and paper in order to get things done so I don't lose access to hours of work because of a random API error. The basic free features, such as accessing your character sheet, are totally unreliable. Will not spend money on this until it becomes more stable.
I enjoy the custom building and the fun of creating new characters using them in campaigns. however, I can no longer bundle digital copies together to use the app in an effective manner, and it is no longer feasible to purchase the game material. I believe it will be better to find a different game. and go back to pencil and paper.
Before, you could find a book, then look for a specific class or race you wanted to play as and buy that individual product for only a couple of dollars. That was taken away, and now you're forced to purchase the entire book, which is obviously much more expensive. Now, they're going to force players to use the new system they're coming out with. When they could easily introduce the new system while letting players keep the stuff they purchased from the old system.