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
Great 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.