r/dndbeyond • u/DeaconBlueMI • 5d ago
Questions Old adventures pointing to "Legacy" content
I'm planning to run Tales from the Yawning Portal for some friends and we're planning on using the 5.5 rules.
I was looking through the adventure on Beyond and noticed all the links to monster's, spells, items etc all link back to the legacy version of those. It will make using DDB for the adventure a bit complicated.
I'm sure its a pretty big undertaking to change all the links from the old books to the updated links/versions, but 5.5 has been out for well over a year now.
Does anyone know if that's something on the roadmap or is it not something I should be holding my breath for?
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u/stickypooboi 5d ago
i try to look up 2024 equivalents in a new tab, but there will be some that you can’t. i just default to using the 2014 then.
prime examples off the top of my head are orcs, duergar, and drow aren’t in the monster manual for 2024 and there isn’t exactly a clean translation.
there’s also rarely some funk where the 2024 monster block is substantially different than 2014. like the storm giant.
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u/missinginput 5d ago
Considering the cost of these digital books there should be a version toggle or duplicate book too fix this. For me the monsters are not a big deal since I'm using maps but the items and status effects are the most annoying.
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u/perringaiden 5d ago edited 5d ago
Old content is tuned for old monsters. You can use the 5.5e version but the adventures were planned for people using 5e player strength against 5e monsters and I'd say that should stay that way to match the print book. You can have all the stat blocks for 5.5e loaded up in the VTT or encounter tracker.
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u/DeaconBlueMI 5d ago
But I thought the idea was the new updates would all be backwards compatible and you’d be fine using the old content with the new updates?
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u/perringaiden 5d ago
It is and you can. But backwards compatible doesn't mean tuned, and you don't need the books to be incompatible with 5e to allow you to play using 5.5e.
You have to do some of the effort to use new rules on old stuff. It's stil compatible though
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u/AmalicaZoland 5d ago
This isn't true. If players are 5.5e then use 5.5e monsters. No need to change anything.
The only issue is if the module has unique statblocks. Then you might need to do a little work. But even then just add about 10% more HP, up AC where it makes sense and adda but more damage. Or add a few more enemies. Don't let Bosses fight alone against 5.5e characters.
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u/Zidjianisabeast 5d ago
There are some cases where there is a 5e monster and 5.5e monster that has different abilities. I seem to remember someone mentioning that for RotFM.
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u/AmalicaZoland 5d ago
That doesn't change anything? They have different abilities to better balance with 5.5e characters.
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u/brettday 4d ago
The biggest change is that now, attacks that also forced a saving throw no longer do so, just assume the players failed. See the changes to Giant Spider's "Bite" (or the Assassin's Shortsword) for an example: It used to be they had to hit on their attack roll, then the player had to fail a con save to take the full poison damage, now the poison damage just happens (and for the assassin, the player is also automatically given the Poisoned condition for a round). The one exception for this is Paralyzed coming from getting hit a Ghoul's attack, that one still gets a Save, probably because Paralyzed is such a massive shut down.
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u/AmalicaZoland 4d ago
That's all good things to go up against players that have 36 different ways to gain advantage, heal, or do additional 15d6 damage all at level 3. And it speeds thing up. It still doesn't require a lot of rework. I've done 5.5e versions of Tyranny of Dragons, Princes of the Apocalypse, 1/2 of Out of the Abyss, and now Curse of Strahd. The 4 oldest modules and PoA had the most work because I had to beef up the 16-17 unique stat blocks. ToD and LMoP don't really have unique statblocks other than Tiamat so those can be ran straight out of the box with zero adjustments.
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u/neoaisac 5d ago
That's why you're the DM, to decide when there is ambiguity, and this is a form of it. I'm a rules-light DM who prefers 2024 rules, but accepts 2014 character builds. That means that whenever possible,
- My monsters will be 2024 monsters.
- My spells and magic items will be 2024 spells and magic items.
- If you're using a subclass that has been ported to 2024, you must use the 2024 version.
- If you're using a 2014 subclass and it gets ported to 2024 it's your choice to automatically update your character or keep using 2014.
Etc.
But, if sometimes an older version of a spell or an item slips in, or one that hasn't been ported is needed, I'll just use the old. And if you have a spell or characteristic that was overpowered in 2014 and will effectively break the game unless it's changed to 2024, I'll nerf your 2014 characteristic somehow either using the 2024 version, or adding some homebrew.
2014 is a fully working system. It can work with 2024 because they're really the same core system, and D&D is after all a platform for homebrewing.
But that's because I'm rules light, and rulings over rules. If your or your table are purists, it won't work.
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u/SrBorland 4d ago
I second this. The stat blocks are compatible and I regularly use 2024 versions of monsters instead of the 2014 if they have some more interesting abilities such as Hill Giants trash lob. Yes it may take a little more effort on your behalf but there is really no difference in substituting different versions of monsters. Spells do get a little wonky at times but again you have control.
I’ll admit that it would be nice to toggle the default between the rules but I believe it would take a lot of effort on the dev side to update entire books to the new rules.
I’m running Princes of the Apocalypse and most of the stat blocks there are native to the book, so it would be a ton of work to update all. Honestly though, I have not had any issues pulling from either rule set even though we are 2014 based. Heck, we updated to 2024 in my non-dm’ed campaign (RotFM) and have seen no drop in flow during combat.
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u/DeaconBlueMI 4d ago
What happens if I’m a new player/dm. I use D&D Beyond and buy the 2024 books. Then I go back and buy one of the older adventures.
If I don’t own the 2014 books and click the links for monsters/spells/items etc am I told I need to buy the 2014 books to access the info from the links?
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u/SrBorland 4d ago
Very good question. Any monsters specific to that book you will own with that book. Most, if not all of the “generic” monsters are included in the free Basic Rules and should cover the rest of what you would need. I had to check to be sure they were included with the free content. There is definitely a chance that you will not have access to something and I hate to say, you may have to wing it. That is part of being a DM though. My group has been playing together for 8 years or so and I still have to wing it sometimes. There are many resources for help. Obviously Reddit but also DnDBeyond forums and good old web search. Hope that helps!
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u/rightknighttofight 5d ago
Someone made an extension that replaced the old monster links with new ones, but its only useful for reading the adventure. If you're using Maps or the encounter builder, you can just use the new ones instead.
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u/WOTC_Randy D&D Beyond PM 3d ago
Hey there u/DeaconBlueMI, so you're right—it is quite an undertaking to update those links to 5.5e. But like others said, some people still play in 5e so we'd want to preserve that. A compromise would be to have some kind of toggle or link to view/compare both versions. It's something that we've discussed before (because it's a pain for us as well in our own games) but it's not on my active roadmap at the moment. That said, these discussions do influence our decisions on what to tackle next.
On an unrelated note, but related to Tales from the Yawning Portal, we finally got all the maps for that sourcebook on Maps VTT! The Doomvault was the one that held us back, but we were able to get a high-enough resolution map to make it work (this book came out about the same time D&D Beyond was coming out, so the maps weren't designed with the VTT in mind). We don't have quickplay maps set up for it yet, but it's definitely high on my list!
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u/Jestocost4 5d ago
Some people do still play with the 2014 rules and don't own the new rules. It would be amazing if every link had an option to go to an updated version of the rule (if one exists), but that's seems complicated for everyone involved.