Wizards of the Coast’s digital Dungeons and Dragons platform DnD Beyond is deleting the 5e versions of spells and magic items, as part of the process of updating the site to contain new, DnD 2024 content. These changes are set to begin when the Player’s Handbook goes into early access on September 3. Some fans are disappointed. Since the 5.5e or 2024 rules are marketed as fully compatible with old content, many believed that everything would stay up on the platform.
Indeed, according to the recent DnD Beyond changelong, the vast majority of the existing material, ranging from the 2014 DnD books to old versions of monsters and DnD classes, will be preserved on the site.
“You’ll continue to be able to create characters in the Character Builder using the classes, subclasses, species, backgrounds, and feats found in the 2014 Player’s Handbook” and “all the monsters found in the 2014 Monster Manual will also still be available for use in the toolset,” explains the changelog. Homebrew content using 5e rules will also not be affected – though tooltips will now reflect the updated 2024 DnD rules.
So it’s only D&D spells and 5e Magic Items that are going bye-bye. If you want to preserve these old rules on the DnD Beyond website, you’ll need to create your own homebrew versions of this content and then copy them across. You might want to consult our guide to the biggest spell changes in DnD 2024 to see which versions of these spells you prefer.
It’s a bummer for anyone currently playing a 5e DnD campaign through Beyond that didn’t intend to switch, as it seems they’ll suddenly find their character sheets have the new spells on them.
While the changes kick off on September 3, they won’t all happen in one go. DnD Beyond will continue to roll out updates as the new books arrive, right through until the Monster Manual comes out in 2025.
In terms of what’s going to be lost, since the Player’s Handbook has new spells, we’d assume the spell changes will go through immediately. However, since magic items are the purview of the Dungeon Master’s Guide, the old ones will stick around for a few more months. According to the DnD release schedule, the 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide is due out on November 12, 2024.
On social media, we’ve seen a fairly mixed reception to this announcement. Many are relieved it’s been confirmed they won’t lose access to their copies of the old 2014 books, and can still create characters using these rules. Others are dismayed that at least some elements of the 2024 rules are going to be hard to avoid.
For more Dungeons and Dragons content, check out our guide to all the DnD races/species, and our DnD 2024 Player’s Handbook review.
Source: Wargamer
