Dungeon Masters and players rejoice! Your Dungeons & Dragons games are going to be a bit easier to prepare for with D&D Beyond, the official set of digital tools for the game.
Full disclosure: I was a Beta Tester for D&D Beyond. I was running the latter part of Rise of Tiamat when I came across the opportunity. I signed up immediately! From the beginning, it seemed like it would reduce the amount of prep time I needed for games, so I dived right in. After a few tweaks and updates, the final version is now ready for use. I must admit, the final site looks much better than the first time I saw it.
Now, am I going to get rid of my books? Absolutely not. But, I will be using this, especially for quick reference, NPC creation and to look up spells. Seriously, looking up spells and their effects is the bane of being a DM in my experience. For that alone, it’s worth the price of admission, which isn’t much.
Per their official FAQ, a subscription isn’t required to use the site, but there are perks to subscribing in either the Hero Tier or the Master Tier. The former is $2.99 per month and removes ads, lets players create as many characters as they want and allows players to use their own homebrew content with the toolset. The latter is for DMs and large groups and offers so much more at $5.99 per month. So, it’s nice to not be required to buy a sub, though it looks like their are some excellent benefits in doing so.
I’ll certainly be using Beyond when I run Tomb of Annihilation and I hear there’s an app in the works as well. Hopefully, the dice will roll in our group’s favor…
To learn more about D&D Beyond or to sign up, head over to their site.
To find the answers to any questions you may have about the service, check out their helpdesk website.
