searching on D&D Beyond
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- Опубликовано: 5 сен 2024
- D&D Beyond is amazing. It's 100% my favorite online tool for D&D, but it could be a little bit "nicer" in one way... ⏬ More below! ⏬
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This old episode popped up in my feed and wondered if you saw Demiplane’s announcement that they are doing a 5e-Nexus along with their PF2-Nexus. Maybe you could convince them to do a DCC-Nexus too.
This is so true. Their search-engine is terrible, especially as the stressed GM in the middle of combat.
EXACTLY!
Yeah it's just chaos, especally if you don't know how to spell half of the spells
@@flakey-finn I feel that as someone who's first language is not english
@@SirPanfred yup mine first is slavic so I had to learn speaking english twice as long than ppl who speak germanic language and english spelling is just shit.
That when you either improvise, or learn that theres three basic ranges (30ft for "good" stuff, 60ft for stuff with "extra effects", and 120ft for straight snipes. Spells with 90ft (or any other range) are more often than not effect spells)
Or, alternatively, you could write it on the sheet beforehand.
Not having a "show owned books only" is worst. Also in character creation it would be nice to have a way to lvl down without losing the chosen abilities or stuff. Like a way to create lvl 20 characters but start the campaign at lvl 1 and when lvling up you just get the stuff you already choose.
EXACTLY i hate having memorize or write down everything that i know i want to do for a characyer like five levels down the line, not knowing god how long its gonna take to get there…
for that i just have a second character that's a copy but a level higher
@@beardalaxy yup! I have my currently character and a max level version to remember what I want to do as well.
Hahaha I had the exact same experience when looking for firebolt ehm fire bolt! guess I'm not the only one and that makes it okay.
Exact same thing happened to me the other day lol
The mid-battle panic-search is real 😂 "sorry guys, hold on..."
Worse when your players say, "you didnt have this ready?"
Rules lawyer in the party: "I know search fu!"
Dungeon Master: "Show me."
I’ve got the top tier subscription for them and I still find myself using open source because it’s faster/easier.
Yep, faster to look in Spell Book Burned on my phone rather than DDB.
Not being able to see or search for page numbers is something I find incredibly annoying about dndbeyond.
Not even when you bought the books?
@@zioqqr4262 yes, they have their own reader of sorts, I don't really like it but it has it's uses.
@@zioqqr4262 they do not give page numbers from what I've seen. just section headers when you click on one of the source books.
DnDBeyond is great for a DM who wants to enable content sharing with one or more campaigns. DnD Beyond is great for character creation as well. But it is not user friendly in many respects. I have multople campaigns set up with diverse groups of noivice players (as part of an elective course on RPGs that I teach at the high school level) and I have to do training sessions on how to best utilize DnD Beyond. Simply put, DnD Beyond has not been streamlined so as to enable it to be used intuitively by the widest range of ptotential users.
I don't use it all that much, but when i do, i still don't know how to properly track temporary hit points on it. It's just so many clicks/taps around the character sheet that i don't bother and rather track those manually on paper
Use 5e tools instead. My table only had new players, they got it and use it on their phones since the first session easily
High School RPG course? I teach a High School Gaming Class, where I do a unit on TTRPGS, what kind of things do you get to focus on in a whole class?
It kind of assumes you know what you're doing or that you'll take the time to learn how to use it, which isn't the best but it's not a big deal. I just have used it so much that I know how to navigate all the various features very efficiently. I still think it's better than any of the third party options, it just requires a little effort on the user end to make full use of it.
It's always a shame when official websites such as D&DB end up being so tedious to use especially when other (more questionable) websites are so much better to use.
it still is "only" a third party licensed website, but I still agree with your general point :D
@@Tersidian not anymore
@@Zoinkin89 yeah I know that Hasbro did buy them now, but at the time of the above comment that wasn't official yet :D
@@Tersidian thats why I said anymore lol
I had the exact same problem looking for ‘Fire Bolt’. I ended up pulling out the PHB. DndBeyond is great but so aggravating.
The fact that the STILL doesn’t let you search within a SINGLE book is so frustrating. (As opposed to the “search everything” and a few limiting options.)
If I’m running Rise of Tiamat and I want to see every time Tiamat comes up in just that book, good luck. It brings up SO MANY unrelated entries.
When you did the first search I knew why it didn't work. I'm not smart just painfully experienced in this feeling (despite knowing how to avoid it).
Thanks for the chuckles. I often find your material just naturally comedic so it's cool to see the performance check on this. I'd say you rolled 20 for my tastes.
I just use 5e tools for searching stuff cuz I can actually find the damn thing when I look for it, and it doesn't give me a bunch of random results like DDB does.
And if you look up a rule from the Basic Rules, but it is also explained through a book you don't have (for example the Rick and Morty one) it can also be confusing. Or when I try to search something a little more broad, like the tables for simple and martial weapons. Don't know how to get there through the search engine. It really needs polishing. A lot of polishing.
Yeah, they really need to tweak the algorithm so it prioritizes _books you actually have access to_.
I am paperless- and dyslexic- i know this all too well- best video ever!
I realised this a long time ago and now treat the search function as a child. I wanted to look up “Hold Person” quickly but it was adamant no such spell existed. The only way I could get it up was simply searching “Hold” then scrolling though the various options. Now whenever I need to search something, such as “Fireball”, I will just search “Fire” and resign myself to doing the rest of the legwork. 😐
This may be the most important video on RUclips!
Love the video man!
As a DM, this, exactly.
As a software engineer, searchbars are harrrd
Yes Bob! More skits please
I tend to just keep everyone's character sheets open in separate tabs and click on their spells to check them if needed. As they cast the spell too from their character sheet, Beyond20 automatically sends the spell text to the chat log in Foundry. I would enjoy a good DM screen in the campaign view to avoid dancing through tabs, but really it's already made everything so convenient and easy to run, I hate to complain.
In their dev updates, D&D Beyond team has mentioned they need to really improve the searching capabilities. But that was a long time ago...
This exactly happened to me yesterday hahaha ! Except it was on roll20. Always thought fire bolt was one word
something that makes me chuckle is that it will recommend specific links to you in the search bar but if you click them it doesn't take you straight there, it instead sends you to the same search you'd get if you just typed it and hit enter.
Facts and Truth. Wish there was a forum where you could list the search words you want them to use.
LOL! Have you seen the DM Lair's video: I walked 24 miles to see if D&D travel is REALISTIC | Barb World Builder?
Just saw it yesterday! Pretty cool that my walk has a parody now :P
Oh my goodness I went though this exact situation!
That’s why I prefer Roll 20 or the book.
Literally immediately after I had the same issue on RUclips
Agreed! This happens to me all the time!
Not to me mention most of the search results always being for the few books I don't own. Even when I'm looking for basic rules.
I felt this video in my soul
I was skeptical of a comedy sketch at first but this was gold!
Took a page out of Mercer's playbook for this one... Spellbook app on my phone. Preloaded all my PCs' spells beforehand.
This hurt me deeply to watch. I have felt this pain every friday night for 2 years. woof.
After spending an additional $200+ for the digital books, and then realizing that I would have to slog to find things like an adventurer's pack, or (as shown here) the Fire Bolt spell ... Well, now I feel like I wasted said $200...
After using 5etools, I saw no reason to get additional books except to flex and to serve as decorations. Nothing beats a good search engine
@@FlameHidden True dat. Sometimes though, since I tend to DM at friend's houses, their wifi is not so good to outright nonexistent, so having the books on hand is nice.
Lollll amazing thank you !!!
That look at the camera XD
This is the first time I have ever clicked the "Like" button on a RUclips video.
I feel your pain. The searches there are MUCH better than they used to be, but still problematic at times.
lmfao i straight up tried searching while watching this and decided,…hmmm maybe a space, and we both did it at the same time. i know this is stupid but it made me laugh
Nice fun video
For me it's the lack of exclusion filters. The only way to exclude monster types is to individually click each type except one, reloading the page on each click. I've taken to editing the url directly.
Yeah.
Yesterday I playing a Barbarian for the first time, in the guest round of a 1-shot level 20 arena tournament. Couldn't remember how much extra damage my weapon attacks do with Rage bonus, so I looked in my Features & Traits, found the Rage section, and could have sworn there is no extra damage for Rage. It certainly doesn't mention it there. All it said was the mechanics of how many rages you get and which Ability rolls you get advantage on. Had to crack open my PHB to find out.
It's listed under Rage on the Features & Traits page, for those that don't know.
lol it's like you read my mind. This was literally me yesterday 😂 😭
I really hope dnd beyond sees this
And they would say it's his fault for trying to search for a two word spell by shoving it together as one word.
Face it. the Engine works fine. It's the millennials that can't figure anything out.
Seriously! For being THE house hold name for DnD research, the search engine is so inflexible and unaccommodating
Ouch. Too real.
Trying to narrate as a DM in-game and find stuff in real time is super stress.
Another similar experience:
I have a hard copy of the Wildemount book and realized, in a panic in session, that since I didn’t have the digital copy, I couldn’t use the combat encounter tool to add the enemy specs from that book.
I rant about D&D Beyond search functionality in nearly every live stream. They should talk to Google and get a quick plug-in or something.
Literally laughing out loud! Thanks Bob.
Yep it is and will always be my greatest complaint about the D&D Beyond search engine. Considering how some people spell in Discord and Comments, I don't know how they find anything.
My second pet peeve is with the D&D Beyond mobile app. When you are on a character sheet and open the spell list (for example) then hit the back button, it doesn't close the spell list, it takes you all the way back to the list of all your character sheets.
It wouldn't really make sense. What screen should the default be then?
This is still completely true 2+ years later
There are so many things that could be improved in the search engine. Unfortunately they are swamped trying to get the new content into the site, as they have to program every single thing.
Just the search monsters alone could benefit from a search for multiattack, search for specific abilities, like surprise attack, from the bugbear, or nimble escape. To be fair, few other more questionably legal sites do this. However, it would come in handy.
I remember a D&D Beyond Dev update where they talked about the search engine. I know they at least had it on their wish list, but not sure when that is on their road map.
Also wish I could search in their source books... Only loads in chapters though
You deserve way more subs
This is why I use dnd 5e wikidot. It actually accounts for the latest updates and has all the info easily ready. I also don't have to fork over my kidney in order to play.
So. True.
This why I do my searches I google
I feel your pain brother. Holy hell.
Hmmm could use some fuzzy searching maybe a sprinkle of elasticsearch....
D&D beyond sure does sound like Kyle from Door Monster
I feel this deep in my heart 😅
My players always want to use dnd beyond for convenience and then spend three times as long just trying to get it to work
When the DC is 10 and you roll a 9
But your DM should’nt have even called for the roll in the first place because there’s no chance of failure
I use DDB for nearly everything, but the most disappointing occurrence was when one of my players was searching for something totally unrelated and got a massive spoiler (in the first couple hits) for our Curse of Strahd campaign about one of the characters. He was so bummed 😢💔
If DDB sees this, can you please remove major NPC secrets (or just any massive campaign spoiler) from the first couple lines of their descriptions in your search results? Ty!
So true, the search tab is actually terrible.
Agreed. The search engine is the worst I’ve encountered online. For a tool that is advertised as THE place for reference, it is terrible for searching for specific topics.
Also how to buy specific spells/races you have to search for them inside the book they appear in
I don't use search everything often.
So true. Their forum search results are even worse; you can spell a word correctly and it still won't show up in your search results on the forums.
But he did not spell it correctly.
@@Briansgate Yes... that was my point.
@@Briansgate a good search engine allows for bad spelling.
I feel like books should have a qr code in them letting you access to the app books and all on acounts or something.
Plus all the broken thing in there is just huge deterent for me.
2 things.
1. They aren't WotC, so wouldn't make any money from that kind of business plan (Essentials Kit was presumably a loss leader).
2. The books would need to be sold sealed to avoid people just scanning the codes in-store
Edit: it might be possible to do something with NFC tags, where you have to scan the tag each time you want to access the online copy (a bit like plugging in a security dongle) but I don't know how easy it is to duplicate NFC tags, so that may not be ideal either. Also, while many of us may have NFC readers built into our phones, how many of us have them usable with our laptop, PC etc.?
This literally happened to me with fire_bolt three days ago while making a character, I couldn’t believe it didn’t come up without the space 😅
because it is literally two words. Not one.
it was the space for me
Fire Bolt. It's 2 words not one!!!
and yet, so many people can't get their head around that.
Another major problem with search is the fact that, if the search term appears multiple times in the same source, it will return that source once for every time that source appears. So you end up with the same page appearing 4 or 5 times in the search results
What a call out. True tho
The call out is that he misspelled the spell name.
To be fair, good search is hard (I'm a developer, so I know the pain). But like, just making all these spells with a space in the name have a tag or something that includes the name without a space really just makes sense.
I'm with you!
Your best video!
Well, it’s not all perfect…. But it does the job heheh
Get the spell cards from gale force 9 lol.
This literally happened to me!
Great skit and it didn't go on too long, which I see a ton of. But can you do a voice to distinguish D&D Beyond?
Hilarious!
There's no such thing as firebolt... How should I know you meant fire bolt?
Huh, if only there was an online suite of tools for 5th edition content that hosted all the content you needed and was also incredibly easy to use.
Let's not forget open source, publically available and mirrored about 100 times over. ;)
All they would have to do is lookup the most popular search terms with no result and start fixing this.
Google gives you what you are looking for every time from my experience. Hell, you could opt out of ever buying a single book and just google probably everything official from Wizards. 3rd party stuff is a bit of a different story though.
search result guesser algorithms are hard.
All seriousness though, for a paid platform (for the products at least) it should be better.
For the First Time I can say.... first 🥇
I use the wikidot
They may have home grown search or they need to tune their solar
Is there a way to search by newest when looking through user made content? It always comes up as alphabetical for me.
Sigh, yeah--the lack of fuzzy search really irks me. I hope it's something that gets fixed, soon, as it make searching on the fly a huge pain!
They probably have more than enough money to hire someone to upgrade their search engine. So... why haven't they?
They have many other things to do on their plate, such as keeping up with all the content WotC adds, fixing bugs, adding features the userbase wants (such as their most recent update, containers) etc.
"Just throw money at it" isn't exactly possible.
They need a smarter search system.
And don't get me started on how the first result for something that appears in the DMG and PHB is a Rick and Morty garbage supplement with the same rule so when you click on it you get told NOPE sorry you don't get to know the encumbrance rules by clicking THIS link, go back and click another.
I hate it when I'm searching for a monster and shows a million different things from content that I don't even have instead of the thing I searched for!
I changed the name in Foundry VTT to “firebolt” just so I’d avoid this issue.
Even DnD Beyond is a combative DM
It’s unironically easier to just google search a term and then click the relevant D&D Beyond link lol
I never use D&D Beyond for any reason.