Several Issues With 2024 Character Sheet

For one, many spells that are part of the 2024 PHB just aren't in the compendium. Can't easily be added in. So when we have to manually add them in, we run into SEVERAL new issues. For one, description area has a character limit that several spells descriptions go past and you can't fit the full spell description. This is vital to new players who should be able to just check the spell and what it does from their character sheet instead of having to look it up. Also, cantrips are missing their increased dice/beams as a part of setting up the spell. Sure there's an area where you can type the description for it, but if you do it manually it won't automatically level at the appropriate levels. You are forced to manually change it at each level, which sure can be done, but it's inconvenient and not great for new players who don't know about or remember those things from lack of experience. Same with leveled spells and casting them at higher spell levels. It doesn't actually work despite putting it in under the advanced tab. From doing a LOT of Googling I have found that apparently there is some formula being used to make this work, but the problem is that if you don't understand programming and the formula then you can't put it in, because it doesn't just work for all spells. The formula I found is for one specific spell and the dice size and number are for that spell. That doesn't help when the dice size is different and the number of dice per higher spell level is different. Also CASTING TIME, oh I don't know how else to say this. THE DROP DOWN MENU DOES NOT WORK AND IS STUPID! Not every spell is a casting time of 1 action/bonus action/reaction. Some spells take a minute/10 minutes/an hour to cast, and you CANNOT manually put that in when necessary. It won't let you and it sucks! A lot of my friends STRONGLY DISLIKE how much this is trying to look and be like D&DBeyond, and not an actual character sheet like in regular 5e (2014). Sure, some of the layout is the same, and some adjust better than others, but it's difficult to navigate. It's also missing custom resource trackers! Used to, somewhere on the right side of the 2014 sheet there were these resource trackers you could set up to track number of rages, wild shapes, sorcerery points, and other things like second wind or even arrows. Just gone. I don't see anywhere on the character sheet for that anymore and my friends and I used those things A LOT. They were extremely useful! Help keep track of charges on a magic item. Help keep track of a special item like the ticket with hole punches in Wild Beyond The Witchlight! You guys got rid of very useful and functional things and replaced them with barely functional, difficult to navigate, drop down menus that make putting CORRECT INFORMATION FOR CERTAIN THINGS IMPOSSIBLE!!!  And the about section has this annoying thing where is CONSTANTLY displays the red circle to delete whatever you have added in the background piece. And I don't want to have to buy all the source books AGAIN just to be able to use them more easily on your website. We use 5e.tools and are just fine as well for books we don't own. But adding in a species or background that is custom is a mess. Same with a subclass that isn't base game. I want to like these new character sheets. I am starting a campaign that uses 2024 rules and compatability and I figured that I needed to use the new sheets for the campaign since it's in the new ruleset but it's a huge headache. I would rather just go to D&DBeyond and use their character sheets and use some other third party system for the maps and stuff because this is ridiculous. I don't understand how this released with so many problems as if it was fully ready? Was there no beta testing or anything? I'm sorry for my tone and typing this in frustration. Just please take this seriously and work on this as quickly as you can. I'm sure with some work and fixing these sheets can be great once I get used to them. But certain things it's not a "getting used to it" problem. I had to type in a spell for a new player and in order to have the right casting time I HAD TO PUT IT IN THE NAME OF THE SPELL!!!!! That shouldn't be that way or a problem at all. 

There is an ongoing thread about the issues being found and worked on concerning the D&D 5E (2024) character sheet which is being actively followed by the Roll2o developers. It's a HUGE thread, but some of what you're saying here may already have been brought up and being worked on.

I probably wouldn't talk about how you are using pirated content from books you don't own. Do you own the 2024 PHB on roll20? If not that's why you don't see the spells in your compendium. There's this company called Wizards of the Coast that makes D&D, and they like to make money on the content they create and so require you to purchase the books to get access to all of the content in those books. They do however have something called the SRD, which is a smaller subset of content that they release for free.  Let's look at some of the things you are having issues with beyond that though. Casting time, you certainly can type whatever you want for casting time. Yes it's a dropdown, but you can also type in the box and it lets you put whatever you want in there.  You can add custom resources to items and features to track resources just fine, build a barbarian with the character builder and you can see examples of how this is done. Other than that, yes to get the full automation capabilities you have to purchase the content. Having the ability to enter a custom spell and specify what to do on high level cast or auto upgrading damage on cantrips would be nice, but doing that once every few levels is not that big of a deal and there's plenty of ways to put reminders in there for your characters to do these things.... just like if you were playing with pen and paper. If you need help doing some of this stuff, you can always ask here on the forums or in the discord instead of just assuming that it's not possible.

I own the source books physically or Digitally through D&Dbeyond, but I don't want to have to buy them all a second time. I'm not pirating. You are being very condescending. I know what Wizards of the Coast is. I know they want money for their content. If we are to compare it to pen and paper like you do later in your message, I wouldn't make them purchase all the sourcebooks when I already own them. I would share mine with them. That's how D&D is. Using a website that consolidates and makes information easier to navigate and find is not pirating.  As for your response to the casting time, I tried multiple times to type in manually what I wanted and it kept not saving and going blank. It lets you type, sure, but it doesn't save or stick because it doesn't fit any of the drop down menu options.  My issues with the spells not auto doing the dice upgrade for leveled spells and cantrips is that it worked perfectly fine in the older 2014 sheets. I don't see why they couldn't just make that one part work the same on these new, supposedly "better" 2024 character sheets. They took away multiple things that were simple and easy.  I didn't just assume things weren't possible. I went through over six hours with one player trying to research, google, check forums and figure out how to do things like make the casting time an hour which again, it would not accept it. Also looked for ways to do the upcasting of spells or a cantrip auto upgrading at certain levels. I found one formula that was designed for a specific spell. Sure, that formula could be edited to work with other spells/cantrips but why make it this complicated? Why not just leave it simple and ask players what it does on upcasting? Have the drop down for dice upgrades or increased number of dice at higher level? These are things we had in the older character sheets that we don't have in the new ones. In all honesty, at this point I don't see a reason to use the newer version of the character sheets unless you are running a 2024 campaign, and even then it's so much easier to edit the 2014 character sheets directly that I should probably just switch my players to that so that we don't have to wrestle with this atrocious design. It's bad. I tried to fight with my friends in defense of it, but I can't defend it. It is just bad. Poor design, seemingly no quality assurance testing, removed features that didn't need removing.

Aikepah said: I probably wouldn't talk about how you are using pirated content from books you don't own.  Not even directed at me and I would say thats comes across very rudely. Theres not even a shred of truth to the statement even if they didn't own any of the books and was simply using material someone they knew had purchased it still falls well within the legal parameter of correct use. Would also say that while most of the stuff is likely possible with the 2024 sheet it is such a glitchy mess still. Which is why there is very large bug thread for it. that it really isn't worth even trying to use.  imahunting13 Honestly, you would be much better simply going back to using the 2014 sheet, as stated theres a huge bug thread that includes pretty much all of your complaints in some form, along with a ton of others.  Perhaps in a few years they will get it working well, though I have my doubts.  Just use D&D beyond buy all the content there, the search features and such work much easier anyhow. Then you can simply copy past stuff from there into the 2014 sheet and use it like you would if it was a piece of paper.  not perfect but at least until they have a better option this is really the best I can suggest. Is sad really, as someone who used to buy all of the stuff on roll20 simply for the drag and drop features, the 2024 sheet was such an utter disaster, and then removing the drag and drop feature from 2024 stuff was nail in the coffin for all 2024 books on roll20.  I say remove because prior to the release of the 2024 sheet the early access stuff allowed drag and drop and they later intentionally removed this ability, however it's presence was proof enough that it was possible.