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D&D Beyond useful for Roll20?

1516912011
Surok
Roll20 Production Team
I play D&D exclusively on Roll20 and I want the best tools available that are easily integrated with Roll20. Does D&D Beyond provide any utiltiy that is not found in the D&D content already offered via Roll20?
I'm also interested on start using Beyond. Following this topic for future reference. 
1516937190

Edited 1516937430
Loren the GM
Pro
Marketplace Creator
There is no direct integration between the two. As to what you might get from D&D Beyond, they have a 5e character building system that Roll20 currently does not have - this could be handy for actually putting together characters before manually transferring them to a Roll20 Character Sheet. There are also a few of the published books that are available there that Roll20 has not yet included if you need reference material. And there is a homebrew item/spell creator that you could use to craft your own items/spells. D&D Beyond specifically say they are not intending to be a virtual tabletop, so that is about the extra utility they might have - obviously Roll20 offers a lot more for the actual gameplay side of things. I personally expect some of the books to still come to Roll20 this year as they work on their compendium and published material integration. So I would guess any added utility will drop significantly over the course of 2018 unless Beyond pulls out something new to stand out.
1516943065
keithcurtis
Forum Champion
Marketplace Creator
API Scripter
They said in a recent developer update (on Youtube) that they plan future collaboration with Roll20. Likely some sort of import/export capability.
1516976478
Pat S.
Forum Champion
Sheet Author
keithcurtis said: They said in a recent developer update (on Youtube) that they plan future collaboration with Roll20. Likely some sort of import/export capability. Who said it? If it comes about then it will probably be for the OGL 5e sheet.
keithcurtis said: They said in a recent developer update (on Youtube) that they plan future collaboration with Roll20. Likely some sort of import/export capability. Would love to see beyond release a roll20 integration somehow... 
1516981977
keithcurtis
Forum Champion
Marketplace Creator
API Scripter
Pat S. said: keithcurtis said: They said in a recent developer update (on Youtube) that they plan future collaboration with Roll20. Likely some sort of import/export capability. Who said it? If it comes about then it will probably be for the OGL 5e sheet. It was  one of their official podcasts , during the Q&A around the 42 minute mark.
I would be highly, highly skeptical of anything that D&D Beyond says is in the works. Why on earth would Roll20 work with them to integrate? Roll20 has their own compendium which they want you to buy the MM, VGtM, etc for. They'd never be on board with letting you spend your money elsewhere and then integrate it into Roll20. They'd get nothing out of that. Also, D&D Beyond is run by Curse, which is a notoriously greedy company that quickly abandons projects once the initial hype is gone. Don't spend your money there. 
1517022834
keithcurtis
Forum Champion
Marketplace Creator
API Scripter
Putting aside opinions of the company, they have two very different products, neither one of which helps the other by sale of digital books. dndBeyond is a knowledge base and character/power/monster builder. It has no VTT. Roll20 is a VTT. It has no real design capabilities, no AI to guide the process and very little in the way of content sharing. Buying the Compendium in Roll20 helps you not a jot in DnD beyond. Buying the Compendium in DnDBeyond helps you only outside of the game in Roll20. It is therefore (slightly) more of an advantage to DnDBeyond to integrate with Roll20. Since their core activities do not compete, it is likely advantageous for each to collaborate. Whether they will is to be seen and dependent upon factors beyond our control or ken.
@Malachi Roll20's Pathfinder sheet supports the ability to import characters from Hero Lab... I know when I first seen D&D Beyond come out I was scratching my head wondering "What is the point?", as I could make 5e characters with Hero Labs and PCGen. If you could easily import your characters over into ROll20 and/or Fantasy Grounds, I could easily understand the niche D&D Beyond fulfills. But as of right now it feels a bit gimmicky for what it is. 
Roll 20's compendium only covers the SRD Content. If they had a partnership where instead of the build in Compendium, we could access D&D Beyond in a Roll20 game, this would be amazing. Their Content is very detailed, and I can buy beyond the SRD Compendium. Currently, there's nothing supports content from the DMG or PHB in Roll20. Super frustrating when you want to use one system and its missing 25% of the information at a base level.
The best utility I have found so far is the spell search and sort function.  Because D&d has so many books out at the moment it is handy to have one place to look for spell descriptions.  Pricy for that feature I know but it works very well.  Plus they support Critical role so they can't be all bad.
As someone who has invested in buying my compendium content on DnDBeyond (lowest price out there near as I can tell). I do enjoy using them for character management and content sharing. Keeping my content separate from my VTT seems advantageous to me the consumer. I can’t keep buying the same content. The appeal of Roll20 to me right now is I don’t feel I have to buy the 5e stuff again just to get the game mechanics to work so I feel free to buy adventures there or on DMGuild and upload what I need here to actually run my sessions/campaigns.
I use roll20 as a virtual tabletop to project maps for my players and for campaign content (monsters already present in the rooms / encounters, dynamic lighting, etc.).  I use D&D Beyond to manager characters, which I print out for my players.  Character generation in D&D Beyond is fantastic, and if you are a player or a DM it really does help streamline character management.  I sooo wish that there would be some sort of integration between roll20 and D&D beyond (I don't mind paying for content on both services). I don't expect it anytime soon or ever, but it would be fantastic. 
Any further information on this alleged update. I havent seen anything over at Beyond on it either.
Technically speaking you could use the API's to import into Roll20 from DnDBeyond right now, a few folks have done it.
1535520453
Andrew C
Marketplace Creator
Technically speaking, Grant Ellis was suggesting he has done just that.