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D&D Beyond character sheets in Roll20 now possible with Beyond20

I've released today a chrome extension that I've worked on for the past week that lets you integrate D&D Beyond and Roll20. You basically can roll any skill check, weapon or spell attack, feature, equipment item, spell cards or random dice formulas from the D&D beyond character sheet and the roll appears in your Roll20 chat! The extension is available on the Chrome Store, there's a couple of screenshot and a link to a 3 minute tour video showing all it does (slightly outdated video though). You can install it from here  and you can download its source code from here if you wish to. I hope you all like it and can help me keep on improving it! Happy rolling!
This is cool.  Way better / easier than the dndbeyond importer API.
Concerns over take-down / breaking EULA etc? Seems very cool from what I see.
Is there a reason one should use DND Beyond character sheet in place of the Roll20 one?
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keithcurtis
Forum Champion
Marketplace Creator
API Scripter
The character generation software is a bit more robust, assuming you have purchased all expansions. It has a rich homebrew source. But I think you would lose far more than you would gain, since no macros or scripts will be able to interact with the characters. It sounds like a (really) cool thought experiment, but unless you run your games entirely on DNDB, and just need a tabletop, I don't see a huge advantage.
@Rebecca W: Thanks! @Evan, replied to you on Reddit. @aisforanagrams, @keithcurtis: It's a matter of preference. It's not so much a "should use" but rather some people prefer it. I've found that their character sheet is much nicer than the one on roll20, especially for new players since it gives a lot of information and as a DM, I've found that my players are often lost in their character sheets in roll20, not finding where to click, or what it's even for, etc.. (in D&D beyond, you click on a skill check, it pops a side panel that tells you exactly what it is about and when it should be used for example). I think the biggest difference is that d&d beyond is made specifically for D&D and is just about the character sheet while roll20 is meant to be generic for any game system while the character sheets are a very small portion of the feature set of the roll20 service, so the amount of time and effort dedicated to making it more user-friendly and targeted to the player's needs differs greatly. As for macros and stuff, yes, roll20 would be far superior on that aspect, but it's mostly for advanced users, with my players, every few weeks I have to remind them that the command to roll a dice is "/roll" then remind them they needed to put a "/" before the "roll", etc.. so advanced macros are not something useful to them.
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keithcurtis
Forum Champion
Marketplace Creator
API Scripter
I feel your pain. I would jaw drop if my players wrote a macro!
Btw, keith, what macros and scripts do you use in roll20? Right now, the extension on the roll20 side just receives what the person clicked on in the dndbeyond tab, and i make it use the character sheet template to roll/display the info. Nothing prevents me from instead making it call a macro or an API script then you'd get full control over what the macro does in that case. I just don't personally see a need for it,but that's why i released it, to get feedback and see what other features people might want.  By the way, I realized others might be wondering the same thing as Evan about frar of it taken down, so the TLDR of the answer i gave him on twitter is that it doesn't break the EULA in any way and actually promotes roll20 for dndbeyond users, so i don't see any harm in it. It's just a fancy macro basically. 
1557275120
keithcurtis
Forum Champion
Marketplace Creator
API Scripter
That's a big question with a looong answer. :) Off the top of my head? 1) calling the attributes of tokens on the board, such as @{target|AC} 2) controlling utility tokens. I don't know how robust the DNDBeyond solution would be toward Ability macros and token abilities. I suspect you could do a lot of stuff, but it would be a different paradigm, causing you to shift between windows to activate some actions? I don't know, I haven't tested. But I'm keen to give it a try. 3) Integration with rollable table tokens, card decks, the jukebox, and more. While it may be possible to do this sort of thing externally, it sounds like a layer of abstraction. 4) Extremely complex macros that do things like provide directories to NPC or write to character sheets. 5) Not an action I perform, but a consideration to take: It adds a layer of abstraction that might make it difficult to get service or forum assistance. Please don't feel that I am criticizing. Far from it. I think this looks really cool, and it may have powerful applications I haven't considered, due to my relative ignorance of D&D Beyond. Some of my issues wouldn't even be issues (like writing to a character sheet). I don't see any EULA problems off the top of my head (though I am not officially part of Roll20.net in any way, so take that for what it's worth. It might be a problem that you can easily use purchased data from DnDB and bypass the Roll20 Marketplace, IANAL). This project also gives me hope that something I used to do when Chrome was my primary browser might still be possible (issuing commands to chat through an external process, one that I could bind to hotkeys--can do with js bookmarklets in Chrome, but not in Firefox). Like I said, I want to give this a spin and see if there's anything I can use here.
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Thanks for the detailed response! And it's not that long of an answer, I'm used to being way more verbose than that :p 1) Yeah, I have a "Status report" macro in the bar which prints everyone's AC/HP/PP and I was thinking of having the extension fetch and show all that information from the dndbeyond character sheet and display it right in the "Campaign" page on dndbeyond. That however would only work if all of my players decide to switch over to D&D Beyond and for now, only 2 (out of 7) have tried it as far as I know, and I just told the others about D&D Beyond yesterday. 2) and 3) and 4) D&D Beyond (with Beyond20) is really meant to only replace the character sheet for the players so when you tell them "roll stealth" they can do it from their D&D Beyond character sheet. The equipment, spell management and all of that would just make it much easier for them to manage their character and they can look at an item in inventory and click the button to print out its detail as they say "I will use this". For more specific game management, complex macros, tokens and jukebox and all that, you would still be doing all of that in roll20. Actually as a DM, I wouldn't be using this extension myself because I don't roll for characters (I might actually add support for monster stats and use it to roll for enemies in an encounter but I don't see the point, the NPC sheet in roll20 is adequate and I wouldn't need to be looking at equipment or special feats as much, though it might be easier to see spell descriptions if I play a spellcaster enemy.. either way, Beyond20 doesn't support rolling from monster stat pages yet). As for changing windows, I don't know how you manage your game but in my case, I already open my notes as separate windows and everyone's character sheets and I end up with 12 chrome windows in my taskbar then I split screen (ultrawide screen where the 40% on the right is the notes/character sheets/etc.. and the 60% of the left is the VTT). Actually being able to have one window for all the character sheets (each on their own tabs) sounds better, then I could just switch to it and select the tab directly instead of having to look for the right character in the middle of 12 windows in the taskbar. 5) I'm providing support! :p But yes, I see what you mean. If d&d beyond change their layout, even a little, it might break the extension and while I plan on maintaining it, you can never know. You should still be able to get support from roll20 for things that don't work out if the issue is from roll20 since you can just press the up arrow to see the command/macro that Beyond20 sent to roll20 (just like you can after you click on a roll from a roll20 character sheet itself). I would say the biggest issue I see now with Beyond20 from my point of view is that we depend on information being accurate from D&D Beyond. For example, in my game, my Life Domain cleric has all her spells show how much healing + how much extra healing they get from Disciple of Life. With D&D Beyond, the Disciple of Life is a Class Feature, and the extra healing from it doesn't show it in the spell descriptions in the sidebar. Casting Toll the dead asks if the target is at full HP or not to decide if it should deal 1d8 or 1d12 damage, in D&D Beyond it just shows it as "1d8" (I told my player that in that case, they can just click on the '1d12' formula in the description and it will roll it, but still, would be nice to have it integrated). If I click on a dagger from the Action panel, it doesn't give me the "To Hit" value, so I have the extension find it from the main page, but if you switch to the Equipment panel, that information isn't there, so your dagger attack only prints damage, no attack roll. If you cast Elemental Bane, the extension picks up all the damages so it will print 10d6 (or however much it was) for acid, cold, fire, thunder, necrotic, etc.. where the spell actually says "choose one damage type", etc...  I will need, in the future to basically go through the entire list of spells and do a case by case check and adapt the code to send out the right information, might need to start having macros/popups in the d&d beyond side (like for Toll the Dead, to check if target sustained damage) but those are basically rare/extreme cases in my opinion and not a big issue for players (click on the dice formula in description instead of clicking on "Cast on roll20" button, ignore all the extra damage and use the first 10d6 rolled and choose the damage type verbally to your DM, etc..), either way, it's still easier than the person already using D&D Beyond and rolling their dice manually. I know you aren't criticizing, I hadn't seen it that way at all, but thanks for saying it nonetheless :) Beyond20 from a DM perspective or an advanced usage perspective isn't going to be that useful to you to be honest, I wrote it mostly for my players who are too often lost in their character sheets and keep forgetting what needs to be done when leveling up, etc... If it's easier for them to manage their character, it's going to be easier for me to DM. As for the EULA, I don't see the problem either, sure I can buy material on D&D Beyond and use it on roll20 without paying twice, but I could also have the PHB hardcover and besides, I buy modules on roll20 because all of the maps/tokens/etc.. are all setup for me, that's what I pay for, and D&D Beyond doesn't have that.
sure I can buy material on D&D Beyond and use it on roll20 without paying twice, but I could also have the PHB hardcover I think the analogy here is like bringing outside food to a bar that has a kitchen.  Some place might allow it, but others will frown upon that.  Especially with charactermancer integrating all the core rule books and supplements, you could reasonably argue that DND Beyond's character creator is in direct competition with Roll20.  So, if it were me, I would maybe communicate with Roll20 folks directly to make sure what you're doing is fine with them.
aisforanagrams said: I think the analogy here is like bringing outside food to a bar that has a kitchen.  Some place might allow it, but others will frown upon that.   I'm not sure it's that good of an analogy, but with the same analogy in mind, I'd say that the "Bringing outside food" is when you add your own maps and information to your campaign/character instead of buying a pre-made module or the PHB. Roll20 already allows it and I haven't seen roll20 frown on anyone who bought their module elsewhere and uploads the map images and creates their campaign from scratch (as long as you own the content and aren't violating anyone's copyright of course) so they already allow "bringing outside food". When you buy a module on roll20, you don't buy the maps or the module text, so much as you buy the time and effort it would take you to create all of that into roll20's interface. I did it all myself for Lost Mine of Phandelver as I had bought the physical copy of the starter set, but I bought Curse of Strahd on roll20 even though I have a physical copy, because I didn't want to do all the work. That's what I paid for. That being said, I think that what Beyond20 is with the same analogy is someone entering a restaurant with their own bottle of water. Sure, the restaurant could sell you mineral water if that's what you wanted, but they wouldn't frown or prevent you from having your bottle of water with you as long as you buy your food in the restaurant. I think that's the better analogy here for the charactermancer and using d&d beyond. So for a place that already allows you to bring outside food, I don't think bringing your bottle of water is much of a problem. I don't think the charactermancer is in competition with D&D Beyond, because while I have access to the charactermancer and the PHB on roll20, I don't use it because it's really not working that good, and even if it did, the issue isn't so much in "creating the character" because anyone can do that in D&D Beyond then use the already existing importer extension to import their D&D Beyond character sheet into Roll20. It's really about using the character sheet in game, and for that, Roll20 already has support for different character sheet templates because they know people like to have choices and they may not all like the same layout of character sheet. D&D Beyond could simply be considered yet another character sheet template, just an external one. There isn't anything in the EULA that would be against what Beyond20 does and even if the roll20 team ended up saying that they do not authorize the use of such an extension on their website (which I very much doubt), all it would do is that it would become a D&D Beyond only extension that would print out the rolls within the d&d beyond page, then the user would just copy/paste the roll formula into their chat on the roll20 page (which is actually all the extension does on the roll20 side of things, it gets a dice formula and writes it in the text chat and simulates the user clicking the 'send' button). The only thing such a restriction would do, is to annoy players who want to use both services. There are already many players from what I've seen who use both D&D Beyond and roll20 together, D&D Beyond is meant for people playing around a table, it doesn't have a way to roll dice, so you usually see the character sheet and roll real dice on your own. For those using both services, if they aren't rolling real dice, they simply use the dice roller in roll20 to roll their d20s/d8s/etc.. and add the modifiers manually from the information in their D&D Beyond character sheet, or maybe they set up macros for themselves to help them do that more easily. Besides, so far, all I got in terms of comments/feedback is either from people using D&D Beyond and happy they can now use roll20 too (new roll20 customers) or people who are already using roll20 but who use D&D Beyond for their character sheets and do their rolls manually because they prefer that to using the roll20 character sheet (no change in customers for anyone) or they are people using roll20 who are really happy to be able to use something else for the character sheet (new dndbeyond customers). I don't see anyone saying "thanks to this, now I can stop using roll20 or buying modules from them"...  If roll20 was against customization options for their players and giving them that much freedom, they wouldn't have given us the ability to use macros and API scripts in roll20, or the ability to upload our own maps and tokens or use external music services for the jukebox, etc...  Sorry for the long response, but that's why I had given a TLDR in my previous comment, but it seems you wanted the longer answer :)
Hey mate,  I absolutely love this tool, thanks for your efforts. Just one thing I can't seem to work out how it's happening. When rolling damage from D&D Beyond into Roll20 for some reason it's always rolling with advantage (or disadvantage as happened when we were playing the other night). Rolling with advantage is turned off in the extension and also off in Roll20 and it's only rolling one die for attack rolls or skill checks but is rolling twice for damage which is a bit weird and mildly annoying when you are using a longsword so it rolls 4 dice for damage each time :D. I'm not sure if it's a setting that maybe I'm overlooking but any advice is appreciated. Thanks
@absintheminded: If you have the 3D dice enabled, that might be why, the template requires me to provide the dice formula in case of a critical hit, so I have to set the dice for critical hit which is probably why it gets rolled. I just enabled 3D dice on my game and tested with the Roll20 character sheet, it does the same thing if you have it auto-roll damage. I'll eventually add the option to not auto-roll damage, and that should fix it for you as it will only roll the appropriate dice after you click it. I've filed an issue to remember to do that.&nbsp; <a href="https://github.com/kakaroto/Beyond20/issues/11" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/kakaroto/Beyond20/issues/11</a> As an FYI: you use the D&amp;D Beyond character sheet, so the settings in the Roll20 character sheet are irrelevant and unused.
Ah, thanks for the tip. We'll try without the 3D dice and see. Yeah, I've just been using the D&amp;D Beyond character sheet with your tool and it's been working well, actually our whole group's using it and love it.
@KaKaRoTo - just tested with the not rolling auto damage and it's working like a charm, thanks mate for an awesome tool!
Cool, you're welcome :)
@KaKaRoTo Just stumbled across this. Nice job, this is amazing. I plan on using this a bunch if I find anything I'll be sure post on the GitHub about it but it looks like you thought through most everything I could think of. The number of options you put into the extension is above and beyond what I would have expected at first glance. Also, I appreciate that you have it open sourced. As a hobby coder, I always enjoy looking through the code of cool app like yours. I don't know python so well but still cool.&nbsp;
Thanks! I'm getting a bit overwhelmed with the options and I want to cut down on them, but without losing functionality. A bit hard to make everyone happy without cluttering the interface :) I'm glad to see another coder around, maybe you'll send me pull requests with new features and fixes :) Python is pretty easy to learn, and is certainly much better than javascript (I hate JS if you haven't noticed :p)
What a FANTASTIC tool. Thank you!