Please fix the 5e Compendium, it's awful.

Hi, I'm not sure whether to put this in Suggestions & Ideas, or the section for things that are broken. I am still constantly frustrated by how the 5e compendium works on Roll20. I already buy a physical copy of the books, and then buy a copy on Roll20 so that my players can use the charactermancer, but I also want to try to use compendium as a reference. If the book purchases don't work as a reference, then why the hell am I buying them? For example, let's say I want to search for Grappling... I get 3 entries for Rules: Grappling in the drop-down suggestions. All of them give me the following if I select it... If I ignore the suggestions in the search bar and just press enter on the word "grappling" I see this: Sweet! That's bound to get me to the right place, yeah? Wrong. If I click that entry I go here, an entirely useless page. Wait a second, maybe if I click View All Rules, it will take me to the Combat Section when I can probably CTRL-F "grappling" and then I'm done? Nope. I am now here. A quick scan down to "G" shows no entry for grappling. Huh. Ok, well there is a combat entry under "C".... where does that go?  ARE YOU JOKING? This is my typical experience with trying to use the compendium and it's absolutely ridiculous. I'm often paying more for the Roll20 versions of the books than I am for the hardcopies, and I'm starting to realise that a lot of these books just don't have the content to make me want to buy them if I can't easily find what I'm looking for. Quite often you are presented with multiple options with no real clue as to where a link will take you... e.g. Each of these "Magic Items" options takes you to a completely different place, but how do you know where? You're forced to click and see. Anyway, tldr - Please fix the 5e compendium. Please. Pleaseplease. Or at least acknowledge the problems and maybe agree to look at doing something about it in the future. Ideally, there would be a page which consolidates all classes together with relevant subclasses, all magic items, all races and subraces etc, from all the books that you've purchased, nicely laid out, with a simple link from the front end of the compendium to each page. Thanks, Simon

100% agree - this is probably one of the most-complained about things from the players I have had on Roll20 over the years.  One of the devs recently (in another thread) indicated that you could read the compendium "like a book."  I asked a follow-up question (how to do so) but never received a response. Making the compendiums more user-friendly will pay incredible dividends. -Adam

+1 I am one of those people who would love to go nuts buying digital content, but tend to prefer dead-tree format, because it's guaranteed to work and can't be taken away if the service goes under or our account is banned for any reason. I've only very recently caved and gotten the PHB. I am so far quite disappointed and still find myself looking at my physical copy!

+1 Checking a rule I haven't had to use in a while I generally feel compelled to defer to Google to find people discussing the source book rather than locating the content of the source book itself as there's no guarantee I'll actually find it - grappling is one of the worst though.

I keep a window open to dndbeyond when I play so that I can get quick answers to my questions.

Glad it's not just me being stupid then... It does also seem to me that the longer it goes on and the more content is added, the worse it will be to reorganise.

Yeah, doesn't help that most of the links in the compendium direct either to the wrong section, or to a book that I don't own.  Yeesh.

I am new to Roll20 and recently enrolled in the Pro account. I am also new to RPG's in general and learning DnD 5e. I had this same experience when trying to look up a rule, I thought I was using it wrong. I now see that I am not the only one. This is disappointing. I assumed that every piece of info in the PHB (physical copy) would also be in this digital copy. I guess not. Please correct this asap as it is misleading what exactly we are buying. 

+1. Compendium search results are mind boggling sometimes.

Everything in the printed book is in the online PHB, but the indexing and linking for it may be a bit rough now.

Yes, linking and using the compendium sucks.

+1 First time coming to the suggestions and ideas section specifically looking for a post covering this. Trying to browse all the magic items in all the books I own and every time I click on a "Magic Items" header it takes me to a page for the ghosts of saltmarsh book. Otherwise I am opening a new browser page for each individual magic item to be able to read through them. Please first just fix the links- or remove them if they are irrelevant. Secondary is to make the purchased compendium content more user-friendly (like allowing for a search in a single book instead of all the books at the same time)

Simon S said: For example, let's say I want to search for Grappling... I made it my quest to find the rules on grappling in the PHB on the compendium. After escaping the CR20 broken links I finally found it: Just don't click on any of the links in the grappling section. Even the Grappling header takes you back to the combat page you referenced. It feels like the death room lever puzzle in divinity original sin 2 with the infinite spawning muppets.

Patrick H. said: Simon S said: For example, let's say I want to search for Grappling... I made it my quest to find the rules on grappling in the PHB on the compendium. After escaping the CR20 broken links I finally found it: Just don't click on any of the links in the grappling section. Even the Grappling header takes you back to the combat page you referenced. It feels like the death room lever puzzle in divinity original sin 2 with the infinite spawning muppets. LOL, amazing. If you complete the side quest of successfully navigating the compendium, I'm pretty sure you're in line for an instant 3 level bump and a billion gold pieces. Seriously though, Roll20 crew, please please please please help us. Look what happens when I click the link to the Shadow in the monster search, for example... Here we go.....  F*S, Compendium, I clicked the Shadow in the monster section. How can you not know? Are you trolling me? Here's the list in full.... And what's that at the bottom? The last entry? Yep.

+1 The Compendium interface is absolutely awful. It should not be this hard to use it and it should also be possible to read it in sequence like the hardcover book. It's useless as an in-game reference RN. I have a hard copy of the PHB out with bookmarks and that's what I refer to if I need to check something up.

+1  Not normally one to post, but must agreed on this. The Compendium is awful as a reference document, it's incomprehensible to me how this was released as a live product, and how it is not fixed after such a long time! Yes the integration with the charactermancer is great and all, but the actual 'Compendium' side is incredibly frustrating to use. A large part of my consideration when buying the PHB and XG, was so I can share them as references for my players, who are new to D&D. And with all the broken links and difficulty in navigation, it's not helping to show the game in the best of light. Must say I have some regrets in purchasing them.

+1, i don't understand how paid reference content can be of such low quality with broken links and filtering, this is something that should be really easy to fix and the lack of official responses to the issue is baffling

+1 Agree with most of what these folks are saying.

Angelo said: +1, i don't understand how paid reference content can be of such low quality with broken links and filtering, this is something that should be really easy to fix and the lack of official responses to the issue is baffling +1 That's probably the most frustrating thing here. We have no real official statement on the matter, nobody saying that the issue is being resolved for a future update. Nothing. The books are paid references. The compendium is very clearly a dysfunctional mess. I find the lack of customer support on something that should have been a no brainer encyclopedia just a little frustrating. I just hope when the DMG and SCAG are released, things will be different because attempting to use the DMG for anything with the current architecture of the compendium would be a severely unfortunate experience.

+1 As much as I agree the Compendium should be better, I don't believe it's easy to fix. The tools used to create the content sound like they were pretty rough - this is why a custom compendium still doesn't exist. It sounds like they are improving tools & workflow with each batch of content, so hopefully when they get it to the point where they are happy to release custom compendium content, that will mean it's in a state where it's worthwhile redoing the 5e content.

I'm surprised that this thread hasn't been closed because its "not in the spirit of these forums." 

Oosh said: +1 As much as I agree the Compendium should be better, I don't believe it's easy to fix. The tools used to create the content sound like they were pretty rough - this is why a custom compendium still doesn't exist. It sounds like they are improving tools & workflow with each batch of content, so hopefully when they get it to the point where they are happy to release custom compendium content, that will mean it's in a state where it's worthwhile redoing the 5e content. Fair enough if true - but then why not tell us officially? And let us know when it's being resolved. Lack of comms just leads to frustration, whereas I can wait a long time if I know it's coming.

I have been thinking of buying the Players Handbook on Roll20 for character generation and general info, but after reading this thread, I think I'll go buy it on D&D Beyond instead.......

+1

Marcel said: I have been thinking of buying the Players Handbook on Roll20 for character generation and general info, but after reading this thread, I think I'll go buy it on D&D Beyond instead....... I would say that the Charactermancer aspect is great - it's very easy to knock up a character with it and level them up - the PHB would add to the options available in the Charactermancer. I frequently use the Charactermancer to make NPCs with PC levels because it's that quick. It's just the Compendium side that really needs work.

Marcel said: I have been thinking of buying the Players Handbook on Roll20 for character generation and general info, but after reading this thread, I think I'll go buy it on D&D Beyond instead....... You should. The Beyond compendium is excellent. The Roll20 Compendium is (I'm sorry, devs) hot garbage. As for the Charactermancer, it's OK, but no feat support, after all this time, is pretty pitiful, and there are things that are either a huge pain to do (inventory management) or else not possible (like de-levelling a character). Again, you compare it to the character builder on D&D Beyond and the latter wins hands down IMO. There are many strong and positive aspects of Roll20, but the Compendium isn't one of them, and the Charactermancer is better as an idea than execution, at this point.

Thanks for the feedback, everyone. The Compendium - both in the Virtual Tabletop, as well as the external tool - are being worked on. We enhanced the Compendium Search  not too long ago, and we are not finished yet.

Please fix this.  I'm hoping with Foundry VTT being released, you guys will step up your UX game to get on their level.

I decided to buy the players handbook and Xanathars in Roll20.  I really should have gone with D&D Beyond instead.  Although as mentioned above its great for the Charactermancer, its terrible for searches.   What I am really disappointed in, when searching for Cleric spells, I have to look in the Xanathars section and the Players handbook section rather then having them grouped, which means if I buy another book, there will be more lists to look through. Roll20 are either going to have to drop the price considerably, or put some serious effort into fixing it before I spend more money here.  which is a shame, as I really would prefer to have it all in one place rather then have multiple programs open.

My current workflow includes using external tools to find monster, spell and item lists (that I have paid no money for) because the in game tools are so bad. Additionally, why on earth can I not drag and drop compendium items into a handout, or easily add them as a journal entry to hand out magic items. Having to manually copy links is long and laborious crap that should be solvable by software. Why is there not an easily filterable magic item/monster/equipment/weapon/anything list?

I could reach grappling fine.  Is this still an issue?

aisforanagrams said: I could reach grappling fine.  Is this still an issue? Hello mate, if you mean the grappling thing specifically, it does look like that one example is PARTIALLY resolved, if you select from the suggestions it comes up with as you type "grappling" However, if I type the entire word grappling and then click the pink search button I get: Grappling (in Rules:Combat)  goes straight to the Bad Page. Just as a little test, if I type grapple and click the pink search button I get No luck there either unfortunately, so overall there does still seem to be an issue. it only takes a matter of seconds before I find something else wrong with it as well. The entire thing needs to be build from scratch in the background, thoroughly tested, and then swapped in as the live version once we know it's not a big pile of doo-doo.

I agree.

Massive rip-off. Paid for the PHB years back and it is still a steaming pile of sh...IF only we could refund, they didn't deliver on what I paid for, and still have not many years later. Insult to injury, it constantly links to irrelevant stuff. Click Eldritch Evocation and get a redirect to Kobold Press Deep Magic, wtf?

I had the same issue with the combat rules being completely broken. Part of my reason for justifying the purchase of the PHB was that I could share it with my newbie players so they could freely and easily check rules while in game. The compendium linking structure is all messed up. Particularly trying to find rules for 'grapple' seemed to bring me back to the broken combat page. I had to spend over an hour compiling a shorthand combat rules sheet in a handout for them. Spending that extra time to do the work myself isn't what I paid for. Please fix this and make your product functional. Thanks.

I use Google to figure out where items are in the Compendium but this is clunky.  

Well glad to know it's not just me. I had the same experience as that reported by a lot of the people in this thread after buying the PHB. I was really excited about having a digital version for searching, but it's been so painful I barely use it – and my players certainly don't. These days we just expect more out of our searchable references (blame google). If you want to provide a tool like that (and justify charging for it) the searching needs to be useful. I'm not planning to buy any of the other reference books on Roll20 unless this is improved significantly.

+1 I'm buying the compendium books here instead of print or other digital places to have stuff accessible on my games with a markup, which I understand. But having this content be unaccesible at times (or in many entries) is very frustrating, especially when quickly checking in the middle of a game and the entry does not open anything.

I've decided to cut my losses and move to another platform for 100% of my games now. Good luck to whoever remains, I hope Roll20 eventually pull their finger out and fix it for you, I just don't have the patience to wait any more - and I'm not giving them anymore of my money since I've never had access to a properly working compendium. Cheers, S

Indeed. It's also frustrating that there isn't a central index across all content sources.

Is it fixed yet?

Had anyone official actually responded yet?

15 responses before yours. Paul said: Had anyone official actually responded yet?

Last dev response is from over a year ago, promising changes and fixes. 

Hi, Are there any updates to be had? I no longer run any games on Roll20 myself having moved to a different platform, but I do occasionally have to play on here when someone else runs a game. Since you won't refund any of the non-functioning content I'd like to know when it will be functioning. KR, Simon Kenton said: Thanks for the feedback, everyone. The Compendium - both in the Virtual Tabletop, as well as the external tool - are being worked on. We enhanced the Compendium Search  not too long ago, and we are not finished yet.

To add to this out ability to drag drop onto a players sheet is also terrible. When making a spellcaster you can't simply drag a spell from the compendium and have it added to the sheet you have to MANUALLY type all that stuff out.

Are you using a custom sheet or the ones by Roll20? Only asking because the Roll20 5e D&D sheet, spells can be added by drag and drop. Vouru said: To add to this out ability to drag drop onto a players sheet is also terrible. When making a spellcaster you can't simply drag a spell from the compendium and have it added to the sheet you have to MANUALLY type all that stuff out.

+1 I'll be honest...I often have to look things up on DnDBeyond because it is easier.

+1 I am really enjoying Roll20 and the ability to interface with friends near and far. I see a TON of potential, especially if you begin to incorporate a LOT of the great API scripts people have developed, that have often become crucial 'must-haves' for GMs, but are daunting to employ even as a Pro subscriber with time to watch video after video. (Quick kudos to the Aaron & Nick Olivo)! BUT I also agree that it is frustrating to pay as much or more for the Compendium version of a hard-copy texts and yet feel like it lacks a lot of the flexibility. I assume you are bound by contract negotiations, but if the content providers (Paizo, WotC, Chaosium, etc.) want to compete in the online markets, they need to step up their games a LOT on platforms like Roll20.I spend more of my time in D&D Beyond, D&D WIki, etc. looking for the info I need rather than trying to go through the compendium for a 1-line description of an item that is limited to the mechanics to implement them. I have purchased several of the 5e compendiums, and each time, feel disappointed and have some buyer's remorse for the price. My wife, who plays, and now DMs as well, has commented,  "If we buy the book, we should get a discount for the online content". I have to agree. If the online format does not provide a greater functionality in its unique environment, and I am still having to stack books around me and roll dice on tables in old editions to satisfy core needs, there is still room for great growth.  Years ago, I had copies of TSR's Core Rules and Core Rules 2.0. I ran them on machines that barely crawl compared to today's. Yet, I still find the ability to access the data, ROLL on tables, and even make maps that link world -->Town--> Dungeon was better (though graphically unenviable). I really enjoy Roll20 and see lots of possibilities, but if I am going to spend as much for something tangible, for online content, it would be great if it sings. As it is, in the year or so that I have played and DM'ed, I have too often had to go to my hard copies (or older editions where content was better coordinated) than the current 'spread a class over 12 $30+ tome releases' or having gone ground-hogging through online sites looking for the recommended stats for a dog ... Just today, my wife and a couple players were chatting post-game about looking at other competitors wondering if some of the 'core features' might be there that are missing here. I've got my money, literally, on ya. Don't let us down! Looking forward to Roll20Con 2021.