Zero rolls when casting a spell

[anaximander23]

I attempted to cast a spell, and got damage rolls of zero. My best guesses on why are:

• the spell was green-flame blade and it doesn't know what to do about the weapon damage
• the spell was learned via the Magic Initiate feat choosing a class I don't have levels in, and it's using a value of zero levels to decide how many dice to roll.

[anaximander23]

Actually, this may be a bug with Beyond; it looks like the damage doesn't actually show up on their page either:

[kakaroto]

Thanks for reporting this! The reason it's showing 0 is because it can't determine the actual damages. You see there are two "Fire Damage" lines but they show "[object Object]" instead of actual values.

It works for me here :

So the question is why it doesn't work for you... Can you reliably reproduce this issue ? It should show you the roll results in D&D Beyond, do you see the same "[object Object]" issue in D&D Beyond or is it only in Discord?
Is it possible to share the sheet for which the problem happens so I could try and reproduce the bug on my side ?

[kakaroto]

Actually, this may be a bug with Beyond; it looks like the damage doesn't actually show up on their page either:

ah that's interesting. Beyond20 shouldn't show that "[object Object]" value though, but yes, if the damage isn't in D&D Beyond, then there's nothing Beyond20 can do.

[anaximander23]

I've reported a bug on the Beyond forums; I'll check again if/when they fix it and let you know the results.

[kakaroto]

make sure you don't have any customization on the spell or that it's a homebrewed spell... it's weird that it would be fine here but not on your side.
Do let me know what the D&D Beyond folks say.

[anaximander23]

So, this happened because the character in question had a +0 spellcasting modifier for this spell (I hadn't finished assigning ability scores so they were all 10s, but in theory there are valid ways this could happen). Apparently, D&D Beyond has a check to just leave it blank when a value is zero, to avoid having "+0" on everything, which means in this case it displays the little flame symbol for fire damage, but nothing else. I don't know if Beyond are going to change it because they don't seem to consider it a bug, which means that Beyond20 may have to handle it.

[kakaroto]

That doesn't make any sense, it's not about having a +0.. yes, D&D Beyond doesn't show a +0, but in your case, it's not showing the fixed 3d8 value either, which is clearly a bug.
If they thought you were complaining about the damage not being "3d8 +mod", then yeah, they'd be right, it doesn't make sense for it to show "3d8 +0" so it just shows "3d8", in your case, it's showing completely empty. I think you need to point that out specifically.
Send a screenshot to be sure, and show them what it looks like on mine as well :

[kakaroto]

Note, I just tried it with Magic Initiate Feat like you did, but I'm not seeing the same error on my side :

[anaximander23]

What level character is that on? For a 1st-level character with +0 intelligence, there's no damage rolls, just the int mod, which is when the issue becomes apparent.

[kakaroto]

Ha! It's the first level that did it. I had used a lvl 15 character. Now I created a lvl 1 character of human variant so I can give them the magic initiate and I'm getting the same inexistent damage in D&D Beyond.
I've reread the spell description and it does say that it only adds the modifier to the second target, but there is no dice roll on either ones. I thought it was a 1d8 + modifier as the base. My bad.

So then I agree, there is no bug in D&D Beyond at this time, and the bug that was in Beyond20's discord bot has been fixed, so it's all good now.

Thanks for the detailed reports and sorry for being so slow to grasp this issue!