The Actual Table of Contents for Xanathar's Guide to Everything

Parmandur · Oct 22, 2017

MechaPilot said:
I'm one of the posters who's bemoaned the lack of additional options, and this book looks like it isn't worth $50. There's no irony involved there. Every $50 book so far has been about 300+ pages. To be expected to pay the same price for a book roughly 33% smaller is irrational.

As to the percentage of use argument, it's true that I don't use everything out of every book. However, I tend to use far more than 15%. Typically, I'll use at least 25-40% in actual play. I'll also frequently use another 10-25% as inspiration, either story based inspiration, or inspiration for homebrew mechanics.

Volo's MSRP was $50, and it is 224 pages, one 32 page section longer. The APs are a bit longer at 256 for $50.

A lot of work went into this, page count versus man hours: balancing mechanical options isn't free.

Arilyn · Oct 22, 2017

I will not be buying this book. I find it odd that game designers, who no doubt love DnD, are not overflowing with cooler ideas for their first major expansion. Rehashed content and 17 pages of names, the vast majority human from the real world???

I do not expect to love or use everything in a book but really? As for the designers ensuring quality, they have had more than enough time. Just not seeing the passion.

MechaPilot · Oct 22, 2017

EthanSental said:
Was there this loud of a public outcry (maybe just a vocal minority) when Troll Lord Games published their 200+ book of names. . . .

They were clearly Trolling by publishing that book.

Parmandur · Oct 22, 2017

Arilyn said:
I will not be buying this book. I find it odd that game designers, who no doubt love DnD, are not overflowing with cooler ideas for their first major expansion. Rehashed content and 17 pages of names, the vast majority human from the real world???

I do not expect to love or use everything in a book but really? As for the designers ensuring quality, they have had more than enough time. Just not seeing the passion.

Watch the subclass preview videos: plenty of excitement and passion involved.

MechaPilot · Oct 22, 2017

Remathilis said:
True. We'd download the SRD and make our own supplement materials tailored to our homebrew worlds. No cost to any of that but time and printer paper.

I already do that.

MechaPilot · Oct 22, 2017

Parmandur said:
Volo's MSRP was $50, and it is 224 pages, one 32 page section longer. The APs are a bit longer at 256 for $50.

A lot of work went into this, page count versus man hours: balancing mechanical options isn't free.

I get that it isn't free. That's why I'm not asking for it for free. I'm willing to pay for product, but that product must be reasonably priced, and the seller must not be asking me to pay for something I could google for free (the names) or for something I already bought (a situation faced by those who already purchased the SCAG, although I did not purchase it the argument remains valid for those who did).

MechaPilot · Oct 22, 2017

Elfcrusher said:
I might buy extra copies just to encourage WotC to print more books like this. It's amusing watching the reactions.

If you do, I'll take one of the extras off your hand for $10-$15, just to lessen your personal losses, because I'm friendly like that.

MechaPilot · Oct 22, 2017

Prakriti said:
A lot of people felt that 5E didn't deliver on its promise to be "modular." I think those people would be complaining the loudest about Xanathar's Guide if they had stuck around. But apparently they didn't.

Some of us did stick around.

Dire Bare · Oct 22, 2017

SmokeyCriminal said:
On an interesting side note. Mearls also points out that they are in their 38th month with 5e and they are still focused on 5e which wasn't the case before. By the 38th month, 3e was already 3.5e, and by the 38th month of 3.5e they were working on 4e, and by the 38th month of 4e they were working on 5e.

That's pretty cool.

Lylandra · Oct 22, 2017

Prakriti said:
A lot of people felt that 5E didn't deliver on its promise to be "modular." I think those people would be complaining the loudest about Xanathar's Guide if they had stuck around. But apparently they didn't.

Well, I was among the people who were hyped about the "modular" promise of 5e and I was really disappointed that it didn't deliver. I bought the core three and tested some of it (the books are gorgeous and some of the basic ideas of 5e are really neat), but I couldn't get myself to change systems. It became such a non-issue that right now, 5e isn't that much of a hot topic anymore. So why complain when I never really wanted to get on high hopes for maybe getting modular rules with XG only to have them crushed again...

Now I will maybe give 5e a second try some time, but maybe the XG (and its subclasses) are a bit cheaper when that time arises.