D&D 5E The format of the spell list in the PHB is just plain awful.

[Zaukrie]

Yup, this is a fail.

 

[AVacc]

As a huge fan of the Eldritch Knight I agree the spell list would have been more useful as a table with school and spell page.

I am generally very pleased with the PHB, though...

 

[Agamon]

So it looks like the real problem is no list for the EK or AT. Yeah, I agree that would have been nice.

 

[Thaumaturge]

So it looks like the real problem is no list for the EK or AT. Yeah, I agree that would have been nice.

Which would be a good solution. It does introduce a different problem, however: new supplements would have to specifically add to the EK and AT spell lists if they have their own. As is, any new wizard spells of the appropriate schools are also EK and AT spells.

Thaumaturge.

 

[Pandamonium87]

Yesterday me and my group were making a wizard charachter sheet and it was really painful.

A format like: <school> <name of the spell> <brief description> <page #> would have been great.

Now you have to guess the effect from the name and this is just bad.

 

[Agamon]

Which would be a good solution. It does introduce a different problem, however: new supplements would have to specifically add to the EK and AT spell lists if they have their own. As is, any new wizard spells of the appropriate schools are also EK and AT spells.

It is a form of redundancy, for sure, as EK and AT are just shorter Wizard lists, but the reason for these lists is to show you what spells you have access to at a glance.

Not that this is a difficult DIY project. Quite simple, really. But it would have been nice. I didn't really notice this before as my group doesn't have any EK or AT PCs ATM, IYKWIM.

 

[Agamon]

It might be because I've been plying D&D for a while and most of these spells are iconic. Might also be that I read the book cover to cover, too. But when I made up a level 6 druid as a big bad last week, I knew enough about each spell just by looking at the name. I only looked up each spell after I picked them, to review what they did.

It's become noticeable from some of the complaints about formatting in the book that there appears to be a conscious effort from the designers to reduce redundancy wherever possible in the book to keep down page count bloat.

 

[Asatru009]

It's become noticeable from some of the complaints about formatting in the book that there appears to be a conscious effort from the designers to reduce redundancy wherever possible in the book to keep down page count bloat.

This is my argument against excessive minimalism regarding page count bloat.

I say unto thee, do not break user space. It is not bloat when it makes the life of the user more efficient. When it takes more than say, 10 seconds to find out what a spell or effect does, that is when table troubles arise. Now granted it would be bloat if they added 15 pages of spell tables on top of the name-school-page number bit. If you have the 2E PHB all the tables (spell and nonspell) total 13 pages. They get divided into schools for wizards and spheres for priests so 4 pages there. After that you have an alphabetized list with the spell being a wizard or priest spell, what level the spell is and what page it is found on, which is another 4 pages.

Now I'll grant you that those 8 pages could theoretically not be needed but it is a trivial addition for the sake of page count, yet it would add lots of usability to the spells. As for the mechanical information that is needed is there any logical reason to bury mechanically needed info in the spell descriptions vs having them be their own thing under the spell name? I do not believe so.

 

[Charles Wright]

If we went with everyone's suggestions, we'd have 47 pages of spell list. KISS principle with no redundant info works fine for me.

Adding classes on the Level line would not have added 47 pages to the spell list.

 

[Charles Wright]

Now I'll grant you that those 8 pages could theoretically not be needed but it is a trivial addition for the sake of page count, yet it would add lots of usability to the spells. As for the mechanical information that is needed is there any logical reason to bury mechanically needed info in the spell descriptions vs having them be their own thing under the spell name? I do not believe so.

Those 8 pages wouldn't be trivial.

The PHB is a 320 page book. Most books of this size are assembled in what is known as a "signature". A signature is a group of 4 pages 17" wide by 11" tall that, when folded, make 16 8.5" by 11" pages. If you deviate from a number divisible by 16 (which 320 is (320/16=20)) your printing costs rise substantially. They may have also been given a maximum page count by the people who made the printing deal. So even if they were willing to go to a 336 page count, they couldn't.

All of that being said, there were ways to add information to make the spell lists more usable for the customers that wouldn't have expanded page count at all.