D&D Fan Rewrites the 5E Player's Handbook Index

Yeah, the index is a running joke in my group.

Sorry, but I don't have time to contribute right now, but I'll be interested to see how this thread goes.

 

[El Mahdi]

Outstanding!!!

You Rock [MENTION=6804654]copperdogma[/MENTION]!!!

 

[copperdogma]

Yep. It's a very common problem with RPGs - they're big, complex books intended for heavy referencing, and yet they're far too frequently saddled with bad (or even non-existent) indexing.

My particular pet peeve is those RPG books that have an index that isn't placed right at the back of the book - they have the index and then some number of pages of summarised rules. Where both the index and the summaries are good things, but by placing them in the wrong order they make them both suck.

(All that said, what we should really have, now we're in the 21st century, is an online database of everything, all properly hyperlinked together and searchable for easy reference.)

No doubt! It also feels like the released it like software: rush it out and patch it later. But it's not software. It's a book. You can't patch it (aside from what I did with this index).

I'd rather they release the PHB as an app, complete with dynamic search, live examples, videos, easily accessible tables, dice roller, DM tools, etc. Whatever would help comprehension. Then they could update it as they go. I'd buy that in a second. I'd miss paper, but I wouldn't miss it THAT much.

 

[Werebat]

Awesome, copperdogma! This really needed to be done -- glad you did it!

 

[keterys]

This was also a running joke in our group. Thanks!

 

[WayneLigon]

Thank you for your time and an awesome, practical contribution Last session I was directed to four separate locations just in the index and never did find what I needed.

 

[Wrathamon]

Now I am not saying the index couldn't be better... but I think you're using it wrong.

- Look up listening. We find:
- listening. See Wisdom: Perception
- See also conditions
- Okay.. let's try conditions. We look that up and get:

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/conten...r-s-Handbook-Index#.VkzJMK6rT_Q#ixzz3rs3jNWXp

Why would you go to conditions? It says listening. See Wisdom: Perception. Why not just go straight there? Then go to conditions if your question wasn't answered.

I get that you are trying to make a point, but not a great example.

 

[Larrin]

For me it was looking up "running" in the index that highlighted the problem rather clearly (at least I think that was it). As I recall, looking up 'running' tells you to look up 'dash', looking up dash tells you to look up 'actions:dash', looking up actions leads you to the page number for actions in general, and below it are the various subsections through which you look for dash and finally get the page number of 192.

This says: run (Dash action), 192 so it passes every requirement I have for it.

 

[copperdogma]

For me it was looking up "running" in the index that highlighted the problem rather clearly (at least I think that was it). As I recall, looking up 'running' tells you to look up 'dash', looking up dash tells you to look up 'actions:dash', looking up actions leads you to the page number for actions in general, and below it are the various subsections through which you look for dash and finally get the page number of 192.

This says: run (Dash action), 192 so it passes every requirement I have for it.

That's exactly it That's the crap we couldn't stand anymore.

I'm sure there are a TON of things that still need to be tweaked. Entries missing entirely, entries missing the prime page you're actually looking for, etc. I'll keep updating it!

 

[Obvious_Ninja]

Wow! This was great! Thank you for this...

 

[Uder]

Thank you for taking the time to do this copperdogma.