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

A lot of good stuff there.

Of course, on the DM side, a lot of stuff is not there, but I like what I see.

Actually, one of the most useful things will be the appendix of sample names.

 

[Gladius Legis]

Heh... so instead of needing to know just how to spell a spell and flip to that page... you want it such that we need to remember every single spell's level *and* school *and* then how to spell it. And that's supposed to be the easier way to find it? Yeah, okay. Anyone know the level and school of Glibness off the top of their head?

This may surprise you, but plenty of people have stated the spell lists in the PHB are garbage for the reason you are so flippantly mocking for no logical reason. What's SUPPOSED to be used as a quick reference has turned out to be of very limited use as such.

Wizard players, or especially Eldritch Knight and Arcane Trickster players who HAVE to pick spells of a certain school, would greatly appreciate spells being organized by schools so they can quickly narrow down which spells they want, without having to either flip back and forth to the spell description to see if it's of the school they want or looking up external sources.

Beats a stupid list of names, that's for sure.

 

[Azzy]

This may surprise you, but plenty of people have stated the spell lists in the PHB are garbage for the reason you are so flippantly mocking for no logical reason. What's SUPPOSED to be used as a quick reference has turned out to be of very limited use as such.

They'd be real garbage if they went back to how things were in 2e and prior. That crap was annoying as hell.

Wizard players, or especially Eldritch Knight and Arcane Trickster players who HAVE to pick spells of a certain school, would greatly appreciate spells being organized by schools so they can quickly narrow down which spells they want, without having to either flip back and forth to the spell description to see if it's of the school they want or looking up external sources.[/QUOTE]

Actually, if only the has the spell school in parenthesis after the spell's name (like they did in t EEPC, and now XGtE, that'd be pretty handy. But they did make a nice pdf that addresses that, and even lists spells by school. Here you go.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Wizard players, or especially Eldritch Knight and Arcane Trickster players who HAVE to pick spells of a certain school, would greatly appreciate spells being organized by schools so they can quickly narrow down which spells they want, without having to either flip back and forth to the spell description to see if it's of the school they want or looking up external sources.

Beats a stupid list of names, that's for sure.

Explain how this is supposed to work? You break the spell list up into separate lists, one for each school?

I'm imagining I've got an Arcane Trickster, and I think "Great, I can just go the Illusion and Enchantment lists....oh, look, Bless is an Enchantment! How awesome is that?!??!"

But of course I can't take Bless because it's not a Wizard spell. So before I select my spell I still have to go the spell lists by class and confirm it's there. So I haven't really saved any time, and now the spells are organized in a way that might not matter at all to folks who don't really care about which school they are from.

For example, let's say I have Pyrotechnics in my repertoire, but I can't remember the range. I think, "Well, it sounds like an Evocation" so I go to the Evocation list and...huh, it's not there. "Hey, anybody know what school Pyrotechnics is?" "No...use the spell index." So now I got to the alphabetical spell index, find Pyrotechics and realize it's actually Transmutation. So first I got to the Transmutation section, and then...at last...I look through that alphabetically for Pyrotechnics....

That can't possibly be what you are describing. So what are you describing?

 

[Gladius Legis]

I'm imagining I've got an Arcane Trickster, and I think "Great, I can just go the Illusion and Enchantment lists....oh, look, Bless is an Enchantment! How awesome is that?!??!"

But of course I can't take Bless because it's not a Wizard spell. So before I select my spell I still have to go the spell lists by class and confirm it's there.

Um, the spells are already listed by class in the PHB? You'd list the spells by school within the class lists. Reading comprehension and PHB knowledge. You fail at it.

 

[cbwjm]

I do wish they had included the school after each spell in the spell lists, it would make looking through the lists to pick spells from certain schools much easier.

 

[Yaarel]

I tend to ignore the Wizard schools. They are less useful for organizing spells. Things that should be Abjuration arent, like Healing. Things that shouldnt be in a school are, and so on.

The way the Cleric class organizes spells by domain, is more helpful thematically.

I wish each spell came with several relevant tags. A character who focuses on ‘Fire’ spells. Done. ‘Plant’ spells, done. ‘Mind’ spells, done. ‘Attack’ spells, ‘Movement’ spells, ‘Protection’ spells, and so on.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I tend to ignore the Wizard schools. They are less useful for organizing spells. Things that should be Abjuration arent, like Healing. Things that shouldnt be in a school are, and so on.

The way the Cleric class organizes spells by domain, is more helpful thematically.

I wish each spell came with several relevant tags. A character who focuses on ‘Fire’ spells. Done. ‘Plant’ spells, done. ‘Mind’ spells, done. ‘Attack’ spells, ‘Movement’ spells, ‘Protection’ spells, and so on.

Have you tried the free part of dnd beyond? There you have those tags. You can even look up most spells because they are mostly free.

 

[Parmandur]

This may surprise you, but plenty of people have stated the spell lists in the PHB are garbage for the reason you are so flippantly mocking for no logical reason. What's SUPPOSED to be used as a quick reference has turned out to be of very limited use as such.

Wizard players, or especially Eldritch Knight and Arcane Trickster players who HAVE to pick spells of a certain school, would greatly appreciate spells being organized by schools so they can quickly narrow down which spells they want, without having to either flip back and forth to the spell description to see if it's of the school they want or looking up external sources.

Beats a stupid list of names, that's for sure.

As somebody who often plays spellcasters, alphabetic is the way to go. I have the spells name on my sheet, I don't want to memorize the school, level all that other jazz when I can just flip through to the appropriate page by letter.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I would have loved organzation spells by level first and then name. Since spells are now universally at a certain level, unlike in adnd or 3.x where the same spells had different levels for different casters, you wouldn't have the problem of adnd where you needed to print spells twice in the wizard and cleric list.
So a spells by level organization would not be bad. Since most spells for creatures lists spells known or prepared by level you should be able to easily find them.
For all other cases it is easy to just note the level of spell directly in the monster entry or habe a spell list by name somewhere.

 

[Richard Lawton]

This is shaping up to be a very lackluster release. And that low of a page-count makes the $50 price-tag unjustifiable. I'm going to file this one alongside the SCAG as another unfortunate blemish on 5E.

Totally agree, considering most of this is in UA and I am sure discussions will advise what was changed, meaning you can adjust the UA stuff.

Most of the stuff looks very fluff like.