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.

 

[MostlyHarmless42]

A bit late to the party, but a pet peeve of mine: information that is given away in an officially sanctioned capacity (i.e. as the case for this because of the charity) is NOT leaked information. A "leak" by definition is unintentional from the perspective of whomever owns the information. I think nearly every one of these Xanathers threads has this same issue, and not just on this website either. *sigh*

...still fun information to have. I look forward not just to the new subclasses, but a lot of the DM tools in particular.

 

[Demetrios1453]

A bit late to the party, but a pet peeve of mine: information that is given away in an officially sanctioned capacity (i.e. as the case for this because of the charity) is NOT leaked information. A "leak" by definition is unintentional from the perspective of whomever owns the information. I think nearly every one of these Xanathers threads has this same issue, and not just on this website either. *sigh*

...still fun information to have. I look forward not just to the new subclasses, but a lot of the DM tools in particular.

Well, in this case, the table of contents was actually leaked about a week before the official release of the information by WotC - someone apparently mined it from D&D Beyond's database.

 

[Guest 6801328]

By and large, DMs are the ones who buy books: players who buy books just don't know that they are DMs yet.

That is worthy of a .sig quote.

 

[MostlyHarmless42]

Well, in this case, the table of contents was actually leaked about a week before the official release of the information by WotC - someone apparently mined it from D&D Beyond's database.

In that case, I would question the legality of data - mining and the posting itself, though I suppose it's kind of a moot point at this point given Wizards released it themselves as a preview.

 

[Guest 6801328]

In that case, I would question the legality of data - mining and the posting itself, though I suppose it's kind of a moot point at this point given Wizards released it themselves as a preview.

Now I'm waiting for another pedant to post about how incorrect usage of "moot" is his pet peeve....

 

[MostlyHarmless42]

Now I'm waiting for another pedant to post about how incorrect usage of "moot" is his pet peeve....

And you would be correct in doing so. I did indeed misuse the wrong phrasing of the term!

Then again, it all is sort of a matter of perspective as to what defines "legitimate" English anyway.

http://mentalfloss.com/article/30052/meaning-word-moot-moot

 

[Azzy]

A bit late to the party, but a pet peeve of mine: information that is given away in an officially sanctioned capacity (i.e. as the case for this because of the charity) is NOT leaked information. A "leak" by definition is unintentional from the perspective of whomever owns the information. I think nearly every one of these Xanathers threads has this same issue, and not just on this website either. *sigh*

...still fun information to have. I look forward not just to the new subclasses, but a lot of the DM tools in particular.

Ah, ENWorld delivers.

 

[MagicSN]

Does German Amazon have the discount? The USA Amazon has a discount from $50 to $30 last I checked. If the unless Germany Amazon follows suit then that isn't too surprising since it really is a massive discount, there isn't much markup on books so Amazon won't be making much money them.

German Amazon doesn't have the discount. My point is if they do not offer the discount in German Amazon they can as well not offer it at German Amazon at all, as nobody will order it there ;-) The only point there is if they offer the discount there too, or at least some discount (on German Amazon Amazon Prime customers can order without shipping cost).

 

[SmokeyCriminal]

I might be completely wrong about this. But I think I remember hearing that reason they're doing the DM/Player books is because it tested well with market research, and the fact they sold well just backed up that assumption. But I can't remember well enough to defend the statement.

On why there is no Monster Manual 2, I do remember why they said they're not doing it. And you can blame it on those pesky new players. They found because of the buying habits that they developed from video games that having Monster Manual 2/3/4 is confusing (or to be fair, its not intuitive to their shopping habits).

For example, If they want to play GTA (Grand Theft Auto), They go to the store and go straight for GTA 5, the most recent release. They completely ignore all the other GTA games because they are old, Indicated to them by the fact that they are all less then 5. GTA 4 has worse graphics, and they're servers are probably empty and you probably need an old console to even play it. ect ect.

A not zero amount of times, a new person to TTRPG, would go to the FLGS wanting to buy a PHB to start playing D&D for the very first time. See PHB and PHB 2 next to each other on the shelf, and grab PHB 2. Because its the newest one so its obviously the one they should get, right?

If you have a Volos Guide to Monsters, a Bobs Guide to Monsters, a Jennys Guide to Monsters Then they all stand on equal footing in the minds of new players and it doesn't matter that Volos is the oldest and Jennys is the newest. And they said that if they ever make a PHB it is definitely not going to be called PHB 2. It'll probably be something like "Mandys Wonderous Player Expansion DLC (That you buy only AFTER the PHB)." Because yes, we probably do need it spelled out that plainly. Sorry Grogs.

 

[Li Shenron]

It seems a bit thin for all the hype, they have been giving it. I feel that a lot of sourcebooks lately lack substance.

This is definitely common to all 5e books. Immediately upon picking up the PHB I felt it was too "light".

After playing the game tho, I changed my mind. Compared to the 3e PHB, the 5e PHB has indeed a lot less information (just compare the size of the font being used), but the truth is that 3e was a much heavier system that required a lot more information. Essentially the 5e PHB creates a game of the same "magnitude" of the 3e PHB. The same is mostly true also for the MM and DMG, having a number of options reasonably comparable to the 3e books.

On the other hand, it's a bit different case for supplements. SCAG is difficult to address since it has a lot of fluff (anyway I don't have it, so I can't say much about it). But if you compare XGE with a typical 3e supplement of the same size, you'll see that indeed it ends up having less character options. The amount of crunch is more similar to early 3.0 supplements like "Tome & Blood", which had IIRC a hundred pages only or so.