4E book organization

[Olgar Shiverstone]

How critical do you think it is to have magic items in the PHB (done for the first time in D&D in 4E)?

Personally, I'm a bit irked that some long-time classes got left out (or, er, deferred), leaving a few niches under serviced (one one controller class, for example). That's particularly so when in addition two races were added that I could care less about. The PHB is at 320 pages, though, so there wouldn't have been room to drop the new races in favor of new classes, as each class takes up 13-15 pages and the races are only about 2 pages each.

Then I looked at the DMG. For the same price as the PHB, it's almost 100 pages shorter at 228 pages. If the magic items section (~28 pages of the PHB) had been moved to the DMG like it was in 1E-3E, that would have freed up room for two more classes in the PHB!

 

[GeorgeFields]

Not having the books, I didn't realize they were asking the same price for three books of varying page count.

Maybe they'll stagger them in the PH2, DMG2, and MM2 to make up for it.

 

[drothgery]

How critical do you think it is to have magic items in the PHB (done for the first time in D&D in 4E)?

Unless WotC wants to remake D&D into a low magic item game, then they certainly should be in the PHB. If they're in the DMG, then players need the DMG. That's not a Good Thing (well, it may help WotC sell more DMGs, but other than that, not a Good Thing).

 

[EricNoah]

This is one area where I think it's an improvement. Yes, it kind of spoils the "sense of wonder" but ... I run a group where nearly every player is also a DM. So no sense of wonder for them regardless. I can't tell you how many times players scramble to find a DMG to look up a magic item because they only bring a PHB to the game.

 

[Glyfair]

Not having the books, I didn't realize they were asking the same price for three books of varying page count.

Well there is the fact that volume reduces the price of most books. It's no secret the DMG and MM sell less than the PHB. It makes sense that the PHB would have more pages for the same price.

That probably isn't WotC's primary motivation for the same price. However, it might be a factor.

 

[Filcher]

I'm an early 4E adopter, but I still firmly believe that magic items belong in the DMG. It was already difficult to sort through the PHB, and magic items just made it worse.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Either way has drawbacks and advantages.

For my group, I think the favorite is having it in the PHB. Everyone DMs, but that only the DM actually needs to bring his DMG to the game simplifies a lot. Since every player will probably bring his own PHB to look up his powers (unless he prints them out before-hand), this should avoid all that book-shuffling usually going on.

Off course, once the "splats" come out, I suppose the shuffling will happen again...

 

[delericho]

If PCs can buy or easily make magic items, then I'm in favour of them being in the PHB. Consequently, I can't think of anything that could be dropped to make room for more classes.

Substitutions I would have made:

1) Drop Dragonborn, Eladrin and Tieflings, in favour of Gnomes and Half-orcs. Just a personal preference.

2) Drop much of the "D&D World" chapter in the DMG in favour of concrete examples on the rest of the material - the book is good on general advice, but is surprisingly short on specifics. In particular, there should be a detailed example of adventure construction from start to finish.

3) Drop Orcus, Behemoths, and a few of the new monsters from the MM, in favour of a short apendix giving stats for normal creatures. Sure, they're not terribly interesting, but they are essential to a complete game, IMO. (And let's face it, how many campaigns are really going to use Orcus?)

And that's about it. There's actually not a lot of fat in the books, and much of the material that isn't of much use to me (that general advice in the DMG, primarily) is a necessity for the benefit of new DMs.

 

[Scribble]

I'm an early 4E adopter, but I still firmly believe that magic items belong in the DMG. It was already difficult to sort through the PHB, and magic items just made it worse.

You find the PHB hard to sort through?

Man... just goes to show how opinions can differ... I think it's one of the most well laid out books to date...

 

[RangerWickett]

I would have liked it if they'd included a few sample magic items, a few sample traps, and a few sample monsters (maybe just animals, and maybe a dragon and a few undead) in the PHB, to show players examples of what they'll be dealing with. Then leave the bulk of that stuff in the DMG and MM.

Also, with all that horrendous white space in the PHB, they could have easily added a few paragraphs here and there of flavor text, right?