D&D 5E (2014) 5e's stumbles

[Ancalagon]

I agree with lowkey. Yesterday I was making a quick 3rd level ranger and picking 3 spells took much more time than it should have...

 

[Jester David]

And that's the point - is the PHB supposed to be something that is both read and used when making your characters, or is it just something to quickly refer to when cross-referencing a monster spell? The alphabetical list precludes any genuine use of it for the the first, whereas doing it the other way would easily be solved by, at worst, a simple one page addition *that most people wouldn't need to use after gaming for a while*.

It's six-of-one, half-a-dozen or another.
Both ways have advantages and disadvantages and it comes down to preference.
I favour the method useful at the table for the DM and player, rather than every 2-3 sessions during leveling. Especially with overlap between classes.
the Basic rules and SRD exist for people who want the alternative. Ditto the Gale Force 9 spellcards.

The amount of time I have wasted completely flipping back and forth in the PHB (and cross-referencing with the spell list for the class) trying to understand the difference between different cantrips and first level spells at character creation isn't exactly small.

But that time is wasted before or after games, not when people are waiting.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Which is great so long as you know what level a spell is.

Which you probably do, because you've been conveniently browsing them /by level/.
If not, an alpha index of all spells wouldn't be too difficult.
If not that, either, then looking through the class's spell list works. And, you only have to do it once when looking up a single spell, vs flipping back and forth between the class spell list and the universal alphabetical list for each and every spell while trying to familiarize yourself with your choices.

Plus the putative 'all-in-one-list' advantage is lost the moment a new spell comes out in any source, anyway.

I remember 2nd Edition when monsters had spells, and I had to guess whether it was a wizard or cleric spell and then go through each spell level. Not fun and just slow at the table.

And in 1e, the MM referenced 0e spells! Yeah, classic D&D was not that user-friendly in a lot of ways. Even so, it was nice to be able to browse spells by class/level and have an idea what your character could do. Actually, that bit was kind of self-correcting, because you associated spells that you read close-together, learning which spell was which class and what level. So, if as AD&D expected, you were a very experienced player before taking up DMing you probably would know at a glance that
Fear is a 4th level Magic-user spell but Bestow Fear is a 1st level Cleric spell that you'll find under the entry for Remove Fear. Either way, though, still much more trouble than having all the monster's tricks right there in it's stat block.

Especially with overlap between classes.

That is an issue with the AD&D way of organizing spells "except as listed above and noted below, this is the same as the different-level/other-class spell of the same name..." annoying in exactly the same way as having all the spells listed alphabetically and flipping from the class list to the spell description, just only with shared spells. But, a real problem...

Admittedly since there's so much cross-over in spells between classes (*cough* Bard *cough*) there might be some difficulties with that, but I have a simple solution for that as well. Make the spell lists more differentiated between classes.

And that's a nice solution, indeed. Not only makes the listing easier to read, makes the classes better differentiated.

 

[AverageCitizen]

But that time is wasted before or after games, not when people are waiting.

Yeah, that is the thing. I don't like the flipping but at least I know where to look, and I can do it ahead of time.

I do think, if you guys will forgive my vulgarity, that a splat book (gasp) style reorganization of the PHB might be cool, even though it'd be burned in effigy for being a re-hash. It could solve both the playtime and character building reference problems by only including the information relevant to your character. Feasibly, though, such a thing would make more sense in a digital offering.

 

[Ancalagon]

My own peeve with 5e is concentration. It seems like everyone else has largely made their peace with it, but I don't think a week goes by that we don't have someone cast two different spells requiring concentration, or forget to make concentration checks on taking damage, or something else related. My own fix (for sub level 10 games) has been to ignore the concentration check on damage rule, but the whole system felt inelegant to me when I first read it and hasn't gotten better with actual experience playing with it.

I haven't tried it, and I can *totally* see double concentrations happening (accidentally or on the sly...), missed checks following damages etc. BUT the *advantage* of concentration is limiting "hmm, a big fight is coming, let's cast 1/3 of my spells in preparation"... and that's priceless IMO.

 

[GX.Sigma]

Nice thread. I'm glad it got past those few pages of meta-complaining (which I hope I haven't just reignited).


My personal list follows. (Unnecessary disclaimer: It's only my opinion, yada yada.) Just so I'm not merely complaining, I have included my solution for each problem in [square brackets].

• The Sorcerer is a lot more complicated than the Wizard, which is totally backwards. [Solution: Delete the Sorcerer class, make it a variant of the Wizard class. Design in progress.]
• The Warlock is even more complicated than that, which is simply unacceptable. Not to mention the whole Eldritch Blast thing. [Solution: The Warlock class does not exist in my game. You're either a wizard or a cleric, get over it.]
• The Fighter and Ranger subclasses were not very well thought out, which is slightly unfortunate. [Solution: Run it as-written and cry on the inside.]
• Mage Hand is an at-will cantrip. I guess this isn't a problem for most people, but I will not stand for this. [Solution: Mage Hand is a 1st-level spell. Arcane Trickster is deleted.]

I have more, but they're extremely nitpicky even by my standards.

1. Caster hand economy. This whole concept is a mess (I hate that I even have to type "caster hand economy" but there it is), and RAW for it is buried in several separate places.

What do you mean by this? I've been running 5e since two years before it came out and haven't noticed a problem with handedness.

 

[delericho]

It's six-of-one, half-a-dozen or another.
Both ways have advantages and disadvantages and it comes down to preference.
I favour the method useful at the table for the DM and player, rather than every 2-3 sessions during leveling. Especially with overlap between classes.

Yeah, this. It's a pain working with an alphabetical list when levelling, but at least I have that time to spend. When I need to know what a spell does while in the midst of combat, though, an alphabetical arrangement is vastly superior - a by-level arrangement is horrible in that situation.

 

[Henry]

With regards to monster stat blocks, I think we need some form of spell shorthand in the blocks, just to list the critical details' especially for attack spells (60 ft r., 20ft dia., 2d6 dmg + CHA save vs. blind for 1d4 rds) or something similar. It does make the block longer, but to me, SO, SO worth it if I'm running something on the fly - even if it means less flavor text, or fewer caster-monsters. Or fewer monsters, with an added monster book to buy...

 

[Inglorin]

With regards to monster stat blocks, I think we need some form of spell shorthand in the blocks

... or something like this:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?471749-One-Stop-Stat-Blocks-for-D-amp-D-5th-Edition

 

[Jester David]

With regards to monster stat blocks, I think we need some form of spell shorthand in the blocks, just to list the critical details' especially for attack spells (60 ft r., 20ft dia., 2d6 dmg + CHA save vs. blind for 1d4 rds) or something similar. It does make the block longer, but to me, SO, SO worth it if I'm running something on the fly - even if it means less flavor text, or fewer caster-monsters. Or fewer monsters, with an added monster book to buy...

... or something like this:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?471749-One-Stop-Stat-Blocks-for-D-amp-D-5th-Edition

Handy resource but it really highlights the problem.
Best example is the lich. A hair over 1/2 of a page in the MM with a picture. In the above the lich is two full pages.
That's fine for a free PDF that has unlimited pages, but in an official book, including spell descriptions would have meant losing one monster. In the case of each monster with spells, we'd likely have lost a dozen or more monsters.

There is the alternative: only describe key spells. You can just look at spellcasting monsters in 4e for the effects compromise. The elite L14 version in the Monster Vault has their touch and four "spells", all of which are offensive. It loses fun things like scry, detect thoughts, plane shift, and animate dead.

Another option is describe 2-3 offensive spells (the ones used in combat) and just list the out-of-combat spells. Which would certainly work. But I think it'd still end up costing a monster or two.