AdmundfortGeographer
Getting lost in fantasy maps
Precisely what I was thinking! 320 pages? Of what, if not a good amount of class powers?
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Essentials line and Compendium, does this mean I can start over?
Examples? Pretty pictures? Examples with pretty pictures?
I'm going to be fascinated to see what it does include. It's worth remembering that the 3.5E Rules Compendium did use a very clean, spacious format for its rules. It was a wonderful reference work, but its page count was more than you might at first expect.
If the 4E compendium puts each keyword on its own page - and there are quite a few: check the glossaries of the PHB and MM - then the page count might indeed be a lot higher than you'd expect.
It's also worth noting that although 4e generally has a very clean layout, the description of how powers work is one of the most unclear and compressed sections of text. Expanding it out would be wonderful.
Cheers!
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AbdulAlhazred
Legend
But why would we need such a book? It wouldn't by any means hold all the powers in the whole of 4e. It could hold all the powers that are in Essentials, but those are already in the player's books, its redundant to have them repeated in 2 books. I mean if I were a DM and thus I already have a copy of the DM book, wouldn't I have just as much good stuff if I bought the player books? Yeah, its 3 books instead of 2, but I just don't see how a book that recapitulates the same powers will be that useful.
I dunno. I'm still puzzled about this book. In previous editions there were few enough spells they could be repeated in a decent sized compendium. I just don't think you can do that in 320 pages and if its not doing that then what IS it doing? Guess we'll find out soon enough anyway.
Well, if you look at the PHB index (at 318 pages - but leave out races, individual classes, paragon paths, epic destines, individual feat descriptions, individual rituals) you are down to roughly 115 pages.
If you look at the DMG and look for the 'crunchy sections" that you would need (skill challenges, treasure parcel charts, hazards/traps/monster creation charts, p42 chart, mounted combat rules, and so on) you end up with another 100 pages (roughly).
That brings us to around 215 pages from PHB1 and DMG1.
Perhaps some more depending on how many examples they want to get into for stuff like poisons, traps, monster templates, etc.
And a couple misc things from DMG2 will probably appear (such as trap creation rules).
The variables would be how many graphics they decide to include, how much white space in formatting, and also (more importantly) how many examples of various things... do they put in a lot of monster templates? do they put in a lot of specific diseases and traps and hazards and unique terrain features, etc.
And also if whether or not they include some methodology behind encounter design rather than just the rules to do it (i.e. do they just provide the rules on what the monster roles are, or do they get into encounter mix templates and what types of encounters work better for what types of party mixes, etc.)
Thus, I can easily envision around 250 pages just by looking at the contents from DMG1 and PHB1. What will account for the other roughly 70 pages, I don't know. (though if the page size is smaller or something given that it's paperback, that might be a little bit of the page count adjustment as well)
Do I have any insider knowledge? No. This is all 100% pure speculation on my part.
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The Little Raven
First Post
It's a trade paperback, which makes it less than 6" x 9".
Mithreinmaethor
First Post
If you look at the Player's Handbook Races: Tieflings book it is roughly the same size as the hardback books but is soft bound instead of hard bound. This is what we will see with the other Trade Paperback books.
Here is a definition of Trade Paperback
AbdulAlhazred
Legend
Yes, but I'd assume that since the Compendium is a REFERENCE work, and there is also a similarly sized DM's book in the DM Kit that we won't have much of that stuff in the Compendium. I'd expect DMG type content to be restricted to monster design guidelines, traps, poisons, and page 42 pretty much. Anyway, we don't know. Its just hard to figure out the difference between the Compendium and the other Essentials books in terms of what is repeated and what isn't. We'll see thim in a couple months anyhow, so its no big deal.
Ladislaus
First Post
As per the product description: Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page - Product (Rules Compendium), the Rules Compendium will contain the following:
Tony Vargas
Legend
The advice I've started giving people thinking about getting into 4e is either:
a) just get a DDI subscription and d/l the Character Builder. You'll have access to everything you need to build and play a character. You can use the on-line compendium to look up keywords, conditions, and the like.
or
b) wait for Essentials and start with that.
From the previews, the Essentials classes will be a bit easier to create and 'get into' and also, in a way, a bit more familiar to the 2e/3e fans. The 'Mage,' for instance, has a little more of the old magic-user/wizard feel than the 4e Wizard. Also, the Essentials Classes seem to be /at least/ equal to the PH classes in power, so you won't risk being overshadowed because you're using the 'beginner' class. It's like Essentials is "D&D with training wheels," only it's training wheels on a Harley vs no training wheels on a Schwinn.
AdmundfortGeographer
Getting lost in fantasy maps
I'm not sure why you quoted that. I'm very intimately aware what those blurbs say.
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