PHB Book Layout - Good or No so Good

[amysrevenge]

I suppose the closest thing to a power index I can imagine being even a little bit useful would be a list of what pages the categories of powers are on. ie

Cleric class features, page 62
Cleric level 1 At-Will prayers, page 63
Cleric level 1 Encounter prayers, page 63
Cleric level 1 Daily prayers, page 64
etc...


But even then, parsing through the index and turning to the page wouldn't be any faster, I don't think, than turning to the table of contents, going to the Cleric page, and flipping forward to the right level/type.

 

[Rolflyn]

Just made my first 4E character from the book, and my biggest pain was finding the race and class feats from within the feats chapter. I'm glad the powers weren't similarly intermixed elsewhere.

There should have been some kind of indication of which feats a race can take in that races description, and maybe a description of which feats a class can take as well. That might have worked if powers were in a big power section as well because then you could have a table for each class showing feats and powers available.

 

[Reigan]

The layout, editing and indexing of rpgs in general are usually pretty bad, (Dark Heresy I'm looking at you). In comparison the 4e phb is good in performing it's primary function as a rule book. In game play it functions just fine on the odd occasion I have to actually refer to it.

Credit should be given where it's due.

 

[Marius Delphus]

This being an opinion-based thread, and I having a strong opinion of my own, it's time to make public Marius's List of 4E Layout Nitpicks. There's a really good design here, it just needs loads of refinement. Had I but world enough, and time....

1. Ugly, huge fonts. This is the first time since 2E Player's Option that I've wanted to know what the fonts were so I could avoid using them. (I still have an unvarnished hate for University Roman, and though I can stand Frutiger, I would never, ever use it as body text.)
2. Inconsistent use of graphical header bars. They look nice, sure, but do they go over both columns? One column? When? What level(s) in the book's outline are they associated with, and why does that/do those levels get treated differently from time to time?
3. Inconsistent placement/cropping of images. In particular, the one-column/half-page vertical images: do they get to be full bleed or don't they? Do they get cropped out of the gutter or are they left pushing into the gutter?
4. No baseline grid. Lines of text don't line up horizontally between columns. This one is something I simply can't get over.
5. Overuse of gradient ramps. And speaking of gradients, what is with those sidebars? Ugh. (Ditto here what's already been said about the combat chapter. Painful, painful.)
6. Use of letterspace adjustment with left-aligned text. You can get away with it when the text is justified (I do it all over the place in the WOTBS books). It just looks silly when the text is left-aligned. It makes me feel as though a copyeditor needs to take another swipe at the paragraph.
7. Half an index. I base this on the feeling I have that, half the time I go looking for something in the index, it's not there.
8. [After reading Toben's comment below, adding:] White space, used badly. White space used well can help a page. The kind of white space found in the 4E books isn't that kind of white space.

 

[Toben the Many]

While there are many things I like about 4e, I'm sorry to say that I truly dislike the layout of the core books. The large, white spaces on the pages simply fail Layout 101 in most of your basic publishing classes. But skipping that, look at the 3e PHB vs. the 4e PHB.

The 3e PHB has colored pages with faint lines on it, evoking the feel of an adventurer's journal. Much of the interior art is a "study" look or sketchy feel, further contributing to the look and feel of some kind of old tome or journal. Even the cover is meant to evoke this theme.

Simply put, the 3e PHB sells itself. And sells itself well.

The 4e PHB does not, IMO. Besides the cold, white pages, the art in the PHB is confusing to me. If you had never played D&D before - by looking at the artwork, what is the difference between a Paladin and a Ranger? The Paladin has a glowing blue sword while the Ranger has two glowing green swords. The Cleric has a glowing mace. So, the differentiation between the different classes through artwork is not done very well. In my opinion, the 3e PHB and even the Pathfinder book does this better.

The large text of the 4e PHB is easier to see, but with the white pages, the overall effect reminds me of a junior-high text book. That is not a snark, understand. Text books take their own layout very seriously and pay serious money for them. However, what sort of look and feel should you be going for in a D&D book?

Finally, the long, long lists of powers look like the charts in my old chemistry text book. Indeed, when I got the 4e PHB, I laid it out beside my old chemistry book and noted that many of the catalog of charts looks very similar. If you were walking by and looked down at both book, they would have appeared very similar.

I'm actually okay with the powers being listed with each class, but the many pages of text unbroken by pictures or graphics makes it dry. It might have cost a bit more, but more pictures throughout would have made a big difference. The 3e PHB saves all of the long blocks of text (the spells) for the end of the book, so the lack of graphics and pictures does not really stand out so much.

In terms of the ability to reference rules, however, we've found that we've had to reference the book very little. With your powers either written down on a card or on a sheet beside you, we often don't even have to look at our books.

 

[malraux]

While there are many things I like about 4e, I'm sorry to say that I truly dislike the layout of the core books. The large, white spaces on the pages simply fail Layout 101 in most of your basic publishing classes. But skipping that, look at the 3e PHB vs. the 4e PHB.

The 3e PHB has colored pages with faint lines on it, evoking the feel of an adventurer's journal. Much of the interior art is a "study" look or sketchy feel, further contributing to the look and feel of some kind of old tome or journal. Even the cover is meant to evoke this theme.

It is visually nice, but is unreadable in places. I really hope the first page of every chapter didn't include anything important because I could not read them. I'll admit it is nice to look at, but it isn't good at its primary purpose, being a book to read.

 

[Marius Delphus]

... the overall effect reminds me of a junior-high text book. ...

Nailed it in one! This encapsulates my general impression of the 4E books almost exactly.

 

[Toben the Many]

It is visually nice, but is unreadable in places. I really hope the first page of every chapter didn't include anything important because I could not read them. I'll admit it is nice to look at, but it isn't good at its primary purpose, being a book to read.

Interesting point.

The problem with the PHB, any PHB, is that it's meant to be many things in one. It has to be part instruction manual, part reference book, part world guide, as well as part entertainment.

The best ones, through the history of RPGs strike a good balance between these things.

But it's one of the reason that making any PHB, for any system is fairly difficult, IMO.

 

[Toben the Many]

[/i]] White space, used badly. White space used well can help a page. The kind of white space found in the 4E books isn't that kind of white space.
[/LIST]

Another interesting point.

The Star Wars SAGA books use white space well. Why shouldn't the D&D books be able to do this?

 

[LostSoul]

Everybody says this, but I just don't see it.

Look at it this way. I can imagine three main reasons you need to look up a power in the book.

1) You already have the power, and want to see what it does.
2) You are deciding which power to take next.
3) You are making a character and trying to choose a class.

4) You are a DM and want to look at how a particular power works when designing an encounter, NPC, monster, or trap, but you don't remember what level or even what class it came from.