D&D 5E The 5th edition PHB: Sorry but when it comes to functionality, it deserves a 'one star' rating.

[Sacrosanct]

The tradeoff is one between space (which in this electronic age is effectively unlimited).

I'm going to respond to this because it glaringly stands out. I think you are making a critical mistake to assume space is effectively unlimited because of digital material. A LOT of players still use physical books you know. And A LOT of players do not even like pdfs at the game table. Space is very much a legitimate factor.

 

[billd91]

On second thought, it would have been easier to list the spells by class and level, and then group with the class description like 4e. That was IMO the best organization so far.

But opinions differ on that.

It worked OK for 4e because powers were exclusive to classes. But it would have been terrible for 3e because so many spells were shared on so many different spell lists. And I think for 1e and 2e, it didn't work as well as it did for 4e but not as badly as it would have for 3e because while there were spells shared on multiple spell lists, they were a whole lot less common than in 3e.

 

[TwoSix]

This latter is just fine for lookup at runtime - I know what spell I am casting, I look it up. It isn't so great for looking things up when creating an adventure or character, or levelling up. When I'm making up my 10th level Evoker wizard NPC, and I don't know what spells I'm going to assign, the flat lookup by Name is not good.

Basically, the current arrangement is great for lookup, but poor for decision making.

I agree with that. Fortunately, most character creation decisions are made away from table, which means other electronic resources can be brought into play. Which is why I'm pretty comfortable with the book layout as is.

 

[Mark CMG]

Agreed. It would have been nice if I didn't have to flop between books to do that, though. Browse lists of spells in one book, look up the details in another? Not stunningly useable.

I think the DMG is going to have some stuff like that no matter what, stuff that requires pretty good knowledge of what is in the other two core books or the need to crack them once in a while. Unless the adventure design material is moved from the DMG to one or both of the others, which makes little sense. I think the object is for GMs to, over time, have solid enough knowledge to not need flop back and forth. No one said GMing would be easy. Well, some have said it, and tried to make it so, but it hasn't proved true without greatly diminishing the role of the GM. Then we're moving further and further from the traditions of RPGs, IMO. Besides, that's why there's a holiday for GMs.

 

[brehobit]

I trust you're being ironic? The contents of the index are fine, but the presentation is sorely lacking. This is a reference book: give us an index with a full-sized font!

Yeah, I don't "need" reading glasses yet, but fine print on legal/medical documents and the PHB index are the two places I wish I had them.

 

[Li Shenron]

I haven't had time for a trip down the FLGS to check out the PHB, but from what I'm hearing, I'm starting to feel like from an editorial point of view it does have a series of shortcomings... This is (negatively) quite surprising, since the same designers have been working on previous editions or other RPG for a very long time, so they should not have forgotten the good editorial ideas of 3e and 4e!

I've always said I wanted to see the amount of errata before buying the new books, and then maybe wait until a second print. But now it seems errata are really few (much better than previous editions!) but we get these new problems, which sadly won't be fixed by a simple second print...

So now I am actually wondering if I should skip this year's PHB completely and wait for the 2015 version of it. Perhaps it still won't have better spells blocks and short descriptions in spells list however, and it's of course possible that there won't be a 2015 version at all. But if there is, I would feel very stupid for buying an almost-unfinished book...

 

[the Jester]

The spell organization does leave something to be desired.

But, maybe that's just entrenched thinking. In the past, the spells were organized by Class, then Level, then alphabetically, with school listed at/near the top of the spell. So, I am used to thinking in that mode. But, with the current arrangement, I just look up by spell name.

This latter is just fine for lookup at runtime - I know what spell I am casting, I look it up.

I like the alphabetical spell list; I just think that the whole thing would be vastly improved by three things:

1. The wizard spell list should have the schools listed, as it did in 3e;
2. The spell lists should have short descriptions, as they did in 3e; and
3. The spell descriptions should include what classes have the spell on their base list.

 

[fanboy2000]

First, Petrification from a Gorgon staring at someone should not be the same thing as petrification from a wizard casting Flesh to Stone. The result is the same, the method is entirely different. It's a flavour issue that the monster abilities should not automatically (or even often) be the same as spells. And grapple's a basic rule. Poison? Yes. I want what that monster's specific poison does to be a part of that monster. Not all poisons are the same.

You have hit on an interesting tension in D&D game design: when should something be a trait and when should it be a spell? This has been a question since at least 3e, which had spells pull quadruple duty as spells, spell-like abilities, supernatural abilities, and (sometimes) extraordinary abilities. As 3e DM the worst was when a monster had full caster levels. (Typically as a Sorcerer.) This was compounded by those monsters that didn't have pre-made spell lists and it was DM responsibility to choses them before running the monster.

4e ran screaming in the opposite direction where just about everything was a trait. This led to spell-casters that knew something three spells: an at-will, an daily, and a utility. IIRC the 4e DMG had rules for creating NPCs that might have been better. You'd think, because I'm complaining about NPCs and Monsters online that I might have used those instead, but I didn't. I'm not even sure the designers used them.

I actually think there's a pretty good balance for NPCs and Monsters in 5e. I'm just not having the problems with spells in statblocks that I did in 3.x.

To expand on your example: while I don't know about Gorgons, Medusas and Basilisks don't use the flesh-to-stone spell. They have a Petrifying Gaze trait listed above their actions. I don't know how alike they are, but it's detailed in the statblock. So far, it looks like the only monsters that use spells are NPC spell casters like the Evil Mage statblock in the starter set and the Acolyte statblock in HotDQ. I'm not sure if I want those in statblocks. Sure, I want monster abilities in statblocks, but the spells of an NPC spellcaster? I just don't know.

 

[dco]

The organization is good, the price...

 

[doctorhook]

My opinion is that the only thing 5E's spell list is missing is a quality summary table (in the style of 3E/3.5E) ahead of the spell descriptions.

Also, the glue in my copy has already started to go, resulting in pages falling out. I've got probably 50 other D&D books, some as far back as 1E, and this is the first time I've had that happen with any of them at all.