The Actual Table of Contents for Xanathar's Guide to Everything

A lot of good stuff there.

Of course, on the DM side, a lot of stuff is not there, but I like what I see.

Actually, one of the most useful things will be the appendix of sample names.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Oh, if you read my posts you'll see
I've been waiting for so long
For another book to read
And add things to my game
But 'cause AL's got this silly rule, you see,
To make things work out there
They've got to reprint rules, you see
And waste pagespace I'd like to use
For something new
For my players
At my game
At my house
Far awaaaaaaaaaaay from them!

I'm a terrible poet, but that's been my focus my entire time in this thread. AL's PHB+1 rule means that if WotC wants people in organized play to be able to use an old rule (say, a subclass) with a new rule (say, a feat), they have to reprint the subclass in the supplement the feat's in. We seem to only get one player-focused printed supplement every two years or so; burning space in them on reprints, especially at the price point they're at (that, I'll note, I'll willingly pay because 5e is a really good game, which is part of why I dislike the PHB+1 rule in and of itself), is a significant cost to people's home games.

That's why I'm upset by this. AL wants to be restrictionist, okay, I'll not play AL, and while that might bug me I'm not going to come on the forums and gripe about it. AL's restrictions changing how WotC prints books in a way that costs me potential content? Yeah, that'll draw complaints.

So...seriously? You're this upset simply because you wanted Xanathar's to be bigger?

You don't play AL so why do you even care? There are countless homebrews floating around. You can use all the UAs, including the ones that didn't make it into the book. DM's guild has oodles of subclasses (and feats, and races, and spells, and weapons) and they are all waaaaaay cheaper than WotC books.

I think what this all really about (for all the gripers) is that we're all D&D addicts, and we love new stuff, and we get frustrated when that desire isn't fed. Some people just handle disappointment in...weird ways.

 

[Guest 6801328]

I've got limited entertainment time, even more limited time for tabletop RPGs, and even more limited than that time as a player. In 5e, cutting options off from one another doesn't cut off "builds," it cuts of concepts - options, in 5e, are big broad things that all say to you, "This is what I do; this is what I say about your character, this is who you're playing if you choose me." And, quite frankly, if I'm going to spend my very limited time as a player at a game, I'm going to play the concept I want to play. So... it's both. Needless restrictions on players is bad, AL normalizing doing so is worse, AND I'm not going to play a game if I can't play the character I'm inspired to play.

So....what's a concept that you can't play within AL rules?

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Not that I want to add fuel to this fire, but we don't even have any evidence that those reprinted subclasses are reprinted because of AL. As far as I can see, that's entirely speculation. They could have had any number of reasons to do it.

Personally, I like it. It's only a few pages and it means I can leave a book (one that's mostly fluff anyway) on the shelf and still have easy access to a few extra subclasses.

I also know quite a few people who don't have SCAG who will be thrilled to have Xanathar's.

 

[pemerton]

Feats are a direct mechanical benefit to your character. They are useful by definition.

Names are ... of no benefit whatsoever. Hence, useless.

Huh? If my character had no name, then no NPC could address him/her! ("Hey, you there" doesn't really count.)

To my eye, the most outrageous thing on that table of contents is a separate rules entry for tying knots! Seriously? Now we need rules for whistling, and maybe for getting dressed. (Oh, wait, we already have a chart for that.)

As far as reprints go - there's a fine tradition of that in D&D publishing, going back to the DDG reprinting Appendix IV of the AD&D PHB.

 

[Connorsrpg]

Actually looking fwd to the info on Downtime myself.
Rivals looks interesting, but I also wish there was a 'Contacts/Allies' section too.

 

[Connorsrpg]

Ooh, and Coastal Encounters... that should come in handy for my new game

 

[martinlochsen]

Disregarding the name you'd prefer, what exactly would you want this gish to do, that one of the existing classes/sub-classes doesn't already for the most part accomplish?

I'm sorry sir, I'm not going to be drawn into that discussion. I know you got your torpedoes locked and loaded and you're ready and eager to fire, because you've been in this discussion oh so many times before. You know it all by rote. But that is my point. If something keeps coming up, it's something someone feels passionately about, and there seems to me to be a great number of such things - content that certain players feel really passionately about, and have been hoping to see in print.

You're getting hung up on the random examples I chose. My point is that these things, that certain people really want, don't turn up. I'm not interested in discussing whether players are justified or not in wanting some feature to be added to the game. In my opinion, they have that justification by default. If they feel it's lacking, then it is lacking, for them.

So, what I really want to discuss here, is not if we already have a good gish or not. That would be derailing the thread. The question I want to ask is if Wizards, despite doing surveys and asking peoples opinions, might still be loosing touch with their fans (or at least a portion of them), because they are asking the wrong questions?

And again, I think the book looks fine, I'm not trying to bash it.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Not that I want to add fuel to this fire, but we don't even have any evidence that those reprinted subclasses are reprinted because of AL. As far as I can see, that's entirely speculation. They could have had any number of reasons to do it.

Personally, I like it. It's only a few pages and it means I can leave a book (one that's mostly fluff anyway) on the shelf and still have easy access to a few extra subclasses.

I also know quite a few people who don't have SCAG who will be thrilled to have Xanathar's.

They have specifically said that the subclasses that are being reprinted are in there because they are both popular and are sufficiently non-Realms enough to include in a book that is non-Realms on its own. Despite the name of a Realms NPC being in the title, this book is meant to be not specific to one world.

 

[Lylandra]

While I understand the basic idea behind the PHB +1 in AL (which is at least partially to minimize the whole "oh, I KNOW this spell must be in PGtF... no, it was in CA... no wait, Spell Compendium!" madness we had in 3.x and therefore to keep the game easy and flowing), I think it is an outdated concept to assume that the majority of players plays with a pile of books besides them.

From my own games, players tend to use the SRD (when playing PF) or just do a quick write-up of their PC's abilities on a sheet. I check them up for possible mistakes and then they're okay to be used as reference. And with D&D beyond on the horizon, I don't understand why they would want to keep the rule because an online compendium is up to date and can be easily configured to allow an "official AL legal" mode.

 

[Li Shenron]

They gather feedback from people who play and DM Adventure's League and apparently people have reported liking the rule. That's some evidence. It's not conclusive evidence, but it's not meaningless either.

Is this really true?

Because if AL players actually like the PHB+1 rule, why are they breaking (or create a shortcut to partially avoid some restrictions) it by reprinting stuff from one book to another?

The choice of reprinted subclasses makes little sense with respect to the PHB+1 rule. Crawford has confirmed to multiple people that they were chosen because they are the most popular, and I take it for granted that this is true. But there is no special synergy between those 4 subclasses and the new material in XGE that actually gives a strong reason why the players of those 4 subclasses should be treated more favorably than players of other subclasses.

Not to mention the possibility (although IMHO that's not the case) that something could be more popular exactly because it's better, which would make it the worst possible choice for bypassing the +1 limitation.

It could be after all a mere marketing ploy... to boost the chances of selling XGE to someone who didn't buy SCAG. But doesn't it also decrease the chances of buying SCAG from someone who is going to buy XGE? I know I didn't buy SCAG because IMHO it had too little to offer to my games, now that it has even less, I am even less likely to ever pick it up.