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.

 

[Kobold Boots]

Hi

My first reaction to this is to say "stop being condescending". On second read I'm less sure you are being condescending but perhaps you aren't aware that what you wrote reads that way. So, something to consider.

I'm aware that one possible way to read any reply to anyone is through the lens of condescension. Being fair, I also knew the minute you replied to my point by point with a point by point that it was extremely likely you were heading down that road - just call it experience on the forums. Regardless, it's my fault for continuing the convo when I should have simply ignored it or blocked you.

I do apologize for contributing to how you took it and helping you feel that way. However, there's no tone over typing unless you add it, so something to consider.

I'm not going to continue discussing your list of reasons for 12 pages of a book I want to buy being totally useless to me are somehow a good thing. There is no argument in the world that will make me believe __I__ will ever have any use for these pages. And, being quite selfish, I'm annoyed the pages are there at all. As I said, My mileage does vary from the listed value.

Entirely fair.

Be well.
Boots

 

[dropbear8mybaby]

...knot rules...

OH NO! Knot, rules!

I hate them...

 

[Li Shenron]

Explain how this is supposed to work? You break the spell list up into separate lists, one for each school?

Go check the the 3e PHBs. They had already learned how to write good spells lists, nobody understood how did they forget it when designing the 5e PHB.

 

[Li Shenron]

I am surprised that people are treating this as the "major mechanical expansion" book that has been hinted at. I think that is still coming next November and will include the Mystic and Artificer and many more character option than this book contains. There is not enough in this book for it to be "major" in any way.

Indeed.

Buy hey, the 2018 book will indeed be a bigger expansion. Except of course that it will probably have 4 more subclasses reprinted from SCAG and a bunch more reprinted from XGE itself, as well as at least a dozen pages devoted to random hair/eye color or something more exotic like random genders, you know for "new players" that cannot come up with one.

 

[gyor]

Fair question. Offering a fair answer in return. Presuming:

1. You're a DM that doesn't allow tech at the table

This is where you went wrong.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Go check the the 3e PHBs. They had already learned how to write good spells lists, nobody understood how did they forget it when designing the 5e PHB.

Honestly I don't care enough to go through the trouble of finding 3e books. I skipped 3rd and 4th editions.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Buy hey, the 2018 book will indeed be a bigger expansion. Except of course that it will probably have 4 more subclasses reprinted from SCAG and a bunch more reprinted from XGE itself, as well as at least a dozen pages devoted to random hair/eye color or something more exotic like random genders, you know for "new players" that cannot come up with one.

It seems that of all the countless RPGs out there to choose from, you are playing (or, at least, participating in the forums of) one that you intensely dislike....

 

[Guest 6801328]

Um, the spells are already listed by class in the PHB? You'd list the spells by school within the class lists.

Ahhhh! Now I understand. You just want spell lists sorted in various ways. You wrote "would greatly appreciate spells being organized by schools" and I thought you were referring to the full list of spell descriptions.

Reading comprehension and PHB knowledge. You fail at it.

Well, I'd rather occasionally stumble at parsing somebody else's words than be the sort of person who thinks the above retort is witty and appropriate.

Toodles.

 

[DEFCON 1]

This may surprise you, but plenty of people have stated the spell lists in the PHB are garbage for the reason you are so flippantly mocking for no logical reason. What's SUPPOSED to be used as a quick reference has turned out to be of very limited use as such.

Wizard players, or especially Eldritch Knight and Arcane Trickster players who HAVE to pick spells of a certain school, would greatly appreciate spells being organized by schools so they can quickly narrow down which spells they want, without having to either flip back and forth to the spell description to see if it's of the school they want or looking up external sources.

Beats a stupid list of names, that's for sure.

Okay, I was going to make a snarky response back, but I think I see the issue here. I thought you were talking about the actual spell section of the book being by level and school, and not just the spell lists. Because having the spell section not alphabetical would not by any means make it easier to find the spells you need.

But if having spell lists that list spells by class and level and school would be helpful, you are in luck. This spell list PDF on the Wizards website has what you what you need. Yes, you still need to find the actual spell description alphabetically in the PHB, but at least if you wanted the spell lists a different way, you have them.

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

What irks me about WotC far more than padded content does is having to pay full price for each separate format. They are worse than textbook publishers (who themselves are the spawn of Jubilex) in this regard. I'd love to play around with D&D Beyond but the free content is useless and there is just no #$%&ing way I am going to buy another PHB.

I've had to buy another already when the first one fell to bits; the new one is also dubious. I should note that I am not hard on books in general. I still have 2E books I use that are 25 years old and are in decent shape. But I agree with you, they're pushing towards textbook publisher territory.

In real life I'm a college instructor, so I can absolutely relate to the evil of textbook publishers. I go out of my way to choose inexpensive texts and or PDF readings I can just give to students. I recall teaching a class as a grad student I had taken as an undergrad. The text when I was an undergrad in the early 1990s was the 3rd edition. When I first started teaching the class about 10 years later it was the 4th. OK, that's legit. During the three years I taught it, it had churned to 6th. Last time I checked it was up to the 9th. The material drifted slightly, but this was an intro class, so fundamentally it hasn't changed that much. Most of the material was just rearranged in order. Obviously WotC isn't Pearson or McGraw-Hill and they don't have the kind of power that an instructor has, but they're doing a lot of the same "license the heck out of our existing content" moves.