Oh one more criticism.

The index at the back is printed it damn microfiche. Jeebus thats a tiny font!
And why are class perks given their own entries? Dont the classes entry themselves kinda do that? Bloats the index a bit.

I got the PHB yesterday afternoon and devoured it. Really fucking cool, and the warlock is highly intriguing.

I could have really used a mark on the spell lists to help me find rituals, though, and I really hope there are some online lists at some point.

Also, I feel a bit annoying left in the lurch with no magic items. And no tanglefoot bag??

Quote from: Will;783437I could have really used a mark on the spell lists to help me find rituals, though, and I really hope there are some online lists at some point.

I wonder if it would "break" the game to allow just about any spell to be cast as a ritual, if it made sense? I just really like that idea...

Quote from: Will;783437I got the PHB yesterday afternoon and devoured it. Really fucking cool, and the warlock is highly intriguing.

I could have really used a mark on the spell lists to help me find rituals, though, and I really hope there are some online lists at some point.

Also, I feel a bit annoying left in the lurch with no magic items. And no tanglefoot bag??

Here you go

Awesome! Thanks!

Quote from: Omega;783368Oh one more criticism.

The index at the back is printed it damn microfiche. Jeebus thats a tiny font!
And why are class perks given their own entries? Dont the classes entry themselves kinda do that? Bloats the index a bit.

I have to whine about this, too. I know, I'm getting older, I should just keep the reading glasses handy....but I don't have this problem reading textbooks, and I read plenty of those.

Surely WotC knows the D&D fanbase is a bit older than it was 30 years ago?

Quote from: Will;783437I got the PHB yesterday afternoon and devoured it. Really fucking cool, and the warlock is highly intriguing.

I could have really used a mark on the spell lists to help me find rituals, though, and I really hope there are some online lists at some point.

Also, I feel a bit annoying left in the lurch with no magic items. And no tanglefoot bag??

I, for one, am pleased as punch that there are no magic items in the PHB. A+++

Sadly, I'm also in the aging eyes category and the index is hard for me to read without strong light.

Quote from: Natty Bodak;783482I, for one, am pleased as punch that there are no magic items in the PHB. A+++

Sadly, I'm also in the aging eyes category and the index is hard for me to read without strong light.

This website is hard for me to read without strong right, let alone the PHB Index!

Quote from: Omega;783368And why are class perks given their own entries? Dont the classes entry themselves kinda do that? Bloats the index a bit.

It might happen that class perks are mentioned in the rules without mentioning the class it is derived from.
Or sometimes in the future we might get classes that recycle class perks from previously published classes.
Or there might be a multiclass NPC in an adventure who has all the perks listed without mentioning which class they are derived from.

This could all be cases where I think indexing them might be beneficial. Even if WotC doesn't do such a plunder, a 3PP or homebrewer might, and then the PHB could help to track down the class perk descriptions.

I'm really enjoying D&DV, and overall I really like it. But this thread gives me an excuse to bitch, so I'll bitch.

1) Grotesque HP inflation.

2) Giant blocks of tedious hack-written "Flavor text" to describe each race and class. Jesus Christ. Trees died for this.  

3) Simpler than the last two editions but still could have been simpler. The Starter Set felt weirdly..."Dense" and didn't seem newcomer-friendly to me. The cleric's character sheet looked like one of those pop-art projects where they try to squeeze the whole text of Joyce's Ulysses onto a Dublin travel poster or something. The eighties versions of Basic have never been surpassed in newbie-friendliness. No one has ever even come close to them, actually.

4) Eye-raping "Ye Olde High Fantasie" fonts.

5) Full color. Yeah, yeah, I know. I recently had lunch with a dude about an RPG project I'm working on and when discussing print options he utterly dismissed B&W RPG products as Something Decent and Normal People Just Don't Do In Public Anymore. It's the industry standard now, but I still find black text on white easier to read and use (Highlight, photocopy bits for play aides, etc.). RPGs are not fucking coffee table books. The fact that the industry has chosen that direction over at-the-table utility makes me suspect a substantial percentage of buyers never actually play the games.

6) Odd 4E-inspired monster stat blocks with lots of extraneous text. It should read: "Short Sword +4 (1d6+1)" instead of "Action: Short Sword warggle-blargle something +4 useless text Russian novel something 1d6+1".

7) The cover is an ugly mass of red blobs. Some of the interior art was far superior.

What is the deal with everyone using javelins?

I think the "HP inflation" is a cosmetic mechanical factor and non-issue. Some of these monsters hit pretty fucking hard. Those HP will get whacked down pretty fast. Same goes for PC damage output.

Of course there's more ways to beat things so...


I'm glad someone else brought up the Index... my old eyes are actually straining to read that shit. I put my glasses on during the game and I had to read it at almost arm's length... blerg.

Here's another minor peeve. Subclass names. Especially the Fighter's.

Battle Master sounds like a He-Man supporting character whose toy no one bought and now somewhere in Mexico there's a whole landfill of Battle Master action figures, like the old E.T. Atari game. I'd use Warlord or Marshal.

Champion is, um, okay, I guess; I mean, I wish I could do better, but I can't think of anything right now for the go-getter, front-line, die-with-your-boots-on Fighter ("Meat Shield" doesn't sound terribly tempting as far as class choices go).

Eldricht Knight is a mouthful, and because of the overuse of "eldricht horror" to describe Mythos beasties, makes me think of a suit of armor with an icky tentacled sanity-blasting alien monster inside. Which would be a cool monster, BTW. Is anyone writing this down? Anyway, I'd use Swordmage. Yeah, it's one of these agglutinative nouns from 4e people might hate but I'm fine with it. Again, it's no frills and crystal clear.

Quote from: Necrozius;783438I wonder if it would "break" the game to allow just about any spell to be cast as a ritual, if it made sense? I just really like that idea...

Here's a guy kindasorta trying to work out such a thing: Games With Others blog
Actually he's going further and proposing a system for rituals that can go beyond the established spell list.

Quote from: Vargold;783484This website is hard for me to read without strong right, let alone the PHB Index!

Try ctrl ++ to enlarge the text?

Quote from: Just Another Snake Cult;7835041) Grotesque HP inflation.

2) Giant blocks of tedious hack-written "Flavor text" to describe each race and class. Jesus Christ. Trees died for this.  

7) The cover is an ugly mass of red blobs. Some of the interior art was far superior.

What is the deal with everyone using javelins?

1: I thought this too at first. But as has been shown in other threads. The HP inflation actually levels off at a point and is close to AD&D levels in some respects.

2: Theres alot of dross in there. Not just the story exerps. I dont mind the ercerps overly. They are mostly a paragraph or so. I think they could have chosen a few more evocative  entries though.

7: I think it would have done better as the DMG cover and the green dragon battle from the Starter as the PHB cover.

8: Cheaper? Lighter? Fewer moving parts?