I'm sitting down to make a whole new party with my players for Sunday's game, and I can't help but notice...
Domains, Bloodlines, and Arcane schools are essential choices to make with their given classes. Bloodline powers are printed right in the Sorcerer text, but Arcane School Powers and Domain Powers are all the way back in the magic chapter. Arcane schools are particularly difficult to pin down, for some reason.
Could we please consider moving these class features into the class description, as is done with the Sorcerer? The same request applies to all that SRD "magical writing and spellbooks" business that applies only to the Wizard.
When I'm perusing the classes, I want one-stop shopping. Thanks!
Agreed. The same thing should probably be done with Cleric Domains, especially since they aren't just a list of new spells known.
However, this doesn't really belong in this forum. They're going to spend a few weeks on ability scores and races before they get into classes.
I'll third this. It's a real pain looking through every chapter just to find those abilities.
...Reads the changes to the school abilities & heads back to edit her wizard...
Agreed. And also PLEASE specify "class level," "caster level," or "character level," not just "level" or "the wizard's level" or whatever.
Agreed. And also PLEASE specify "class level," "caster level," or "character level," not just "level" or "the wizard's level" or whatever.
Seconded!
However, this doesn't really belong in this forum. They're going to spend a few weeks on ability scores and races before they get into classes.
Eep! You're right.
I knew this, too, but for some reason mentally substituted Race for Class.
Oh well, we'll bring it up again in the right forum...
Sorry all.
Owner - D20 Hobbies
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Arcane School Powers and Domain Powers are all the way back in the magic chapter. Arcane schools are particularly difficult to pin down, for some reason.
Could we please consider moving these class features into the class description, as is done with the Sorcerer? The same request applies to all that SRD "magical writing and spellbooks" business that applies only to the Wizard.
I'd rather they reversed the Domain changes (going back to the SRD 3.5 version of Domains) and leave them where they are now (in Magic section.) With the Domain changes, we foreclose on hundreds of backward compatibility features in non OGL content. The opposite of the stated goal of the PRPG.
The Arcane Schools make more sense in the Magic section, because Arcane Schools may not be limited to Wizards. They are not inherently Wizard features. Bloodline's on the other hand are inherent Sorcerer abilities. They are features unlikely to be incorporated into other classes.
As for the Magical Writing and Spellbooks section, that is used by a huge number of other classes (Archivist, Anyspell, and 50+ more from B-Z.) Moving them into the Wizard sections doesn't seem to make sense to me. Why should an Archivist look in a Wizard section for rules when he simply uses the same method of Spell storing as Wizards? You run into DM's that say odd things like "that is a Wizard feature, you can't use that." Don't tell me it doesn't happen, I've had that exact thing happen (being limited by things that refer to "Wizard" when the intent was "anyone who uses a spellbook" by a DM.)
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Sorry James, but I heartily disagree.
I love the new Domain rules.
I strongly want the Domains and Powers up with the Cleric class section and the Arcane Schools and Powers with the Wizard. Yes, a few other classes occasionally make use of these, but not enough to make the VERY inconvenient and confusing page flipping the current layout creates worth it.
Take the Familiar entry as an example. It is with the Wizard, even though the Sorcerer can have a familiar. This does not mean you move the Familiar entry back to the Magic section, it means you add a line saying "see the Wizard entry" ... simple, clean and logical.
The same needs to happen with the School and Domain powers. Put them where they logically belong for the majority of situations and then add a "see the appropriate class entry for details" for those classes that more infrequently need to refer to them.
Having to flip all over the book in order to find these kinds of things is one of my top 3 or 4 things a currently HATE about the current rules (for the record, the remained of the rules I LOVE)
Sorry James, but I heartily disagree.
I love the new Domain rules.
There's a diversity of opinion here. I favor the 3.5 Domain mechanic, because I house ruled it into awesomeness (cleric default to domains NOT cure/cause). For very personal reasons that can't generalize to the PRPG's official release, I prefer the old way.
You can keep spellbook and domain rules where they are, but then you should move bloodlines back there too. I just had a really tough time finding it, and I don't mess around with all those "other" classes. I want things to be nice and simple, if I sit down to make a wizard, I want to turn to the "wizard" section and see everything I need to make a PC.
To each their own. One thing we can all agree on is that the current information architecture is sort of wonky and slapped together. Fully 90% of my complaints about the beta are layout, placement, and flow issues. These will be rectified only when I am comfortable handing the book to a new player and saying "Read this and you will know how to play."
Right now? I don't think that would work.
You can keep spellbook and domain rules where they are, but then you should move bloodlines back there too. I just had a really tough time finding it, and I don't mess around with all those "other" classes. I want things to be nice and simple, if I sit down to make a wizard, I want to turn to the "wizard" section and see everything I need to make a PC.
That's fine for the wizard and sorcerer who have less than a dozen different choices to make for school/bloodline, but it would make the cleric section look pretty fat, IMO. And on the other hand, the sorcerer's bloodline is about 80% class abilities and 20% bonus spell list, whereas the clerical domains are the other way round.
You can keep spellbook and domain rules where they are, but then you should move bloodlines back there too. I just had a really tough time finding it, and I don't mess around with all those "other" classes. I want things to be nice and simple, if I sit down to make a wizard, I want to turn to the "wizard" section and see everything I need to make a PC.That's fine for the wizard and sorcerer who have less than a dozen different choices to make for school/bloodline, but it would make the cleric section look pretty fat, IMO. And on the other hand, the sorcerer's bloodline is about 80% class abilities and 20% bonus spell list, whereas the clerical domains are the other way round.
Honestly? Compress it. Smaller font, less whitespace.
This solves another problem in those sections— ability tables spread over two pages, sometimes with little more than the power name on one page! *groan*
Make it a table in the class section, not columns of text. Use 2, 3 pages if you must, it's taking up all that space already. Bonus spell lists, being relatively homogeneous for a given class ability, should almost certainly have a table indexed by level next to or near the class abilities by level table. Then you need one more table for the one-shot powers like domain abilities by domain or school powers by school. This can be done. The current layout is silly.
At any rate, the chief offender is the lack of Arcane Schools and Domains in the Beta PDF's table of Contents. This should be fixed ASAP.
Personally, I use an electronic text file version of the rules and I use regular expressions to search through it. So I don't care about the layout too much, except for all of the sidebars which mess with the format of the text file. :-)
Domains and school powers should be in the magic section, though page numbers would be nice. For consistency's sake, the sorcerer's bloodline powers could be put in the magic section, but then there's "spell-only" about them.