One of the things we noticed was when there are lists given for Sorcerer/Wizard spells in a product like "Ultimate Magic", for example, the spells are not categorized by school. Which makes it rather annoying considering it's important for specialist wizards to search by school than turning to each spell to see what school it is in.
Any reason for stepping away from that format?
I would say Oversight, but APG did it too.
Check out d20pfsrd.com for it, I guess.
Why aren't all spell lists categorized by school? Sorcerers and Wizards aren't the only ones who take Spell Focus.
As long as I have resources like the Pathfinder SRD, it's a minor problem for me. Soon as you have them all sorted by school, someone will come along and say, "Why aren't they alphabetized? I don't want to waste 5 pages in a book spreading out the new spells by school! Why can't they be lumped in one nice neat column?"
Can't win 'em all.
Why aren't all spell lists categorized by school? Sorcerers and Wizards aren't the only ones who take Spell Focus.
Amen, high five. +1000
Breaking all spell lists into schools would eat up a lot more space in the book, which means less space for actual spells.
Breaking all spell lists into schools would eat up a lot more space in the book, which means less space for actual spells.
Perhaps, as a compromise, they could be broken into schools on the PRD?
Breaking all spell lists into schools would eat up a lot more space in the book, which means less space for actual spells.
I don't know... the 2E PHB had a list with them by level, by school and sphere...
Not sure what the 'spell count' difference is, but those only cost a total of 7 pages for all 3 lists...
EDIT: Rolled a 20 on my Will save. Will not say anything further in this thread.
Ill Omen. Reroll.
While adding extra spell list with different way of sorting to books would be waste of space they could be put somewhere as a free pdf or somthing (for all those lazies who don't want to do it by themselves). Heck, with the folks here I wouldn't be suprised to see neat excel file that can be set to sort according to various criteria soon.
{I don't know... the 2E PHB had a list with them by level, by school and sphere...
Not sure what the 'spell count' difference is, but those only cost a total of 7 pages for all 3 lists...}
The Core Rulebook spell list is already *15* pages....
{Perhaps, as a compromise, they could be broken into schools on the PRD?}
{While adding extra spell list with different way of sorting to books would be waste of space they could be put somewhere as a free pdf or somthing}
Yes, we could put that in the PRD.
Yes, we could make a separate PDF of it.
Doing those things would take time away from creating new books.
And, as others have pointed out, the functionality is already available from other websites, so we'd be spending resources redoing something that's already been done. That doesn't seem efficient to me.
I'm not trying to dismiss your suggestions, they are valid suggestions, but we're already running slightly in the red and don't have the manpower to spend on something that isn't critical and is already available elsewhere. :(
My general frustration with it was that it was always that way for sorc/wizard spell lists in 3.5, and it is that way in the core book, so you'd think it would be an ongoing thing.
I would certainly prefer all spell lists to be divided up by school, as it is an important thing for other classes as well, but if you're going to keep it that way in the core book, why just change it into a less efficient organizational system in later books? I can't imagine that it really saves that much space. Maybe half a page at most, as the noncore books don't even have half as many spells.
It's certainly not the worst thing in the world, but it is a negative feature in my mind. Much like the lack of updated summon monster lists in the bestiaries.
But I'm not a publisher, so maybe I just don't get it.
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<shifty looking character approaches>
pssst.. hey you... yeah you... I got all the 'spells organized by school' you'll ever need... right over here.... no no, really, its ok, the first one's free....
I would certainly prefer all spell lists to be divided up by school, as it is an important thing for other classes as well, but if you're going to keep it that way in the core book, why just change it into a less efficient organizational system in later books?
It's more efficient in terms of spells, it's less efficient in terms of "can I find a spell of the school I want for this spell level."
I can't imagine that it really saves that much space. Maybe half a page at most, as the noncore books don't even have half as many spells.
All I can says is I was there when we built the listing, and I know what spells we had to cut to fit because that listing ran longer than we expected, so....
It's certainly not the worst thing in the world, but it is a negative feature in my mind. Much like the lack of updated summon monster lists in the bestiaries.
That's an entirely different issue: a game design issue. Adding new monsters to thone spelsl means the spells gets more versatile (and thus useful, and thus more powerful) with each monster book we publish.
<shifty looking character approaches>
pssst.. hey you... yeah you... I got all the 'spells organized by school' you'll ever need... right over here.... no no, really, its ok, the first one's free....
Exactly... and that list includes all the book, rather than just the book you're looking at.
I'm not trying to dismiss your suggestions, they are valid suggestions, but we're already running slightly in the red and don't have the manpower to spend on something that isn't critical and is already available elsewhere. :(
By the way, I wanted to clarify that we're running in the red in terms of workflow capacity, not in terms of financial stability.
So wait. Having te Sorc/Wiz spell lists in a book like UM divided up by school takes up more room/man power??
I guess I could see the first due seperations and the extra words for each school per level, though I can't imagine it would be that much bigger. As for tye manpower, clearly that's what interns are for. Make them list the spells by school.
As long as they are listed by school some place though I guess its not that big of a deal. Its just as a fan of Illusion and Necormancy, I always checked the lists of a new book to see if my schools got any love.
So wait. Having te Sorc/Wiz spell lists in a book like UM divided up by school takes up more room/man power??
I guess I could see the first due seperations and the extra words for each school per level, though I can't imagine it would be that much bigger.
Because of how the headers are, each would take up an extra two lines--one for the header, one for the space to separate it from the rest of the listing so it's readable
8 schools times (7 bard levels + 10 cleric levels + 10 sor/wiz levels + 4 ranger levels + 4 paladin levels) = 8 x 35 = 280 lines for the headers and 280 lines for the readability space. At 60 lines per page, that's 4 more pages for the added headers, plus 4 pages for the readability space. And that doesn't count spell lists for alchemists, inquisitors, summoners, and witches.
As for tye manpower, clearly that's what interns are for. Make them list the spells by school.
Having an intern do it still means we need to have an employee check it to make sure it's right.
Why couldn't you change just the wiz/sor list from Alphabetically by level to alphabetically by school by level?
Does it really take up that much more room? Extra line feeds between the headings?
Even just the sor/wiz list is 8 schools * 10 spell levels * 2 extra lines = 160 lines = 2-1/3 extra pages.
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Even just the sor/wiz list is 8 schools * 10 spell levels * 2 extra lines = 160 lines = 2-1/3 extra pages.Why couldn't you change just the wiz/sor list from Alphabetically by level to alphabetically by school by level?
Does it really take up that much more room? Extra line feeds between the headings?
Ouch. I see what you mean.
I'm wondering, though. Could future Pathfinder products point to Paizo online for materials that don't make the cut? I've noticed many a mag these days (including my workplace) point to sites for additional material. (IIRC, there's a Paizo blog post discussing certain zero level spells that didn't make UM).
Well, usually things get cut because they're not up to par with the rest of the content, redundant or conflicting with content appearing in other books, or too problematic in terms of describing the rules for them. That sort of thing isn't exactly high on our list of things we'd want anyone to see.
Sometimes stuff gets cut for space, and we've become more inclined to put that in the blog (such as a monster that was cut in Realm of the Fellnight Queen, and the cantrips from UM), but anything more time-intensive than that (such as a PDF) isn't likely to happen.
I'm not trying to dismiss your suggestions, they are valid suggestions, but we're already running slightly in the red and don't have the manpower to spend on something that isn't critical and is already available elsewhere. :(
By the way, I wanted to clarify that we're running in the red in terms of workflow capacity, not in terms of financial stability.
Thank you!
I read that first one and went HOLY CRAP!
I appreciate the clarification very, very much :)
Edit: ... and when I need such a list, I cheerfully use d20pfsrd.com, because as has been pointed out, it has such a list for *all* the books, not just the current one.
Very handy.
Additionally, a spell can fall into many schools at the same time now that things like metal, wood, fire, domains, etc are coming on line so that could result in even more space being spread out.
Pathfinder can be a complex system with many different source books and ways to look at and filter content. Various programs like Hero Lab and fan based web sites do a good job of helping the users of the system find more efficient or alternate ways to look at the raw rules and books put out by Piazo.
And BTW SKR - Way to scare the crap out of the fanboy base like me with the comment you made farther up the list. shesh. LOL