| Vivificient |
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One of the most wonderful and helpful usability features in Pathfinder 1 is the presence of one-line summaries of every spell in the class spell lists. By way of example, I am speaking of the lists that look like this.
Every beginner player I have ever observed uses these lists when choosing spells for the first time. It makes the process of learning to play a spellcaster simple and painless.
These lists are very helpful for experienced players too, when you want to remember the difference between Sound Burst and Shatter at a glance, or see if there is anything on your class list that could help in a given situation.
Unlike Pathfinder (and D&D 3.5 and 3.0), D&D 5e lacks these spell summaries. The results are miserable and painful. New players stare at their spell lists in confusion, unable to tell what the words mean. Their confusion turns to despair as they realize they will have to look up dozens of spells separately to choose which ones to take. Worse yet, each spell they look up has a long, technical description. They're still trying to get their bearings about what their options are, and they're forced to wade through paragraphs of technical detail.
I was very disappointed to see that the current playtest document features only the bald spell names in the spell list. Hopefully this is just because it is a playtest, and all will be well in the final book! Thus my humble petition: please, by the merciful gods, include spell summaries in the Pathfinder 2 spell lists.