seaan's page

Got error values in To-hit and Damage for a weapon in v0.8.8. The character is a roque with weapon finesse rogue talent. The weapon is a custom weapon. Let me know if you more details on the exact error messages.

Cheers

...I'm heading back into the errors for v.0.8.5

Calculations in 8_4 on the Barbarian Rage powers are off. Have a 7th level barbarian with Powerful Blow (shows +8, should be +2), Renewed Vigor (shows 7d8, should be 2d8), and Guarded Stance (shows +8, should be +2).

DustinGebhardt wrote:

Any hope on including some way of applying the Half-* templates from the Bestiary? One of my BBEG's just gained the Half-Fiend template and the math is starting to hurt my brain. Using your sheet would be awesome for writing him up.

I haven't looked into adding templates as yet, but it should be possible. I'll think on it as an item for the next big release.

I know that an option to add a templates for familars and animal companions would be useful too. This will reduce (but not eliminate) the need for custom familar/animal-companion entries.

Two more on class customization:

* There is a bug on BAB for prestige classes, the pull-down does not change the progression (stuck on Mid).

* I am sure you have thought about this, but I was thinking about all the work you have done with automation, and how to take advantage of it on the custom classes. I think it is safe to say that most of the custom class abilities either already exist for other classes or map to existing feats. My suggestion then looks something like this:

Each level of the custom class gets three "ability pulldowns" (3 because that is the usual maximum, short of things like the Monk's first level). The ability pulldown allows selection of any existing class ability or feat (feats ignore normal prereqs). Any ability that is truly custom (e.g. not already existing in the official areas) can be entered as a custom feat.

Is that somewhat like what you were already planning?

Okay all you Customizers out there, I've got half your release ready...

Landscape Character Sheet File: PRPG_CS_L_v_0_7_18.zip

I did some quick testing of the custom race and class. Overall they are nice improvements. I have the following comments:

* Ability points spent on Getting Started tab does not handle high values (try putting in a value of 21, it shows NA for "Cost" and "Spent" has ### error). This happens whether or not I have selected custom.

* Nice that you are showing the ability final totals on this tab though.

* New BAB and save input on custom classes works for me. Easy to change for classes that have custom progressions.

* Like the "stacks with" section in the custom class. Worked as expected with animal companions and familiars.

* Speaking of animal companions and familiars, are you planning on adding a customization space (either on the tab or in the DataCompanions area)?

* Also like the "Caster Inc." and "Caster Level Increase Applies to:" on the custom race. Did a quick test and saw Craft Wand was not red.

* Don't know if you want to deal with this, but what about custom classes that progress in more than one type of spell level (like Mystic Thaumaturge). One of my test characters has a custom prestige class that goes up one level of arcane or divine; and 1/2 level in the other. I think this could be handled with a new column ("2nd Caster Inc.") and box ("2nd Caster Level Increase Applies to:"). I can set every-other "2nd Caster Inc" to map the 1/2 level advancement.

* Not sure if my perception modifiers were being correctly calculated (between using a custom race that had +2 and an Owl familiar who should add conditional +3). Have you automated that aspect of the familiars yet?

For Qualified on Custom Feats, you've got the easy route--just state TRUE or FALSE for the character in question--and the harder route of writing the logic necessary, such as:

=AND(Dex>14,ISNUMBER(FIND("Nimble Moves",Feats_Known)))

Perhaps I ran into a bug then - I tried the simple route of just putting "TRUE" here, but the custom feat still came up red. Tried FALSE, "0", and "1" for good measure - always ended-up red.

To renew a past (favorite) request, is there anyway to make it easier to transfer characters to a newer version of a sheet. Especially when dealing with high level characters using a number of customer items, it takes quite a bit of time to do manually transfer.

Here are some review comments on 7_17_1:

* I can't get the plus to expand on the Getting Started tab (like the one on line 61) unless I unprotect the sheet. Using Excel 2007.

* Custom schools still have not made it to the Customization Tab

* Had a number of feats come up red (like Craft Wand). I think this is because most of the character's magic levels are in a custom prestige class. In the custom prestige class I have put "1" for arcane caster level, is this being taken into account when checking for feat validity?

* There are a number of "how do you do this questions" that should be added to the FAQ or put in notes (I would like answers now for the first 2):

- How do you fill in natural armor class? (it is no longer fillable)
- For custom feats, what values should I place in the Qualified column?
- Steps to selecting weapons for Weapon Focus, etc. I found this one (slightly different, but improved since v7.8).

I had a few more, but the browser ate them (retyped the above from memory - serves me right for using the browser for composing :-( ). I will do some more testing later...

seaan wrote:

FWIW - I prefer spreadsheet based spell lists over spell cards. Perhaps I have just played too many characters with a lot of spells. The general idea is to have each spell description per line (or at most 2 lines).

There's a fully functional Excel spell sheet for Pathfinder called adVance out there that does just that. No need for Erian to go to all that work recoding the same functionality for hundreds of spells in his sheet, right?

Zo

Thanks for the tip, looks like the adVance sheet is pretty much what I was looking for. In case anyone else is interested, I'll save you the search: http://www.ashmead.net/~angel/sCore/Pathfinder-adVance-b29.zip (linked from http://chargen.motime.com/).

Just to be clear - I was not asking Erian to do something, just giving some feedback now that he is more seriously trying to figure out how to deal with spells.

Finally, on a related subject, does anyone know of a similar spreadsheet for the Spell Compendium (free or paid)? Just looking to save some typing.

FWIW - I prefer spreadsheet based spell lists over spell cards. Perhaps I have just played too many characters with a lot of spells. The general idea is to have each spell description per line (or at most 2 lines). Here is an example of the header and a sample spell (the first column has boxes which I can check to indicate how many times the spell has been memorized):

Level 0 Spell Description School Comp Time Range Target Effect Area Duration Save SR Ref

00 Dancing Lights Figment torches or other lights Illus V,S 1 a Medium Within 10 ft-rad area 1 min Will disblf - PH-190

I have not done this for Pathfinder yet, but did do this for 3.5. I started off with a generic list of spells (like the CSV output from http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/spells-db put it in a spreadsheet). Next I do a bunch of find/replaces to shorten the various descriptions (abjuration becomes abj, minute becomes min., etc.). In 3.5 I started with summaries (in front of the spells) and condensed from there.

The last step (the most time consuming) is to edit the description down to something much shorter. Normally I don't need the full description, just a reminder, so this works for me (and the Ref section provides page numbers of quick look up). Obviously when used online this becomes a link. To me the biggest failing of Perram's Spellbook is the lack of condensing descriptions (where one spell can take up 2-3 cards because of a big description).

Having said that, this spreadsheet approach can still display the spells in a lot more efficient manner even if the descriptions are not condensed. My idea for the conversion requires alternating the normal columns in the first line, with the description following in one or more lines. If the description was only one line, we just make each spell two line deep, top align all the other fields, and make the bottom description non-wrapping bottom aligned. But I'm sure someone with better spreadsheet skilz could might have more practical solutions on how to achieve this type of display.

The take home point: display some subset of the spell description in a space efficient manner, and provide good ways to locate the rest of the information when needed (ideally not very often).

Finally, I noticed a few peculiarities when it comes to skills and custom classes. On an older sheet (7.8), diplomacy does not shows up as a class skill, even when checked for a prestige class I've taken several levels of. Testing this on 7.15.6, I found any skills with a 1 on the prestige class were counted even when I had not taken any levels of that prestige class yet. This is probably no big deal (how many people are going to input a custom prestige class before they start using it?), but it was a bit unexpected.

Hmm, this is what comes from trying to hurry up a late night post. I meant to say that the current sheets shows any skill chosen on the prestige class form as a class skill even if no levels of the prestige class have been taken.

As to the other typo, just call me "Finally, Finally, Seaan" :-)
(reference to Nicely Nicely Johnson from Guys and Dolls)

Hi, I know you are working on the companions page. Just wanted to be sure you were going to allow for a familiar and an animal companion. I have a multi-class Druid/Wizard and the rules are pretty clear that these are supposed to be separate animals.

While dealing with custom nature-bond and wizard schools, I noticed you are still missing schools on the customization tab. I of course had no trouble modifying in the schools tab, but I suspect this is not your intention.

Finally there was no direct method I could find to customize druid's nature-bond. The work around is to use the Additional Domain Feat (which is fine so long as you don't need an additional domain feat). I think a better solution is to add custom domains to the Nature Bond pull-down. I looked around to see if I could do that myself in the short term, but this part of the spreadsheet is beyond my meager skills.

Finally, I noticed a few peculiarities when it comes to skills and custom classes. On an older sheet (7.8), diplomacy does not shows up as a class skill, even when checked for a prestige class I've taken several levels of. Testing this on 7.15.6, I found any skills with a 1 on the prestige class were counted even when I had not taken any levels of that prestige class yet. This is probably no big deal (how many people are going to input a custom prestige class before they start using it?), but it was a bit unexpected.

Ah, I see, you want to go to Table_Level_Dependent on the DataClasses tab.

Yes, that was what I was looking for. Wonder how I missed it?

For custom classes, there was a little red flag in the corner of the table headers with notes on the proper values to use. Those are hard to see, in my opinion, so I've moved them to the data validation instead (i.e. now they'll pop up every time you select the cell).

Sorry I was not clear enough on this. I know about the notes and the pull down for choices (5 or 6 for prestige classes). The problem is that I am using a custom prestige class that has a non-standard BAB progression. So what I am trying to change is the BAB table itself (e.g. what ever gets used when "5" or "6" is selected). This was easy to do in the older versions of the sheet, but I have not figured out how you are doing this calculation in the latest versions.

Same thing for the saving throws - although here my GM is using one of the base class saving throw tables instead. So I don't have to replace the calculation, just allow a prestige class to select the proper base class saving throw progression option instead.

For custom class abilities, for now I'm going to go with a set of cells you can fill out on the Customization tab. If the Custom class name is present, the summary of these cells will display on the Abilities and Feats tab now.

Cool, looking forward to that.

Using the 0.78 sheet with a custom class. Had a few questions and comments:

• How can I change the BAB? I have not located the BAB tables in this version.
  
• Same question for saving throws?
  
• What is your plan for dealing with class abilities for custom classes?
  
• When selecting feats from the Character Options tab, I noticed some feats had little squares (typically an unprintable character) following the title (like Primeval Brutality).
  

I see the animal companion page is incomplete, so treat the following as a check list when you get around to working on the page again.

• The CMB and CMD calculations are incomplete.
  
• Have option for animal companions who are familiars to use hit points that are half of the master's hit points.
  
• The familiars attack stat should be the highest bonus of str or dex (not just str). The current value is set to J14 which is empty (str is J13).
  
• No saving throws for the animal companion yet, but should have option for familiars which uses the highest of its own or its masters.
  
• Should have a background box for the animal companion where we can keep notes. Nice to have custom feats and abilities as well.
  

As far as full description text goes, I don't think it is needed.

Here are some general issues and observations, most of them are customization related.

• Agree with earlier poster that ray should be a selectable weapon, and should reflect appropriate weapon focus feats.
  
• Make sure it is easy to expand the number of skills and feats (I want to use the sheet for an oriental game with dozens of new feats and skills)
  
• Not sure what PRPG column is for in the DataEquipment tab (custom equipment). Looks like you either need to put custom equipment in custom area, or better label the tables in the DataEquipment tab.
  
• I’ve temporarily used custom traits to record class abilities. I’ve also put long term effects (like magical tattoos). Not sure if this is the right pane, but I think this type of thing belongs on the Abilities & Feats page.
  
• Speaking of class abilities, don't see any clues yet on how you plan to handle them.
  
• Would be nice when the custom trait type is empty, that the sheet would suppress the “[]”.
  
• Custom classes don’t show on "bass classes" box on the front page.
• Earlier versions of the sheet also had some prerequisite calculations fail because the custom class levels were not counted (have not tried this recently, but something to keep in mind).
  
• Need prestige option for customer classes (so favored class don’t apply, different saving throw progression, etc.)
  
• I have some prestige classes with a custom BAB. Would it be possible to add this to the custom page?
  

I know you have not finished the customization section, but I've been fooling around with it anyway. Let me know if you would like my list of things that are not working (perhaps it could serve as a todo list :-)

I'm asking because I don't want to bug you about things that you are still in progress on...

Seaan wrote:

Been trying 6.4.1, and noticed the following:Created a 6th level ranger, but some of the class abilities showed "#N/A". I think the problem might be the value in 2n on the Class Ability tab, since after adding the ranger levels it shows a "value not available" error.

This sounds like you haven't selected something like Favored Enemy or Favored Terrain in the Character Options tab. Can you check that, then let me know?

Yes, that was the problem.

Been trying 6.4.1, and noticed the following:

Created a 6th level ranger, but some of the class abilities showed "#N/A". I think the problem might be the value in 2n on the Class Ability tab, since after adding the ranger levels it shows a "value not available" error.

I definitely have problems with the abilities in 6.2. I'm using Excel 2007 with the latest updates. I re-downloaded the file to make sure I had not accidentally changed anything.

1) Can't get Ability Bump to be applied (the abilities in the Front tab don't change). I tried this with a variety of races, classes, and levels.

2) When race is empty, entering different values for the starting abilities (character options tab) does not subtract from the points. Setting of the flag (standard, high, etc.) changes the total shown below but does not reflect the current remaining points. Once I select a race, it works fine (but does not help with the ability bump).

Back to the feat customization - I had read about your plans for customization (sounds pretty neat too). My actual suggestion was a scaled back feat customization until the the real customization work gets done. Basically just ignore the automation, and provide a simple two column table for feat-name and description. If the table is enabled, than append the feat-names to all feat pulldown menus. Perhaps this is too inelegant for you :-) but I thought it would be relatively simple to implement as a short term workaround.

My friend noticed a minor error - prestige classes are not supposed to be an option for "favored class". Not a big deal, but thought you might like to know.

Hi - first time poster. I started with the 5.7a sheet and just now came back to see things have progressed. Let me start with saying that I really appreciate the amount of work that you have put into this. If nothing else I'm learning a bit more about how Excel formulas work :-)

I found a few bugs with 5.7a, but it looks like you fixed all of them with 6.2. But right off the bat I did run into a potential bug? in 6.2. This is so obvious, I wonder if I'm missing something: the ability bump is not getting applied to either the "front" abilities" or the table below (starting at 25M in the "character options tab"). I'm using the "custom" point-buy option (but a quick experiment changing the option did not seem to affect it).

I figured out how to add a new prestige class to the 5.7a sheet, took a while the first time, but additional ones look to be pretty easy. Does not look like 6.2 changed much in that area. I did have one question - is there any automation for the spell caster levels for the new classes? And of course things get even more complicated when you have multiple spells types (say the Mystic Teurge for example). I'm guessing not, but just wanted to make sure I had not missed anything.

Last question/suggestion. I have a friend who is doing a Japanese variant of Pathfinder, and as usual for this type of game, he has a whole mess of new feats. I've looked over the tables, but am not sure I have a handle on how they are being used. Any tips for adding a bunch of new feats (which tables need to be updated, etc.)? I was thinking I might just replace all the feats in the Golarion table (and than figure out how to rename it :-)

But that leads to a suggestion, at least three GM's I've talked to about your spreadsheet wanted to know how they could add more feats. I think it would not be hard to create a new expandable feat table. Just include feat name and a description; with a simple enable/disable switch somewhere. If the switch is enabled, display the feats from this table on all feat pull-down menus. I think that would be a quick and easy way for people to add house-rule feats.

Well, thanks again for all the work you have done. I'll work a bit more on testing 6.2, and let you know if I come up with any bugs.