First of all, the character sheet for Pathfinder available as download from Paizo doesn't have any editable fields (the ones you could use with Adobe Acrobat Reader), so I created a new one by myself for OpenOffice 2.
I tried to stay as close as possible to the original, so I downloaded the Pathfinder Logo from this page and added it to the sheet as well. Here is an example PDF (generated by OpenOffice) of my current character: Hornswell Hike.
Our role-playing group is going to use these self-made character sheets for our characters until PCGen is able to handle Pathfinder characters.
But I can imagine that there are other RPG groups who would like to have an editable version as well, so my question to Paizo is:
Am I allowed to make my editable OpenOffice version available to others on my webpage or are there any license/copyright problems?
I don't want to get into any legal troubles... :-)
Cheers,
Igor[Rock]
You're in big Barney, anyway. Prepare for a visit of the Paizo Copyright Goblins, who will kill your dog and set all your possessions on fire.
;-) I'm not a copyright specialist, but I don't think Paizo will take steps against you, as long as you offer them for free. But I'm sure that someone from Paizo will be along shortly with an official answer. They're like that.
Speaking as an expert on RPG related matters of the Law, I will simply point out that, should you choose to violate whatever rules set forth by Paizo in this regard, then they have every right to send numerous, hell-spawned fiends to your home. These fiends will slaughter your friends, devour your family, shave any pets, and burn your home down. They will then tie you to a post in a very public location, cover you in a tangy mustard sauce, and pour the feathers of a Haliaeetus leucocephalus on you. This will, in turn, possibly lead to your arrest and incarceration for harming a protected species. I've seen it happen before.
You may also find yourself waking to see something like my avatar from an uncomfortably close distance. Bring marshmallows.
Also, we would be entitled to use our "negotiated settlement" clause we have with our clients, Paizo, LLC, which involves dropping one member of your immediate family into a gargoyle's mouth in the Tomb of Horrors each hour until you accept our client's settlement terms. I'm sure you know which gargoyle's mouth of which we speak...
Seriously, though, I'm sure Paizo would be cool with it, so long as you tell them that you're doing it and you don't sell the sheets for any amount of money. (I'm not a lawyer, and do not play one on TV.)
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There are some other threads about this already... I'm too out of it right now to find them.
I do believe this question was answered on custom sheets but it would be good to have a more current answer.
(Yah, it was ok, but you needed some legal blurb on the sheet somewhere about Pathfinder and paizo and copyright...)
I'd love one too.
Me to it bugged me to no end that those mistakes were on the official Pathfinder sheet, I tried to edit it myself but I couldn't find a way to every time I imported it into Open Office it messed up the fonts in the blackened areas so that they were to big to fit in the area they were supposed to. If ya could maybe email me one it would be cool, this sheet other than the mistakes is the best one that I have seen.
email: zwyt123@gmail.com
Charles
What is with the Spellcraft = Dex modifier...? Did I miss this change? I know its on the Alpha 3 character sheet, but has anyone fixed it, or am I unclear about something?
Oh yeah according to the Alpha 3 book Spellcraft should be Int not Dex, yeah that needs to be fixed unless I missed something too but I looked it up in the book just to be sure.
Charles
What is with the Spellcraft = Dex modifier...? Did I miss this change? I know its on the Alpha 3 character sheet, but has anyone fixed it, or am I unclear about something?Oh yeah according to the Alpha 3 book Spellcraft should be Int not Dex, yeah that needs to be fixed unless I missed something too but I looked it up in the book just to be sure.
Charles
Seems like there might have been another skill that was messed up too; having the wrong ability associated with it but I am not sure.
Charles
I like the sheet alot, is Open Office part of Office 2000, or is it something else altogether. Reason I'm asking is I've been thinking of doing my own sheet for a home game using Pathfinder rules but blank skills (I want more skills then what is offical Pathfinder) and Dodge & Parry rules form Conan (wouldn't ask that to become offfical but trust me it works, just keep Armor AC and Shileds + to Parry). Problem is never made a character sheet in my life and trying to get any tips on how to do it or where to begin.
Thanks for any help Dre.
What is with the Spellcraft = Dex modifier...? Did I miss this change? I know its on the Alpha 3 character sheet, but has anyone fixed it, or am I unclear about something?Oh yeah according to the Alpha 3 book Spellcraft should be Int not Dex, yeah that needs to be fixed unless I missed something too but I looked it up in the book just to be sure.
Charles
Seems like there might have been another skill that was messed up too; having the wrong ability associated with it but I am not sure.
Charles
Thanks for pointing this out! As I said, I used the character sheet available from Paizo as PDF as model, not the corresponding data from the book. Now I compared the skills with the book and yes, there are actually three(!) skills with wrong ability modifier in the sheet!
I corrected the corresponding entries (Disable Device is Dex, not Int, Spellcraft is Int, not Dex and Swim is Str, not Dex) and uploaded the updated one to my server (to the same URL as before).
Well if and when you are able to post this file please make a big stink of it so I can notice and download one :)
I'll sure do! :-D
I like the sheet alot, is Open Office part of Office 2000, or is it something else altogether. Reason I'm asking is I've been thinking of doing my own sheet for a home game using Pathfinder rules but blank skills (I want more skills then what is offical Pathfinder) and Dodge & Parry rules form Conan (wouldn't ask that to become offfical but trust me it works, just keep Armor AC and Shileds + to Parry). Problem is never made a character sheet in my life and trying to get any tips on how to do it or where to begin.
Thanks for any help Dre.
OpenOffice is an office suit which is open source and completely free (it's a successor of SUNs Star Office suit, which is the same as OpenOffice now - but with additional commercial tools and support). It has very good import/export filters for all Microsoft formats (and a whole lot of others as well) and it's the only office suit I'm using (why should I throw away money to Microsoft if I can have nearly the same functionality for free?). And it can export PDF directly (the newest V3 beta can even import PDF - although I don't know how good this works, I'm using V2).
For more info (and to get it), see OpenOffice.org. If you already have Microsoft Office, you can install it simply beside it - they won't disturb each other (be sure to check your default application for opening files from Explorer, though. I'm not sure if OOo changes them - but I think it will ask you if it should during installation).
And to answer the next question before anybody asks it:
NO, I won't publish the sheets for Microsoft Word. I don't have it. Very simple. That's it. Beside that, everybody can download OOo for free, so why should I publish anything in a format which would only support proprietary software (for which people have to pay)?
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First of all, the character sheet for Pathfinder available as download from Paizo doesn't have any editable fields (the ones you could use with Adobe Acrobat Reader), so I created a new one by myself for OpenOffice 2.
I tried to stay as close as possible to the original, so I downloaded the Pathfinder Logo from this page and added it to the sheet as well. Here is an example PDF (generated by OpenOffice) of my current character: Hornswell Hike.
Our role-playing group is going to use these self-made character sheets for our characters until PCGen is able to handle Pathfinder characters.
But I can imagine that there are other RPG groups who would like to have an editable version as well, so my question to Paizo is:
Am I allowed to make my editable OpenOffice version available to others on my webpage or are there any license/copyright problems?
I don't want to get into any legal troubles... :-)
Cheers,
Igor[Rock]
If you want an editable sheets, try Hero Forge. They have a great program for character management that they update every few month with the latest info, including Pathfinder RPG. You can even add your own spells, feats, etc. I talked to them at Origins and their next update will be in August and have the Beta Relase in it.
Director of Brand Strategy
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One of my players took the existing pdf from Paizo and added forms to it. I'll see if he can send it to me to post.
Also, there's a great character generator program here. It's still in beta stages, but seems to work very well for creating PFRPG characters. When the Beta comes out ad is updated, I expect to see this updated as well.
One of my players took the existing pdf from Paizo and added forms to it. I'll see if he can send it to me to post.
As already stated: The original one from Paizo has some bugs...
EDIT: I forgot to mention that this was my first thoughts as well (using Cabaret or some similar tools), but to be honest: it was faster to create my own one with OOo than to add the edit fields to the original PDF in a nice and good looking way 8-)
Also, there's a great character generator program here. It's still in beta stages, but seems to work very well for creating PFRPG characters. When the Beta comes out ad is updated, I expect to see this updated as well.
Sorry, I'll stay with PCGen. I'm using it for years now, and I'm absolutely sure there will be a Pathfinder compatible version soon (maybe I should mention that I'm playing in one of Zaister's groups... 8-)
If you want an editable sheets, try Hero Forge. They have a great program for character management that they update every few month with the latest info, including Pathfinder RPG. You can even add your own spells, feats, etc. I talked to them at Origins and their next update will be in August and have the Beta Relase in it.
HeroForge is a free Excel spreadsheet ...
If you read some of my later posts, you will recognize that I don't OWN Excel and that I DON'T WANT TO BUY Excel and that I'm perfectly fine with OpenOffice, thanks anyway. As a matter of fact, I think it might be quite difficult to use it with Linux - which is the operating system I'm using most of the time. Yes, there is WINE, but why should I make such efforts only to run a program which costs too much (of my hard earned) money, which I don't like at all and which is published by a company named Microsoft which I deeply mistrust - when I can have the same functionality for free with OOo (which IMHO has a better UI and which is running as a native program on all the operating systems I'm using on my different computers)?
Don't get me wrong, it's fine that there are projects like Hero Forge (and others), but as you can see, they're not the right thing for everyone. The same is true for some other tools which are only available for one single operating system.
Just my 2 cents,
Igor[Rock]
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Chief Technical Officer
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[treading carefully]
In the future (and we're not ready to promise a more specific date) we'll have a fan site policy that will cover such things. In the meantime, please let copyright and trademark law (especially provisions for Fair Use), and the provisions for open content under the OGL, be your guide.
For now, it sounds to me* like the only thing you've done that's a bit dodgy is use our logo. Our fan site policy will likely cover how you can use it, but since that policy isn't even close to done, I'd rather not give you permission to do something we might have to have you change later. So for now, it'd probably be best if you remove the logo. (You can say that it's for use with the Pathfinder RPG, though.)
*Note that I haven't looked at the actual sheet, plus I'm not a lawyer.
[treading carefully]
In the future (and we're not ready to promise a more specific date) we'll have a fan site policy that will cover such things. In the meantime, please let copyright and trademark law (especially provisions for Fair Use), and the provisions for open content under the OGL, be your guide.
For now, it sounds to me* like the only thing you've done that's a bit dodgy is use our logo. Our fan site policy will likely cover how you can use it, but since that policy isn't even close to done, I'd rather not give you permission to do something we might have to have you change later. So for now, it'd probably be best if you remove the logo. (You can say that it's for use with the Pathfinder RPG, though.)
*Note that I haven't looked at the actual sheet, plus I'm not a lawyer.
Thanks for the answer, Vic.
I removed the official Pathfinder Logo from the sheets and replaced it with a simple self-made "Pathfinder" text image. I have created a web page where you can download the files and on which I put some links to Paizo and the Pathfinder page at Paizo (as reference to the original character sheet PDF from Paizo which I tried to resemble).
You can find the editable Open Office Version of the Pathfinder character sheets made by me here.
It would be nice if someone from Paizo could have a look at the page (and the sheets, of course) and tell me if I have to change or add anything else to be lawful good with this one... =)
Have fun,
Igor[Rock]
P.S. I'll open a new thread to announce the sheets, as I promised above ;-)
I like the sheet alot, is Open Office part of Office 2000, or is it something else altogether. Reason I'm asking is I've been thinking of doing my own sheet for a home game using Pathfinder rules but blank skills (I want more skills then what is offical Pathfinder) and Dodge & Parry rules form Conan (wouldn't ask that to become offfical but trust me it works, just keep Armor AC and Shileds + to Parry). Problem is never made a character sheet in my life and trying to get any tips on how to do it or where to begin.
Thanks for any help Dre.
OpenOffice is an office suit which is open source and completely free (it's a successor of SUNs Star Office suit, which is the same as OpenOffice now - but with additional commercial tools and support). It has very good import/export filters for all Microsoft formats (and a whole lot of others as well) and it's the only office suit I'm using (why should I throw away money to Microsoft if I can have nearly the same functionality for free?). And it can export PDF directly (the newest V3 beta can even import PDF - although I don't know how good this works, I'm using V2).
For more info (and to get it), see OpenOffice.org. If you already have Microsoft Office, you can install it simply beside it - they won't disturb each other (be sure to check your default application for opening files from Explorer, though. I'm not sure if OOo changes them - but I think it will ask you if it should during installation).
And to answer the next question before anybody asks it:
NO, I won't publish the sheets for Microsoft Word. I don't have it. Very simple. That's it. Beside that, everybody can download OOo for free, so why should I publish anything in a format which would only support proprietary software (for which people have to pay)?
Hey thanks
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Chief Technical Officer
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D'oh! I totally forgot to mention that adding "Pathfinder is a trademark of Paizo Publishing, LLC." would be appropriate.
Though it's not legally required, adding something along the lines of "This [object] is not endorsed or licensed by Paizo Publishing, LLC." would be good, and we'd likewise appreciate it if, where appropriate, you included a link along the lines of "For more information about the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, please visit http://paizo.com/pathfinderrpg."
Thanks!
I was coming back to the thread to comment on the use of the logo, but I see Vic has covered it.
I'd like to add, though, for people who don't know: it's not like Paizo is just trying to difficult when they raised concerns about the use of their logo. Trademark law requires a trademark owner to police the use of their mark and the quality associated with it (serves to in part fulfill the public protection aspect of trademark law). So while companies are sometimes seen as coming down on the little guy for no reason, the truth is they don't have much choice is they don't want to risk losing their trademark rights.
Just an FYI :)
Also, in addition to OpenOffice, Star Office 8 is also offered free via Google. I find that while I like OpenOffice, Star Office is a little better.
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Also, in addition to OpenOffice, Star Office 8 is also offered free via Google. I find that while I like OpenOffice, Star Office is a little better.
I recommend Star Office over OpenOffice to people just because some folks have trouble with trusting open source. People instinctively trust Google. For people who haven't used OpenOffice or Star Office there is also Lotus Symphony. Same functionality, slicker interface.
And if you want a cool online word processor, Buzzword, by Adobe, is nice :)
Quite awesome, thank you!
By the way - I think you 'fixed' the wrong entry - Disable Device is still "Int" instead of Dex, and Disguise is listed as "Dex" instead of "Cha". Typo on Handle Animal.
Looks really good - I've wanted an easily adjustable sheet.
D'oh! I totally forgot to mention that adding "Pathfinder is a trademark of Paizo Publishing, LLC." would be appropriate.
Though it's not legally required, adding something along the lines of "This [object] is not endorsed or licensed by Paizo Publishing, LLC." would be good, and we'd likewise appreciate it if, where appropriate, you included a link along the lines of "For more information about the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, please visit http://paizo.com/pathfinderrpg."
Thanks!
I really should have thought of that myself, sorry. I've changed the sheets (and the web page) accordingly.
Quite awesome, thank you!
By the way - I think you 'fixed' the wrong entry - Disable Device is still "Int" instead of Dex, and Disguise is listed as "Dex" instead of "Cha". Typo on Handle Animal.
Looks really good - I've wanted an easily adjustable sheet.
*GRMBL* damn, Damn, DAMN! Looks like I slipped down a cell and changed "Disguise" instead :-/
Should both be fixed now, thank you for pointing it out!
And you're welcome ;-)
Also, in addition to OpenOffice, Star Office 8 is also offered free via Google. I find that while I like OpenOffice, Star Office is a little better.
I've added a corresponding link to Google's software pack to the web page. As I said: I'm using OOo, because AFAIK Star Office is only free for Windows (from Google), and my main OS is Debian Linux.
But I still have some old purchased Star Office versions laying around here in my "old software" heap. I think my first one was Star Office 3 ;-)