Is there an annotated character sheet?

[Dave Higgins]

Is there an annotated character sheet that will give me reference to the various sections of the book? What would be nice is an image of the page with where to find the various adjustments, be that a page or table reference, or which section of the manual the information could be gleaned from. Perhaps I'll do one, but if anyone knows of something like this already done...

Or is there a step-by-step instruction/howto for generating a character? Yes, I know there's spreadsheets and such, but those aren't useful to me at this point.

Thanks,
Dave

[azhrei_fje]

Check out PCGen. It's a Java app that will walk you through the steps.

It's not the fastest thing on the block, but it does seem to be pretty complete (I'm using with the the RotRL and CotCT data sets included).

The only thing I don't like is the limited text that appears when selecting feats and spells. Since that stuff is OGL, it should be inserted into the data set(s) to make the build process faster.

Otherwise it's pretty nice: feat trees that highlight the dependencies, spellbook management for wizards, little symbols on the various tabs that have fields requiring more input, and a selection of HTML templates so that the output charsheet can be chosen from the list or customized. It can also generate a PDF.

[Nylanfs]

azhrei_fje wrote:

The only thing I don't like is the limited text that appears when selecting feats and spells. Since that stuff is OGL, it should be inserted into the data set(s) to make the build process faster.

It's done that way so it doesn't lessen the need for the book.

You can make a separate dataset using the .MOD and alter the DESC to anything you want though.

[azhrei_fje]

Nylanfs wrote:

It's done that way so it doesn't lessen the need for the book.

You can make a separate dataset using the .MOD and alter the DESC to anything you want though.

But it's OGL. I see no need to be so obtuse about it.

I have often thought that it would be nice if the program could visit the d20pfsrd.org site and obtain the info from there by extracting the relevant portion out of the HTML. That's not simple though.

[KaeYoss]

I think this sort of thing works best as a workshop.

Lists with references are all nice and well, but learning the ins and outs of character creation works best if you have an experienced person around who can show everyone the ropes.

Other than that, the Core Rulebook has an introduction with a guide to creating characters.