Character sheet Ranting

[Malwing]

Sometimes I have serious character sheet blues.

I use a lot of third party and most of the time character sheets fail me in one way or another. My favorite is Happy Camper's sheets but There are a lot of minor flaws that draw me away by not being friendly enough to third party things. Here are my character sheet pet peeves I'd like to share in search of new sheets that fill my needs and to give advice for some publishers.

Pet peeves;

1)No extra space for new skills. This one is easy to do but I don't see it often enough. I need two to four empty slots for skills. If I use all my materials I've got Knowledge(psionics), Knowledge(martial), Autohypnosis, Pilot, Knowledge(electronics) and who knows what else to put on character sheets. The worst is when all the existing knowledge skills aren't on there, as if I'm never going to make a Bard or Wizard.

2) When a publisher has this entire new system of magic or something and there are no sheets for it. I don't need the entire character sheet redone, just give me an extra sheet or two so I can track this stuff. I got Psionic Powers, Maneuvers, Spirits, Gadgets, Spheres, Pools and Steamthingymajigs along with new kinds of caster/manifester/initiator/engineer/pokemon levels to deal with and no way to track them. The worst is when there are more than one point pool.

3) Tiny spaces to write. This is the absolute worst, especially when there is information that changes a lot of has a constantly changing number. Its impossible to erase it good enough without erasing the top and bottom of everything too. Then you wind up with a huge smudge of information. Especially equipment and spells.

4) Specific class character sheets. Okay this one is more personal. Often times I have to print out sheets and bring them to games that are away from my computer. A person could just print out the specific sheets they need or bring a laptop but not all players and definitely not the majority of my players have or know access to all of that and they dont' know what they're playing until I help them make a character. Having one sheet for each class, or god forbid each archetype just involves more printing and unused character sheets. Its a pain in the butt. Plus there are a ton of classes and archetypes without the addition of third party stuff, nobody’s going to make a sheet for all of it.

5) No ammunition tracking. I don't know why this is so rare. I know people just forget that arrows and bullets are a limited resource like an action movie, but once Magic arrows come online that stuff is too expensive to not keep track of.

6) No number tracking in general. Speaking of ammunition, you know how many class features and feats have a per-day limit? A lot. And that’s not including spells. Assuming I don’t need to write the fine detail of all my spells. All I need is a space to write how many of each spell I have or how many spells of each level I have. Why do so few sheets allow for slots for that basic information?

7) Simplified sheets. Pathfinder is not a simple game. I got stuff to track and even sheets where the intended goal isn’t simplicity work out til level 4 and then I have no room for anything. D&D 5th edition is a much simpler game but I’m still playing with a notebook to keep track of stuff I don’t want to look at in squint-o-vision. I don’t want a simpler character sheet, I want a well organized one.

8) Separating information. Now this seems contrary to my earlier point but I dont’ want to flip through pages to get to frequently accessed information. This is where the front bit of Pathfinder’s Character Folio and simplified sheets come in handy. A sort of cover page so that I can put the quick information I need somewhere I can easily get to it and all the minute details are on my actual character sheet. Many folio-type products get this wrong and spread important information too far, like skills being somewhere three pages away and stuff like that.

Special shout-out:

Kobold Press. New Paths Compendium gave me a tracking sheet for arrows, wildshape, prepared spells and Favored Enemies. This alone gave me a lot of faith in their future products.

So what grinds your gears about character sheets? Do you even use physical sheets anymore? Do you use physical sheets for third party stuff? What do you use?

[RedDogMT]

My pet peeve is people who c9omplain about character sheets instead of making their own...

I made my own... ;)

[kestral287]

I have a mythweavers sheet so that my GM has access to it, but my issue with it (aside from that I really don't like that site) is exactly what you said in point #7: it's oversimplified.

My eventual solution was to create my own. Since I do my gaming via Skype having computer access isn't a problem, so I rigged up an Excel sheet to have everything I need. It can handle basically anything I need, and it's easy to modify and customize-- though the latter has almost turned into a drawback, as the most-used sheet is now massively more detailed and complex than the template I used as a baseline.

Looking at that one at least, it did let me solve a lot of the issues you seem to have. To writ:

1. Obviously, new skills are as simple as inserting new lines away and doing some quick linking to grab stat bonuses and the like.

2. I have the magic sheet as an optional add-on, and I could tweak it to a new system if needed. Even within the same magic system it's pretty customizable: the sheet I use most is for a metamagic-heavy blaster-caster, so I have her blasting spells set up so that I can pick which metamagic to cast with, put a Y in the requisite boxes, and it'll run the numbers on how many dice to roll, how much fixed damage there is, etc.

3. I can space things out as much as necessary, though generally I try to stay fairly concise. Any long writing is usually short-hand for an ability/feat/commonly used spell, and since this is all electronic I can access the srd if I need more detail.

4. I built a generic sheet and customized in specific class features later.

5. Got that as part of my weapons section.

6. Expendable resources (including spells) have an "available" and a "used" column, where available is the maximum minus whatever is in Used.

7/8. I keep a 'cover' sheet with most key data that you find on a sheet like Mythweavers; attributes, skills, AC, HP, weapons, all that good stuff. The second page is for spells, the third is for feats, traits, and class abilities (I try to have at least a one-sentence summary of each ability as a shorthand piece), the fourth is for doing mechanical stuff like putting in skill ranks or altering AC as needed-- the kind of thing I usually only do on level-ups.

The other piece, though it's not as straightforward, is in buffs. My sheet's front page includes the buffs the character will have easiest access to over her career and cast most often (she's a Magus//Sorcerer, so that's fairly easy to figure ahead of time), and a simple Y in the requisite box will auto-update her statistics with Shield, Haste, Heroism, etc. This isn't nearly as easy to do (it's doable; if you really wanted to you could set it up even with Excel's limited programming but it would take forever), but it's a huge boon when you get it rolling.

As for what grinds my gears... the single biggest thing, and the reason I moved to making my own sheet, was the lack of any sort of auto-update feature. My sheet is primed so that if I increase hit dice and class level, all the basic stuff follows-- saves, BAB, caster level, etc. For any electronic sheet, not having stuff like that seems like a gross oversight. The major advantage of the electronic sheet is that you can make the computer work for you; if that's not being utilized then there's zero edge over just printing it out instead.

[bookrat]

I've desgiend my own character sheets. It started as a project for my wife who is dyslexic and has a difficult time reading all the numbers in close proximity.

Basically, it separates out sections of the sheet into blocks that are different colors. I use different fonts for different areas to make it easier to segregate. There's no math on the sheet - everything is precalculated and only the final bonus is written down (I keep track of all the math elsewhere). All spells or abilities that require an explanation have that explanation written on the sheet so she doesn't have to look anything up - and I write it as minimally as possible to save space. Each ability is segregated into its own box for easier reading.

Hopefully, this link works. I'm trying to do this from my phone.

[ngc7293]

A couple of years ago, I played a 4 winds/drunken master monk. There wasn't a character sheet anywhere for the monk info. I ended up making a spreadsheet and bring my laptop to the game. Before later, I got a tablet and put it on there. I haven't had a normal character sheet since.

[Edymnion]

Yeah, I make my own. Heck, I even made a template character sheet that prints out playing card size so I could carry basic flashcards of my favorite characters.

These days though I usually just app character sheets and dice rollers.

[Bandw2]

i'm having the issue of having a hard time finding a good sheet that also allows me to share it over the internet, as part of a service and not as a file.

[wraithstrike]

If you want to share a sheet online then use a site such as googledrive or mediafire and share the link.

Also look into neceros character sheets.

If you need more space for calculations I would suggest a small 3x5 notepad. I use those to save wear and tear on my character sheets for games that level slowly.

Also using character sheets from different providers as one sheet is an option.

There is no one sheet that works for everyone. Sometimes we have to be creative.

[chaoseffect]

wraithstrike wrote:

There is no one sheet that works for everyone. Sometimes we have to be creative.

Creativity has no place in tabletop roleplaying!

[Malwing]

chaoseffect wrote:

wraithstrike wrote:

There is no one sheet that works for everyone. Sometimes we have to be creative.

Creativity has no place in tabletop roleplaying!

Yeah, forget that. I'm currently using pieces from four different character sheets and plus some monstrosity I had to make in ms paint. What am I a caveman? Why can't even though the tablet sheets fulfill basic third party needs?

[Serisan]

I use the Abellius sheet, which is a modified version of the Neceros form-fill sheet.

[revaar]

Small pet peeve of mine:

Sheets that don't realize that Head and Headband are different slots in Pathfinder. So many sheets I find only have one slot for Head, and no Headband!

[Kalindlara]

I am drunk on Herolab. I haven't used an actual sheet in years. Of course, since I run so much Golarion, I don't often use 3p or 3.5 at the moment...

[Jerry Wright 307]

Character sheets for every occasion reside in a special directory on my hard drive.

And if it doesn't exist, it gets created.

I am photoshop ninja!

[Christopher Dudley]

Kalindlara wrote:

I am drunk on Herolab. I haven't used an actual sheet in years. Of course, since I run so much Golarion, I don't often use 3p or 3.5 at the moment...

Yeah, who fills in sheets themselves? They have machines to do it for us.

[wraithstrike]

Serisan wrote:

I use the Abellius sheet, which is a modified version of the Neceros form-fill sheet.

Nice sheet. :)

[Kalindlara]

Christopher Dudley wrote:

Kalindlara wrote:

I am drunk on Herolab. I haven't used an actual sheet in years. Of course, since I run so much Golarion, I don't often use 3p or 3.5 at the moment...

Yeah, who fills in sheets themselves? They have machines to do it for us.

Oh, I could. For years and years, I did exactly that. Not even proper sheets, but my own layout on lined paper. But it took so long that all I ever did was fill out those sheets, and my adventure design started to slip...

I suppose I should have mentioned that I'm DMing about 3/4ths of the time. If it were only my own character I had to write out, it wouldn't be nearly so bad.

[Christopher Dudley]

Kalindlara wrote:

Christopher Dudley wrote:

Kalindlara wrote:

I am drunk on Herolab. I haven't used an actual sheet in years. Of course, since I run so much Golarion, I don't often use 3p or 3.5 at the moment...

Yeah, who fills in sheets themselves? They have machines to do it for us.

Oh, I could. For years and years, I did exactly that. Not even proper sheets, but my own layout on lined paper. But it took so long that all I ever did was fill out those sheets, and my adventure design started to slip...

I suppose I should have mentioned that I'm DMing about 3/4ths of the time. If it were only my own character I had to write out, it wouldn't be nearly so bad.

I wasn't being sarcastic. Since 3rd ed, I doubt I'd have time to actually run the game without character software.

[Oakbreaker]

I use the Kencussion character sheets. My fiance loves them because of her ADHD it has all the info in its own separate box and color so it keeps it straight for her

[Kalindlara]

Christopher Dudley wrote:

Kalindlara wrote:

Christopher Dudley wrote:

Kalindlara wrote:

I am drunk on Herolab. I haven't used an actual sheet in years. Of course, since I run so much Golarion, I don't often use 3p or 3.5 at the moment...

Yeah, who fills in sheets themselves? They have machines to do it for us.

Oh, I could. For years and years, I did exactly that. Not even proper sheets, but my own layout on lined paper. But it took so long that all I ever did was fill out those sheets, and my adventure design started to slip...

I suppose I should have mentioned that I'm DMing about 3/4ths of the time. If it were only my own character I had to write out, it wouldn't be nearly so bad.

I wasn't being sarcastic. Since 3rd ed, I doubt I'd have time to actually run the game without character software.

I see. Sorry for the misunderstanding! :)

[Laurefindel]

My personal pet peeve: character sheets often look as bland as an income tax form :(

A character sheet doesn't have to drain 50% of your printer's cartridge to look better; a bit more graphic design in that department would be appreciated (by me at any case)

[jlord]

I started making my own in Microsoft word, one sheet landscape with everything I need on it. It's minimalistic but elegant with it's simplicity.

[Dire Elf]

A friend of mine made her own sheet in Microsoft Word. Then I took it and modified it to suit myself. Mine is in portrait format, two pages (one if duplexed), or three pages if I add a page for spells and detailed feat descriptions.

I like having it in Word because that means I can easily edit it myself. I've got different versions of it for Pathfinder, D&D3.5, and D&D5. It doesn't auto-calculate things like skill and save bonuses, but I find that the PDF sheets that do auto-calculate those values are never designed to handle all of the possible modifiers you could have. I don't mind figuring those things out myself.

Laurefindel would probably think my sheets look dull, but I want to be able to find information on it easily. My experience of sheets with a more artistic aesthetic is that they're hard to read.

[Laurefindel]

Dire Elf wrote:

Laurefindel would probably think my sheets look dull, but I want to be able to find information on it easily.

Dull but clear trumps pretty but unusable.

But I do expect more than just clear from RPG companies with established graphic design departments.