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I'm in the market for a different or more efficient and lighter way to store my character sheets and their chronicles.
Currently, I am using a 1 1/2 inch binder with dividers and character sheets and chronicles in plastic protective sleeves. I am up to 9 characters that have chronicles and counting.
Anyone have any suggestions or ideas.
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Partitioned document folders. You can find them at most office supply stores, and even places like Target tend to have some, though the quality may vary based on the ones you pick.
Mine has some 20 slots and it's expandable so they can handle having a stack of chronicle sheets and character sheets in each one.
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I am having the same problem.
I tried going PDF but that slowed me down with the scrolling and the lack of ability to quickly scratch notes on the sheet made it worthless to me.
What I am currently doing is I have 3 different binders
A 1 1/2 inch for my Levels 1-4
A 2 1/2 inch for my Levels 5-9
A 2 1/2 inch for my Levels 10-12+
I am going to have to soon add an inch to all of those.
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That seems a bit much.
I have 12 active PCs.
1 x 12 (retired)
1 x 9
1 x 7
1 x 5
1 x 4
7 x 2
All but my level 12 are kept in a 1/2 inch 3-ring binder in sheet protectors. I use about 2 or 3 sleeves per PC. The ARs all go into one sleeve with the newest on top. The biggest space hog is my level 5 Synthesist Summoner which requires a lot of support documentation to use.
The binder is pretty full though and I imagine I will need to move to a 1" soon.
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I've wanted to give one of these a try but haven't gotten around to it yet: the 50 dollar investment in the specialty hole punch is a bit steep Arc Customizable notebook
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I've wanted to give one of these a try but haven't gotten around to it yet: the 50 dollar investment in the specialty hole punch is a bit steep Arc Customizable notebook
I use one of those at the office. They're nice, but I'm not certain I'd want one for my chronicle sheets. Maybe it would be okay, but it won't protect them much other than the cover.
I have an old map case I bought from a surplus store. It works really well. I have all the sets of chronicles binder clipped together with a character sheet and when I play I pull out a clipboard.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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I use a standard binder, but use Trapper folders for my characters. A print out from Herolab goes in the right side, and all my chronicle sheets go in the left. On the outside I write the name and Pathfinder society character number.
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I'm in the market for a different or more efficient and lighter way to store my character sheets and their chronicles.
Currently, I am using a 1 1/2 inch binder with dividers and character sheets and chronicles in plastic protective sleeves. I am up to 9 characters that have chronicles and counting.
Anyone have any suggestions or ideas.
If anyone comes up with a better idea, let me know.
I have the same set up I take to games.
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I used to do my character sheets and chronicles in protectors in a 3-ring binder as well, but it was getting way too bulky quick.
I decided to instead buy a 3-hole punch and put holes on the chronicle sheets instead. My character sheets are still in protectors (so I can make notes on them as we play with wet erase markers) but the chronicle sheets are just loose. Since only the character sheets have the plastic protectors, It's easy to tell when one character ends and another starts.
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I decided to instead buy a 3-hole punch and put holes on the chronicle sheets instead. My character sheets are still in protectors (so I can make notes on them as we play with wet erase markers) but the chronicle sheets are just loose. Since only the character sheets have the plastic protectors, It's easy to tell when one character ends and another starts.
I had thought about doing that as well, but am worried about the final chronicle sheet between sections eventually ripping at the holes, as three-hole-punched papers are prone to do.
I guess if my newest chronicle goes in the back, then it would always be changing, so I wouldnt need to worry as much about them ripping. Hmmm.|
Contributor
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If you want a *really* compact way - scan your chronicle sheets as .pdfs in sets of two or four, print them 2-to-a-side so you can get 4 on one piece of paper, and carry one of those plastic wallet-magnifying-glasses with you to hand to a GM who wants to examine them.
I'm not doing that yet myself (still doing the binder thing myself) but if I get enough paper, I might - plus having electronic copies of chronicle sheets means that losing your binder or losing sheets is not a critical fumble anymore (well, it still is, but your online backup is like a breath of life scroll...ok I'll stop :P)
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If you want a *really* compact way - scan your chronicle sheets as .pdfs in sets of two or four, print them 2-to-a-side so you can get 4 on one piece of paper, and carry one of those plastic wallet-magnifying-glasses with you to hand to a GM who wants to examine them.
I thought about just scanning all my chronicles into a pdf and saving them onto my kindle and just carrying the character sheets. That would definitely be a weight saver, but since Im going to Gencon and dont know how many people are going to want to see my most recent chronicle on a character, I've decided against it for now. :P
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I use the individual plastic sleeve method and have 9 or so characters in a one-inch binder. Each plastic sheet has 2 back-to-back chronicles. It helps to look up equipment purchases, etc... vs just having them all crammed into one sleeve. The binder needs to be stepped up to a 1.5" at some point, it's pretty full.
This --^
Been doing that the whole time, have four characters - a 3, 6, 8 & 11 all in one 1.5" binder, everything in sleeves, with boons in the back pocket and reference material/notes in the front. Only my first character - who is also 11, but I rarely play him - is not in that binder; post-GenCon, the 11 that is in my binder currently will be starting retirement, so he'll probably graduate to a new binder too, making my main binder nice and light.
Makes looking characters, chronicles, etc. up really easy and I only have to carry one binder everywhere, so I never forget anything.
Oh, and for the Summoners out there...something that I do for mine is look up which ones I would want to use, print them out on index card-size cardstock, or just do Hero Lab-like stat blocks for them and print those out, fitting 4-8 on a page. I also use a full character sheet for my Eidolon. Again, makes looking them up and keeping track of things sooo much easier.
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I had thought about doing that as well, but am worried about the final chronicle sheet between sections eventually ripping at the holes, as three-hole-punched papers are prone to do.
I guess if my newest chronicle goes in the back, then it would always be changing, so I wouldnt need to worry as much about them ripping. Hmmm.
Aha! question for you: Are you using the binders where the rings are attached to the inside of the spine, or the back flap?
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Aha! question for you: Are you using the binders where the rings are attached to the inside of the spine, or the back flap?I had thought about doing that as well, but am worried about the final chronicle sheet between sections eventually ripping at the holes, as three-hole-punched papers are prone to do.
I guess if my newest chronicle goes in the back, then it would always be changing, so I wouldnt need to worry as much about them ripping. Hmmm.
The spine, I think.
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I used a binder or two-pocket portfolio per PC.
For low levels, it is the two pocket portfolio, PC on one side, chronicles, if any, on the other.
At about 4th level (and I have one PC I need to transfer over), I move the PC to a 1/2" binder, where he resides until he needs to be transferred to a 1" binder, and, eventually, if necessary, to a 1.5" binder.
Currently, most of my PCs still reside in portfolios. 2 PCs should be in 1/2" binders, both 4th, one is in a 1" binder, currently 9th level, and one, my 12th, resides in a 1.5" binder.
The sizes are more what I had available, rather than the size needed for my PCs.
Note that, at the time the PCs move into a binder, the Chronicles move into 2/holder top loading sheet protectors, as well as the current iteration of the charcater sheet. Since I use HeroLabs, the character sheets tend to wind up all in one sheet protector these days, since they are easy to reprint/replace.
And, for transport, I use a rolling backpack, a fairly sturdy blackpack which has an extendable handle and a couple of wheels, so it acts like it is on a lugage cart/dolly. Much easier for mty back, and has room for my dice and pawn containers, and also has several emergency scenarios with maps, as well (all three First Steps, just in case).
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The spine, I think.
I had the "fraying" problem with those as well. If you get the ones with the rings attached to the back, the rings never change orientation when you open and close the binder, preventing the snags that cause the breaks you described. You will still get the occasional one (since flipping through the pages still makes them go over the spot where the rings clasp) but it's much reduced.
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And, for transport, I use a rolling backpack, a fairly sturdy blackpack which has an extendable handle and a couple of wheels, so it acts like it is on a lugage cart/dolly. Much easier for mty back, and has room for my dice and pawn containers, and also has several emergency scenarios with maps, as well (all three First Steps, just in case).
I dislocated my shoulder a few years ago carrying too many books in my bag. I really should go back to using my roller, the amount of source material I am dragging to games is getting dangerously heavy.
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I dislocated my shoulder a few years ago carrying too many books in my bag. I really should go back to using my roller, the amount of source material I am dragging to games is getting dangerously heavy.
And, for transport, I use a rolling backpack, a fairly sturdy blackpack which has an extendable handle and a couple of wheels, so it acts like it is on a lugage cart/dolly. Much easier for mty back, and has room for my dice and pawn containers, and also has several emergency scenarios with maps, as well (all three First Steps, just in case).
Heh. Fully agreed.
Main issue I have had recently, now over, was carrying around the printed out maps for The Ruby Phoenix Tournament. That main arena map is huge, if you include all the arena seating. It almost overran the 4'x6' tables that our FLGS provides for the RPGers. Not to mention thay they were longer than my map tube.
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Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area South & West
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For each character I have a swing-clip report cover (I use these). This holds several heavyweight sheet protectors - one for the character sheet, one for the chronicle sheets (most recent one to the front), and one for other things (such as photocopies of additional resources). Each report cover claims to be able to hold up to 30 sheets. I'm not sure it will be able to hold everything I would need by the time the character gets to the highest levels, but so far I've still got plenty of space left in the one for my only fifth-level character.
I label the spine of each one - there's room for a 1/4" printed label - so it's easy to grab the character record I need from the pile.
For storage at home I use 21-pocket letter size file boxes (available from any of the office supply chains). You can't get 21 report covers spine-uppermost in one of those, so I only use alternate pockets.
I use a similar system for scenarios - a report cover for the scenario itself, and a two-pocket folder for chronicle sheets and GM's notes (summary pages for major NPCs, monster stat blocks, etc.). The folder, and any other material (such as my custom map sheet for First Steps part I) goes in the adjacent pocket in the file box.
Finally, for transporting everything at conventions, I have a roll-around filing box. It's (just) large enough to hold the hardcopy rulebooks, character sheets, scenarios & maps for whatever I'm signed up to judge (plus First Steps, just in case), dice, miniatures, index cards, pens/pencils, etc. But pretty soon now it won't be big enough, and I'm going to have to lighten the load. I'll probably leave out some of the hardcover books - I have the PDFs on my tablet, should I need them.