Pregenning your modifiers for all situations helps. My wife prints multiple Hero Lab sheets for her characters and labels them 'Normal', 'Rapid-shot', 'Deadly Aim', 'Rapid-shot and Deadly Aim', etc.
I use formulas written out at the bottom of my character sheet for things like Rapid shot modifiers, Deadly Aim, etc.
In the Star Wars Saga game I'm in, my character is a gearhead-weapon collector, so I made up a separate custom sheet with stat blocks for different weapons, with a block of lines beside each weapon stat block detailing things like Autofire, Aim, etc.
Bottom line being, if you're going to play any character that has situational, optional means of altering normal die rolls, for the love of Steele, chart that stuff out ahead of time. Drives me nuts when the resident melee smash guy take umpteen feats, then has to look them all up, and redo the math for every. single. attack.
Same goes for spellcasters; do your part by looking up what your spells do when it's NOT your turn, so that when it IS your turn, you can just do your thing and the world keeps turning. We had one player, years back, who would literally sit and do nothing, until it came to his turn. THEN he started looking up spells and effects. His turns would sometimes take up to 10-15 minutes. I've player 30th level, multiclass spellcasters, and my turns take just long enough for me to say what I'm casting, roll dice, and let the DM respond. 30 seconds to maybe 1 minute tops.
A little preparation can go a long way.
I was guilty of this. I was a self-buffing melee caster and the combats for the last several levels had almost all been ambushes or required immediate action. I got used to just doing base atk/damage with maybe the single class-based buff.
Then the GM threw a combat we could prep for. I cast a half-dozen buffs I'd gained over the last few levels, strode proudly into the fray and went, "how the hell do I calc all of this?"
Whoops.
In 4e the number of effects that modify your attack and damage rolls can get absolutely insane. It was pretty typical for my ranger to have eight or nine effects on him with effects wearing off or being added every round.
I used foam circles of different colors to keep track of his modifiers, one stack for each attack (since different effects could apply to different attacks) and separate stacks for each attack's damage. During each round as we went around the table other players would use powers or abilities which modified his attacks or damage so I would just add or remove counters. When it was my turn I would quickly add or remove whatever was due to my own powers or items and then roll the dice, adding the appropriate modifiers from the stacks.
There were times my ranger was +25 to attack and +40 to damage.... Probably more in fact.
This approach had the added advantage that the GM could audit my math at any time.
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@Malachi,
Some people would have taken offense that I presumed to tell a computer user how to print something from the 'net. I didn't know whether you were a computer savant or like me a computer illiterate.
I'm the second kind. My biggest achievement so far is managing to get my typing down to one finger.
Hama's suggestion is a good one. May I suggest that you transfer the PDF/file to a USB Flashdrive and take it to a Kinko's or other place that will print it out for you. I had some heavy card stock around and printed it on that. I found it stands up to frequent erasure longer than regular paper. Some people have suggested that on areas where players' erase a lot to put some scotch tape. It allows you to write and erase with little or no damage to the paper. The matte finish type works best.
Just my 2 cp.
All excellent suggestions.
I do have some questions:-
• what PDF are you talking about. I think it's some kind of computer file, but I don't have one
• I don't have a flashdrive, USB or otherwise
• I don't know anywhere that would fo this, although I expect such places do exist, and I wouldn't know how to do it
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I will say all of these are nice ideas and hallmarks of a good player, so I agree with a lot of you. That being said , if I ever saw a DM mechanically penalize a player for vascilating about what he wants to do next, or having to look up the occasional spell, or god forbid rolling his damage after his to hit, I think I would politely quit that game. There is being the arbiter of rules and teller of the story and then there is strong arming your personal foibles onto people because you have the " power".
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In the past, I've used the 3x5 index card method. I've also written down formulae. But I've been on the other side, where things change in combat and I'm suddenly faced with math I wasn't expecting. With a new edition, no less.
Not that I can't do it, but it takes time since I'm there to play the dude that's healing the other dudes...I certainly didn't show up for a pissing contest about who can memorize the most rules and do the most math in their head the quickest. (In truth, I came for the cameraderie and the beer and the character interactions. Especially that last bit.)
What I find more annoying is not having the bloody game start on time! I mean, c'mon, let's stop pussyfootin' around and get our game on!
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All excellent suggestions.
I do have some questions:-
• what PDF are you talking about. I think it's some kind of computer file, but I don't have one
• I don't have a flashdrive, USB or otherwise
• I don't know anywhere that would fo this, although I expect such places do exist, and I wouldn't know how to do it
You don't have a computer or this pdf file?
Why not? It's pretty useful to own at least one USB flash drive. Your phone could be used as one too.
Every photocopy shop should also be providing the service of printing stuff.
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Our group is notorious for that last thing. We B.S. about random movie news, games coming out etc. for at least 15 minutes bfore the game actually starts.
Wow, your group BSes for only 15 minutes before getting down to business? IMO that's downright disciplined!
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You know what speeds up combat faster then making folks roll dice together? Being prepared- we used the player 1 its your turn, player 2 is on deck. Then player two its your turn, player 3 is on deck. Also an assistant to the DM who kept track of initative order and called out who isup and who is on deck.
It gets folks thinking ahead of time rather then start thinking when its their turn.
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Our group is notorious for that last thing. We B.S. about random movie news, games coming out etc. for at least 15 minutes bfore the game actually starts.Wow, your group BSes for only 15 minutes before getting down to business? IMO that's downright disciplined!
I have had entire games filled with BSing about life instead of actually playing.
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kmal2t: we start usually an hour after we're scheduled to do so. We call it "Pacific Time" here. As in, "are we running on standard schedule or Pacific Time today?"
But @^*%^*)#$% I wanna %#%&*#$%!#$ play on time! I needs my kill monsters, take their stuff, and 'victory night' times. That whole BSing thing can happen AFTER.
Has the topic derailed? I didn't read everything.
As part of the OP, I am playing a 12th level monk with monk robes and Elemntal Fist. So with 5 attacks with FoB, I have a few dice to roll. I definitely don't roll damage along with the 20's.
(Who knows, I could roll criticals on some of those attacks and we do use the Critical Hit Deck and the damage might be multipled.
So regular damage is at 2d8 and the elemental fist is 3d6.
I use an ipad to keep all my character info in order. I use a spreadsheet. There isn't a good charactersheet that has everything on it. It is much easier to keep track on the tablet.
Two of my friends though use paper and don't keep track. One has a cleric and the other a "thug-monk". Neither keeps track of modifiers for combat and is always flipping pages after rolling dice for combat or skill rolls. Something is always forgotten or the Charactersheet is "the old one".
I don't see it as slowing the game down, I only see it as sad that those players don't have their character sheets in some kind of order. We have offered to get Sheet protectors to organize, but the players have refused.
I use an ipad to keep all my character info in order. I use a spreadsheet. There isn't a good charactersheet that has everything on it. It is much easier to keep track on the tablet.
Two of my friends though use paper and don't keep track. One has a cleric and the other a "thug-monk". Neither keeps track of modifiers for combat and is always flipping pages after rolling dice for combat or skill rolls. Something is always forgotten or the Charactersheet is "the old one".
Amazingly, my paper sheet is always up-to-date and has all the modifiers pre-calculated. Of course, I make my own, instead of using the pregen ones, but still. Like the old 1e sheets, I put all combat and skills stuff on the front, and random other stuff on the back, so there's no page flipping, either.
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Amazingly, my paper sheet is always up-to-date and has all the modifiers pre-calculated. Of course, I make my own, instead of using the pregen ones, but still. Like the old 1e sheets, I put all combat and skills stuff on the front, and random other stuff on the back, so there's no page flipping, either.
Bah. Rookie. I get all of my character info on the front of a single sheet.
Hero Lab for the iPad has been fantastic so far
buffs, debuffs, modifiers, situational items, etc.
all just a click away
I always keep a paper backup, but it is definitely worth looking into if you have an iPad and an existing hero lab pc license
Reminds me of back when I first started playing, when "character sheets" were scribbled in a notebook. I think we'd played for a year or so before we finally started getting sheets printed out.
I have to agree that, asthetics aside, a sheet of graph paper or notebook paper is still the best character sheet available.
What? You didn't like my custom Excel sheets? :P I see how it is.
What? You didn't like my custom Excel sheets? :P I see how it is.
Yeah, we game characters don't get any appreciation from this idiot. He made me get killed off screen, and dropped the word in the form of a newspaper clipping quoted on the boards! How demeaning is that!
We game characters don't get any appreciation from this idiot.
Indeed. Not only does he constantly refer to me as an "old man," but then he plays up how great a general I supposedly am, and what happens? I get killed off-screen by some nameless mook. And it turns out I'm only tangentially relevant to the plot of the adventure.
Ha! At least I got killed by a named bad guy!
Can Sheraviel stay out and play for a bit? In retrospect, she and Trog were two of my favorite PCs in 30+ years of playing and DMing this game.
What? You didn't like my custom Excel sheets? :P I see how it is.
I rather liked your character sheets.
I rather liked your character sheets.
Right on!
As long as the message gets across the format is negotiable.
Except when you're looking for particular phrases or files online and the search engine doesn't know that color and colour are the same thing. ;)
Removed a post with inappropriate language, and reply.
Not necessarily, it depends on the context. If we're talking about a thread that's currently taking place, others would probably be able to understand you, or at least ask for clarification. Yet after a few months have gone by, a misspelling or an alternate spelling might confound search attempts by people who are looking for a pertinent threads. It's a difference of presenting to your current audience vs future audiences.
And yeah, that's stymied me on these boards a few times in the past. Thankfully using Google to search the site is a bit more forgiving. ;)