Alchemist Formula Book - Here is the design I have for TOS 2nd - Constructive comments welcomed!

[The Only Sheet]

Greetings,

I have been working on a "TOS+" version for the Pathfinder Playtest (called TOS 2nd). While I am building this new tool to manage Characters, I am open to suggestions and ideas.

This image (open link in a new tab) is my current design for the Formula Book of an Alchemist. It is designed to fit the width of a normal Letter page when printed (Landscape orientation)

Breakdown:

• The TOP part lists the Alchemist levels, with the number of known formulas (8 at level 1) and the number of formulas the user selected in his Formula Books. I say Books because I believe an Alchemist can have more then one formula book (right?). The current setup is for an Alchemist that just gained his second level. The highlight is to advise the user to select new formulas (as he gained 2 at level 2) - and he could select either new level 1 or new level 2 Formulas.

• Formula Name: as it says

• Located: This column is used to indicate where your Formula is located - I am assuming the Alchemist can have multiple formula books and thus can identify them from one another. This could also be very useful is ever the Alchemist loses one of his formula books (or just sells one of them lol)

• LVL: The level of the formula

• R: The rarity. C for Common, U for Uncommon, R for Rare and ! for Unique. Users will be able to redefine these symbols as per their preferences!

• Traits: This is the list of traits of the Alchemical Item. Some items sure have a lot of traits...! I was wondering: Perhaps I can remove the "Alchemical" and the "Consumable" traits from all of them, since ALL Alchemical Items have those traits..! That would allow me to save a few columns for the width, and perhaps apply those elsewhere (like to the description!). Another option would be to rename those two traits to "A+C" to shorten them. What do you think?

• Activation, Usage and Onset: As per the Alchemical Item. I am not sure if I can save some column width here... Do note that I use the ◆ ACSII symbol to denote 1 action, as the symbols used by Paizo are non-standard.

• Description: This is a brief description of the item. I do have to squish some description to fit, but you should have access to the original material/books for reference! This column is the widest - and the one I'd prefer to enlarge if I could.

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As it is, this worksheet is pretty much the maximum width it can be - without making it unreadable without a magnifying glass!! I left out the 'price' information, as I think it is not relevant to the Formula Book. Same goes for the Bulk

It will be possible to (dynamically) gain the effects of a formula in the DashBoard worksheet but not in the Formula Book itself, which is more akin to a Spell Book. This will be similar to TOS+'s ability to activate effects on its LapTop worksheet.

The current Formula Book worksheet has rows for 46 formulas, but I fear this is not enough - Does anyone have an idea on the MAXIMUM number of formulas an Alchemist could possible have?

Do you have any constructive comments on the current design? The only thing I can think of is adding a page number column, so that users would know which page to visit to get the full details - and YES I am aware that the page numbers between the Playtest and the upcoming release will not match. I'll just update them at that time. But adding a new column means removing something, or making the description shorter...(which seems already too tight!)

Regards,
TOS Admin
http://TheOnlySheet.com

[theservantsllcleanitup]

Looks good. Right off the bat I'd say abbreviating the traits would save a ton of space. Maybe just the most common ones at least, I don't think it needs to say Alchemical, Consumable, Elixir, Bomb 8000 times. Perhaps abbreviating the activation as well could work.

In both cases, a simple comment at the top of the column with the key would more than suffice. Alternatively, leave them fully written but remove Alchemical, Consumable and add a comment at the top that says "All Alchemical items have "Alchemical, Consumable". Or both! Either would probably save enough room for a page column.

Or add links to the SRD when that comes out. More annoying, but it adds functionality without needing an additional column, if there is a way to replace the name once typed with a link. Though truthfully, when you start adding the poisons I think you might find that you need that space for them. But there are a lot of repeated words in the poison entries so abbreviations might serve well there too.

As for total formulas, I don't think there is a hard limit for anyone, but a formula book can hold 100 max. And N.B. that also includes formulas for any other non mundane stuff that you can craft like runes and snares.

Edit: I wrote this right after waking up and somehow I managed to read you post up to the link, inspect the image, and then come back to your post AFTER the breakdown of your thought process, so that's why my post reads like I had no idea you already thought of abbreviations LOL. But anyway, it still applies. Cheers

[Gondolin]

reading this brings to mind another thought. In the Laptop sheet, or whatever is will be called, since the alchemist can give potions to other characters, this would imply that you would load the effect and specify the level of potion, elixir and mutagen..... You've got your work cut out for you!

[theservantsllcleanitup]

If you've never seen TOS+... Let's just say Hercules would look at that thing and say HOLY COW that's alot of work!

[Gondolin]

True I was never much of a programmer but I realizs a lot of macros are involved in that tool. All these true/false/if/then etc...

I digress but must share this with you.

One of my friends looked at ToS and said, I don't need this I can calculate this on my own. So as a test, we looked at his sheet and found several errors in his character. Some to his advantage and some to his disadvantage. So he was not cheating he just made several miscalculations.

ToS resolved that.

So where PFRPG version 2 is concerned (if that is it's real name) you have to admit that the math is a lot easier to figure out. Less bonus stacking issues if you get my drift. The whole grappling issue without the CMB and CMD seems a lot simpler to my taste in this version.

[The Only Sheet]

theservantsllcleanitup wrote:

Looks good. Right off the bat I'd say abbreviating the traits would save a ton of space. Maybe just the most common ones at least, I don't think it needs to say Alchemical, Consumable, Elixir, Bomb 8000 times. Perhaps abbreviating the activation as well could work.

ok I removed the repeating traits (and noted them as a comment in the Trait column) - saves a ton of space! I also abbreviated the longgg Operate Activation to save some more characters.

I also added the Page numbers (at least, as they are now) for quick reference in the Book.

And Yes, once the 2nd edition has a SRD, I will be adding a way to visit the link for formulas directly from that worksheet (exactly like TOS+ allows this for Spells!)

THANKS for the input!!
The new preview image can be found HERE.

Gondolin wrote:

reading this brings to mind another thought. In the Laptop sheet, or whatever is will be called, since the alchemist can give potions to other characters, this would imply that you would load the effect and specify the level of potion, elixir and mutagen..... You've got your work cut out for you!

The Dashboard worksheet (same as in TOS FIVE, or the Laptop worksheet of TOS+) is where users will be able to activate effects - Including Alchemical items provided to them from an Alchemist!!

TOS admin
http://TheOnlySheet.com