As I’ve been discussing for a bit now, I’m wanting to redesign the character sheet we use for our convention demos and the freebie sheet we put up for download. I’ve also mentioned that I’m looking for feedback from the player base on the redesign; after all, you all are the ones who play the game the most, so you should have say for what goes into it.
To that end, I have the first rough cut of the sheet put together, and I’m posting it here for all of you to take a look at and provide your feedback. Keep in mind, this is a VERY rough cut, just starting to get what fields to display and working out where to lay them out in the limited space available. I have a few specific notes I’ll go over, but those will make more sense once you actually look at the sheet:
You’ll notice that most of the fields from the original sheet are here. For the most part, we had the major items covered, so I don’t figure there’s any need to completely reinvent the wheel, but I do want to change how things are laid out. For example, I’ve kept the damage information together but moved experience lower on the page, since it’s not as immediately pertinent.
I’ve added a Primary Combat Skills section and moved weaponry, the Step table, and a few other items from the second page up to the front. The intent for the Primary Combat Skills is to have a quick reference for your most often used Skills in Combat. They would be listed redundantly with the advancement progression on the second page. Keeping them, the weapons, and the Step table on the front page should reduce the number of page flips needed during combat, which is when time is the most critical. I’ve reduced the number of slots for the Step table and the Weapons; these are quick character sheets, after all, and shouldn’t need quite as much on the high tier end, and this keeps it more compact to fit on the front page. As for Languages, Funds, and Experience, these are small items that just needed to be put in where there was some space available, and keeping them off of the second page means I’ve got the full area to use for more expansive tables.
On the second page, you’ll have the full slots for Skills to show the character’s full capabilities, Spells, and remaining inventory slots. I’d love it if I could squeeze a combat spells section onto the front page, but there’s simply not enough space available, so I’ve grouped them all together here on page two; sorry mages, but you’re the more studious characters anyway, so you should be used to flipping through pages.
You’ll notice the quality is not the best; again, this is a first cut, very rough and not cleaned up, and none of the fields were created as form fillable yet (that will be done for the final version once we get to that point). This is just enough to get it in front of all of you to take a look at.
Function wise, since this will also be a PDF, in the final version I would like to add programming so that the Steps will automatically fill in from the slots on the table (which is why I left bonus sections most places) and have the dice automatically pull from the Step table. I’d also like to have the Primary Combat Skills slots fill in automatically, either based on a drop down from the fields filled in on the second page or with a radio button on the second page you could use to select which skills you want in your quick slots. I’d also like to add check boxes for the Wounds section, though for the tags I think it would be much better off as a drop down or number field rather than the buttons like we had before – they just take up too much space.
Think this is going in the right direction? Have other adjustments you think are needed? Let me know in the comments below and on Discord. Looking forward to your feedback, and we’ll see you next week.