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Character Sheets |
| 2020-11-24 |
Character Sheets
In the eighties, I cannot remember AD&D having an official character sheet (or it never reached us). Other games came with a page to photocopy (bad for the booklet).
At some point, a friend in a more sophisticated playing group lent me a beautiful version of an AD&D character sheet with dragons and swords and chests of treasure nicely arraying stat blocks. I ran to the photocopy machine of the school and made twenty copies of it. I kept a copy as my own "ur-copy" and gave back the original to the friend. The ur-copy is probably still waiting for further copies in my parents' house.
I can remember the copies being worn by us taking hits and adjusting equipment. Now we use 3d printed tokens for hit points and hit dice, more on that in a future post.
I mastered a scenario (The Sunless Citadel) back around 2001, but I can't remember what character sheet we did use, probably something I found on the net.
When I got back to the hobby for a third time, in 2018, I was pleased by the simplicity of the SRD and I started building a character sheet in a spreadsheet. I tried to convey that simplicity in how the sheet is organized, hopefully making it easier to draw and upgrade a character.
There are three charts included, one for level vs proficiency bonus, one for ability score vs modifier and one for converting meters, feet, and squares. The skills are arrayed right of the ability they're based on, with an unskilled column and a skilled column. You're proficient with a skill, fill the right column, else go with the raw ability modifier, left column.
The dexterity modifier is linked to the initiative and the armor class (there is a +2 box for AC when wielding a shield) and the constitution modifier is linked to the hit points and dice. I added two empty skill boxes for "setting-related skills", I may use that at some point.
There is a death save track, and also an exhaustion level track. I currently have poker card size cards for conditions, I am thinking about making cards for each exhaustion levels, we'll see.
The sheet has no fancy medieval fantastic decoration, it is functional only. There is a rectangle for a portrait of the character, but nothing more.
Each player in our campaign gets a clear document folder with the sheet, some a4 square gridded sheets for notes and equipment, a printout of the spells they know, and the SRD entry for their character class.
In the next iteration of the sheet, I'll probably move the proficiencies and the weapons boxes on top of the exhaustion levels box.
If you'd still want a beautiful character sheet, and don't mind it being in the French language, I recommend the one by Olivier Sanfilippo. By the way check his latest Inari-jinja drawing, it's gorgeous.
