Deluxe Player Character Sheets

Each character folio is 4 pages long with space for campaign info. Plus spell sheets. Also bonus d20 Modern character sheets. Total 64 pages.

So what do the deluxe character sheets offer? The first thing I was surprised about was the folder they come in. I thought that like previous books it’d be a pull out your loose-leaf sheets once the plastic wrap is gone. Not so. Instead the artwork used for the ads, the heroes vs. the pit fiend, are done in an almost PHB style. Very nice and holds the sheets very well. It also has information on base save and attacks on one-side and experience and level dependent benefits on the other. Handy reference.

At first I thought that the sheets weren’t cut and internally fumed. I thought about busting about my paper cutter or scissors then woke up. While the book is assembled like a stapled product, it’s actually not stapled. Instead you pull the sheets apart, each sheet being four pages long, done in alphabetical order (barbarian to sorcerer/wizard), with a d20 modern sheet and some extra stuff.

The layout of the sheets for each class are similar to one another. The barbarian sheet has the dungeons and dragons logo to the left, the class to the right with room for character name, player, class and level, race, alignment, deity, size, age, gender, height, weight, campaign. It then goes into the real mechanics like ability scores, armor class, including touch and flat-footed, hit points, damage reduction, initiative, saving throws, bab, spell resistance, attack, and skills.

The nice thing about the armor class section is that it includes almost all of the different types of bonuses; armor, shield, dex, size, natural, deflection, and misc. About the only thing missing I could tell would be something like a luck bonus. It would’ve also been nice if under those, they indicated which bonuses counted for touch and which for flat-footed so that you could have three lines, one for regular, one for touch and one for flat-footed, instead of one line with two extra boxes.

The fact that they left class and level on one line is a little disappointing. I’ve been in many games where the players are multi-class and like using something like the Morningstar Campaign character sheet where it provides you room to note which levels are for which classes. It would involve a tad more paperwork but more useful. Something that recorded skill points gained and spent would’ve been great too.

The interiors, are very similar, but not identical. For example, the barbarian and fight 2nd pages are identical, possessions (item, location, page ref. Weight), carrying capacity, containers, languages, and wealth, but the 3rd page has some differences. The fighter has armor/protective items, racial traits and notes. The barbarian has feats, one full column of them, and some more on the second column, with a large space for notes. Now the fourth page for the fighter has an experience point place holder, a place for a drawing and the rest is feats with two little boxes for notes. The fourth page for the barbarian is experience, armor/protective items, racial traits and class features.

The class features could’ve been a great idea if they went all the way through with it. For example, the Bard has a massive list of abilities; countersong, fascinate, inspire courage, inspire competence, suggestion, inspire greatness, song of freedom and inspire heroics. Each one has a description of what the power does. The barbarian sheet has a little box for how many times a day you can rage, duration, str/con bonus, will save bonus, AC penalty, and number of rages used. No description of what rage does with a breakdown by levels of what it does.

Another example would be monk and paladin. The paladin has a place to write down smite information (although smite isn’t detailed), and a place for information on turn or rebuke undead. The monk sheet is blank with half a page devoted to rows for entering class features.

The d20 Modern sheet is a generic one with no associated class, very similar to the standard sheets but a bit more of the d20 Modern design to it like calling out places of information such as Abilities, Saving Throws, Attacks, by boxing them in gray. The second page has room for FX abilities while the third page is for feats and the fourth for talent/abilities and possessions.

In terms of goodies, the Cleric has a two-page domain spread with all of the spells listed out per domain. Each class and DMG PrC has a spell listing. Need to know what spells your assassin or blackguard has? It’s here with a few blank lines to scribe in your own material. The thing they goofed on was the sorcerer/wizard spell list. Instead of following the PHB method of level, school, and alphabetical, they went straight level and alphabetical, leaving school names completely out of it. Very bad for those specialist out there.

In terms of photocopying, I’ve never had good luck with a double-sided sheet that’s twice the length of a standard sheet of paper. That comes a little from being Xerox illiterate but also from a desire not to cut apart my sheets.

In terms of completeness, it doesn’t have anything for psionics. Understandable since WoTC knew they were coming out with a new version of the book and that the old ones would be outdated.

The strength of this product is the character sheet folder. It’s nicely constructed and has some great art on it. For those who enjoy official products, there are some nice things about these sheets with the spell listings and domain listings.. For most though, their probably better off finding or designing a specific sheet for their games.