Donovan Morningfire
First Post
Thanks for posting these
D&D 4E Shado's 4e Color Landscape Sheets v1.2: UPDATED 6/24
- Thread starter Shado
- Start date
Mooinrogue
First Post
Hey, folks. Been watching this thread develop with interest over the past few months. Shado put up a hell of a sheet, and others have been doing good work with form fillable options.
I originally stumbled across this thread in hopes of finding character sheets, and once I found Shado's to my liking, started on the same work others have been doing - mostly as an exercise in learning more JavaScripting. Used some ideas presented in Vesper's pages, and am still in the process of fleshing out some of my own. To that end, I thought I'd present some thoughts, in hopes of getting feedback and giving ideas to others doing the same work.
1. Here's a big one I would appreciate feedback on: I made the Level field totally dependant on the Experience field. This has advantages and drawbacks, most notably, those that don't prefer to level up in discrete bundles of XP gain but instead prefer to bounce from level to level after a predetermined number of encounters will have some difficulty. I'm not sure if there's a good way to get each of these two fields to check for input value from the other (in other words, allow both Level and Experience to be user controlled, with the other calculating based on that input), so I may have to create a radio button Option to determine the user's preference. Clunky.
2. One of my earliest calculations was to set up the "Total Weight" value to include coins and other currencies. In other words, a squeaky fresh character starts out carrying 2 pounds - 100 gold coins. Astral diamonds and residuum also factor in to total weight, along with the standard equipment carried values.
3. I really like Vesper's checkboxes (scripted to act as radio buttons) for each power type. A couple of detractions to that feature is the autosizing of font so that the checks, when viewed at around 100%, are barely noticeable (somewhat grayed out and teeny). The boxes can also be tough to check - so I used similar checkboxes (with font set to 8 point instead of auto), then added buttons next door to each checkbox, which were all scripted out to act the same as their corresponding boxes.
4. Incidentally, I stared at a color wheel long enough to create duplications of each tab color Shado used (greenish for the At Will tab, maroon for Encounter, etc.), and had each power field change to the color associated with the box checked for further ease of viewing. That is, if you check the At Will box for the first power, the first power field will fill (just the fillColor, not textColor) with the same color as the At Will tab, and so on. Reverts to transparent if checkbox is unchecked. Helps even more than resizing the checks for quick reference to the sheet.
5. With the HP value being totally dependant on level, class, and Constitution stat, I made it an auto-calculating field. Checks for validity of Class string (being one of the recognized classes), returns a value of 0 for non-valid class entries and sets the class field textColor to red. Someone with greater interest in this piece than I could do some work with uppers and lowers, also some substring searching for folks that can't spell "cleric", but I don't care to make things so completely foolproof. The HP value changes with each change to Con and Level gain as a character advances.
6. Another substantial change was to use comment boxes rather than text fields in a few spots. They're not beautiful, but I find them to be far more functional than a text field that might be either too large or too small, depending on the field's function and the wordiness of the user. Examples where comment boxes were used: Combat & Power notes, Healing Notes, Feats, Abilities, and a couple of others. This makes for a pop up text field that can be (in cases like combat & power notes) incredibly useful for all the bits someone wants to have available for easy reference. Again, however, it does detract a bit from the visual flow of the document.
7. Loved Vesper's ideas about using checks to denote training in a skill instead of forcing the user to input a value of 5. I wished, however, that there was a custom glyph option available for checkboxes so, when checked, it would look like a 5 instead of a flow-breaking check. So...I went with a button over a text field that acts as a checkbox with the help of a hidden counter field and the modulus operator. The text field underneath just reacts to the counter field and displays either a 0 or a 5, making the whole thing look like a checkbox with a "5" glyph and a return value of 5 for the skill calculation.
8. I just finished making a surge button. Click it, and it adds 1 to a surge counter, then adds the value of the Healing Surge field to the value in Current HP. Maxes out and becomes useless when the counter reaches the max number of surges per day, and can be reset for use on the next day by a partner button directly beneath it. This was a fun one - I hope the idea is appreciated.
9. Which reminds me, Current HP is user controlled, but is limited by the max HP value for that character. This max is also applied when surges are used, of course.
10. Used a similar structure for tracking Action Points and Milestone checkboxes. Each milestone box can be checked, but when all four are checked, it adds 1 to the AP value and resets the checkboxes.
11. One thing that frustrated me about calculating defenses was the AC calculation. I was unsure for a while how to make an auto-calculating ability mod field, since it only factors in if the character is wearing light armor. The speed penalty field took care of it, though - it is an exact representation of armor classification being either "light" or "heavy" (or none). So I used that to check to see if any mod would be applied, then compared the two mod values to see which of the two is greater. Ding!
I'm pretty sure there are more bells and whistles that I'm forgetting, but this is the bulk of them, and hits all the major points. I'm really interested to hear what people think.
As there's been a fair amount of requests for making these .pdf's savable with data in these fields, I'm a bit down about not being able to provide that within the confines of the document opened with Acrobat Reader. I've been working with Acrobat Pro 7, which doesn't have the option to allow user input to be saved - from what I can tell, that's only an option on 8 and up.
So, if there are folks who would like to make use of this version, ask away, and I'll either post it here or send it directly to you. For those who need a savable form, you could either use one of the previously mentioned .pdf editors in conjunction with this sheet, or others here with Acrobat 8 could take some of these ideas and put them to use.
Good hunting!
-Moo
I originally stumbled across this thread in hopes of finding character sheets, and once I found Shado's to my liking, started on the same work others have been doing - mostly as an exercise in learning more JavaScripting. Used some ideas presented in Vesper's pages, and am still in the process of fleshing out some of my own. To that end, I thought I'd present some thoughts, in hopes of getting feedback and giving ideas to others doing the same work.
1. Here's a big one I would appreciate feedback on: I made the Level field totally dependant on the Experience field. This has advantages and drawbacks, most notably, those that don't prefer to level up in discrete bundles of XP gain but instead prefer to bounce from level to level after a predetermined number of encounters will have some difficulty. I'm not sure if there's a good way to get each of these two fields to check for input value from the other (in other words, allow both Level and Experience to be user controlled, with the other calculating based on that input), so I may have to create a radio button Option to determine the user's preference. Clunky.
2. One of my earliest calculations was to set up the "Total Weight" value to include coins and other currencies. In other words, a squeaky fresh character starts out carrying 2 pounds - 100 gold coins. Astral diamonds and residuum also factor in to total weight, along with the standard equipment carried values.
3. I really like Vesper's checkboxes (scripted to act as radio buttons) for each power type. A couple of detractions to that feature is the autosizing of font so that the checks, when viewed at around 100%, are barely noticeable (somewhat grayed out and teeny). The boxes can also be tough to check - so I used similar checkboxes (with font set to 8 point instead of auto), then added buttons next door to each checkbox, which were all scripted out to act the same as their corresponding boxes.
4. Incidentally, I stared at a color wheel long enough to create duplications of each tab color Shado used (greenish for the At Will tab, maroon for Encounter, etc.), and had each power field change to the color associated with the box checked for further ease of viewing. That is, if you check the At Will box for the first power, the first power field will fill (just the fillColor, not textColor) with the same color as the At Will tab, and so on. Reverts to transparent if checkbox is unchecked. Helps even more than resizing the checks for quick reference to the sheet.
5. With the HP value being totally dependant on level, class, and Constitution stat, I made it an auto-calculating field. Checks for validity of Class string (being one of the recognized classes), returns a value of 0 for non-valid class entries and sets the class field textColor to red. Someone with greater interest in this piece than I could do some work with uppers and lowers, also some substring searching for folks that can't spell "cleric", but I don't care to make things so completely foolproof. The HP value changes with each change to Con and Level gain as a character advances.
6. Another substantial change was to use comment boxes rather than text fields in a few spots. They're not beautiful, but I find them to be far more functional than a text field that might be either too large or too small, depending on the field's function and the wordiness of the user. Examples where comment boxes were used: Combat & Power notes, Healing Notes, Feats, Abilities, and a couple of others. This makes for a pop up text field that can be (in cases like combat & power notes) incredibly useful for all the bits someone wants to have available for easy reference. Again, however, it does detract a bit from the visual flow of the document.
7. Loved Vesper's ideas about using checks to denote training in a skill instead of forcing the user to input a value of 5. I wished, however, that there was a custom glyph option available for checkboxes so, when checked, it would look like a 5 instead of a flow-breaking check. So...I went with a button over a text field that acts as a checkbox with the help of a hidden counter field and the modulus operator. The text field underneath just reacts to the counter field and displays either a 0 or a 5, making the whole thing look like a checkbox with a "5" glyph and a return value of 5 for the skill calculation.
8. I just finished making a surge button. Click it, and it adds 1 to a surge counter, then adds the value of the Healing Surge field to the value in Current HP. Maxes out and becomes useless when the counter reaches the max number of surges per day, and can be reset for use on the next day by a partner button directly beneath it. This was a fun one - I hope the idea is appreciated.
9. Which reminds me, Current HP is user controlled, but is limited by the max HP value for that character. This max is also applied when surges are used, of course.
10. Used a similar structure for tracking Action Points and Milestone checkboxes. Each milestone box can be checked, but when all four are checked, it adds 1 to the AP value and resets the checkboxes.
11. One thing that frustrated me about calculating defenses was the AC calculation. I was unsure for a while how to make an auto-calculating ability mod field, since it only factors in if the character is wearing light armor. The speed penalty field took care of it, though - it is an exact representation of armor classification being either "light" or "heavy" (or none). So I used that to check to see if any mod would be applied, then compared the two mod values to see which of the two is greater. Ding!
I'm pretty sure there are more bells and whistles that I'm forgetting, but this is the bulk of them, and hits all the major points. I'm really interested to hear what people think.
As there's been a fair amount of requests for making these .pdf's savable with data in these fields, I'm a bit down about not being able to provide that within the confines of the document opened with Acrobat Reader. I've been working with Acrobat Pro 7, which doesn't have the option to allow user input to be saved - from what I can tell, that's only an option on 8 and up.
So, if there are folks who would like to make use of this version, ask away, and I'll either post it here or send it directly to you. For those who need a savable form, you could either use one of the previously mentioned .pdf editors in conjunction with this sheet, or others here with Acrobat 8 could take some of these ideas and put them to use.
Good hunting!
-Moo
JeffRubinoff
First Post
bugbyte, I'm not sure what you did with these sheets, but as soon as you save any changes, the ability to edit further is revoked.
pukunui
Legend
Awesome character sheet!
Just a question and a comment:
Question: With the weapon/implement section, is the idea that you tally up all attack and damage modifiers except the relevant ability mod, which only gets added to it in the actual power/basic attack line?
Comment: One of the first things my players noticed was the lack of an "ability mod + 1/2 level" column, like the one that's on the official sheet. Any thoughts about adding that?
Just a question and a comment:
Question: With the weapon/implement section, is the idea that you tally up all attack and damage modifiers except the relevant ability mod, which only gets added to it in the actual power/basic attack line?
Comment: One of the first things my players noticed was the lack of an "ability mod + 1/2 level" column, like the one that's on the official sheet. Any thoughts about adding that?
Last edited:
shansation
First Post
This sounds like an interesting looking sheet Moon, do you intend to put it up on enworld anytime soon? I wouldn't mind testing it out for my next character
Gryphonheart
First Post
I was hoping you could tell me what specifics for the text you used (font, bold or italic or standard, etc etc.)
I'm trying to adapt this page for 3.5 as my friends don't want to switch yet but since i love the design soo much, i'd like to adapt it.
I can adapt most of it i think but the text is giving me problems. Thanks.
I'm trying to adapt this page for 3.5 as my friends don't want to switch yet but since i love the design soo much, i'd like to adapt it.
I can adapt most of it i think but the text is giving me problems. Thanks.
bellenthan
First Post
Hello,
It's a really great sheet.
I'll use it for my next game.
But, I would like to know if I can translate them (in French) for my players.
So, if it's allowed, is there any mps or other things to do or I can translate them with the files I've downloaded ?
Thanks
It's a really great sheet.
I'll use it for my next game.
But, I would like to know if I can translate them (in French) for my players.
So, if it's allowed, is there any mps or other things to do or I can translate them with the files I've downloaded ?
Thanks
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