Custom character sheets for DDI char builder?

beverson · Jan 28, 2009

Has anyone put together any custom character sheets for the Character Builder yet? I believe I saw somewhere that it's possible to grab the output file from the builder and dump it out to a custom sheet other than the one the builder makes....or am I mistaken?

Nytmare · Jan 29, 2009

You can. I've seen a handful of projects that are in the works, but nothing finished yet. I myself only started yesterday because I was waiting for the "finalized" version of sheet before I wasted time decoding what I was pretty sure was going to change anyway.

For anyone else out there working on this, have you seen bloody and surge values tucked away in there anywhere? I was assuming they weren't leaving it to straight math since there's the possibility of having feats and racial traits that affect those numbers at some point.

eloquentaction · Jan 29, 2009

Nytmare said:
You can. I've seen a handful of projects that are in the works, but nothing finished yet. I myself only started yesterday because I was waiting for the "finalized" version of sheet before I wasted time decoding what I was pretty sure was going to change anyway.

For anyone else out there working on this, have you seen bloody and surge values tucked away in there anywhere? I was assuming they weren't leaving it to straight math since there's the possibility of having feats and racial traits that affect those numbers at some point.

The Surge Value is in the file. The Bloodied is not, so I'm assuming it's straight math.

Healing surge looks like:

Code:

  <Stat value="11">
      <alias name="Healing Surges" />
      <statadd Level="1" value="1" statlink="Constitution" abilmod="true" charelem="c619da8" />
      <statadd Level="1" value="7" charelem="c619c28" />
   </Stat>

What's interesting to me is the fact that the cards with the customized text are NOT being stored in the file.

P.S. - The DnDI Character Card project is slated for Beta 3.3 of the UCS. I've already got a very rough prototype working, but it's not customizing the cards yet.

-- Hirahito

Nytmare · Jan 29, 2009

eloquentaction said:
What's interesting to me is the fact that the cards with the customized text are NOT being stored in the file.

Crap. I saw the attack types and damage and figured that the rest of the card info was mixed in there too. That's disheartening.

evilbob · Jan 29, 2009

Custom character sheets would REALLY make this product shine. That's really the only bad part of the whole thing: that you have to use their sheets, and they offer only a little bit of customization to them.

I'm interested in 3rd-party sheets that can be built with the DDI character builder, too! I'll second the call for links or info. Heck, I know something about XML: I'm happy to help if I can!

jlhorner1974 · Jan 29, 2009

For healing:

The Bloodied value does not seem to be in the XML -- you just need to do the math.

The Surges per Day value was already mentioned above.

The Healing Surge Value stat is only the *bonus* to the characters surge value (you have to add 1/4 HP to it to get the actual surge value). If you do not have a bonus to your surge value (many characters won't), the Healing Surge Value stat will not be in the file.

Code:

<Stat value="3">
   <alias name="Healing Surge Value" />
   <statadd type="item" value="3" charelem="d819a58" />
</Stat>

Most of what is needed to render the character sheet is in there. For example:

* Calculated stats like ability scores, defenses, init, healing, speed, armor penalty, skills, level, resistances, XP (and a breakdown is available for most things)
* Race, class, role, vision
* URL to the portrait
* Conditional bonuses to defenses/saves
* Inventory and quantity (with slot info)
* Brief text descriptions for feats and class abilities
* Powers chosen with action type, keywords, level, target info, and Hit: line
* Rituals available

Stuff that's missing:

* No calculated values for attack rolls or damage rolls
* No magic item descriptions
* No Miss, Effect, or Secondary attack information for powers

Obryn · Feb 26, 2009

I thought I'd bump this one. I love the Character Builder, but kinda hate the sheet. It's too black. They overused the white-on-black text boxes, IMHO, and I'd love a cleaner, lighter look.

Alternately, what tools could I poke around in to see if I could do this myself? I R = STOOPID with XML, if that's what's required...

-O

eloquentaction · Feb 26, 2009

Obryn said:
I thought I'd bump this one. I love the Character Builder, but kinda hate the sheet. It's too black. They overused the white-on-black text boxes, IMHO, and I'd love a cleaner, lighter look.

Alternately, what tools could I poke around in to see if I could do this myself? I R = STOOPID with XML, if that's what's required...

-O

Can people start posting links of their favorite PDF character sheets? I have this project about 50% working. The only thing I'm hesitating on is that I'm relying on the MSE-SET we developed with the UCS for the text for the power cards, action cards, and for the magic items. If WotC issues a C&D on the UCS, I can't legally use that anymore.

I also only have a fairly crappy PDF character sheet I threw together myself (I'm not the best character sheet designer, I'll admit).

If people could link the ones they like, maybe I can find a sample or two that I can modify to work with the project.

-- Hirahito

Obryn · Feb 26, 2009

Honestly, I've grown to love the design of the Wiesbaden sheet, even though it's an Excel file. It's the 3rd link on this page...

http://www.nzcomputers.net/heroforge/default4e.asp

Otherwise, honestly all I'd like to do is turn pretty much all the white-on-black headers into black-on-white on the regular character builder sheet. They already stand out plenty on account of being all-caps and bolded; I think the added blockiness of the black bars makes the sheet look cluttered & crowded, and cuts down on utility. (I think it mostly works in the areas under the headers - the ability scores, defenses, and so on.)

It seems like a relatively simple hack, but then again, I'm a total n00b at this. I've done desktop publishing and am expert with Word and Excel formatting from making many sheets in the past, but don't know what kind of software package I'd need to work with this.

-O

DanmarLOK · Feb 26, 2009

The ones I like best are the ones that put the actual pertnient info on the first page and everything else on the last page. Example: How often do you need to know what your str is? Not very so second sheet. List of feats, powers etc? Second sheet, loot? Second sheet. First sheet is Init, Movement, Defenses, Skills, List of weapon stats, health, surges, action points, death saves. I've rearranged the default sheet that way anyway and in practice at the table it works pretty well, 90% of the time what they need is on the top sheet. Occasionlly they'll need to see what languages they speak or what a feat does or if they have something, anything, to get them out of the jam they're in.