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D&D 5E ForgedAnvil D&D 5E Character Generator


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yoshiyoshi

First Post
Custom classes and tweaking existing raw data

Hi ForgedAnvil,

The DnD groups I work with have embraced the ForgedAnvil D&D 5E Character Generator. I can't thank you enough for all of your hard work, and look forward to any updates you make :) .

Nothing planned, adding a new class, race, subclass etc is more complex than a simple file import :)

I'm curious - is there a way to get access to some of the 'built in' spells etc in the ForgedAnvil spreadsheet? I'd like to add in a custom class or two for my own group(s) consumption, for example material from the DMs Guild website (I can't post the link here for T&C reasons), or homebrewed realm-specific classes/extras.

I totally understand if this is not practical, although I would love the ability to 'mess' with the data for my group's benefit/detriment dependent on their world's occurrences. Your generator makes creating characters so much easier than pen & paper.

Keep up the good work, you rock! \m/

yoshiyoshi
 

mboni

Explorer
Another little issue: on the Start sheet, I've selected a level 1 warlock, and the two warlock invocations for 2nd level have become active.
 

Destynar

First Post
my take on design of CS1

View attachment ForgedAnvil D&D 5E Character Generator v2.00 ALPHA TEST.zip
Hi FA and everyone!
Thank you for this marvelous tool!
Here is my take on the design of a CS1 with some comments:
1. Armor and health. I believe that those are vastly more important than armor/weapon/etc. proficiencies so i moved them. Health box increased and merged Current and Max HP so it is easier to track multiple damage and heal income during long fight without much need of an eraser. THP box now smaller (because see use rarer) and not a square for similar reasons - easier to track multiple changes. Armor portion just resized to accommodate.
2. Actions. Removed possible actions because we have PHB for that. If player doesn't remember what his/her character can do it's their problem. Attacks are shrunk and reduced from 6 to 4. They took too much space and, apart from some fighters, characters seldom need more than 4 types of attack.
3. Active features. Moved them, but it's mostly irrelevant where they are. What is important though, is to have check boxes for activated abilities that have less than 5 activations. Check boxes can be automatically created via Conditional formatting (See first line in the file). Also it will be much more preferable to have their effects shown here as well.
4. Equipment. There is no need to separately show worn equipment, just highlight it in the list. And all gear can go to the now freed space on CS1. Coins and encumbrance are also better off here.

Everything else I not so sure of. Personally I prefer having spellslots and spells here, but it works only on low levels.

Hope this feedback helps :)
 


Alyksandrei

Villager
Despite the (possibly) harsh-sounding criticisms below, I do think you've done a good job with this, and appreciate that it took you a significant amount of time and effort to get here. It looks good and should be very useful to players who have similar issues with FA's original layout. That said, I do take exception to a couple of your statements, which I read as being something you believe is universally applicable to all players, play styles, and characters:

Removed possible actions because we have PHB for that. If player doesn't remember what his/her character can do it's their problem.

Not all players are familiar with the rules, or are willing to read the rulebook and memorize possible actions for each of several dozen characters that they play. It's significantly faster for these players to have each character's possible actions printed on their character sheet than to look in the rulebooks every time they need to decide what action to take. Have you tried playing in six different groups running four different editions of the same game at the same time? I have, and it's nearly impossible for these players to remember everything specific to the table of the day without numerous rules lookups. If you don't need such reminders, you're welcome to rearrange your character sheets to exclude such information. Declaring that it's the player's problem if they can't remember such things and insisting that excluding that information is universally better is just [insert appropriate nasty-connotation word]. I personally appreciate having commonly-used actions summarized on my character sheet.

Attacks are shrunk and reduced from 6 to 4. They took too much space and, apart from some fighters, characters seldom need more than 4 types of attack.

I've played and seen played characters that have more than 6 sets of attack calculations - I moved from lines on a character sheet to separate index cards for my attack calculations because I have about 10 sets of calculations I frequently use, and I've got a monk at one of my tables with a similar number of attack calculations. Several spellcasters in my groups also have this issue - for each commonly-used spell that has an attack roll, they have a separate line on their character sheet or notes with the modifiers pre-calculated. So it may work better for you to reduce the number of lines in the "Attacks" area, but others, even spellcasters, need more than FA's 6 attack lines. It's all a matter of preference and play style.
 

ForgedAnvil

Explorer
View attachment 76513
Hi FA and everyone!
Thank you for this marvelous tool!
Here is my take on the design of a CS1 with some comments:
1. Armor and health. I believe that those are vastly more important than armor/weapon/etc. proficiencies so i moved them. Health box increased and merged Current and Max HP so it is easier to track multiple damage and heal income during long fight without much need of an eraser. THP box now smaller (because see use rarer) and not a square for similar reasons - easier to track multiple changes. Armor portion just resized to accommodate.
2. Actions. Removed possible actions because we have PHB for that. If player doesn't remember what his/her character can do it's their problem. Attacks are shrunk and reduced from 6 to 4. They took too much space and, apart from some fighters, characters seldom need more than 4 types of attack.
3. Active features. Moved them, but it's mostly irrelevant where they are. What is important though, is to have check boxes for activated abilities that have less than 5 activations. Check boxes can be automatically created via Conditional formatting (See first line in the file). Also it will be much more preferable to have their effects shown here as well.
4. Equipment. There is no need to separately show worn equipment, just highlight it in the list. And all gear can go to the now freed space on CS1. Coins and encumbrance are also better off here.

Everything else I not so sure of. Personally I prefer having spellslots and spells here, but it works only on low levels.

Hope this feedback helps :)

This is the design intent. DYO (design your own)! If you don't like the way things are arranged you can design any sheet you like the way you like it - which is probably the most awesome thing about the sheet! Currently CSI is unlocked and eventually other sheets will also be unlocked to DYO. Having the named variables allows you to use the pre-calculated values where ever you like. I'm not concerned about the layout etc. at this stage my design is pretty much locked in. More importantly I'm interested in bugs and issues at this stage.
 




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