"If this, then that." Too complicated?

[Ashrem Bayle]

So one of the things I noticed when building my first character was the slew of abilities that read "If X occures, you can do Y".

I see that as something that, as characters grow in power, will become very hard to keep track of.

Check out the attachment. My proposed solution is the "Action Triggers" box in the bottom left corner. I'm not 100% sure I'm happy with it though.

Suggestions?

EDIT - See here for ore info on the character sheets themselves.

 

[Thesubtlepenguin]

Where did you make that beautiful character sheet?

 

[Ashrem Bayle]

Microsoft Word. Background was from.... something... I forget, and ripped with Photoshop and saved as a JPG.

 

[Ashrem Bayle]

Pseudo-Bump

I'm attaching two more characters on the "pretty" character sheets to add some substance to this post.

 

[Fobok]

It's not like you end up having a lot of powers to keep track of, though. And only a few will likely be like that. So, I don't think it'll be that much trouble to keep track of, though I obviously have no experience with it to say for sure.

 

[keterys]

Very nice. I'm sure lots of players would appreciate the trigger section - those who don't, no worries.

 

[Vanuslux]

It's not like you end up having a lot of powers to keep track of, though. And only a few will likely be like that. So, I don't think it'll be that much trouble to keep track of, though I obviously have no experience with it to say for sure.

I don't know...I mean, that's a first level character with about seven (going from memory) "action triggers"...I'm sure the number of action triggers is going to be obscenely long by higher levels so I think listing action triggers like Ashrem proposes is a great idea.

Edit: Went back and looked...it's only five action triggers...but that's still a lot and worth having a streamlined sidebar for.

 

[Celebrim]

I hated the notion of triggered actions ever since the initial fourth edition spoiler on what combat with a dragon would be like in 4e.

I also agree that triggers can be hard to keep track of. Event driven models are complicated enough in programming, much less expecting people to keep track of them in PnP.

 

[Tervin]

I also agree that triggers can be hard to keep track of. Event driven models are complicated enough in programming, much less expecting people to keep track of them in PnP.

My experience is that people are used to triggers like that in card games, which is why I think power cards will do the trick.

 

[Celebrim]

My experience is that people are used to triggers like that in card games, which is why I think power cards will do the trick.

I have ~10000 Magic the Gathering cards in my closet. I can recognize the design influences, and I do agree that an array of power cards laid out in front of you would be more useful than a traditional character sheet.

However, as much as I like MtG, I really don't want to get into arguments over phases and timing and stacked abilities in D&D. It was bad enough in 3rd edition trying to figure out what square a charging character was tripped into by a ranged weapon without making that sort of question of priority something you run into again and again.

Furthermore, I strongly suspect that there are alot of gamers that scream DO NOT WANT when that sort of complexity enters thier game.