D&D 5E Medieval D&D Character Sheets

I saw these mentioned over on Geek Native. On Etsy, BadgersBunker is selling these character sheets for £2.95 -- D&D 5E character sheets with a heavily stylized medieval look.

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A custom unique character sheet for Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition.
The sheet consists of three pages - the main page with all the key information, a second page with a lot of extra space for abilities, features and inventory and a third page acting a spellbook, fully dedicated to known and memorised spells, spell slots and spellcasting stats.

The charsheet comes in two versions - one is form-fillable, which you can fill in on PC in any pdf reader (acrobat, foxit, etc) and then save and print. The other file is without fields for those who prefer to fill in their character sheets by hand.

The character sheet is designed in high medieval style, with hand-drawn icons for visualisation and is sure to spark awe and discussion around the table as well as add a touch of atmosphere and roleplay.
Besides beautiful design the sheet adds a lot of extra functionality in a neat and easy to reference way:

All your key stats that you need most commonly are collected on page 1 and are easy to find and reference thanks to visual cues and icons.
Skills are grouped by related attribute, which makes it very easy to calculate the skill bonus.
All the information needed for skill checks and saves is located in one place.
There are three slots for armor class - with shield, without shield and natural AC. No need to recalculate your AC whenever you're caught without a shield or armor.
A large space to track HP allows a lot of pencil scratching and erasing during a session.
Page two features a prominent section for equipped items - no longer search your huge inventory for the ability of that magical weapon you're wielding - list it separately!
A separate space to keep all your one-use items. Never again forget you had that potion or scroll!
A large space for assorted inventory with slots for ammunition and money.
A HUGE space for feats, abilities, effects etc.
The spellcasting sheet features all the info you need to cast in one place - your spellcasting ability, save DC, attack bonus and all spells as well as total and expended spell slots.
Remembered spells are easy to mark and track.

2 files: 1) form-fillable and 2) plain
Each file is 3 pages: 1) main sheet 2) inventory and feats 3) spellcasting
The pdf are formatted for standard A4 (US legal) paper.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

Ah, but the real question is Classic Latin or Church Latin There are differences in pronunciation, spelling, and usage. Given "medieval" I would think Church Latin. Of course we could go with Romansh. Think 6th Century legionary Latin with German inclusions, still spoken in Switzerland. or even another medieval romance language... but no Romansh is at least identifiable as Latin

Definitely church Latin would be more Medieval, with lots of ligatures, abbreviations and other elements to make it impenetrable to even the average modern reader who has some Latin familiarity. Classical Latin would be more appropriate to a Renaissance character sheet (or, of course, an Ancient one).

Historically Sardinian was reckoned to be the spoken vernacular closest to Latin, but it was never a major vernacular for writing.

 

[Lunchboxtwin]

Oh please... with literacy among men at only around 10-15% and among women below 3%, it could be written in upside Aramaic and it would do your average serf just as much good.

It beggars belief that people still believe this crap. The standard of "Literacy" in those days was to check for the ability to read Latin, not one's own native language. If it was written in the reader's native language, it stands a much better chance of being useful to them. Cooks had to know how to read. Guards had to know how to read. Anyone who was intended to be able to understand a new law imposed by their overlord had to know how to read it. Jeebus H Kreist, man.

 

[R_Chance]

It beggars belief that people still believe this crap. The standard of "Literacy" in those days was to check for the ability to read Latin, not one's own native language. If it was written in the reader's native language, it stands a much better chance of being useful to them. Cooks had to know how to read. Guards had to know how to read. Anyone who was intended to be able to understand a new law imposed by their overlord had to know how to read it. Jeebus H Kreist, man.

Written forms of the "modern" languages began to emerge fairly early, but the literacy rate was low. I've seen estimates of 10-25% for different areas / times in the general population. Mostly people used their memory. Not that popular now, but it's a thing.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

It beggars belief that people still believe this crap. The standard of "Literacy" in those days was to check for the ability to read Latin, not one's own native language. If it was written in the reader's native language, it stands a much better chance of being useful to them. Cooks had to know how to read. Guards had to know how to read. Anyone who was intended to be able to understand a new law imposed by their overlord had to know how to read it. Jeebus H Kreist, man.

Although it is true that Latin-illiterate people would be referred to as "illiterate", literacy in the "vulgar tongues" was also rather low in most places in most times. You're absolutely right that medieval literacy was higher than it is often cited as being (in late medieval Italian Republics getting up as high as 40% by some estimates, and I've seen it claimed 90% for medieval Iceland, though I'd be surprised if that included the slaves), but it was nevertheless lower than you seem to be imagining and your specific examples betray modern assumptions about how the world and literacy "had to" work.

While being able to read would likely help a cook employed by a noble family (there were some books of recipes on how to cook elite dishes) and I think I recall some late medieval cook books geared towards semi-elite housewives, most people learned to cook from some other person teaching them how to cook. Indeed even what medieval cook books we do have often don't have terribly complete instructions, even on the ratios of ingredients, it is expected that the reader already has this knowledge or can give it their own variations.

In terms of people knowing the laws, they would be orally announced in a variety of ways and contexts, and generally knowledge of them would spread by word of mouth and be maintained by oral tradition for most communities, reconfirmed when someone ran afoul of the law. And, yes, to some degree law would be disseminated in writing, but this was more on a model of the literate members of the community being able to read and/or explain it to the rest of the community (it has been argued that while individual literacy was, to us, rather low in the middle ages, "community literacy", communities having access to the meaning of writing through literate people, was high). And truly law mostly works like this today for most people. Very few people learn that murder is illegal by sitting down and reading a criminal code.

I don't really know why you claim a "guard" would need to be literate. I suppose it depends what sort of guard they are. What I can say is that fantasy medieval media has led to a belief that "towns guard" and the like in some sort of a policing role were much more prevelant than they were in most places in the actual middle ages, and so if you think they need literacy for that the guards you are imagining may not have actually existed.

 

[DND_Reborn]

While the sheets are sort of cool, from the thread title it was a let down.

(I was hoping from the title "Medieval D&D" this was the birth of a more mundane/medieval take on 5E and the character sheets were for it...oh well.)

 

[Blue Orange]

While the sheets are sort of cool, from the thread title it was a let down.

(I was hoping from the title "Medieval D&D" this was the birth of a more mundane/medieval take on 5E and the character sheets were for it...oh well.)

Character creation:
1. Roll a Constitution save against the plague. If you fail, your character dies.
2. Roll a Constitution save against starvation. If you fail, your character dies.
3. Assign attributes...

 

[DND_Reborn]

Character creation:
1. Roll a Constitution save against the plague. If you fail, your character dies.
2. Roll a Constitution save against starvation. If you fail, your character dies.
3. Assign attributes...

What's the DC?

 

[SkidAce]

What's the DC?

DC 15: Nobles
DC 20: Peasants, all others.

 

[DND_Reborn]

DC 15: Nobles
DC 20: Peasants, all others.

Hmm.... that seems a bit high considering the mortality rate (if you caught it, you likely died depending on the variant of plague).

And frankly, there wouldn't be a difference between noble or peasant.

It would probably just be DC 10; a successful save meaning you were lucky and never contracted it, a failed save meaning death.

 

[Mannahnin]

Hmm.... that seems a bit high considering the mortality rate (if you caught it, you likely died depending on the variant of plague).

And frankly, there wouldn't be a difference between noble or peasant.

It would probably just be DC 10; a successful save meaning you were lucky and never contracted it, a failed save meaning death.

Nobles having better heating and more consistent food would have had lesser child mortality rates, though probably not a whole lot less. One of my grandmothers came from a poor family in Northern Vermont which had 15 children, 8 of whom made it to adulthood, and this was merely a century ago.