D&D 5E (2024) 2024 D&D character sheet, what do you think?

[Zaukrie]

I wish they playtested this.

They likely did, I'd guess

 

[darjr]

They likely did, I'd guess

Oh yea, internally and with non public outside folks.

I def meant an open public playtest.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Oh yea, internally and with non public outside folks.

I def meant an open public playtest.

Yeah, it would have been nice to give some very specific feedback and see where that leads us. I'd actually be really interested to see what parts of a character sheet are important to the overall community - I wonder how the ability layout here would have done on the 70% satisfaction scale...

 

[Oofta]

Yeah, it would have been nice to give some very specific feedback and see where that leads us. I'd actually be really interested to see what parts of a character sheet are important to the overall community - I wonder how the ability layout here would have done on the 70% satisfaction scale...

Well, they really seem to push the "DM asks for an ability check, player asks if they can use their proficiency" process. It's something I really don't understand, especially since they also talk about how you can use different abilities with your proficiency depending on the situation. I always ask for a proficiency check, as has every DM I've ever had.

It's only an issue for me if DDB forces you to go to this style. If I'm not using DDB (it depends on the PC) then there are about a bazillion character sheet options out there and I can just ignore this one.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Well, they really seem to push the "DM asks for an ability check, player asks if they can use their proficiency" process. It's something I really don't understand, especially since they also talk about how you can use different abilities with your proficiency depending on the situation. I always ask for a proficiency check, as has every DM I've ever had.

It's only an issue for me if DDB forces you to go to this style. If I'm not using DDB (it depends on the PC) then there are about a bazillion character sheet options out there and I can just ignore this one.

They kind of seem to go for the worst of both worlds when it comes to ability + skill checks.

 

[CleverNickName]

It looks really, um, interesting.

. . .

. . . we don't have to use it, right?

 

[fluffybunbunkittens]

That looks really ugly. I could see the skills being to the right of their attribute (and then all the skills would still be in a list for you to scan down), but that gets messed up by the attributes having an uneven amount of skills.

It's funny how official sheets are always awful.

 

[pukunui]

They said that there will be tons of GM Sheets

Yeah, 2014 5e had a variety of character sheets at the start. One grouped the skills like this one does, while the one that became the more mainstream one grouped the skills together alphabetically.

I'm not too fussed about character sheets in general, though, because most of my players have switched to using DDB. As long as they don't make this change to the DDB electronic sheet, it won't matter much.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

God I hate when they put skills with a predeterminated ability. It makes calling for a different stat+skill really confusing for some of my players.

 

[Staffan]

I liked the class specific 3e sheets.

The problem with overly specific sheets is that they suck when you want to go outside the parameters they set. For example, Dyslexic Studios made a series of class-specific character sheets for Pathfinder 1e that are pretty amazing (I think they have them for 3.5e as well). So the Barbarian sheet has the rules for rage and boxes in various places to note changes to stats when raging, and the bard sheet includes space for Versatile Performance and bardic performances and spells and such. That's great... if I'm playing a "regular" bard from the core book. But what if I'm playing a Buccaneer bard from Pirates of the Inner Sea, replacing Bardic Lore, Bardic Performance: suggestion, Lore master, and Bardic Performance: mass suggestion with various other abilities? Then I'll have to cross out the relevant parts of the sheet and write something in the margins instead, and that doesn't look as good. Or what if we're using house rules where we go back to the better 3.5e rule that bards have X performances per day instead of Y rounds of performance per day like in PF1e? That's also going to cause issues.

If using a more generic sheet with a big box for "special abilities" instead of bespoke boxes for all sorts of class-specific stuff, that sort of thing solves itself. It also teaches players to at least somewhat understand their abilities – writing out "Bardic Performance 13 rounds per day (standard action to start, free action to maintain)" followed by a list where the player notes down the different performances they have access to along with whatever notes they find useful means the player has likely at least read the different abilities at least once, instead of just checking the Countersong, Distract, Fascinate, Inspire Courage, and Inspire Competence boxes.

So my preference is for sheets that only have dedicated spots for things all, or at least most, characters have: ability scores, saves, skills, AC, speed, hit points, and such. The rest can be handled with generic boxes, e.g. "Feats and special abilities". Things many classes share, like spells or companions, are best left to dedicated sheets for that particular thing.