Character "Booklets"

[the-golem]

So, I was thinking one day. (Bad news, I know)

Anyhow, I was contemplating character sheets and how large they are, and I realized I always fold my character sheet into fouths for carrying. So, I said to myself, "Self, why not make a character booklet, which shows relevant infos on specific pages?"

So, for example, the first page would be all primary stuff usually found at the top of the sheet. Names, Race, Class, ability scores, HP, reactions, defences.

Page two could be skills, attacks and damage, features, feats maybe

Page three could be equipment and items, treasure, etc

Page four could be the powers and rituals.

Attached to the back, would be an envelope to keep power cards, item cards, other stuffs. Essentially, take Kiznets envelope/sheet idea, make sure its nicely done, and place it on several sheets in booklet form.

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What do the mighty Enworlders think?

 

[Nytmare]

Pre 4th Ed, I would build my players' character sheets into 1/2 inch binders. The front and back inserts of the binder were the standard front and back of a character sheet. Inside the binder, things were divied up with sections for world history, NPCs, maps, spell books, a calendar, etc. Pretty much anything that the player might need to open up a rule book to go look at was printed out from the SRD and put into their book.

With 4th edition, I started off using my old character sheets, but ended up just converting the entire sheet over to cards. Now, in addition to the standard array of power cards, and cards for magic items, my players have 7 or 8 additional "character cards":

• Basic character info, abilities, init, speed, defenses, resistances
• Skills and basic attacks
• Feats
• Racial abilities
• Class abilities (sometimes combined with racial abilities if they all fit onto one card)
• A list of their powers with simple descriptions
• Wealth and Equipment
• A "scratch sheet" for notes, XP, HPs and surges.

 

[eriktheguy]

I think its a great idea. Could save space at the table. I would challenge you to fit all the character sheet stuff on 4 of these 1/4 sized pages (plus additional pages for power cards). You would end up with books instead of novels. I'm sure it's possible!
Of course since I use DDI I think I'll stick with the current layout.

 

[Amaroq]

We just print up our characters via CB, and place them in plastic sleeves inside 3-ring-binders. We use dry-erase markers to track hit points, power usages, etc. Works pretty well - though its a lot bigger than your booklet!!

 

[surfarcher]

Hhhmmm... Has anyone played much with CB templates? I wonder if one of those could be made up for booklet style.

 

[Nytmare]

Here's an example of an old version of my character cards that doesn't work in Internet Explorer at all:

Malik's Virtual Character Sheet

 

[the-golem]

Glad to see there's interest in this!

@Nytmare: Your card idea is pretty good -- I might take that up in the interim until I can devise a feasible way for the booklets. Your layout is pretty decent too, printed front and back, on cardstock .. That would be just about equal to what I'm looking for. Do you have an offline version of this, or a blank template? Do you handwrite all of the data, or did you devise something that interfaces with the CB? Geez, lookit me hounding you

@The rest -- True, this wouldn't interface with DDI or the character builder, but neither does Kiznit's sheet, and it seems to be pretty popular . The whole idea is to clear-up space, so having large binders doesn't really fit the bill, eh?

Expanding on my idea, something like a mini accordian folder would be cool. Then one could have tabs for the extra cards; powers, items, companions ... (I wonder -- do they make those for index cards?)

 

[Storminator]

I also use cards exclusively. I have a little deck box which I store my PC in. The skill card and the "character" card from the CB are almost good enough for me. I make a single card with all the at-will powers because I use those often enough that I never need to reference the text.

 

[eriktheguy]

...dry-erase markers...

AGH, KEEP THEM AWAY FROM THE VINYL BATTLEBOARD!!
... huh, I blacked out there for a moment, feel like I was having flashbacks of something terrible...