Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Joshua Randall" data-source="post: 6982093" data-attributes="member: 7737">Each sheet ends up being highly customized to each character, but the basic idea is a 'power grid' with action types on one axis and power frequency on the other axis. In each 'cell' you put an abbreviated version of the power in question.(I submitted this idea to Dragon magazine back in the 4e days, but they eventually turned it down. I keep meaning to write a blog post or something about it... I guess this will have to do! Would appreciate being credited if anyone gets use out of this.)(Oh, and here's the original pitch which explains things.)[sblock=]I'm pitching an article for Dragon magazine, tentatively titled 'The Power Grid'. The Power Grid is a method that players can use to organize their characters' powers for the purposes of planning or playing that character.The grid has two axes: Usage (At-Will, Encounter, Daily) and Action Type (Free, Immediate, Minor, Move, Standard, etc.).Powers are listed in the "cells" created by the intersections of the axes.The Power Grid has two purposes: planning and playing.1. Planning -- by looking at the Power Grid for a given character, you can see how that character will spend most of his or her time in combat. For example, you might find that your character is overloaded on immediate actions, which can be problematic to use in multiples.2. Playing -- shorthand descriptions of the powers themselves can fit in the Power Grid. This allows the player to use it at the table instead of the traditional power cards. The advantage of the Power Grid layout is similar to the advantage of the monster stat block in Monster Manual 3 / Monster Vault; namely, seeing your powers organized by action type is more intuitive than seeing them organized only by usage.I estimate that I can explain the Power Grid concept in 1,200-1,500 words.In addition, I believe this article will require fairly sizable graphic elements (the blank Power Grid itself, plus any examples) which will increase the "page count" if not the "word count".Thank you for your consideration.[/sblock]As noted in my pitch, one major benefit of the power grid (and its original impetus) is that you can see when a character is overloading a particular action type. For example if you have a lot of Immediate actions you may find it hard to use them all effectively in a single combat.Attached are several examples:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Helja, Dwarf Warpriest 1 (one of the sample CB characters) -- this shows a simple example for a character without a lot of options</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Anton, Dwarf Fighter 15 -- this shows a mid-level character with several options, including magic items</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Sseklah, Dragonborn Paladin 30 -- this shows a maxed out character with a huge number of options</li> </ul>Note that different characters may need different columns for action type. Most characters can combine Move/minor actions into a single column, but some may have enough minor actions to warrant splitting those out. Similar, beginning characters can often combine Immediate/Free/No action into a single column, but as you level up you may need to split those out (see Sseklah for an example -- he has something like 10 free actions and 5 no actions).You also have to be ruthless about abbreviating power descriptions to get them to fit in the grid.Hope this is helpful.</blockquote>

Verification