Custom Character Sheet - Input wanted

[sean]

I just recently started playing 3rd edition and decided to whip out Illustrator and make my own character sheet. Would love to get feedback from players to see if there is anything that would be good to add / accentuate / etc.

The purpose of the creation of this thing was to make the often needed information pop off the page via bolder stroked circles and rectangles.

You can see screenshots and download the pdfs here:

DnD 3rd Edition Custom Character Sheets

I would love some feedback, in particular with any 3.5 changes as I am not familiar with those rules at all.

Thanks!

~ sean

 

[aboyd]

It's OK. Your section for spells is pretty anemic.

If you want a really good character sheet that you could model yours after, try Sun Rain Studios. That might give you some hints about what your sheet is missing, if anything. Those sheets work really well with 3.5 too.

 

[sean]

Thank you for the input. I am going to put more effort in making the spellcasting area more useful. Being a non magic user, having those Sun Rain sheets for reference will help me see what is important.

Those Sun Rain sheets are easily some of the best I have seen, but like most every other sheet out there, all of the information kind of runs together. If you just glance at the page, nothing pops out, and until you memorize where all the information is, you have to search through it all to find the info you need.

I want a sheet where there is a definite visual hierarchy in association with immediately important information. For instance, the areas that calculate armor class is much needed for reference (like when I need to remove the Dex bonus), but in regular gameplay I mostly just want to find the final AC number. What I have tried to do is accentuate the often needed numbers so that, at a glance, the user can pick those numbers out quick...so final AC is in a bold circle while the areas for the calculations have a smaller stroke.

I am going to have a go at making the spell section more useful. Thanks again for the input!

 

[FoxWander]

I like you're idea of highlighting the most useful information. You might try using some different shapes though. There are a lot of bold circles so they tend to blur together. Shapes to make saves stand out from HP and AC, for instance, might work better. Also that whole section on the front page takes up too much space. You've got skills scrunched in at the bottom with 11 lines of information in less vertical space than the 6 lines needed for ability scores.

If you want to keep that clean open look on the front page, maybe put something less space intensive on the front instead of skills. I'm a big fan of sheets with a space for magic items by body slot- which would fit pretty well in the space you have skills now. Using 3 columns you could list all the body slots for items, main and off-hand items plus a few slots for temp items like potions and scrolls. All of which is very useful to have on the front page of a sheet- less flipping around look for vital info.

As for the spells section- honestly I would drop it completely and make up a optional 3rd sheet for spell info. If you're playing a caster the space allotted for spells on the back of a 2-page design will never be big enough to actually use anyway and if you're not playing a caster it just becomes wasted space- so I say drop it completely. A 3rd sheet just for spell info allows you to format it in a way that makes it useful. Personally I think Neceros' spell sheet works best- it's what I copied from to make my own sheets.

Other than that I would just look at how much writing space your various boxes for info allow. As in- do you have enough space to actually write your weapon info and such? A lot of sheets look great but wind up being too cramped in some areas or too open in others. That's something you can only figure out by printing a test page and actually writing up a sample character. That's what I did to tweak the spaces for my own sheet design.

 

[FoxWander]

I thought of something else that didn't quite fit with my previous post so I thought I'd write it up separately. Plus this would require a complete re-work of what you have- so you might like it or you might not.

You mentioned above that the final calculated number for a stat is the most important for gameplay. So why not design a sheet with just those final numbers on the front page (in the open, highlighted box style you've got) and move the row of calculation boxes somewhere else. For instance, instead of AC with boxes for 10+armor+shield+dex+..., just have tree separate boxes one for AC, Flatfooted and Touch. And put the row of calculation boxes on the back.

A sheet designed in this way could potentially eliminated character sheet flipping entirely during play. Put the final, vital scores for stats and skills along with weapon info, feats and your main gear all on the front page (ie the info you need ALL the time) and leave the individual calculations for the back of the sheet, along with mundane gear and everything else.

I'm not sure what the layout for such a sheet might be, but I like the idea of it. A "just the facts" sheet on the front for gaming with all the detail info on the back. It's not a sheet design I've seen before, but it's one that could be very useful at the gaming table.

 

[sean]

Such great suggestions. Thank you so much! Im gonna rethink this thing now...