JoeGKushner
Adventurer
Deluxe character sheets
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Deluxe Eberron Character Sheets
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JoeGKushner
Adventurer
A fairly useful character sheet.
Deluxe Eberron Character Sheets
Designed by Christopher Perkins
Published by Wizards of the Coast
www.wizards.com/eberron
ISBN: 0-7869-3849-8
$14.95
The Eberron character sheets took me by surprise. I was expecting something like the Eberron screen, utility but nothing special beyond that.
The first thing I enjoyed, is that the sheets come in a protective folder that’s actually got a little weight to it. The folder includes the base tables of save and attack bonuses, as well as experience and level-dependent benefits. Good stuff.
In terms of content, look at the back of the pack, it notes the following.
A four-page introductory character sheet designed for new players. Strangely enough, this isn’t the first thing you see when opening up the book. Rather, it’s in the center of the book and isn’t a useable character sheet per say, but rather a list of instructions. Looking at the instruction, I can see why some might find Dungeons and Dragons a daunting task as the four pages here break down the character sheet. On the first page alone are over twenty items to take note of, followed by six more, then ten more, then six more. That’s a lot of details. Still, it’s nice to have something to explain how it all works.
Four-page character sheets suitable for various classes. We get two of these and while suitable for everyday use, nothing special to me. All materials arrange out with some huge spaces for action points and hit points, but little tiny spaces for special defenses. Great is given lots of room with item, location, and weight numbers, and magic item breakdown by location is good. Strangely enough, they cram everything in so we get areas for dragonmarks, psionics, magic (artificer too), domains, specialty schools, and even animal companion type information (familiar or even psicrystal.) A breakdown of the skill lists, incuding common knowledge skills, and a few plank areas for profession, perform, knowledge, and craft, as well as a list of skill synergies, along with a small section for racial traits/class features, is provided. Like I said, useful but nothing special. Where are the unique sheets for each race? How about at least sheets with the racial traits of the races unique to Eberron? Things that prevent me from having to write are good! As another note, outside of the Morningstar character sheet from Goodman Games, I haven’t seen too many character sheets that give you multiple lines for class and level as that one line they provide, while long, may not be long or clear enough.
Four-page character development sheets. These sheets include all the little things like physical description, room for sketch, a lit of traits that you can select, some areas to customize your character via notable quotes, goals, or personal history, as well as spaces for allies, relatives, how your character feels about certain power groups, and even a wasted page for ‘career’ path where you chart out your potential advancement into a PrC or something along those lines. Useful but probably a little too much. Once again, specifics to the setting, like say a few pictures of some of the races of the setting, would’ve been good. Still, it’s nice to see how they’ve expanded the listing to include traits and provide numerous power groups for the character to think on and how they interact with the character.
Four page adventure log sheets. Useful if you can get the players to actually fill them in. They include things like challenges overcome, items found, information gained, notes, and three pages of map grids. Heck, I can see GMs using these like they would Ronin Arts campaign planners.
Spell lists for all spellcasting classes in the Player’s Handbook, Complete Adventurer, Complete Arcane and Complete Divine, plus spell lists for the assassin and blackguard PrC. Now this is good. The spell lists are broken down by level and include little extras. For example, for clerics, they have two open slots for domain spells. They also have abbreviated notes on what book some spells come from because they include the various Complete Books, Races of Eberron, and the Eberron Campaign setting. That’s something no one else can do due to none of that information being open. On the other hand, it looks like they flubbed with some. My copy has no listing of bard spells known, just blank lines. Wizards? Nope. Lots of blank lines and lots of writing. Favored soul or shugenja? Nope. Ironically enough, others like the warlock have their invocations known listed and the artificer has his infusions listed. It’s a fair section that could’ve been great if every class had it’s full list. Heck, I remember some old character sheets that not only had the spell lists, but also had abbreviated format of what the spell did. Now that was service.
The sheets are noted as being easy to copy, but since these aren’t individual sheets, you’ll either have to find a copier that’ll accept a double length page, or cut the sheets in half.
One thing that they don’t mention on the back, which is very useful, is summon monster statistics. Broken down by level, we get statistics for some of the common monsters. For example, under summon monster III, I can finally get a use for those cursed celestial dire badger’s. While CR is not included, everything else is. The layout is in the old layout, not the new DMG II format.
With the lists of spells for most classes, like the ranger, druid, cleric, assassin, and blackguard, as well as the game statistics and the handy folder, which I can use for anything, the package has some potential. The various grids for adventuring maps are standard and the character sheets themselves are suitable for play. Not a deluxe or high end product compared to some highly illustrated and abbreviated sheets I’ve seen, nor one that has pregenerated data on them like others I’ve seen, but a good start and better suited for newer players thanks to the character sheet instructions.
If you’re like me and comfortable with good old pen and paper or the standard sheet from the Player’s Handbook, this probably isn’t for you. If you like having some toys though, the book might be right up your alley.
Deluxe Eberron Character Sheets
Designed by Christopher Perkins
Published by Wizards of the Coast
www.wizards.com/eberron
ISBN: 0-7869-3849-8
$14.95
The Eberron character sheets took me by surprise. I was expecting something like the Eberron screen, utility but nothing special beyond that.
The first thing I enjoyed, is that the sheets come in a protective folder that’s actually got a little weight to it. The folder includes the base tables of save and attack bonuses, as well as experience and level-dependent benefits. Good stuff.
In terms of content, look at the back of the pack, it notes the following.
A four-page introductory character sheet designed for new players. Strangely enough, this isn’t the first thing you see when opening up the book. Rather, it’s in the center of the book and isn’t a useable character sheet per say, but rather a list of instructions. Looking at the instruction, I can see why some might find Dungeons and Dragons a daunting task as the four pages here break down the character sheet. On the first page alone are over twenty items to take note of, followed by six more, then ten more, then six more. That’s a lot of details. Still, it’s nice to have something to explain how it all works.
Four-page character sheets suitable for various classes. We get two of these and while suitable for everyday use, nothing special to me. All materials arrange out with some huge spaces for action points and hit points, but little tiny spaces for special defenses. Great is given lots of room with item, location, and weight numbers, and magic item breakdown by location is good. Strangely enough, they cram everything in so we get areas for dragonmarks, psionics, magic (artificer too), domains, specialty schools, and even animal companion type information (familiar or even psicrystal.) A breakdown of the skill lists, incuding common knowledge skills, and a few plank areas for profession, perform, knowledge, and craft, as well as a list of skill synergies, along with a small section for racial traits/class features, is provided. Like I said, useful but nothing special. Where are the unique sheets for each race? How about at least sheets with the racial traits of the races unique to Eberron? Things that prevent me from having to write are good! As another note, outside of the Morningstar character sheet from Goodman Games, I haven’t seen too many character sheets that give you multiple lines for class and level as that one line they provide, while long, may not be long or clear enough.
Four-page character development sheets. These sheets include all the little things like physical description, room for sketch, a lit of traits that you can select, some areas to customize your character via notable quotes, goals, or personal history, as well as spaces for allies, relatives, how your character feels about certain power groups, and even a wasted page for ‘career’ path where you chart out your potential advancement into a PrC or something along those lines. Useful but probably a little too much. Once again, specifics to the setting, like say a few pictures of some of the races of the setting, would’ve been good. Still, it’s nice to see how they’ve expanded the listing to include traits and provide numerous power groups for the character to think on and how they interact with the character.
Four page adventure log sheets. Useful if you can get the players to actually fill them in. They include things like challenges overcome, items found, information gained, notes, and three pages of map grids. Heck, I can see GMs using these like they would Ronin Arts campaign planners.
Spell lists for all spellcasting classes in the Player’s Handbook, Complete Adventurer, Complete Arcane and Complete Divine, plus spell lists for the assassin and blackguard PrC. Now this is good. The spell lists are broken down by level and include little extras. For example, for clerics, they have two open slots for domain spells. They also have abbreviated notes on what book some spells come from because they include the various Complete Books, Races of Eberron, and the Eberron Campaign setting. That’s something no one else can do due to none of that information being open. On the other hand, it looks like they flubbed with some. My copy has no listing of bard spells known, just blank lines. Wizards? Nope. Lots of blank lines and lots of writing. Favored soul or shugenja? Nope. Ironically enough, others like the warlock have their invocations known listed and the artificer has his infusions listed. It’s a fair section that could’ve been great if every class had it’s full list. Heck, I remember some old character sheets that not only had the spell lists, but also had abbreviated format of what the spell did. Now that was service.
The sheets are noted as being easy to copy, but since these aren’t individual sheets, you’ll either have to find a copier that’ll accept a double length page, or cut the sheets in half.
One thing that they don’t mention on the back, which is very useful, is summon monster statistics. Broken down by level, we get statistics for some of the common monsters. For example, under summon monster III, I can finally get a use for those cursed celestial dire badger’s. While CR is not included, everything else is. The layout is in the old layout, not the new DMG II format.
With the lists of spells for most classes, like the ranger, druid, cleric, assassin, and blackguard, as well as the game statistics and the handy folder, which I can use for anything, the package has some potential. The various grids for adventuring maps are standard and the character sheets themselves are suitable for play. Not a deluxe or high end product compared to some highly illustrated and abbreviated sheets I’ve seen, nor one that has pregenerated data on them like others I’ve seen, but a good start and better suited for newer players thanks to the character sheet instructions.
If you’re like me and comfortable with good old pen and paper or the standard sheet from the Player’s Handbook, this probably isn’t for you. If you like having some toys though, the book might be right up your alley.
John Cooper
Explorer
DELUXE EBERRON CHARACTER SHEETS
Developed and assembled by Christopher Perkins
Wizards of the Coast product number 950050000
$14.95, 64 pages (unbound) plus 2-pocket folder
Deluxe Eberron Character Sheets is another product I never envisioned I'd ever be reviewing, but since the Wizards of the Coast guys were kind enough to send me a free review copy, the least I can do is review it.
First of all, this is the first print product I've seen that wasn't stapled together. However, this is a definite plus, since you're expected to photocopy the relevant pages you need for your Eberron PC, and you'd probably just be pulling the staples out to do so if it had come stapled. (I know I probably would.) Knowing that, Wizards kindly bundled the sheets with a handy two-pocket folder with Eberron art on the cover. That was a very nice move, as the folder can be used to hold the night's adventure notes or what-have-you besides the character sheets.
Here's the lowdown of what you get in the 64 pages. Please note that while the pages aren't stapled together, they are of a size that they could be to result in a normal-sized book; in other words, each separate sheet of paper is the size of two 8.5" by 11" sheets of paper attached along one of their longer sides. I'm counting each such sheet of paper as "4 pages." Here's the breakdown:
I have to question some of the pages included in the Deluxe Eberron Character Sheets product, as many of them seem like just filler material. Okay, I can see including a sheet of graph paper for making maps, but why do we need 4 copies of the 3 sheets of graph paper? (Remember, the whole concept of this collection is that these pages would be photocopied before actual use. Each page in here is the "master copy," so why would you need duplicates of any of the pages, let alone 4 copies of some of them?)
One thing I really liked was the four pages of monster stats for creatures summoned by the various summon monster spells. In the interests of saving space, Chris didn't bother doing up stats for creatures whose stats are already spelled out in the Monster Manual, limiting himself to those that have the celestial or fiendish templates applied. That was a really good idea, as it's really handy to have the full set of celestial/fiendish monster stats on hand for use with the summoning spells. Best of all, Chris even added an entry at the end of each stat block showing the changes made if the summoner has the Augment Summoning feat.
Of course, it would have been even better if he had correctly applied the celestial and fiendish templates to each of the creatures. I recommend making the following changes:
There was one other typo I noticed, "1-st level" being used instead of "1st-level." Other than that, though, everything looked okay. One final quibble is that the print size might be a little small for some people to read easily, especially on the summon monster statistics and the "how to fill out a character sheet" instruction pages.
Taken as a whole, Deluxe Eberron Character Sheets get the job done, but with a bit more repetition than I would have liked, and with some messed-up monster stats that I could have done without. All in all, I'm not sure that you're getting $14.95 worth of value out of this product. I give it a rating of "3 (Average)."
Developed and assembled by Christopher Perkins
Wizards of the Coast product number 950050000
$14.95, 64 pages (unbound) plus 2-pocket folder
Deluxe Eberron Character Sheets is another product I never envisioned I'd ever be reviewing, but since the Wizards of the Coast guys were kind enough to send me a free review copy, the least I can do is review it.
First of all, this is the first print product I've seen that wasn't stapled together. However, this is a definite plus, since you're expected to photocopy the relevant pages you need for your Eberron PC, and you'd probably just be pulling the staples out to do so if it had come stapled. (I know I probably would.) Knowing that, Wizards kindly bundled the sheets with a handy two-pocket folder with Eberron art on the cover. That was a very nice move, as the folder can be used to hold the night's adventure notes or what-have-you besides the character sheets.
Here's the lowdown of what you get in the 64 pages. Please note that while the pages aren't stapled together, they are of a size that they could be to result in a normal-sized book; in other words, each separate sheet of paper is the size of two 8.5" by 11" sheets of paper attached along one of their longer sides. I'm counting each such sheet of paper as "4 pages." Here's the breakdown:
- Generic Eberron PC Sheet (any race, any class) - 4 pages, 2 copies
- Cleric Spells - 4 pages
- Druid Spells - 4 pages
- Ranger Spells - 1 page
- Assassin Spells - 1 page
- Blackguard/Spellthief Spells - 1 page between the two of them
- Paladin Spells - 1 page
- Bard Spells/Bardic Music - 1 page
- Wizard Spells - 2 pages, you write them in
- Sorcerer Spells - 1 page, you write them in
- Artificer Infusions - 1 page
- Warlock Invocations - 1 page
- Warmage Spells - 1 page
- Psionic Powers - 1 page, you write them in
- Favored Soul Spells - 1 page, you write them in
- Shugenja Spells - 1 page, you write them in
- Wu Jen Spells - 1 page, you write them in
- Hexblade/Spirit Shaman Spells - 1 page between the two of them, you write them in
- Character Development Sheet - 2 pages, 2 copies
- Character Career Path - 1 page, 2 copies
- Notes (blank page) - 1 page, 2 copies
- Adventure Log - 1 page, 4 copies
- Adventure Map (blank graph paper) - 3 pages, 4 copies
- Summon Monster Statistics - 4 pages
- Character Sheet Instructions - 4 pages
I have to question some of the pages included in the Deluxe Eberron Character Sheets product, as many of them seem like just filler material. Okay, I can see including a sheet of graph paper for making maps, but why do we need 4 copies of the 3 sheets of graph paper? (Remember, the whole concept of this collection is that these pages would be photocopied before actual use. Each page in here is the "master copy," so why would you need duplicates of any of the pages, let alone 4 copies of some of them?)
One thing I really liked was the four pages of monster stats for creatures summoned by the various summon monster spells. In the interests of saving space, Chris didn't bother doing up stats for creatures whose stats are already spelled out in the Monster Manual, limiting himself to those that have the celestial or fiendish templates applied. That was a really good idea, as it's really handy to have the full set of celestial/fiendish monster stats on hand for use with the summoning spells. Best of all, Chris even added an entry at the end of each stat block showing the changes made if the summoner has the Augment Summoning feat.
Of course, it would have been even better if he had correctly applied the celestial and fiendish templates to each of the creatures. I recommend making the following changes:
- Fiendish Dire Rat (using the Augment Summoning feat): There should be no change to the "normal" fiendish dire rat's Climb and Swim skills, as they use their Dexterity, not their Strength, for Climb and Swim - and even augmented, their Dexterity is higher than their Strength.
- Fiendish Medium Monstrous Hunting Spider (using the Augment Summoning feat): There should be no change to the bite attacks from that of a "normal" fiendish Medium monstrous hunting spider, as the enhanced Strength still doesn't beat the spider's Dexterity score and it uses Weapon Finesse in its bite attacks. Also, Climb should stay at +10 for the same reason - these spiders use their Dexterity for Climb checks, and it's still higher than their Strength.
- Celestial Eagle: Grapple should be -4, not +4 (+0 BAB, -4 size, +0 Str). Fort should be +3, not +5 (+2 as a 1-HD animal, +1 Con).
- Celestial Eagle (using the Augment Summoning feat): Grapple should be -2, not +6 (+0 BAB, -4 size, +2 Str). Fort should be +5, not +7 (+2 as a 1-HD animal, +3 Con).
- Fiendish Medium Monstrous Hunting Spider: Weapon Finesse isn't listed as a feat; it should be.
- Fiendish Medium Monstrous Hunting Spider (using the Augment Summoning feat): Bite attacks should stay at +4 melee, as they're still Dexterity-based (via Weapon Finesse), and Climb and Jump should stay at +11 and +10, respectively, as they're also based on Dexterity, not Strength.
- Fiendish Dire Weasel (using the Augment Summoning feat): Bite attacks should stay at +6 melee, which is based on Weapon Finesse, and even when augmented the weasel's Strength bonus is the same as its Dexterity bonus. Str should be 18, not 28; probably a typo. And speaking of typos, Chris spells it "weasal" once instead of "weasel."
- Fiendish Giant Praying Mantis (using the Augment Summoning feat): Improved grab bite attacks should be at +8 melee, not +9 (+3 BAB, -1 size, +6 Str).
- Fiendish Dire Ape: Rend damage should be 2d6+9, not 2d6+12 (when they contradict each other, the stat block entry overrides the description entry).
- Fiendish Dire Ape (using the Augment Summoning feat): Rend damage should be 2d6+12, not 2d6+16.
- Fiendish Huge Monstrous Hunting Spider: Bite attacks should be at +8 melee, not +9 (+6 BAB, -2 size, +4 Str).
- Fiendish Huge Monstrous Hunting Spider (using the Augment Summoning feat): Bite attacks should be at +10 melee, not +11 (+6 BAB, -2 size, +6 Str).
- Fiendish Girallon: Rend damage should be 2d4+9, not 2d4+12.
- Fiendish Girallon (using the Augment Summoning feat): Hit points should be 72, not 74. Rend damage should be 2d4+12, not 2d4+16.
- Celestial Triceratops (using the Augment Summoning feat): Powerful charge damage should be 4d8+24, not 4d8+27.
- Fiendish Tyrannosaurus (using the Augment Summoning feat): Hit points should be 216, not 212.
- Celestial Roc (using the Augment Summoning feat): Hit points should be 243, not 239.
- Fiendish Colossal Monstrous Hunting Spider (using the Augment Summoning feat): Hit points should be 280, not 272.
There was one other typo I noticed, "1-st level" being used instead of "1st-level." Other than that, though, everything looked okay. One final quibble is that the print size might be a little small for some people to read easily, especially on the summon monster statistics and the "how to fill out a character sheet" instruction pages.
Taken as a whole, Deluxe Eberron Character Sheets get the job done, but with a bit more repetition than I would have liked, and with some messed-up monster stats that I could have done without. All in all, I'm not sure that you're getting $14.95 worth of value out of this product. I give it a rating of "3 (Average)."
"but then how many non-Player's Handbook blackguard spells have you seen?"
Since you ask: BoVD has several (unsurprisingly), but there's also a couple in the Miniatures Handbook and the Planar Handbook. (And there's lots of other books with spells in them that I don't yet own ....)
Since you ask: BoVD has several (unsurprisingly), but there's also a couple in the Miniatures Handbook and the Planar Handbook. (And there's lots of other books with spells in them that I don't yet own ....)
John Cooper
Explorer
And I did ask. I don't have the books you mentioned, which probably explains my lack of knowledge of blackguard spells. Thanks, BWP!
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