Level Up (A5E) Minimalist character sheet mockup

[niklinna]

I find the official A5e character sheet a little hard on my eyes, so I thought I'd mock up a minimalist design that's easier to scan. I would like to do this with the heading font used in the rulebooks but I don't know what it is, so it's good old boring Helvetica for now.

UPDATE: See post 12 for latest drafts.

What do you think?

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Not bad. I hate character sheets that are multiple pages. Of course, I also like ALL the information (on what the character can do) to be available. I also don't like any writing to be too small. (I know, I'm asking A LOT). Usually I can find a way to pull all that off. This works pretty well for a primary page. I assume that you plan to have a second sheet for feats, features, spells, and maneuvers?

 

[niklinna]

Not bad. I hate character sheets that are multiple pages. Of course, I also like ALL the information (on what the character can do) to be available. I also don't like any writing to be too small. (I know, I'm asking A LOT). Usually I can find a way to pull all that off.

I could probably shrink this by about a third and it would still be rather readable. That might give room for equipment on the primary page—not that it's really needed there, but everything else is too big. The official sheets otherwise have the info grouped in a pretty good way, though.

This works pretty well for a primary page. I assume that you plan to have a second sheet for feats, features, spells, and maneuvers?

Thanks! I am mucking about with the other stuff too, and thinking about whether the table design of white boxes on gray is too busy. A foolish consistency and all that. But, I find that outlines and underlines make everything look very cluttered indeed, and that nested filled boxes work well once you settle on the right shades.

 

[niklinna]

Here's the spells sheet. More free-form so you can list spells as you like; a digital version would let you click on the column headers to sort, maybe. Room for two spellcasting classes, and accounting for spells granted via heritage or other source. (I've left a large left margin for hole-punched paper, is that super unnecessary or do people still use binders?)

I might center-align the Spellcasting Class & Ability labels, even though I generally prefer left alignment for such things, just because it'll line up more nicely with the Save DC & Attack Bonus.

I'm not happy that cantrips are crammed in the corner under 9th-level spells but they are general exceptions to the whole slot schema anyhow. Do you prefer spells levels to be given as cardinal (2) or ordinal (2nd) numbers?

 

[lichmaster]

I like the general layout, but I' think that with the significant added depth and complexity of A5E this character sheet could be improved for usability.

With characters potentially having combat maneuvers, spells, class/culture/heritage features, feats, and other tidbits coming from the equipment, each of which may consume a different type of resource and can be used as either an action, a reaction, a bonus action or a situational instantaneous, I think that a character sheet that looks a bit more like the monsters' stat block could be very useful for playing.

The PC examples shown in the previous weeks are probably a good example of this. Having at least some specific blocks showing the possible actions, bonus actions, reactions and their resource cost would be very useful(maybe modifying or substituting the attack/spells block)

 

[Masha]

Minor gripe but I'm not sure the huge arrow between temp & current HP is necessary, especially if you want to go minimalist. I find it visually distracting - the darkest shade on the entire page, my eye keeps being drawn to it.

 

[Vampersan]

I find the official A5e character sheet a little hard on my eyes, so I thought I'd mock up a minimalist design that's easier to scan. I would like to do this with the heading font used in the rulebooks but I don't know what it is, so it's good old boring Helvetica for now.

What do you think?

View attachment 145923

This is really great, actually! Like FitzTheRuke said, I usually like having ALL character options and features on display. But, I also know a lot of people in my group that would really dig this minimalist design and the ease it would allow them to glance at their character. Thanks for putting this together!

 

[niklinna]

Minor gripe but I'm not sure the huge arrow between temp & current HP is necessary, especially if you want to go minimalist. I find it visually distracting - the darkest shade on the entire page, my eye keeps being drawn to it.

Works for me! Rough drafts are for trying ideas and I'm definnitely not wedded to that one.

 

[niklinna]

This is really great, actually! Like FitzTheRuke said, I usually like having ALL character options and features on display. But, I also know a lot of people in my group that would really dig this minimalist design and the ease it would allow them to glance at their character. Thanks for putting this together!

Yeah I'm kicking around several ideas. Maneuvers turn out to be harder to do than spells, if you can believe that. Adepts get up to 26 total(!). I'm also thinking of putting spell/maneuver Save DCs and such on the main page and moving the destiny stuff to the page with backstory & such. You really want as few sheets as possible that require scribbling during encounters.

 

[niklinna]

I like the general layout, but I' think that with the significant added depth and complexity of A5E this character sheet could be improved for usability.

With characters potentially having combat maneuvers, spells, class/culture/heritage features, feats, and other tidbits coming from the equipment, each of which may consume a different type of resource and can be used as either an action, a reaction, a bonus action or a situational instantaneous, I think that a character sheet that looks a bit more like the monsters' stat block could be very useful for playing.

I've already added a column for the class or other source that grants a feature, and I've been trying to figure out how to fit in resource tracking (uses used, uses available, when they refresh)—the official sheet doesn't even attempt that except for spells. That sheet does have "activation" for maneuvers, which I think might be action/reaction and such, I'm not sure. But I want to fit that in too if I can. The idea of singular tables though is so users can arrange their info as they like—they can order all their spells/maneuvers by name, group them by action/reaction/etc., level/rank, or whatever.

I'm also futzing around with putting all the general resource tracking and combat stats (spell/maneuver save DCs, spell slots and exertion) on the primary page, so all the others are reference pages that change only when you get gear or level up. (See what I did there?)

The PC examples shown in the previous weeks are probably a good example of this. Having at least some specific blocks showing the possible actions, bonus actions, reactions and their resource cost would be very useful(maybe modifying or substituting the attack/spells block)

The problem, of course, is that a print sheet has to have space for your character throughout their career up to level 20. I might make compact reference sheets that are good to level 10 or so though so it uses fewer sheets of paper.