JoeGKushner
Adventurer
I was looking forward to the Player's Archive. Here was a character sheet that was almost epic in scope. The cover is a laugh riot. The injured orc with the kobold officer looking over the ranks of adventurers is a great change of pace. But what about the inside?
Big! I can tell you this, the designer of this sheet must know that it's hard to write in small boxes those stats, modifiers and bonuses and has provided you with plenty of space to write in.
Basic Stats covered with temp scores and temp modifiers? Yup.
Armor class with modifiers and base listed? Yup.
Saving Throws with total and break down listed? Yup.
Hit Points? Yup.
Melee/Ranged Attack Bonus? A master chart and seperate ones for specific weapons.
Space for illustration and special abilities and initative? Yup.
3.5 Skill chart? Yup.
Setting Specific Rules Changes? Whole column for them.
Limit on Magic Items Worn? Yup.
Large space for treasure? Yup.
Large space for weight carried and it's modifiers? Yup.
Advancement Sheet for hit points, feats ability score changes and abilities gained on a level by level basis? Yup.
Listing for spells? I'd say over two pages gives this the Yup.
Psionics? Yup.
Space for Henchman/Hirelings? Animal Companions? Allies and Enemies? Yup.
A lot of space for things that aren't vital to the character sheet, but useful to the character are all here: Rumors, Adventure Notes, Guild affiliations both positive and negative, Grids for mapping, Marching Order, Issues and Leads, Places Visited, and Journal Entries.
The book ends on a twist though. If you've seen d20 Modern, you may have heard of Occupations, the career you had before becoming a full fledged adventurer. Trevor Stamper put his fantasy spin on this in En World Journal #2. Philip does the same here. His listing is a little different though as these occupations require you to meet certain requirements and the wording is a little different.
For instance, Academic now requires an Intelligence of 14+ and gives a straight cash bonus while the En World version provides a bonus to rolls made at the character's library. I like the idea of occupations, but think that speaking outside the game, there should be pre-adventuring occupations that only give role playing feats, wealth or other minor bonuses, and adventuring style occupations that provide the character with 'real' benefits like a wider selection of bonus feats, bonuses to skills or other abilities. Game balance is difficult to get right all the time but if something is clearly for an NPC, or a non-active adventurer, make sure that people know it right away.
The book does an excellent job of bringing a lot of common tables and materials to use. Philip's website is supposed to provide customization, eleven different PDFs, one for each character class, but I don't see it up yet. I imagine that it's the whole Gen Con thing going on and we'll see it soon.
My 'issues' are that not enough of this material is downloadable. I'd love to see some of the common sheets useful for any character like Adventure Notes, Rumors, Guilds, Current Adventure Mapping put into a PDF and sold for $2.00 or something. I say that because with all of the 'core' character sheets that cover the basics like the Necromancer 1st edition feel sheet, the character stat holding part is really not needed but the other stuff like this is and can be used for any adventurer but needs to be in a format where you can print out the stuff you need, when you need it.
Those who want a complete character sheet should check out the Player's Archive, the first 3.5 character sheet that I've seen on the market that does a great job of providing you enough space to write in and enough fields to fill out.
Big! I can tell you this, the designer of this sheet must know that it's hard to write in small boxes those stats, modifiers and bonuses and has provided you with plenty of space to write in.
Basic Stats covered with temp scores and temp modifiers? Yup.
Armor class with modifiers and base listed? Yup.
Saving Throws with total and break down listed? Yup.
Hit Points? Yup.
Melee/Ranged Attack Bonus? A master chart and seperate ones for specific weapons.
Space for illustration and special abilities and initative? Yup.
3.5 Skill chart? Yup.
Setting Specific Rules Changes? Whole column for them.
Limit on Magic Items Worn? Yup.
Large space for treasure? Yup.
Large space for weight carried and it's modifiers? Yup.
Advancement Sheet for hit points, feats ability score changes and abilities gained on a level by level basis? Yup.
Listing for spells? I'd say over two pages gives this the Yup.
Psionics? Yup.
Space for Henchman/Hirelings? Animal Companions? Allies and Enemies? Yup.
A lot of space for things that aren't vital to the character sheet, but useful to the character are all here: Rumors, Adventure Notes, Guild affiliations both positive and negative, Grids for mapping, Marching Order, Issues and Leads, Places Visited, and Journal Entries.
The book ends on a twist though. If you've seen d20 Modern, you may have heard of Occupations, the career you had before becoming a full fledged adventurer. Trevor Stamper put his fantasy spin on this in En World Journal #2. Philip does the same here. His listing is a little different though as these occupations require you to meet certain requirements and the wording is a little different.
For instance, Academic now requires an Intelligence of 14+ and gives a straight cash bonus while the En World version provides a bonus to rolls made at the character's library. I like the idea of occupations, but think that speaking outside the game, there should be pre-adventuring occupations that only give role playing feats, wealth or other minor bonuses, and adventuring style occupations that provide the character with 'real' benefits like a wider selection of bonus feats, bonuses to skills or other abilities. Game balance is difficult to get right all the time but if something is clearly for an NPC, or a non-active adventurer, make sure that people know it right away.
The book does an excellent job of bringing a lot of common tables and materials to use. Philip's website is supposed to provide customization, eleven different PDFs, one for each character class, but I don't see it up yet. I imagine that it's the whole Gen Con thing going on and we'll see it soon.
My 'issues' are that not enough of this material is downloadable. I'd love to see some of the common sheets useful for any character like Adventure Notes, Rumors, Guilds, Current Adventure Mapping put into a PDF and sold for $2.00 or something. I say that because with all of the 'core' character sheets that cover the basics like the Necromancer 1st edition feel sheet, the character stat holding part is really not needed but the other stuff like this is and can be used for any adventurer but needs to be in a format where you can print out the stuff you need, when you need it.
Those who want a complete character sheet should check out the Player's Archive, the first 3.5 character sheet that I've seen on the market that does a great job of providing you enough space to write in and enough fields to fill out.
