Thanks for checking it out, and for the comments! All your points are things I've been addressing while using the official WotC sheets and then while designing my variant, so I can tell you why I made those choices differently from WotC.
The Hit Point / Hit Die boxes are actually larger on Wizards' version, and frankly more useful given the inclusion of temporary hit points and death saves. The lack of a specifically calling out "hit point maximum" isn't a major problem, but I think taking it away reduces the effectiveness of this sheet - for beginners especially.
The Hit Point / Hit Dice section on WotC official sheet is
not good for many reasons:
- "Hit Point Maximum" is a
row, which makes no sense because you only need one number, and it changes only when you level up; in addition, it's also a pretty thin row, so it's both too long horizontally and too short vertically -> this is why I replaced it with a box
- "Temporary Hit Points" is a huge waste, it's not rare to gain temp HP but it's also not as frequent as to need this large box; when gaining temp HP, I just mark e.g. "+4" in the "Current Hit Points" area, and remember to lose these first if damaged
- "Hit Dice" area is usable but again I thought it's frequent enough to have to mark how many HD you used in a short rest and then update them during a long rest, that IMO it deserves a bit more space (if I see that in our games players have too many cancellations in one box of their character sheet, to me it's a signal that it needs more space)
- "Death Saves" are not needed as often as I thought; it's ok to have them on the sheet, but it's better to just count to 2 or give a token to the player who is making death saves (and yes, you don't need
three circles here, because once you are supposed to tick the third circle, you no longer need to record your death saves!)
What they did well is the "Current Hit Points" area. Very good idea to have a large box so that you don't need to erase+rewrite each time, but can instead cross a value and write the update next to it. I tried to keep it mostly intact, even tho on my sheet I sacrificed a bit of width, but since the Maximum is removed from this box, there is enough space for
two rows of writing here. Although now that you mention it, I could definitely shrink it vertically a bit, and gain one more row for the Proficiencies table.
Deleting all of the proficiencies seems actually COUNTER to the sheet's supposed "beginner friendliness." What is the newbie supposed to when asked for a Medicine Check when he isn't proficient?
This is a
key feature of my character sheet, to the point that I could say that removing the full skills list is the original reason why I made this character sheet.
Nobody else has chosen to do this, as far as I know, and that's what makes my character sheet different, rather than just another one in thousands versions.
Removing the full skill list creates a shift in the way players think about their skills.
What is visibly written on your character sheet is often what gives you ideas on what to do. In my personal experience, beginners should not be given too many suggestions, or they'll get lost and do something useless. Their character sheet should rather focus on what their PCs can do well. When they see "PROFICIENCIES: Investigation, Medicine, Nature, Stealth" they are reminded that those are the things their PC should be doing most often, because it's her
role in the party.
Small example: I once had a player who asked multiple times during the first game "What is this Sleight of Hand? What can you do with this?", and obviously wasn't proficient with it. This was a sign that the player was wasting time going through the whole skill list continuously in search for something to do instead of focusing on the most effective options.
I really believe the
roleplay game is better when everyone focuses on their
role instead of just trying everything. There is always a possibility to improvise when one really needs to.
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As for the second case i.e. when it's the DM asking for a check, it's a false problem.
In 5e D&D the focus is on
ability checks, not
skill checks. I might be wrong, but I don't think that the PHB or DMG
ever use the term "skill check" in 5e. The idea is that the DM most of the times asks for an
ability check, and tells you that if you have a specific proficiency, you can add your bonus to the check. Everywhere in the books those checks are written as
Wisdom(Medicine), and that's the proper way to do it in 5e; calling out for a
Medicine check is a common shorthand at the table, but it's the DM's fault if this habit causes confusion to the player.
Likewise with the saving throws. Now our poor beginner has to manually write down all the proficiencies and saving throws? I think these are both large negatives in that they are not included on your sheet. In fact, you have 18 lines on your Proficiencies section, and that would cover all 18 of the Proficiencies, leaving zero room for any tools, kits, or languages.
NO! The player should definitely not write down 18 skills, she should be write down only the 4 (or whatever) she is proficient at.
In this section, she should also write weapons/armors, tools and languages proficiencies (I moved the saving throws to another table).
So normally 4-7 rows for skills, 2-3 rows for tools/languages, 2-3 rows for weapons/armors. I actually tried to be abundant in this section!
I agree with you and Quickleaf about the Attacks section being too large, as in too many lines. You might actually be better served by just making it wider than the Wizards version.
Originally, the 5 lines were prompted by a couple personal cases when beginner players picked up new weapons from treasure or dropped by enemies during the first adventure, and wanted to try them out until they knew what to stick with... so again I tried to be abundant, but I agree that this might be rare.
If you take their default character sheet, and shrink the "Features and Traits" section such that you can widen the "Attacks and Spellcasting" section to the right margin, that would probably be more useful to a beginner than having a lot of extra room for features.
Err... not so sure about that! There are plenty of Features & Traits already at 1st level due to racial abilities in addition to class abilities, as well as the background feature. IMXP this section should be large, especially because for some non-obvious features you might actually want to write a whole summary instead of just the name.
Also, I think it is even more important for a beginner to have their character traits (bonds, flaw, etc.) front and center on the top page. They are learning the mechanics of their character, but they are also learning about Role Playing. Burying these items on the back pages implicitly lessens their importance - erroneously in my view.
I don't want to mix roleplay stuff and game mechanics on the same page (in fact I am even considering removing "Alignment" from the top section).
In addition, not everyone game uses Traits+Ideals+Bonds+Flaws. They can be both a huge help and a burden to beginners, depending on what kind of game you're running. To be more specific, if I run a one-shot game or a tactical combat-focused game, I would not waste time defining the narrative/roleplay details of the PCs.
I will later post the third sheet of the set, which contains roleplay/narrative details, so that it can be seen together with the other sheets.
