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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jeffh" data-source="post: 2592226" data-attributes="member: 2642">"What's your favorite character sheet" discussions come up here fairly often - in fact, there's one going on right now. But one thing I haven't seen much of is specifics as to how a sheet could be better or what the ideal sheet would be like. Running a heavily house-ruled game as I am doing, I have had to think about this a fair bit lately.To get started, here are a few of my likes and dislikes about the two dozen or so d20 System (mostly D&D) sheets I've seen.<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Use readable fonts. A bit of pseudo-medieval feel can be nice, but being able to tell - ideally at a distance or upside-down - what the flippin' text actually says trumps all such considerations.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Don't assume every character will have exactly one class! This extremely common, totally boneheaded error shows up as tiny spaces for class & level, "hit die" spaces that only leave room for one type (and come to think of it, that's a pretty useless thing to include anyway), single checkboxes for a skill's class or cross-class status, and so on.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Leave blanks. I use a lot of house-rules, and if I were designing a sheet I would thing "Y'know, with the advent of Unearthed Arcana and the proliferation of not-quite-D&D d20 games, it's safe to assume not every member of my audience plays by the same rules. So I'll at least give them some damn "notes" sections or something so they can fill in other stats besides the default D&D ones!"</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Skills section - this seems to be the easiest to screw up. Too many sheets suffer from one of two opposite problems - assuming you're using all and only the default D&D skills and thus giving NO space for additional ones, or leaving the skills entirely blank and making you fill in everything yourself. I completely disagree with ForceUser's comments in the other thread - at a minimum, the skills that can be used untrained should be pre-written. There should be several blank spaces for additional skills - at least three if all the skills are written in ahead of time, and at least ten if not, preferably lots more.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Two other skill-related annoyances, besides the above checkbox problem. First, there should be space for more than one miscellaneous mod per skill. As early as second level, it is possible to have race, feats, masterwork tools and synergy all giving modifiers. Secondly, while listing all the Knowledge fields is nice (especially if you follow up with at least one additional blank line), it is NOT necessary to devote that much room to Craft, Profession or Perform. Space for two or three types of each is plenty; there is no need for the six to eight Profession lines some sheets give, and don't even get me started on the one I saw that attempted an exhaustive list of them!</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Give enough room for feats! Preferably with space left over for short descriptions of what at least some of them do. How even a mid-level fighter is supposed to get the names of all their feats, much less any additional information,  into the 2" x 2" space some designers seem to think is adequate is beyond me.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">(But don't try to list every feat a character could have in a checklist format, as one inexplicably popular sheet does. Inevitrably, the selection you end up with will work for exactly one campaign - yours. Other DMs won't necessarily make the same choices.)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">It's nice if there are clear spaces for all the magic item slots.</li> </ul>I'll leave off there, though I could probably think of a few more. What are other people's likes and dislikes for character sheets?</blockquote>

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