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Jul 24, 2011 -- 8:21PM, BlackKnight1239 wrote:

Would anyone happen to know of a character sheet that can fit all/most of the non-power information on a smaller number of sheets (ideally one, but two can work)? As much as I like the CB, it's character sheet wastes so much space that more stuff could be on.

I've designed a sheet that should be able to fit a level 30 character of any class onto a single sheet of paper. I'll be posting it after I get some sleep and scan in and upload a couple of my current characters' sheets as examples.

I have two major problems with every first-party character sheet I've ever seen:
1) They tend to waste too much ink (my Disability plus my wife's part-time job after being unemployed for 15 months means we don't have a single cent to waste)
2) Something about them ends up being unsuitable for at least one character (two few weapon slots for a fighter, too little power space for a wizard, etc).

I solved those problems by making my own sheets for our three most frequently played games – GURPS 4e, HackMaster 5e (nearly done), D&D 4e – that have three primary goals:
1) Earth- and wallet-friendliness. In other words: cheap to print.
2) Only force the positioning of things that will be the same for every character or are tedious to hand-write every time: stat blocks; name, race, age, etc; skills; and so forth.
3) User-customizable depending player taste and character class. This includes having the lowest item on the front of the page be the column headings of a weapons table. That way it as long as needed and no more or less.

The combination of 2 and 3 means that most of each sheet is blank so the player can lay things out in whatever way best suits his character and playstyle but he won't have to write down all of the attributes or skills each time either. Here are my two current non-Ecounters characters as an example of how I lay out my characters ('though both are on slightly older versions of the sheet). The beauty of this is that you're not forced to write out your character the way I do because I'm not locking you into my preferred way of doing things.

That said, I doubt many people will like this simply because it doesn't tell you where to put everything and doesn't have any fanciness at all. But if it does interest you then please check it out and let me know what you think. I end up tweaking it a bit every time I make a new character (had to widen the "Crit" column on the weapons table for this version) so I'm certainly open to constructive feedback.

I'd especially like to know if it actually can support a level 30 character for someone who writes larger than I do. Due to minoring in drafting in college, I can easily get two lines of text per line in a wide-ruled notebook (despite my compromised fine motor control due the permanent spasms in my shoulder muscles) so everyone I know writes larger than I do and I expect that most people do.

I don't know why, but CutePDF tends to add extra margins to things so this will print better if you use the OpenOffice.org original but the PDF has the benefit of being Web-viewable so you won't have to download it first.

Before anyone asks: no I can't convert it to Google docs format because Google chokes to death when it tries to convert OOo Writer's floating frames. The Frames are what allow me to use Writer as a low-end desktop publishing program; I've been using them for that purpose since I first discovered StarOffice in college back in the late 90s and have never looked back.

EDIT:  I've tweaked the sheet a bit (mainly the weapons table which was too cramped in spots; got a few more tweaks in mind for the top section) and uploaded the newest version to Scribd. Any raves or advice for improvement are alway appreciated.