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9 months ago ::
Sep 26, 2012 - 9:17AM
#1
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Hi all, I have been playing on this playtest for quite a while, and I have come up with a character generator for the current iteration of the playtest compatible with Excel 2003 and newer. It consists of drop-down lists and typed in fields that are context sensitive, and I think it works really well for pretty much everything except equipment (I never added the non-weapon non-armor gear in). You still need the playtest packet to guide you through the creation process, but it is fairly intuitive. It prints three pages, but only 1 page is required for fighters and rogues, 2 for low-level casters, and 3 for higher due to the spell info contained. If you don't mind a few "#N/A" lines on your sheet, it is pretty clean and functional. Linked are three character sheets showing the functionality of the builder: Althasar - L4 High Elf Wizard SageKieran - L1 Lightfoot Rogue ThiefTeryn - L3 Human Sorcerer SoldierUntil I hear otherwise, I assume this is allowed to be shared. You can find my Excel spreadsheet with all of my ugly formulae here: D&D Next Character Builder v1
Oh, and if you want to use this with your group but don't want them messing around with the formulae, just protect the sheet or workbook. The input cells (blue and yellow) are set to be editable even if the remainder of the sheet is locked. Let me know what you think!
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9 months ago ::
Sep 26, 2012 - 9:21AM
#2
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Nice job, now lets hope WotC doesn't sue you or send you a cease and desist order... 
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9 months ago ::
Sep 26, 2012 - 10:38AM
#3
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Date Joined:
Nov 19, 2007
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Sure, I'd be happy to check it out when I get off work (probably tomorrow, though). I've been working on one myself, based on a 3e character sheet a friend of mine put together, and then on which we collaborated for SWSE and D&D4e. I'll be interested to see if we came up with similar solutions to things. 
In memory of wrecan and his Unearthed Wrecana.5e should strongly stay away from "I don't like it, so you can't have it either."
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8 months ago ::
Sep 26, 2012 - 6:56PM
#4
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Date Joined:
Jan 15, 2006
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I'd like to try it. How do I get access?
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8 months ago ::
Sep 27, 2012 - 1:19AM
#5
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Yeah, this is exactly the kind of stuff that WotC lawyers need to figure out a licensing policy that lets everybody win.
Basically, the license should automatically allow this kind of fandom productivity. Even let fans sell things like this for profit ... it is useful for the community ... until reaching a certain threshold of income, whereupon WotC gets a share of the income.
Maybe using WotC intellectual property and logos, automatically grants WotC reciprocal rights to use any content in the third-party product. This is a bit thorny but a good policy would have a lot to offer. It helps stop the fanbase from preempting the rights for unpublished projects that WotC is working on. Also, if a third-party content becomes widely popular across the D&D community, WotC will have the rights to integrate the content into future official products.
A fair policy that everyone who uses the license can understand, can go along way to making the community vibrant and WotC successful.
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8 months ago ::
Sep 27, 2012 - 1:50AM
#6
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The sheets look great.
Here are some things I would want for my own character sheets.
Name
• Personal Name
• Parent Name (like “son of so-and-so”, “child of”, “so-and-sos-son”, and so on)
• Family Name - House, Clan - (family name, beyond immediate parents)
Title
• Origin Name - Tribe, Region, Town - (like “the Kenite”, of the tribe of Kayin, “El Greco”, the Greek, “Da Vinci”, from the town of Vinci, and so on)
• Position Name - Occupation, Rank - (Lord Arch Wizard of such-and-such, and so on)
(At least lengthen the Name space, and add a separate Title space.)
Size
• I would list “Size: Medium” first. Then make the specific height and weight as subcategories.
Complexion
• Eyes, Hair, and Skin color. Skin color is especially important, from black Drow to red Genasi. One character may be an Earth Genasi who resembles the Lapis Lazuli gem, thus whose skin is deep blue.
Alignment
• I would move the alignment to the “character description” section, because it really needs spelling out. Example: “Lawful” - in what way is the hero “lawful”? What are the kinds of behaviors this character is known for, that seems to categorize best as “lawful”. The hero respects authority, especially clan elders? The hero is a communist and believes in collectivism? The hero is philosophical libertarian and believes everything boils down to fair contracts between individuals? And so on. Deciding in what way someone is “lawful” or “chaotic” - or “good” or “evil” - helps articulate what the hero is about, and helps grok what these alignment mechanics can mean.
Weapons
• Probably my Wizard will never use a mundane weapon ever. And simply rely on atwill spells. So it would be important to be able to *remove* default data from the sheet, as well as add it.
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8 months ago ::
Sep 27, 2012 - 5:25AM
#7
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Haldrik,
Of course I have come up with personal touches that I prefer in my campaign as well, but I based these specifically off of the playtest character sheets that were provided by WotC so I can quickly kick up a character and get the game moving. This way, when PCs die in the game (and in my game, they tend to die pretty often due to careless actions...), they can whip up another PC in 5 minutes or so.
Thank you for the input, I could easily put in a character description section in the lower left of the page so you can input more information.
Removal and addition of the weapons sections might be slightly more difficult, unless I put the minor spells in the weapons slots, but that gets messy; what happens with a war domain priest who has both weapons and spells? What about when multiclassing comes and someone makes a fighter/mage?
I appreciate the feedback.
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8 months ago ::
Sep 27, 2012 - 11:19AM
#8
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Date Joined:
Jan 21, 2004
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Looks cool. The official version needs more space for weapons and at will magical effects.
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8 months ago ::
Sep 27, 2012 - 4:45PM
#9
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Date Joined:
Aug 29, 2012
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Looks cool. The official version needs more space for weapons and at will magical effects.
I'm with a 3.5e group, but tracking 5e development. The 3.5e sheet is rather complex, particularly with skills. I know skills are being simplified and an effort is being made to break the need for complex calculation to see if one may successfully pass gas or have a bowel movement during combat.
When 5e is released, I would like to have an app I can purchase that works on iPad or Droid that would make things like character generation easier, especially if I can print from the app.
I end up using www.pathguy.com/cg35.htm to figure out how to fill in the stuff, then a fill-inable .PDF that does the calculations. http://charactersheets.minotaur.cc/composer.html has very easy to read sheets, but no built-in calculations or even a way to enter fields on the form.
I hope 5e will take advantage of today's ubiquitous technology for things like .PDFs that can calculate things that are just math, or apps that can do anything more complex if needed. I suppose things like the 4e character generator on the Wizard's site are ok behind a pay-wall, but we can't get 'Net from the game-room where we are, and I'd much rather have all of that available on, say, a Kindle Fire or IPod or other 'Droid device that doesn't need to be connected to the 'Net.
But that's several years away. Meantime, I hope your spreadsheet will be allowed to be public, or that something can be worked out.
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8 months ago ::
Sep 27, 2012 - 9:44PM
#10
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Date Joined:
Dec 12, 2011
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Nice work. Are you going to add in equipment packages from backgrounds/classes and/or dropdown menues for selecting equipment? Something like that would be nice (but not essential), especially to auto-calculate total weight carried or spending costs.
Playtest or get off the playtest boards.
---
I want justice for the voice that can't be heard
Vindication for every suffering and hurt
Let retribution hold dominion over earth
--Nemesis, VNV Nation
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