Wow!!l!

Cool and awesome fun stuff!

Thanks so much Sherbie! I may see about making use of some of this stuff myself!

Scottie

To go along with Sherbie's cool Smartsheet PDF Character Sheet, and for those who have the skills in Adobe Photoshop, I have created a layered PSD file that contains the elements that allow you to create your own art that matches the cut-out area on Sherbie's sheet for your character's portrait, and lets you make a sepia-tone image from any grayscale bit of artwork you'd like to use (thus making an image that mimics the art style found in the Basic Compendium Animal Templates, as well as the character images that you can see on the pre-generated characters in the downloadable adventures)...

Just open up the Photoshop file uploaded here, find an image you'd like to use for your character, replace the Sepiatone Layer Example with the image, and size the image appropriately so that it fits nicely between the Outer Fade Border and the Background layer. If you'd like the image to be a sepia-tone image (like the ones in our publications), make your new character image desaturated (pure grayscale) in that layer only by going in the upper menu bar to Image, Adjustments, Desaturate, then set that layer's properties to "Multiply" (in the drop-down menu in the Layers interface), then go back to Image, Adjustments, then choose Variations, and with the settings on Midtones evenly between Fine and Course, click once on the More Red option, then click "OK".

Once you are done with the image, save it off (in case you want to do it again later for other pictures), then flatten the image and save it as a JPG so that you can pick it for the image you'd like in Sherbie's PDF character sheet!

Fun stuff!

Scottie

Originally posted by Sherbie

Originally posted by Scott Jones
Fun stuff!

You tha bomb Scotty J! [Blocked Image: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v356/Philot/Stuff/so_fresh.gif]

I'll update the sheet once I manage to fix that error, up until then I hope everyone can cope with it (I swear things like that keep popping up, I think I should switch format or something, how about Visual basic?)

Heh!

Glad you enjoyed that bit-o-art fun!

I wanted to ask you, though, when you are making that fix, is there any way you could make it so that, instead of auto-calculating the individual cost of each Characteristic depending on the Characteristic Ranking listed, it instead allows you to put in your own cost for each one? The reason why is that when you are initially filling in your character sheet (during character creation) the costs are exactly how you have them automatically done (2 points for each ranking of the first five Characteristics, and 1 point for each ranking of the remaining four), but after that, during game play, the cost of raising your Characteristics changes (it costs the same number of points as the current ranking of the Characteristic to raise it by one point of ranking).

As it is now,...the sheet is great for Character Creation, but afterwards, because the tallying of the individual costs of the Characteristics is automated, you can't keep proper track of later raises in Characteristics... If you made them work like the rest of the costs (it looks like you can type in the costs yourself for the rest of the attributes), then it'll work well for character creation, as well as later editing in-game!

Great work on this, by the way,...and a wonderful aid to folks who like to keep their stuff digitally! I'll be giving this to my players when we start up our new game scenario this coming Sunday!

Scottie

Originally posted by Sherbie

Originally posted by Scott Jones
I wanted to ask you, though, when you are making that fix, is there any way you could make it so that, instead of auto-calculating the individual cost of each Characteristic depending on the Characteristic Ranking listed, it instead allows you to put in your own cost for each one?

Ah, I concur. I am a boob.

I shall change this now!

Edit: Fixed! Now it calculates automatically, but can just be changed manually too

Awesome! Thanks!

The fact that you were able to create a PDF file that you can effectively change and save again and again from Adobe Reader has impressed my players deeply!

This will make creating and keeping track of characters and the points their players have spent on them a breeze!

Oh,...and I wanted to mention, when I was creating a character, and filling in all the stuff, I was delighted to notice that it auto-filled several areas as you mentioned, including the Stamina and all that stuff, which is great!

If you'd like to stream-line it, remember that, in general, numbers always round in the player's favor... So for instance, if my Vigor plus Will x 2 = 8, then currently your sheet shows the -1 penalty happening when the Stamina reaches 5.333, and the -2 penalty occurring when the character's Stamina reaches 2.666... In these cases, you could round the number down to 5 and 2, since it always benifits the player to round those numbers down... I'm not sure if the program can perform "rounding down", but if so,...that's a great place to use it...

Also, I noticed that, for some reason, when it tries to auto-fill the rankings for the Skill scores in the Combat Section, it adds the ranking of their linked Characteristic to whatever ranking you also wrote in the Skills section, and then subtracts 1... For instance, I said the character had 7 Agility, then pruchased Martial Arts and wrote down 7 for his starting Rank in the Skills section. When I looked in the Combat section it showed that I had a Martial Arts ranking of 13... When I took away the ranking for Agility and made it 0, the ranking listed in the Combat section changed to a 6 (even though the ranking was still listed as 7 beside it in the Skills section)...

I figured you'd want to catch that before having your players start using it...

Thanks again, though, seriously...for taking the time to create such a wonderful tool! My players LOVE it and can't wait to create their new characters next Sunday using it!!!!

And especially thanks for being patient with me testing it and giving feedback...

In fact,...to show our thanks, and to show our appreciation for having done this cool stuff, if you haven't had the chance to get your hands on one of our world maps or our dice, please send a private message to me using the forum interface with your full mailing address, and I'll send you a gift for your efforts!

Scottie

Originally posted by Sherbie

Originally posted by Scott Jones
If you'd like to stream-line it, remember that, in general, numbers always round in the player's favor...

There's a round function, but it rounds either up or down depending on what comes after the comma: 3.6 will be rounded up, 3.4 will be rounded down. I'll put it in in the next version

Either way you can edit every field manually now, so if you decide that you prefer to print the file out you just clear all the automatically calculated fields and fill out permanent ones.

That's great! That's exactly what is needed to make sure people can change their sheet as they continue to develop their character during game-play...

Originally posted by Sherbie

Originally posted by Scott Jones
Also, I noticed that, for some reason, when it tries to auto-fill the rankings for the Skill scores in the Combat Section, it adds the ranking of their linked Characteristic to whatever ranking you also wrote in the Skills section, and then subtracts 1...

Well, I use this part of the Character Sheet as a reference for how many dice I can roll for this particular fighting skill.
And the first rank of a skill just gives your Characteristics in dice and doesn't add itself... thus -1.

But I can change it to just reflect the current skill level if you prefer.

Changing those fields to reflect the current Skill ranking (essentially duplicating what's in the Skill Section) is absolutely the way to go, since those fields in the Combat section are merely a repeat of the same ranking of the Skill as listed in the Skills section of the Character Sheet... Remember, the Ranking of any Attribute is the same as the number of dice you roll to perform that Attribute (Skill roll, Animal Ability roll, Characteristic Roll, etc.). Thus, if I have a Rank of 7 in my Martial Arts Skill, I roll 7 dice to perform that Skill (plus or minus any modifiers).

As far as how you use those fields, and the explanation of how the whole "-1" thing goes,....that confused me... I'm not sure what you mean... I'm wondering if we may not be on the same page with how the math is being explained...

Let me give a detailed example of buying up both Characteristics as well as related Skills, to make sure we're all using the same formula...

Let's say, for instance, I spent 14 points in my Agility Characteristic during character creation (as part of my Animal Template), I'd have an Agility of 7 to start with... That cost of 14 would be shown to the left of the Agility Characteristic, and the Agility rank would be 7 (written to the right in its little box), of course... Later, when writing down my Skills in the Skills section of the character sheet, if I bought Martial Arts for its 8 point initial cost (written to the left of the Skill name) then I would automatically start with a Rank of 7 (equal to its linked Characteristic Agility rank), which is also the number of dice I get to roll (7) when attempting any basic martial arts strike or defense, just as it is also the number of dice (Rank) that should be listed in the Combat section of the character sheet... I now have:

Agility (Cost 14,... Rank 7)
Martial Arts (Cost 8,... Rank 7, with Rank listed in both the Skills and Combat area)

If I have points left over before character creation is done, and I want to raise my Martial Arts Rank by one point (thus raising it to an 8, meaning I get to roll 8 dice), I can do it one of two ways; I can either buy up my Agility with 2 more points (thus making its total cost 16), which will cause all Agility-based Skills I've already purchased (which includes Martial Arts) to also go up by 1 Rank, thus increasing the number of dice I can roll by 1 as well for each of them, without adding to the cost of each Skill individually (this is the cheapest way to go, and only possible at this low cost during character creation),...or I can choose to just buy up the Martial Arts Skill only (paying 5 points for a 1-point Martial Arts Skill Rank increase, thus increasing the Martial Arts total cost to a 13), which means my Agility remains a 7, but my Martial Arts Rank would become an 8... That also means that the Ranking as listed in the Combat section of the character sheet should also show my Martial Arts as having a Rank of 8, meaning I get to roll 8 dice now to perform basic Martial Arts.

Let's assume that, for this example, I chose to buy up my Agility (as most folks would, since it's so cheap to do so at this stage), which raises all my Agility-based Skills and Agility-based Animal Abilities by 1 rank as well. I now have:

Agility (Cost 16,... Rank 8 )
Martial Arts (Cost 8,... Rank 8, with Rank listed in both the Skills and Combat area)

Later, after character creation is over, and the game has begun (and you've begun accumulating Story Points, which are added to any remaining Character Points left after character creation), to increase Ranking in your Characteristics the cost is much higher. As in the above example, if I have an 8 Ranking in my Agility (with a cost of 16 points shown to the left), and I'd like it to become a Ranking of 9, I'd need to spend 8 Story Points to raise my Agility Ranking from an 8 to a 9 (which would now make the total cost of my Agility 24). Though this is certainly more expensive than it was during character creation, it still has the same effect of raising the Rank (dice rolled) of any Agility-based Skill or Animal Ability your character possesses by 1 more point (without adding to the cost of the individual Skill). In this case, doing this would make my Martial Arts Skill go from a Rank of 8 to a Rank of 9 as well (which would also be reflected in the Combat Section of the character sheet). I now have:

Agility (Cost 24,... Rank 9)
Martial Arts (Cost 8,... Rank 9, with Rank listed in both the Skills and Combat area)

To change the Rank (dice-pool) of any individual Skill or Animal Ability after the game has begun (without raising its linked Characteristic), you can still spend the points required on that Skill individually as indicated in the Skill List in the Basic Compendium, just as you can during character creation, and for the same cost... If, in the example above, I wanted to eventually raise my Martial Arts from a 9 to a 10 (while leaving my Agility at a rank of 9), I'd purchase it as indicated on the Basic Compendium Skill List. Martial Arts costs 8 points to buy initially (which I've already paid during character Creation, and which gave me an initial Rank equal to my Agility ranking of 7), and 5 points for every 1 point increase in its initial Rank (dice). Because I have bought up my Agility twice (with 2 points during character creation to go from an initial 7 to an 8, and later, in-game, with 8 more points, to go from an 8 to a 9) I now have a ranking of 9 in my Agility, and a matching 9 rank in my Martial Arts. I don't want to spend 9 more points to raise my Agility (lets say I don't have enough Story Points to do that), and would rather just spend 5 points on my Martial Arts Skill only to give it a rank increase all by itself. Spending 5 points would now raise the cost of my Martial Arts to a 13, and would raise its Rank to a 10, but it would have no effect on my current Agility whatsoever. I now have:

Agility (Cost 24,... Rank 9)
Martial Arts (Cost 13,... Rank 10, with Rank listed in both the Skills and Combat area)

Hopefully this clarifies the math a little bit better... It can get confusing trying to take all this into account... Essentially, what this means is that:

• The cost of buying up Characteristics changes once you are no longer in character creation, getting more expensive once you are in-game.
  
• Once game-play begins, you may only buy up your Characteristics one Rank level at a time, at a cost equal to he current Rank in that Characteristic.
  
• Any time you buy up a Characteristic's Ranking level (dice) it affects the Ranking of any Skills or Animal Abilities linked to it by the same number of Rank levels (dice).
  
• The cost of buying up Skills and Animal Abilities remains consistant, according to the tables in the Basic Compendium, both during character creation as well as in-game.
  
• If you decide to buy up the Rank level (dice) of any single Skill or Animal Ability (while leaving its linked Characteristic alone), you must spend points as indicated in the Basic Compendium (the number after the "/" in the Cost column of the tables), add that cost to the current cost of the Skill or Animal Ability, and increase its Rank by 1, which indicates you have added another die to the pool of dice you'd normally roll when attempting that skill or ability.
  
• Once game-play begins, you may only buy up your Skills and Animal Abilities one Rank level at a time, at the cost indicated in the Basic Compendium.
  

If you'd like to make it work that way on the sheet, that's awesome,...if it's too much trouble, I totally understand.... That's a lot of math code to ask for! People may need to just be satisfied with having a PDF that they can actually change and save using Adobe Reader... Heh!


Scottie

Ohhhh! I think I understand what you were doing with those fields now...

It just threw me at first...

Sorry for the long-winded explanation... We had seen folks have trouble interpreting our math in the past, and I wanted to make sure all was well...

Anyway,...you've put a lot of effort into this, and my players thank you for it... For now, we'll just all enjoy the fact that we have a cool character sheet to keep track of our stuff...

Any extra bells and whistles that may come later will just be icing on the cake!

Thanks again!

You're awesome!

Scottie

Oh,...and I just made a character completely with the sheet..... AWESOME!!!! I've attached it to this posting so you can see it! (RECENT EDIT: I re-uploaded this character using the newest sheet, version 12, and fixed a few errors I found when I made the first one...)

Did you use the white boxes for remaining Story Points because my spacing for the bubbles on the actual sheet didn't let you place the black diamonds directly on their spots? If so,...sorry about that...

By the way,...I love the pop-up bits of dialogue describing the various fields and areas of the character sheet...

Even though you mention that the Total field for the total cost of the sheet sometimes messes up, I haven't noticed anything go wrong with it yet (calculation-wise), except for the fact that a little white "plus" sign in a black square appears directly over the end of the number display whenever the number in the total field reaches 200 or larger, since apparently the display field cuts the last number off slightly because it doesn't fit perfectly within the area of the field... I'm betting that if the display field were a tad bit larger (wider), the numbers would draw just fine...

I'm assuming that the "plus" sign appears because the number (that final number in any number above 199) is cutting off slightly,...or is it because you can edit that field at will...? You can add some random five-point Skill to the test-character I sent if you want to see what I mean...

Forgive me for asking all these questions and totally geeking out over the character sheet,...it's just so damn cool and fun to finally have one that's editable and savable in Adobe Reader that I can't get over it! Tomorrow my players will finally get to use it....Yayyy!

Scottie

YOU RULE!!!!

Well, it looks like it's workin' good now!

Oh,...and hey,...I edited the pop-up text stuff in the text file like you mentioned...

Let me know if I can send it to you in a Word doc... Only a very few needed any editing or required fixes... You did a great job on these, as well as all the page references!

My players used the sheet yesterday and totally sung its praises!!! They LOVED all the pop-up stuff and the page references and the tallying of the totals... It made their experience MUCH faster and more fun!

Scottie

Woo! Cool stuff here XD. The shard PDF sheet is especially handy, but I'm also REALLY interested in the map thing. I gotta figure out how to make that work. Apperently I'm going to need to find textures and other things, but otherwise, it should be great for making detailed maps and stuff... Kind of hard to learn though, and it's apparently meant mostly for online gaming, which is "Kind of" a bugger, as I do enough of that through MMO's and forums anyway. But I don't think there's any other kind of map maker out there that's THAT detailed, so I'll be playing around with it.... Heh, if there's anything I love doing, it's making maps!