Topic: Which Character Sheet utility do you use?

[craggles]

Hi all

I hope you've all had a great xmas!

After all the fiddling I've been doing to an excel character sheet (originally by Sean Wijbrandus - but the customising I've been doing is mostly cosmetic), I was wondering what character sheet utilities people use or if you don't use any utilities at all and you rely on pen and paper filling out the character sheets at the back of the RMFRP book?

I jumped straight in with Jonathan Dales and Sean Wijbrandus when I picked up the RMFRP books as adding up all the stats for category groups and their sub-skills seemed quite confusing (although changing an entry by accident in one of the character sheets is quite hard to track down the problem).

I tried the utility from rpgrm but I thought it was very time consuming to make a character when I had the whole group's sheets to create (but I suppose that was mostly because I wasn't sure about the RMFRP rules at the time) but it was great that there was a Mac version so I'll be going back to that in a bit when I need to create a new character (as one of the party is bound to die)!!

[ictus]

A lot of people use 'RM Character Software Companion' which you could download at rpgrm.com, you need to be a member to access the area, which is free, it just stops leaching. There are other character sheets in there as well.

[Ecthelion]

I use my own sheet which was created for OpenOffice.org but should also work with Excel. You can find it on my homepage.

[craggles]

Does anyone know what the differences are with several entries for the Jonathan Dale spreadsheet and several entries of Sean Wijbrandus' spreadsheet too?
Once downloaded, they seem to have the same version numbers on the sheet but they've been uploaded at different times.

[craggles]

Hi Ecthelion

That's one I already downloaded and tried but looking back at it, I can't remember why I didn't go for it. I think it may have been that the Sean Wijbrandus sheet had everything automatic on it so I didn't need to worry about anything. With several drop-down menus giving me several options. Unfortunately, this is working against me as it's difficult to customise it.

I've been changing how it looks so the info is easier to find and I've created another sheet listing all the skills and their bonuses on it (in 3 columns) so they fit on 2 pages instead of 8. I've also changed all the training package costs to the new official ICE costs but changing races is proving to be difficult.

On trying yours again, I notice that there are more things than I initially picked up on the first time around that are linked automatically to race and profession but with my limited excel knowledge, they passed me by. So I'll be trying it out anew soon.

[Ecthelion]

I have to agree that other sheets are probably easier to use than mine because they make use of macros and drop-down menus whereas mine is exclusively based on formulas. The latter can be quite useful, but it might make my sheet more a tool for those who have good knowledge of Excel  .

[craggles]

Hi ictus

I tried the character software companion not long ago and the version I have on my Mac runs in demo mode and requires a serial number. I'm sure I tried a free version at some time but that may have been on my brother in-law's PC laptop as the version from rpgrm.com is for the PC.

Is there a place to buy the app for the Mac? Because clicking on the 'Purchase Software' button in the side nav goes here - http://www.roleplayingsoftware.com/ which isn?t active at all currently.

I assume the software allows you to print the sheets once they're created?

[markc]

craggles,
 IIRC, the person who created the software you are talking about passed away and one of his friends gave people permission to use his app. I do not know if that includes free S #'s or not.

MDC

 I have used most of the products people talk about above but as I adapted my game to be a mesh of RMSS and SM:P I went to a basic count up ranks sheet that I made.

MDC

[craggles]

Hi markc

Yeah - I read about that - very sad.

Do you happen to know where can I purchase a serial for the app? I can't seem to find any info of it on rpgrm.com and the purchase link went to a dead site. :S

[markc]

craggles,
 I do not have any info about the product except what I said above.

 But something just did pop into my head. The person who was helping out with the deceased possessions did post some comments in the software section about his product. But again if I remember correctly he did not have any way of generating valid S #'s. But you might want to drop him an email or a PM as he may have a version that is unlocked.

MDC

[ictus]

Hi ictus

I tried the character software companion not long ago and the version I have on my Mac runs in demo mode and requires a serial number. I'm sure I tried a free version at some time but that may have been on my brother in-law's PC laptop as the version from rpgrm.com is for the PC.

Is there a place to buy the app for the Mac? Because clicking on the 'Purchase Software' button in the side nav goes here - http://www.roleplayingsoftware.com/ which isn?t active at all currently.

I assume the software allows you to print the sheets once they're created?

Saddly John the creator of the software is no longer with us. So no updates can realisticly be made.

I think the version we have on the site is the unrestricted one. If not I can ask his friends about the dev pack and see if we can get the unrestricted one up there. I play RM2 amungst other things so don't use it myself, if you try it le me know if it's the unrestricted one and I can put out feelers acordingly.

[craggles]

Hi Ictus

I can't comment on the PC version (which is the one on the RPGRM site) but the Mac version that I have installed is in demo mode which requires a serial code to unlock it (and which takes me to a dead link if I want to purchase it).

I can't for the life of me remember where I managed to download a Mac version of the software and it's proving difficult to find again.
(perhaps it's too early or maybe it's the lack of coffee which is hindering my search)

[craggles]

Hi Ecthelion

On a similar note to Character Creation Sheets, I've been using your Combat Manager (http://www.ironcrown.com/ICEforums/index.php?action=tpmod;dl=item577) for our campaign so far and it is unbelievably AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!
(I've only just found that it's yours after looking within the file's info otherwise I'd have mentioned it previously)

The smoothness of our combat is like silk compared to the manually working out on paper all the different mods/stuns/time till death etc.

My only problem with it is that I have to open up a fresh copy for each encounter as clearing the lines one at a time makes it quit on me.
This means that I can't use the experience sheets within the workbook (although I'm not sure how to add more player characters to the experience sheet dynamically from the combat sheet).
Is there some way of re-setting the combat sheet for fresh encounters without going line by line clearing the data (which unfortunately also clears the PCs and their hits).

But only a minor issue in the grand time (and effort) saving during combat!

We had combat from an encounter last over an hour and not once did someone get fed up or bored simply because we weren't breaking the flow of the encounter by trying to calculate all the variables (mods/hits per round/time to death etc) manually.

So a VERY big thank you to you! 

[Ecthelion]

Hi Ecthelion

On a similar note to Character Creation Sheets, I've been using your Combat Manager (http://www.ironcrown.com/ICEforums/index.php?action=tpmod;dl=item577) for our campaign so far and it is unbelievably AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks 

My only problem with it is that I have to open up a fresh copy for each encounter as clearing the lines one at a time makes it quit on me.

Sounds like a bug in OpenOffice.org. Did you try another version of OOo? I created the sheet using OOo 2.4.x.

This means that I can't use the experience sheets within the workbook (although I'm not sure how to add more player characters to the experience sheet dynamically from the combat sheet).

The XP sheet is prepared for five characters. If you have more characters then this would require some rework of the sheet.

Is there some way of re-setting the combat sheet for fresh encounters without going line by line clearing the data (which unfortunately also clears the PCs and their hits).

I usually mark the lines I want to clear and press backspace. To insert the formulas again I simply copy the contents of another line below. That way it takes only a few seconds, which is why I never created a macro for this.