Anyone else disappointed with Bo9S sheets? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Anyone else disappointed with Bo9S sheets? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Optimator
02-21-07, 03:37 AM http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dnd/charactersheets

The whole reason one would need a unique character sheet for a Warblade, Crusader, or, especially, Swordsage is for the maneuvers and stances known and readied. There is hardly any space for them. Just a little box. :mad:
Cold Napalm
02-21-07, 03:43 AM Yeah well now you know how us wizard plasyers feel...muahahahaha :evillaugh .
Artector
02-21-07, 07:31 AM Most character sheets tend to have too little space. That's why I just type mine up in notepad/word, they're usually 3 pages, more or less depending on the character.
Judging Eagle
02-21-07, 09:06 AM Well....

My group tends to use the 4-page Eberron Character Sheets.

Spellcasters in our group use either the E-tools spell sheets, Crystal Keep spell reference sheets (link (http://www.crystalkeep.com/d20/index.php)) or the Militaryfocus.com spell reference .PDFs ([ulr=http://www.militaryfocus.com/dnd/index.htm]link[/url]).

Myself, I'm disappointed by the "Book of Wet Tissues:Book of 9 Papercuts:" as well, it's a badly layed out book that drives away players who want to play a melee character on an even playing field with balanced classes like the Ranger, Rogue, Druid, Wizard and Cleric.

As for the people who can actually read the book and figure out what its contents mean... they don't seem to realize that they've being given rotten table scraps that not even the Ranger and Rogue would touch.

Of course, there's also the fact that only 1 class and two schools are any good, but they all verge on being broken in their own way.
ZiggZagg
02-21-07, 09:32 AM I too believe those sheets are far from what was needed to create an effective sheet for any class from the ToB. The last page, with all the class features from classes that have nothing to do with the Swordsage for example, would have been an excellent place to put more room for maneuvers and stances.

Now, as for you, Mr.Eagle, I don't recall seeing this thread being made to discuss how much you like the book or the classes from within. There are numerous other threads that you can go voice your concerns about "brokenness" and "cheese". However, I will say this. Everyone on this board boasts about the absolute power of CoDzilla and straight 20 Druids and the like, but now when faced with a new mechanic, suddenly they are balanced and the new system is broken?
Judging Eagle
02-22-07, 09:27 AM I too believe those sheets are far from what was needed to create an effective sheet for any class from the ToB. The last page, with all the class features from classes that have nothing to do with the Swordsage for example, would have been an excellent place to put more room for maneuvers and stances.

Now, as for you, Mr.Eagle, I don't recall seeing this thread being made to discuss how much you like the book or the classes from within. There are numerous other threads that you can go voice your concerns about "brokenness" and "cheese". However, I will say this. Everyone on this board boasts about the absolute power of CoDzilla and straight 20 Druids and the like, but now when faced with a new mechanic, suddenly they are balanced and the new system is broken?

I didn't say that ToB is broken.

I said that it's not powerful enough as a whole. Only the Warblade, White Raven School and the Stone Dragon schools are of any real use from that book, but many people feel that those are 'broken'.

Melee characters are only a few steps away from gaining parity with non-melee characters.

Good thing the guys at WoTC won't let something like that happen.

It would suck if a sword-user could contribute as much to gameplay as a non-sword user, I mean, every player being able to contribute equally?

You only have to look at the core books to know that WoTC thinks that's preposterous, less than 1/2 of the classes can even pull their own weight at lvl 7, let along 10, 15 or 20.

:P

p.s. ZiggZag:

If you want to play an effective class that isn't a spell caster, read the Race of War supplement that I link to in my sig. It was posted here a while ago in the Classes section. The melee classes there that replace the core stuff make you want to do stuff like make a fighter 20 that can take on a Balor, or a Barbarian that can kill a dragon. On their own (but it can be dicey for the barb, while it would take 20+ rounds for the fighter).

I'd suggest a fighter, but it's harder to use to its full potential than a wizard or druid. The knight, samurai and barbarian are loads of fun though.
JoAT
02-22-07, 09:41 AM Not that I normally use the published character sheets, but this is what I would recommend the maneuver cards for. (linky (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20061225a))
ZiggZagg
02-22-07, 09:43 AM If I want to play an effective no caster, I will talk to my group. 2 of them have melee characters right now, throwing out roughly over 100 points of dmg a round when they get off a full attack. And since I, unlike most other DM's, run more than 4 encouters a day, they pull their weight pretty well as they are able to unleash their full power far past the limits of the spellcasters. Not to mention, I refuse to pull anything from these boards to play. If I wanted new classes based on someone's opinion, I would buy a random 3rd party source book to ruin my campaigns.
Tempest Stormwind
02-22-07, 01:43 PM I'm disappointed with WotC's sheets in general. The layout blows, the class-specificness hoses anyone who multiclasses, and people think they're getting a good deal.

Personally, if I'm not using sheets I make myself, I use The Mad Irishman's (http://www.mad-irishman.net). Others I know use Ema's Sheets (http://www.emass-web.com) or Darkside's (http://www.ssa-x2.com). Each of those are exponentially better than what WotC makes in general, especially in terms of layout -- and they're generic as well.

That said, I would also suggest the maneuver cards (linked above), particularly for crusaders.
Judging Eagle
02-22-07, 03:19 PM If I want to play an effective no caster, I will talk to my group. 2 of them have melee characters right now, throwing out roughly over 100 points of dmg a round when they get off a full attack. And since I, unlike most other DM's, run more than 4 encouters a day, they pull their weight pretty well as they are able to unleash their full power far past the limits of the spellcasters. Not to mention, I refuse to pull anything from these boards to play. If I wanted new classes based on someone's opinion, I would buy a random 3rd party source book to ruin my campaigns.

Hmm, what level are those guys?

I'm hoping about level... 8 or so. Anything much higher (11+) than that and them doing less than 300 or 400 damage on a full attack is them not pulling their weight. That or you`re not challenging your players with level appropriate encounters.

If your group can face encoutners of their CR; like say a Stone Golem at lvl 10 or a Hezrou at lvl 11, then they`re being challenged.

The barb that I put together using Frank and Kieth's can out damage my groups two evil clerics skeleton pets: a megaraptor, ettin and two other large creature skeletons. Right now he`s doing somewhere along the order of 30-40 damage to everyone within.... a 75 feet long path about 30 feet wide from where he starts or about 80 damage per round on one target.

Which isn't bad, since any level 5 cleric of almost any alignment can decide to wake up and start animating stuff like Ettin or Megaraptor skeletons that can out damage and out tank a core barbarian or fighter.

Then again.... the cleric needed someone to kill that ettin for him. I guess 6 seconds is a bit too much time to kill an ettin, but I was only a lvl 6 human barb with two swords and no polar bear pet yet (<3 the ring of animal friendship that we got from a dragon`s hoard).

Your refusal to use anything from these boards is cute, but you really think that WoTC really has the best writers and editors working for it right now?

Writers that try to create balanced and equitable material for all players?

I mean, good godless universe man that's a load of utter hogwash!

Ed Stark admitted that he intentionally made Shapchange broken so that his level 18 druid could use a monster's, normally restricted, Supernatural abilities.

When they admit something like that, you know something is very fishy with WoTC.

Also you're elitist "I, unlike most DMs, run more than 4 encounters per day." statement shows what you know.

PCs at levels 6+ can deal with most of their level's worth 13 encounters in a 24 hour period of in game slugging, trap-disabling and peace-according. Our Eberron game's current record is about.... 14 encoutners in one go without stopping (5 traps, 1 death; 9 combats, 1 death; so 12 encounters in one day, 2 deaths and 2 Revififies, that's not counting the combats, and negotiations on the way there or on the way back).

Of course, we are actually playing a level 6-7 game, and not pretending to play at levels 6-7 and still using level 1-4 tactics and abilities. Then again, the melee characters in that group can`t match the cleric or my archivist in a brawl.

Although, now that the Ninja has finally overcome his classes restrictions he should deal about 138+ damage and 5d6 dex damage a round or 15d6 con damage if we need to kill baddies; out damaging everyone in the group, which is cool, since he`s been dealing 1d8 points of damage per round in most of our game`s fights from levels 1-7 with an occasional Sudden Strike damage spike.

Also, I'd really recommend reading at least the Dungeonomicon; which gives good reason as to why certain accepted things in this game exist (like dungeons; there has to be a good reason to dig underground to build a base).

Pretty much the stuff covers how to ensure that a class can actually do:level appropriate things.

Like face a stone golem at lvl 10 and not die.... 99% of the time.

The core fighter, monk, paladin, barbarian and bard can`t do that; which is a problem.

They`re very long and detailed, so don`t try to read it in one go, I still haven`t really looked over the Tome of Fiends or Tome of Necromancy feats in detail myself.
Encard
02-22-07, 06:22 PM long bunch of stuff

That's nice and all, but it's neither relevant to the thread topic, nor does much of it even make sense. I optimize characters, but calling 300-400 damage "normal" at level 11, well... something is very wrong here. In any case, rant aside...

Yeah, the sheets aren't so great. Tacking on a seperate maneuver sheet is the norm for my group.
Judging Eagle
02-22-07, 06:42 PM That's nice and all, but it's neither relevant to the thread topic, nor does much of it even make sense. I optimize characters, but calling 300-400 damage "normal" at level 11, well... something is very wrong here. In any case, rant aside...

Yeah, the sheets aren't so great. Tacking on a seperate maneuver sheet is the norm for my group.

Well, wizards don`t tend to rely on damage to win.

Fighter have no choice.

Warblades are okay, but they`re more like barbarian-fighters than anything; str-int focused I guess.
ressurrector
02-22-07, 09:39 PM I personally use my own excell sheets that took about 10min to write, and then 2min to adapt to Bo9S.

Or just use a piece of paper.

And the Maneuver Cards (barring type-os) are excellent, and highly useful (especially when not every player has an actual Bo9S, or if someone plays a crusader)

Judging Eagle: Stay on topic if you please.
Air your greivances elsewhere, in thread with the proper topic, or possibly on the CO boards, where they know a thing or two about balance.
Conlan
03-07-07, 07:25 PM As an experienced caster and "initiator", I have a simple solution to the Martial Classes' lack of space for maneuver lists. Buy a package of 3 x 5 note cards and write down the name, effect, initiating time (action), and other various information about a maneuver on one card.

This works especially well for the martial classes because to ready your maneuvers, you just pick up x number of them that you can ready and lay one down when you use that maneuver since you can only use each maneuver once per encounter unless you spend a full round recovering. When you spend the full-round action to recover one (swordsage) or all (crusader/warblade) of your maneuvers, just pick up the cards.

Hope this helps.
Optimator
03-08-07, 01:58 AM I really like the above idea. Just carry the cards for all the maneuvers known, and throw the prepared ones in a pile and have a little discard pile. I used cards for my crusader, and I can't believe I didn't think of this on my own.
Tempest Stormwind
03-08-07, 02:36 AM Oh, you mean like these? (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20061225a)
ressurrector
03-08-07, 02:56 AM Oh, you mean like these? (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20061225a)

Those are really handy, print em out on cardstock or glue/staple/tape them to the aforementioned 3x5 cards.
Of course there are the occasional errors...oh well.
Optimator
03-12-07, 07:28 AM TS, thank you so much for showing me those alternate sheets. In particular, Ema's dynamic sheets blow my freaking mind.
Grod_The_Giant
03-12-07, 10:48 AM I don't have ToB:Bo9S (I want it though), but I know what you mean. The standard character sheets (even the 4 page one) just don't give enough space for eveything. So what my group generally does is either print out a dramatic spell list from emma's character sheet or write down their spells know/special abilities.
Optimator
03-25-07, 01:20 AM Bump for absolutely no reason.
lastknightleft
03-25-07, 05:16 PM Thank you for mentioning this, I hated the sheets when I saw them. First off, when you make a character sheet for a specific character class you need to make it for that class alone. You want to multiclass, simple download the pages you need from the new class and have an expanded character sheet. Putting in a space for spells and psionics on the swordsage character sheet when having no room for manuevers made me want to throw my computer on the designer, especially seeing how long I waited to get the sheets in the first place... And I'm not even that big a fan of Bot9S.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Optimator 02-21-07, 03:37 AM	http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dnd/charactersheets The whole reason one would need a unique character sheet for a Warblade, Crusader, or, especially, Swordsage is for the maneuvers and stances known and readied. There is hardly any space for them. Just a little box. :mad:
Cold Napalm 02-21-07, 03:43 AM	Yeah well now you know how us wizard plasyers feel...muahahahaha :evillaugh .
Artector 02-21-07, 07:31 AM	Most character sheets tend to have too little space. That's why I just type mine up in notepad/word, they're usually 3 pages, more or less depending on the character.
Judging Eagle 02-21-07, 09:06 AM	Well.... My group tends to use the 4-page Eberron Character Sheets. Spellcasters in our group use either the E-tools spell sheets, Crystal Keep spell reference sheets (link (http://www.crystalkeep.com/d20/index.php)) or the Militaryfocus.com spell reference .PDFs ([ulr=http://www.militaryfocus.com/dnd/index.htm]link[/url]). Myself, I'm disappointed by the "Book of Wet Tissues:Book of 9 Papercuts:" as well, it's a badly layed out book that drives away players who want to play a melee character on an even playing field with balanced classes like the Ranger, Rogue, Druid, Wizard and Cleric. As for the people who can actually read the book and figure out what its contents mean... they don't seem to realize that they've being given rotten table scraps that not even the Ranger and Rogue would touch. Of course, there's also the fact that only 1 class and two schools are any good, but they all verge on being broken in their own way.
ZiggZagg 02-21-07, 09:32 AM	I too believe those sheets are far from what was needed to create an effective sheet for any class from the ToB. The last page, with all the class features from classes that have nothing to do with the Swordsage for example, would have been an excellent place to put more room for maneuvers and stances. Now, as for you, Mr.Eagle, I don't recall seeing this thread being made to discuss how much you like the book or the classes from within. There are numerous other threads that you can go voice your concerns about "brokenness" and "cheese". However, I will say this. Everyone on this board boasts about the absolute power of CoDzilla and straight 20 Druids and the like, but now when faced with a new mechanic, suddenly they are balanced and the new system is broken?
Judging Eagle 02-22-07, 09:27 AM	I too believe those sheets are far from what was needed to create an effective sheet for any class from the ToB. The last page, with all the class features from classes that have nothing to do with the Swordsage for example, would have been an excellent place to put more room for maneuvers and stances. Now, as for you, Mr.Eagle, I don't recall seeing this thread being made to discuss how much you like the book or the classes from within. There are numerous other threads that you can go voice your concerns about "brokenness" and "cheese". However, I will say this. Everyone on this board boasts about the absolute power of CoDzilla and straight 20 Druids and the like, but now when faced with a new mechanic, suddenly they are balanced and the new system is broken? I didn't say that ToB is broken. I said that it's not powerful enough as a whole. Only the Warblade, White Raven School and the Stone Dragon schools are of any real use from that book, but many people feel that those are 'broken'. Melee characters are only a few steps away from gaining parity with non-melee characters. Good thing the guys at WoTC won't let something like that happen. It would suck if a sword-user could contribute as much to gameplay as a non-sword user, I mean, every player being able to contribute equally? You only have to look at the core books to know that WoTC thinks that's preposterous, less than 1/2 of the classes can even pull their own weight at lvl 7, let along 10, 15 or 20. :P p.s. ZiggZag: If you want to play an effective class that isn't a spell caster, read the Race of War supplement that I link to in my sig. It was posted here a while ago in the Classes section. The melee classes there that replace the core stuff make you want to do stuff like make a fighter 20 that can take on a Balor, or a Barbarian that can kill a dragon. On their own (but it can be dicey for the barb, while it would take 20+ rounds for the fighter). I'd suggest a fighter, but it's harder to use to its full potential than a wizard or druid. The knight, samurai and barbarian are loads of fun though.
JoAT 02-22-07, 09:41 AM	Not that I normally use the published character sheets, but this is what I would recommend the maneuver cards for. (linky (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20061225a))
ZiggZagg 02-22-07, 09:43 AM	If I want to play an effective no caster, I will talk to my group. 2 of them have melee characters right now, throwing out roughly over 100 points of dmg a round when they get off a full attack. And since I, unlike most other DM's, run more than 4 encouters a day, they pull their weight pretty well as they are able to unleash their full power far past the limits of the spellcasters. Not to mention, I refuse to pull anything from these boards to play. If I wanted new classes based on someone's opinion, I would buy a random 3rd party source book to ruin my campaigns.
Tempest Stormwind 02-22-07, 01:43 PM	I'm disappointed with WotC's sheets in general. The layout blows, the class-specificness hoses anyone who multiclasses, and people think they're getting a good deal. Personally, if I'm not using sheets I make myself, I use The Mad Irishman's (http://www.mad-irishman.net). Others I know use Ema's Sheets (http://www.emass-web.com) or Darkside's (http://www.ssa-x2.com). Each of those are exponentially better than what WotC makes in general, especially in terms of layout -- and they're generic as well. That said, I would also suggest the maneuver cards (linked above), particularly for crusaders.
Judging Eagle 02-22-07, 03:19 PM	If I want to play an effective no caster, I will talk to my group. 2 of them have melee characters right now, throwing out roughly over 100 points of dmg a round when they get off a full attack. And since I, unlike most other DM's, run more than 4 encouters a day, they pull their weight pretty well as they are able to unleash their full power far past the limits of the spellcasters. Not to mention, I refuse to pull anything from these boards to play. If I wanted new classes based on someone's opinion, I would buy a random 3rd party source book to ruin my campaigns. Hmm, what level are those guys? I'm hoping about level... 8 or so. Anything much higher (11+) than that and them doing less than 300 or 400 damage on a full attack is them not pulling their weight. That or you`re not challenging your players with level appropriate encounters. If your group can face encoutners of their CR; like say a Stone Golem at lvl 10 or a Hezrou at lvl 11, then they`re being challenged. The barb that I put together using Frank and Kieth's can out damage my groups two evil clerics skeleton pets: a megaraptor, ettin and two other large creature skeletons. Right now he`s doing somewhere along the order of 30-40 damage to everyone within.... a 75 feet long path about 30 feet wide from where he starts or about 80 damage per round on one target. Which isn't bad, since any level 5 cleric of almost any alignment can decide to wake up and start animating stuff like Ettin or Megaraptor skeletons that can out damage and out tank a core barbarian or fighter. Then again.... the cleric needed someone to kill that ettin for him. I guess 6 seconds is a bit too much time to kill an ettin, but I was only a lvl 6 human barb with two swords and no polar bear pet yet (<3 the ring of animal friendship that we got from a dragon`s hoard). Your refusal to use anything from these boards is cute, but you really think that WoTC really has the best writers and editors working for it right now? Writers that try to create balanced and equitable material for all players? I mean, good godless universe man that's a load of utter hogwash! Ed Stark admitted that he intentionally made Shapchange broken so that his level 18 druid could use a monster's, normally restricted, Supernatural abilities. When they admit something like that, you know something is very fishy with WoTC. Also you're elitist "I, unlike most DMs, run more than 4 encounters per day." statement shows what you know. PCs at levels 6+ can deal with most of their level's worth 13 encounters in a 24 hour period of in game slugging, trap-disabling and peace-according. Our Eberron game's current record is about.... 14 encoutners in one go without stopping (5 traps, 1 death; 9 combats, 1 death; so 12 encounters in one day, 2 deaths and 2 Revififies, that's not counting the combats, and negotiations on the way there or on the way back). Of course, we are actually playing a level 6-7 game, and not pretending to play at levels 6-7 and still using level 1-4 tactics and abilities. Then again, the melee characters in that group can`t match the cleric or my archivist in a brawl. Although, now that the Ninja has finally overcome his classes restrictions he should deal about 138+ damage and 5d6 dex damage a round or 15d6 con damage if we need to kill baddies; out damaging everyone in the group, which is cool, since he`s been dealing 1d8 points of damage per round in most of our game`s fights from levels 1-7 with an occasional Sudden Strike damage spike. Also, I'd really recommend reading at least the Dungeonomicon; which gives good reason as to why certain accepted things in this game exist (like dungeons; there has to be a good reason to dig underground to build a base). Pretty much the stuff covers how to ensure that a class can actually do:level appropriate things. Like face a stone golem at lvl 10 and not die.... 99% of the time. The core fighter, monk, paladin, barbarian and bard can`t do that; which is a problem. They`re very long and detailed, so don`t try to read it in one go, I still haven`t really looked over the Tome of Fiends or Tome of Necromancy feats in detail myself.
Encard 02-22-07, 06:22 PM	long bunch of stuff That's nice and all, but it's neither relevant to the thread topic, nor does much of it even make sense. I optimize characters, but calling 300-400 damage "normal" at level 11, well... something is very wrong here. In any case, rant aside... Yeah, the sheets aren't so great. Tacking on a seperate maneuver sheet is the norm for my group.
Judging Eagle 02-22-07, 06:42 PM	That's nice and all, but it's neither relevant to the thread topic, nor does much of it even make sense. I optimize characters, but calling 300-400 damage "normal" at level 11, well... something is very wrong here. In any case, rant aside... Yeah, the sheets aren't so great. Tacking on a seperate maneuver sheet is the norm for my group. Well, wizards don`t tend to rely on damage to win. Fighter have no choice. Warblades are okay, but they`re more like barbarian-fighters than anything; str-int focused I guess.
ressurrector 02-22-07, 09:39 PM	I personally use my own excell sheets that took about 10min to write, and then 2min to adapt to Bo9S. Or just use a piece of paper. And the Maneuver Cards (barring type-os) are excellent, and highly useful (especially when not every player has an actual Bo9S, or if someone plays a crusader) Judging Eagle: Stay on topic if you please. Air your greivances elsewhere, in thread with the proper topic, or possibly on the CO boards, where they know a thing or two about balance.
Conlan 03-07-07, 07:25 PM	As an experienced caster and "initiator", I have a simple solution to the Martial Classes' lack of space for maneuver lists. Buy a package of 3 x 5 note cards and write down the name, effect, initiating time (action), and other various information about a maneuver on one card. This works especially well for the martial classes because to ready your maneuvers, you just pick up x number of them that you can ready and lay one down when you use that maneuver since you can only use each maneuver once per encounter unless you spend a full round recovering. When you spend the full-round action to recover one (swordsage) or all (crusader/warblade) of your maneuvers, just pick up the cards. Hope this helps.
Optimator 03-08-07, 01:58 AM	I really like the above idea. Just carry the cards for all the maneuvers known, and throw the prepared ones in a pile and have a little discard pile. I used cards for my crusader, and I can't believe I didn't think of this on my own.
Tempest Stormwind 03-08-07, 02:36 AM	Oh, you mean like these? (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20061225a)
ressurrector 03-08-07, 02:56 AM	Oh, you mean like these? (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20061225a) Those are really handy, print em out on cardstock or glue/staple/tape them to the aforementioned 3x5 cards. Of course there are the occasional errors...oh well.
Optimator 03-12-07, 07:28 AM	TS, thank you so much for showing me those alternate sheets. In particular, Ema's dynamic sheets blow my freaking mind.
Grod_The_Giant 03-12-07, 10:48 AM	I don't have ToB:Bo9S (I want it though), but I know what you mean. The standard character sheets (even the 4 page one) just don't give enough space for eveything. So what my group generally does is either print out a dramatic spell list from emma's character sheet or write down their spells know/special abilities.
Optimator 03-25-07, 01:20 AM	Bump for absolutely no reason.
lastknightleft 03-25-07, 05:16 PM	Thank you for mentioning this, I hated the sheets when I saw them. First off, when you make a character sheet for a specific character class you need to make it for that class alone. You want to multiclass, simple download the pages you need from the new class and have an expanded character sheet. Putting in a space for spells and psionics on the swordsage character sheet when having no room for manuevers made me want to throw my computer on the designer, especially seeing how long I waited to get the sheets in the first place... And I'm not even that big a fan of Bot9S.