With the character builder on hiatus and myself starting a new Dark Sun campaign shortly I have quickly designed a new Dark Sun character sheet. I liked the new simpler look of the Essentials-version character sheet but disliked the fact that it was missing all the calculation boxes. It would be fine for copying the information out of the character builder but not great for manual character creation. So I have a made a sheet with some of the Essentials sheet look with added calculation boxes and Dark Sun information. I also went for a one-page design and intentionally left some stuff off like Action Points and Passive Senses information. Everyone should know to add 10 to their scores.
I thought I would post it here and let you all check it out. Let me know if you see anything missing or messed up. In a few days after I make any changes I will make a form version if anyone is interested. I printed this out with no-page scaling myself and it fills a standard letter page adequately.
Good Gaming
-Warunsun
Download link:
files.old-oeridians.com/darksunsheet-bet...
PS: File is only 132KB.
The only changes I could think of is adding a second page for powers and maybe even a third one for rituals and/or notes.
And there's a spot for listing your theme right next to race in the top-right.
Good sheet, though I wouldn't mind a spot for action points (yes, i know its intentionally missing, but I like having it there. A spot for keeping track of one's carrying capacity and weight held would be nice too.
The sheet could definitely use a weight carried section for those that bother with encumbrance. I generally keep track of it myself for all my characters but only one PC in the group needs a 'Pouch of Platinum' to solve most weight issues and characters with poor strengths can easily get a 'Bag of Holding'. Since this is a Dark Sun sheet however with magic resources intended to be low, encumbrance may be a bigger issue with regard to carrying around "Survival Days". They are significant weight.
I have always used the action point cards from the character builder or poker chips to represent action points. We have a cup out on the table to put your chip into it when you spent your action point and I hand them out to folks from said cup when they gained one. Is very easy to keep track of them that way. The new red box also provides action point chits you could do the same with.
When the Player's Handbook II came out I started allowing the characters in campaigns to have up to three backgrounds each with the restriction that they could only have one physical region background and that they gained the normal in-game benefit from only one of the backgrounds. The character builder allows you to take even more backgrounds and the Dark Sun campaign book suggested also that three was a good number. I use backgrounds kinda like Secondary Skills from AD&D or Profession skills from 3E. It is also good for role-playing development.
My house rule goes like this:
"You only receive one in-game background benefit from your backgrounds but may choose up to three backgrounds to flesh out your character. You can receive incidental non-combat benefits from all your backgrounds however. Your character’s background might also provide that he or she knows how to do certain things that have nothing to do with the game’s skill system or other rules elements.
For example, if your character worked as a blacksmith with the background Occupation: Artisan, you don’t need to make a skill check for your character to produce a horseshoe, or to earn a subsistence living as a blacksmith. You may also receive occasional circumstance bonuses to skills in your home region or geographical background based on your character’s intimate knowledge of the region."
As far as rituals go I do use/have a ritual sheet. I already disliked how rituals were tracked in the Character Builder and using a separate sheet makes it much easier to use Azagar’s Book of Rituals. I allow players to request to use some of the rituals from that book and approve them on an individual basis. Not sure if we will get much use of rituals in Dark Sun however.
Download Link for Ritual Sheet:
files.old-oeridians.com/ritual-sheet-for...
This sheet is only 400KB and is Reader Save Enabled.
-Warunsun
Thanks!
Very cool sheets. I especially like the Essentials style character sheet. Any chance of a campaign-neutral version of your Dark Sun character sheet? Form-fillable, perhaps?
Thanks!
Certainly. I can make a campaign neutral version. I will make some tweeks to the sheet this weekend and post a form fillable version.
-Warunsun
Very cool sheets. I especially like the Essentials style character sheet. Any chance of a campaign-neutral version of your Dark Sun character sheet? Form-fillable, perhaps?
Thanks!
Certainly. I can make a campaign neutral version. I will make some tweeks to the sheet this weekend and post a form fillable version.
-Warunsun
Sweet! Can't wait to see it!
Thanks
What font did you use for your sheet? Is it the same as they use on the official sheet?
The font I chose was Tahoma. It is a sans-serif font and looks great on computer screens and printed character sheets. It is not available in a true italic font so I also used Segoe UI italic for the "Trained" part since it is a similar font.
The D&D character builder also uses the Tahoma font for those sheets. The official base-line D&D character sheet and the new Essentials sheet uses the Mentor sans-serif font family as does the Player's Handbook series.
I hear the Wiesbaden sheet is being updated once more and has some Dark Sun options. I saw it on some of the LFR Yahoo forums. I'll check this one out tomorrow.
Is the original Weisbaden team working on the sheet again? I used it myself before the Character Builder application was released. It was great for such an early effort. Just needs better adaptation to US standard sized letter sheets.
The only changes I could think of is adding a second page for powers...
I have created a Power Summary Sheet. It is form fillable and reader save enabled naturally.
Is this the kind of sheet you were looking for?
Download Link:
files.old-oeridians.com/power-sheet-form...
-Warunsun
Good Gaming!
-Warunsun
Download Links: (All links relisted here)
Dark Sun version with Item Slots:
files.old-oeridians.com/darksunsheet-bet...
Original Dark Sun sheet without Item Slots (from top of thread):
files.old-oeridians.com/darksunsheet-bet...
Generic Version with Item Slots:
files.old-oeridians.com/generic-sheet-be...
Power Summary Sheet (Form Fillable & Reader Save Enabled):
files.old-oeridians.com/power-sheet-form...
Ritual Sheet (Form Fillable & Reader Save Enabled):
files.old-oeridians.com/ritual-sheet-for...
I made some adjustments to the Dark Sun character sheet. I added "Item Slots" and more room for equipment. Let me know what you think and I will make a form fillable one once I do final adjustments.
Good Gaming!
-Warunsun
Download Links: (All links relisted here)
Dark Sun version with Item Slots:
files.old-oeridians.com/darksunsheet-bet...
Original Dark Sun sheet without Item Slots (from top of thread):
files.old-oeridians.com/darksunsheet-bet...
Generic Version with Item Slots:
files.old-oeridians.com/generic-sheet-be...
Power Summary Sheet (Form Fillable & Reader Save Enabled):
files.old-oeridians.com/power-sheet-form...
Ritual Sheet (Form Fillable & Reader Save Enabled):
files.old-oeridians.com/ritual-sheet-for...
As I'm pretty new to Dark Sun (got it a month ago) but may I ask what use religion has in Dark Sun? Everything that religion has, can better be covered by History.
edit: or arcana
As I'm pretty new to Dark Sun (got it a month ago) but may I ask what use religion has in Dark Sun? Everything that religion has, can better be covered by History.
edit: or arcana
Arcana is a very important skill in Dark Sun and depending on your group it will be used a lot. Arcane magic is the basis of the destruction of the green age of Dark Sun. It is generally hated but it is still used quite frequently naturally. Preservers or those that use magic more gently still use Arcana as well.
Templars are supposed to have been Clerics or were clerics until this edition of Dark Sun. So before you generally had to have a druid on your party (somewhat of a social outcast and poor healer) or accept a rather nasty sorcerer king worshiping Templar in your party. Not the best of setups. This time around WotC found a nice way to present Templars as Warlocks since clerics are not needed. And you certainly don't need a warlock in your party.
Traditional Dark Sun used Religion extensively to cover the worship of the Sorcerer Kings and their Templars. Now in fourth edition with the new power source and role setup it is possible to play D&D without clerics for the first time. It really makes 4E perfect for Dark Sun and even Dragonlance: War of the Lance era games. The Religion skill and its rituals are still used by the game. So if no one is trained in Religion then they will not understand the use of those rituals. Might be an issue in your campaigns or not. The resurrection ritual is based on Heal instead of Religion thankfully. I ran a Greyhawk (normal D&D) game from first level to thirty level and no one needed any resurrections however and they rarely used any rituals too. The game is pretty forgiving on player characters.
The new campaign set is more of a tool kit than a complete setting so you can do what you want with it. I like that approach but a lot of information is lacking.
So as far as the character sheet goes you still need to have the Religion skill on it. The rules didn't change how those rituals worked. According to the original Dark Sun hardly no one can even read let alone use ritual magic. But WotC's official Dark Sun adventures have counted on characters being able to read so thats a bit confusing as well.
As I'm pretty new to Dark Sun (got it a month ago) but may I ask what use religion has in Dark Sun? Everything that religion has, can better be covered by History.
edit: or arcana
Religion can be used for:
- Templar Bureaucracy: Being able to cut through red-tape and so on.
- Knowledge of Ruins - eg If you've got your PCs exploring a ruin which used to be a temple or other holy site, they might need Religion to identify carvings and other adornments. I did this recently, having the players navigate the ruins of a Temple to Pelor (now, of course, a dead god). The Temple had been a waystation thousands of years ago, offering succour to weary (and good-aligned) travelers.
Several centuries ago, the ruins were taken over by a powerful, evil Psion, who used it as a training ground for dark practitioners of The Way, and experimentation.
In the PCs present, the ruins were occupied by Gith who were worshipping the mind-essence of the Psion who had since transcended the physical form, and was encased in an obsidian orb.
Because the site used to be a temple to Pelor, many of the Riddles and safeguards involved knowledge that was specific (and commonplace) to a worshipper of Pelor. The Religion skill could be used to work out useful info. in this case.
- "Forgotten" Rituals - Why not fill your game with Rituals that used to be around? Just because the Divine Source is gone, doesn't mean that the specific whys-and-wherefores of how to conduct a particular religion don't still apply.
- Identification of Creatures and Monsters that have had shared history and focus with faithful. Keep Religion as the Creature knowledge skill here - it makes Undead (for example) that you create, that much more ineffable. The undead, historically, were warred against by the Good Religions...now that the Gods are dead, who keeps the secrets of how to thwart these ancient foes? (In game terms, an encounter with a Wight Thrall becomes that much harder if the players can't identify its weaknesses.)
- Knowledge of the Cosmology of Athas. OK, so Religion originally was used to give Astral Sea knowledge. Now that the Astral Sea is gone, why not use the Religion skill to reflect understanding of the current state of the Planes? Only those trained in religion would have the correct grasp of the current state of affairs (i.e. The Grey, the Forest, the Black and so on), and more importantly have an inkling of how Athas got to this point. At Epic levels, "Religion" would be the skill used to navigate the Grey, the Black and the Forest (Feywild).
[According to the original Dark Sun hardly no one can even read let alone use ritual magic. But WotC's official Dark Sun adventures have counted on characters being able to read so thats a bit confusing as well.
...Yeah, I found this confusing as well. Most of my PCs are illiterate, with a Pictogram system being used for day-to-day life in Urik (the game setting). I've allowed PCs to be literate, with good reason...so far literacy is only being extended to Common. (I loved (and still love) the fact that Dwarves can't read Davek, so they're completely denied their cultural heritage.
Sadly, WotC aren't fans of illiterate PCs, so they included this sentence on p.14 of the DSCG:
"Athasians player characters are assumed to be literate in the languages that they speak unless they choose not to be; a character's theme or background might explain how he or she learned to read and write." Presumably, when writing this, they weren't thinking of all the Muls and Dwarves that somehow know how to read Davek!
Of course if the player says they can't read and write that is their call.
I made some adjustments to the Dark Sun character sheet. I added "Item Slots" and more room for equipment. Let me know what you think and I will make a form fillable one once I do final adjustments.
Good Gaming!
-Warunsun
Download Links: (All links relisted here)
Dark Sun version with Item Slots:
files.old-oeridians.com/darksunsheet-bet...
Original Dark Sun sheet without Item Slots (from top of thread):
files.old-oeridians.com/darksunsheet-bet...
Generic Version with Item Slots:
files.old-oeridians.com/generic-sheet-be...
Power Summary Sheet (Form Fillable & Reader Save Enabled):
files.old-oeridians.com/power-sheet-form...
Ritual Sheet (Form Fillable & Reader Save Enabled):
files.old-oeridians.com/ritual-sheet-for...
Great character sheets Warunsun, can't wait for the form-fillable version!
Greetings.
Here is the form fillable & reader save enabled version of my Dark Sun Character Sheet. Please let me know if you notice any problems with the fields. Size is only around 584 kb.
Download Link:
files.old-oeridians.com/darksun-sheet-fo...
Good Gaming.
-Warunsun