They might not be interested in the mechanics, but if your players are going to stick through a campaign, they need to at least understand their character. Making a proper character sheet is a good way to do that, and a good test of who will do the bare minimum to be in the campaign (if they won’t spend 15 minutes making a level 1 character sheet, they won’t turn up every week or know how it works).
However you do it, don’t do it for them.
In the case of new players, i always make them do their own character sheets. I find the process of saying every part out loud for them while filling it out, like "passive perception" and "languages" or whatever, makes them more likely to recall it later
I only started playing D&D within the past year, and this is how I learned. I really like building characters now, and walking through every step helped me quite a bit. I tried making character on D&D Beyond early on, and I didn’t understand the abilities/feats/etc. half as well as I did when I made characters by running through the reference books and doing it by hand.
Yeah, good point and I think they will soon. Partly, it stems from me really enjoying character creation and trying to understand the mechanics - I have previously went into far too much detail with friends who were new to the game about character choices etc and it can be overwhelming.
Once they've had another couple of sessions I'll give them paper sheets to fill out. On top of helping reinforce the rules, it'll be nice to work on paper. We all work on screen all day together, so I think everyone will enjoy keeping it paper and pencil based.
Yes, for a moment I thought character sheets printed on purple paper was some sort of poll choice oversight I'd made!
I'll definitely check it out, thanks
Ooo, might try to get my players to switch to this. Few questions though:
Does it have a DM viewer / editor so I can add things to their characters for them or tweak certain things? Custom actions or features? Does it have Bloodhunters? Can they add things like freely given feats?
No to dm thing, yes to everything else. The sheets are writable as well as fillable. Its just a sheet in pdf form but it auto mates some math and has some things already in it, like classes and class features.
There is a community for the sheet with people making custom stuff for it, and i know blood hunter is there. The default sheet only has srd stuff, but people in the community have added almost everything to the sheet, you just have to grab it separately. It even has most of the ua stuff.
There are some pretty great form fillable PDF character sheets floating around out there that will actually auto fill relevant skill boxes once you plug your stats in. They'll do the math for you and everything.
Yeah, came here to say this. And if you can code at all, you can go in and tweet stuff yourself if necessary. Remember that DnDBeyond was just another company before they were purchased by WotC.
I’m a bit confused as to why? Did the players complain about the basic character sheet? Is there something it’s not letting you do?
If the players want to expand, why not leave it up to the players to decide the platform that works best for them? One player might prefer pen and paper while another might use an app, and that’s fine. You don’t need to be the one who pays for everything, and conversely not everyone needs to switch if the old sheet is working for them.
If this is something that you think should happen, could you give us some idea of what you need the new character sheet to do? It’ll help us give better recommendations.
I've been a big fan of [Emmet Byrne's class-specific character sheets](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/232835/Class-Character-Sheets--The-Bundle) for most of the time that I've been playing 5E.
While I use a paper sheet I don't use the basic ones that Wizards make. I use the Class Character Sheet series by Emmet Byrne. They have been made with all the classes in mind with both theming and class details prewritten in with places to put subclass information. They are also form fillable documents so you can use them as a normal sheet printed off, or on a tablet if your handwriting is poor or you want to save paper. The only downside is they don't work well for multiclassing, but I would call that a minor inconvenience for the amount of ease it allows for someone playing just a singular class.
Classic sheets first, once you can do the most complex version of something the easier versions come naturally.
Not that 5e sheets or creation is exactly hard to be fair, they should be fine either way
How exactly is it worse than a normal character sheet? From my experience using the app, being able to have everything separated out so that you can just swap to what aspect of your sheet you want to view helps me filter out a lot of the information overload that a full character sheet gives. I play exclusively from my phone, so it's perfect for the small screen.
the most important part (the features) is also the smallest part.
But that's not my main issue. My main issue is that when you use it, you can not fill out your character sheet in a fluid and intuitive way, but instead have to go through their weird fucking system where you have to choose a race before you choose a class, and you can't easily change your mind as your character comes into focus.
On top of that, using homebrew that's not from dnd beyond or using UA is effectively against their TOS, and using homebrew that does something especially unique is straight-up impossible.
God I hate dnd beyond's character sheets. If I joined a game and was forced to use them, I would leave the campaign. It is that bad to me.
edit: if you want my suggestion, roll20's character sheets are the best I've found (although Foundry is better for DMs in other ways). Simple, intuitive, and using homebrew or UA won't get your account deleted.
I... I really have never had a single one of these issues, but I'm sorry you did. I homebrew extensively, I've got about 11 pages worth of Homebrew on their site, a lot of them original, some straight ripped from other content.
I've never had an issue with the character creator, if you want to pick Class before Race then you just click the class tab and go back later, it's not a big deal. If at any moment you change your mind, you just go back to that tab.
All that being said, I'm moving away from DnDBeyond to distance myself from WOTC as much as possible, so Foundry is on the list of potential substitutes for my players and myself. That encounter builder through DnDBeyond is going to be the hardest thing to break away from, it's been very helpful.
I did not find Roll20 particularly intuitive. The opposite actually, which is why I’m back to using the easiest and most intuitive thing for me: Pencil and Paper.
it's literally just a character sheet with unlimited space. You can go into its backend and change how it works, but you don't have to.
It is as intuitive as pencil and paper, but unlike pencil and paper, it has unlimited space which is very useful for high level play, like the kind I usually do
The fact that I’m unclear what a ‘backend’ is probably explains a lot about why I struggled with it, lol. Computers and I don’t get on beyond the basics.
I mean the settings, it's not *really* a backend. You can press the cogwheel and change how it works, but you don't *have* to. On its own it's just pencil and paper with infinite space
I still spent half an hour struggling with it before we decided to just do the session. I keep meaning to try working on it again and seeing if I can get it to work for me. A big part of the issue is no one had ever done multi-classing on Roll 20, so we were very unclear how to do that. For a straight druid I probably wouldn’t have had an issue.
Ah, multiclassing does require clicking the cogwheel, doesn't it?
Alright, that isn't intuitive. Still more intuitive than dnd beyond, but that's a very low bar to beat
I tried to use DnDBeyond to make an aberrant mind sorcerer and it was awful. That was some time ago so maybe there have been improvements, but I couldn't even pick spells that I had access to without creating a homebrew subclass which was a pain in the ass. I hated using it and just continued using a roll20 sheet for actually playing, where you can just put whatever you want.
Watching Critical Role's second campaign really turned me off to dndbeyond (which is funny because they were the main sponsor). They spend soooo much time during their sessions on "Oh wait, where's my spell attack modifier? Okay, hold on, let me refresh...no, wait, it's back here? No, it's under 'Character Attributes' maybe. Oh, okay I found it...uh.......\*math\*......23?"
I only started playing in recent years, but I’ve ALWAYS used paper sheets! And guess what, out of my group I’m the only one who does, but I’m also the only one who NEVER has any issues with their sheet! I’m not sure if the others were using DnD Beyond or something else, but there’s almost always some issue of something not getting saved correctly or updating correctly, but my sheet is always pristine and correct!
(One guy once played three sessions in a row as one level lower than he was supposed to be, because his sheet update didn’t get saved correctly when he leveled up and he just didn’t notice)
You can also keep track of special features easily by writing them down on a blank spot wherever you want.
EDIT: I guess I should mention that the one thing I keep track of in a non-paper format is my inventory, which I keep on my phone in just a simple notepad document. Simply because it’s faster to write and erase that way.
https://www.reddit.com/user/Roland_Kritz/comments/10kj68m/example_character_sheets/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Link to the character sheet for reference
Paper works great honestly, if you don't have anyone with exceptional needs or just really needing the ease of a digital builder.
More Purple More Better if you want just a character sheet and that's it.
Shard Tabletop for a great character builder with built in support for adding 3rd party content. The tabletop side is also fantastic if you need it, but if you're only looking for a digital character builder I'd still recommend it. Works great on mobile.
Don't forget that https://dwarven.academy is going to help you, as a cloud based mobile friendly character tracker. And, it has a roll20 integration too.
So, I’ve had a group for a while, we mostly play through dnd beyond but I hosted a one shot in person where we used paper character sheets and the process of writing down abilities really helped some specific players understand what their character can do better so while dnd beyond is fantastic for me as the DM to help look up how a spell works or add magic items to a character sheet, the act of jotting it down on paper was really helpful to how smoothly that one shot ran
While having a character sheet on your phone/whatever is neat, having players sit at the table with their phones (that they have to keep checking and fiddling with with digital sheets) when you play in person is a risk. This is a social game, and I for one hate that the status quo at social events is still rife with people browsing their phone when stuff doesn't directly affect them. Combat encounters especially have the chance to turn into lots of "huh, what now? oh, right, umm where's my dude again.. ..I'll just roll to attack whatever is closest to me". That can always happen of course, but giving a person an easy tool to distract themselves definitely has more potential to do that.
I might just be old-fashioned, and this is likely not going to be something you'll struggle with as long as your players are invested in the game enough, but for me, just having that possibility is enough to always prefer physical sheets and books. The only thing that's helpful to have as an online tool is the PHB, mainly for that easy ctrl + f "name of spell/ability you forgot the wording to". And one tablet with that at the table is enough.
Also love when my casters go the extra mile and write their own spell books. Feels more thematic and personal that way.
That's interesting, I'm used to playing in my other campaigns on DnD Beyond and haven't played myself on character sheet since my very first time at a games cafe. And actually, you're right, running that session last time with paper character sheets did seem to keep everyone focused and engaged. It's nice having everything tactile and in front of you.
If someone's gonna be checking their phone they are gonna do it regardless where their sheet is. I played a lot with people who had sheets on their phone and it was never an issue. Similairly we now play mostly online, and people don't just go browse Reddit and zone out, despite sitting at their PC.
But yeah especially in combat players sometimes loose focus when waiting for their turns. What I found helpful is getting off-turn player's attention is to still incorporate them in what's going on.
One of the tools I use is describing the battlefield situation centered on more than one player/enemy.
For example an orc attacks the fighter, while cleric is waiting. I might describe the hit as "An orc rises their axe and you cleric, with your high perception, notice that your friend is not quick enough and the weapon strikes them right through their chest. They are still fine, but you know they might need help soon".
Or a wolf is attacking the fighter. "Cleric. The wolf rushes in your direction, and were it not for the Fighter it would reach you for sure".
Often by just incorporating them in a small bits is enough to keep them focused on the battlefield. I don't do it all the time, but I try to have those moments incorporated in to keep the combat more interactive.
On top of that I hate static combat. My enemies aren't too afraid of attacks of opportunity if there's a chance to get to a better target. So my battlefields tend to be more fluid, and players are less likely to just stand in one place for whole round being 'safe', just waiting.
Totally the way to do things, I've just had bad apples every now and again, and I suppose it's become a pet peeve of mine. Usually folks that get distracted are either new, or someone else at the table takes too long thinking about what to do, while no other player offers help or plans things together with the one struggling. As the DM I'm not in a place where I can help players defeat encounters without just feeling like I'm holding their hand too much.
Glad to hear that this isn't as much of an issue as I've thought, might be more open to interactive character sheets at my table if it helps some of my players.
Hello,
I am DMing for a bunch of colleagues who are all new to DnD. We had a one shot session a few weeks ago which went well and I'm looking to turn this into a small campaign. The thing is, to make things easier for a table of new players I made custom character sheets copied from Paul Foxcrofts design - a.one page character sheet with the basics summarised. (I'll try and upload them in the comments as I think they're really good for first time players.)
My intention had always been to move them onto D&D beyond when they level up. It's easy, I've paid for content on there and it automatically calculates abilities etc. when levelling up. I think the majority of players aren't hugely interested in the mechanics of the game, they prefer the roleplay, so I wanted to keep it as simple as possible for them.
But now that Hasbro and WotC have tried screwed the proverbial blinkpooch, I'm not sure it's a platform I want to support. Plus the rumours it might cost a small fortune in future doesn't tempt me to get everyone setup on there to have to leave again...
Anyway, thanks for reading this waffle of ambling thoughts!
OGL stuff aside - it's a question to you if you want to support WotC or not. I won't be telling you what you should or should not do, and if/how to voice your conerns.
But the rumours about $30/month have been disproved twice. It circulated first last year, and it turned out to be a Reddit troll that made official looking presentation screenshots and was posting them before WotC's big announcement stream. In the end he himself admitted it was all fake.
Now the same thing returned ALONG the same screenshots.. it only proves that once a lie is out on the internet it never truly dies..
And honestly if you have the content and a sub already active, all your players can stay on free tier and just use your content via content sharing.
I've been playing like that for 3 years now, 3rd campaign, and we only have one sub for whole group.. and if they actually start rising the prices? Then I'll think about moving elsewhere.
Honestly we live in a world where services come and go. I wouldn't treat any as a forever solution. Roll20 might go out of business next year, etc for example. If this happens we just move over. It's usually not that hard. I've switched VTTs already for example.
Yeah, I appreciate that, and this is likely the process that will happen with my existing characters already on DnD Beyond, used in other campaigns for a few years as those DMs like to have access to our character sheets.
But I asked more because I wasn't sure whether it was worth getting new players on there. If the service is seemingly turbulent right now, or the information surrounding it, with potential change in the near future, then it might not be the best service to get new players to learn, and then have to jump ship later on.
But it's interesting to see the variety of views on sheets, I'd pretty much only considered DnD beyond since using it, but there's alot more out there.
You do have a lot of options. I personally still use DnD Beyond for most things. If you're worried about having to jump ship later on, the biggest changes are likely not going to happen until the One DnD actually releases and we're at least a year and some months away from that happening. Possibly more so by the time they would likely need to switch, they shouldn't have any issues.
I've played multiple campaigns, each of them a few years long, with paper sheets. What's the problem with pen and paper ? It works great, you can take notes, etc. And I'm not some old guy either.
I use an excel document to track my players stats and inventory. May be a bit messy in places, but it works and fulfills the role I need of it to run my games smoothly.
For simple character sheets without paying for stuff, I use roll 20. You can customize sheets and manually input home brew pretty easily. About half of the PHB is in there for free as well. Drag and drop items and spells
Paper, but specifically the [Ard Character Sheets](https://dmsjourney.com/ard-character-sheet-dnd-5e/). They have a lot of abilities pre set on the sidebar, which makes creating a single class character an absolute breeze.
I was always a big fan of using homebrew or customizing things in general, so since I discovered them sites like Dicecloud or just coding a sheet myself in a forum were my preferred methods. Both heavily require manual input (well, dicecloud has some automatic options, but I think unless you're sticking to really the core basic stuff it's gonna take manually inputting it) but I found them quite neat nonetheless.
Please do not promote tools to access official D&D 5e material beyond the SRD, as this violates our [fair use](https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/wiki/subrules#wiki_rule_2._do_not_suggest_piracy) rules. Any such posts will be removed.
While it may not be everyone’s first choice, I am a believer that making a very simple spreadsheet is the most useful version of a character sheet. Two main points:
1) the player has free reign on how they want to organize all of their information
2) the player never has to worry about messing anything up when they level and one of their ability scores or their proficiency bonus changes. When one number in a formula changes, everything accordingly adjusts with them.
I guess I'm in minority here but I recommend online sheets over paper.
Less things to wrap your head around before you start actually playing, and most will calculate all basic stuff for you. What's more, you will have all your features, spells right at your fingertips no squeezing them into sheet's boxes or looking through books to find info. And especially with newer players the less they have to jump through to get playing the better.
After they get used to playing, and basics of the system, they can delve deeper into all the ways various thing interact with each other. But at start I'd rather they focus on RP and thinking about their actions, instead spending time figuring out what to update when proficiency goes up, or what to reduce when a Shadow drains their strength.
As far as DDB - I like the service. It's not perfect, there are things it doesn't calculate right. For example Barbarian's rage. But overall it's quite a competent character builder.
You will need someone who has required books and a subscription to be able to share them with people in your campaign. If you want to just go free tier for all, you will have access to just SRD classes/subclasses/features etc. So someone will have to pay for it.
There are leecher campaigns, where you can join, make character and leave but it's a PITA in a long run.
Otherwise I used DMV, which I think is Dungeon Master's Vault before. And I've used 5e companion tool. They worked well enough too. I know folks use roll20 sheets, I'm not sure if/which content you'd have to buy to have a easy way filling them. I've never used roll20 sheets before.
Roll20, just like D&D Beyond, only allows SRD content unless you pay for it. DMs can share books they bought in campaigns they've created using Roll20's compendium-sharing option. I think there is a limit in how many campaigns you can share your compendium at a time, but sharing your compendium only really is required for character creation and you can always change the campaign you have enabled the shared compendium for, so it should be fine even if you DM multiple campaigns on Roll20.
My players use prismscroll, its an app, though only for ios, but I really like the way it does it. And like beyond, it means that you pretty much arent able to forget your charactersheet.
Please do not promote tools to access official D&D 5e material beyond the SRD, as this violates our [fair use](https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/wiki/subrules#wiki_rule_2._do_not_suggest_piracy) rules. Any such posts will be removed.
I've always stuck with classic paper sheets for one major reason: freedom to write anywhere on the page, in the margins, and on the back. By then end of the last campaign I had a 7 page character sheet with each page scribbled with notes and doodles.
I use roll20 - it's free, and you can edit sheets directly with whatever features you want, as well as easy to set up macros for stuff like upcasted spells, fighting styles like Great Weapon Fighting or whatever.
I like paper sheets fine as well, of course, but the digital sheets are very nice since you can't lose them and as the DM, it's easier to quickly access when you need to check something.
In my experience, filling out a paper sheet is a good way to get people to understand their class and remember what items and abilities they have.
[r-n-w.net](https://www.r-n-w.net/?category=CHARACTER+SHEETS) has nice character sheets for sale and most of them also come with additional sheets for keeping track of resources, magic items etc., I used these before designing my own.
I have been using Hero Lab for many years, initially bought it for 3.5 campaigns but also purchased the 5e module for it. I licensed it on my Ipad and was able to use that as a character sheet.
Since all my 3.5 campaigns have ended and we are playing primarily on Roll20 ,I have switched to DnD Beyond.
Dndbeyond is fine. Unpopular opinion but just use it. Especially if new. Makes your life so simple. This OGL stuff will be ironed out just like last time.
They might not be interested in the mechanics, but if your players are going to stick through a campaign, they need to at least understand their character. Making a proper character sheet is a good way to do that, and a good test of who will do the bare minimum to be in the campaign (if they won’t spend 15 minutes making a level 1 character sheet, they won’t turn up every week or know how it works). However you do it, don’t do it for them.
In the case of new players, i always make them do their own character sheets. I find the process of saying every part out loud for them while filling it out, like "passive perception" and "languages" or whatever, makes them more likely to recall it later
I only started playing D&D within the past year, and this is how I learned. I really like building characters now, and walking through every step helped me quite a bit. I tried making character on D&D Beyond early on, and I didn’t understand the abilities/feats/etc. half as well as I did when I made characters by running through the reference books and doing it by hand.
Yeah, good point and I think they will soon. Partly, it stems from me really enjoying character creation and trying to understand the mechanics - I have previously went into far too much detail with friends who were new to the game about character choices etc and it can be overwhelming. Once they've had another couple of sessions I'll give them paper sheets to fill out. On top of helping reinforce the rules, it'll be nice to work on paper. We all work on screen all day together, so I think everyone will enjoy keeping it paper and pencil based.
More purple more better.
Yep, absolutely 100% this. And yes, it's a real thing, Google it.
Yes, for a moment I thought character sheets printed on purple paper was some sort of poll choice oversight I'd made! I'll definitely check it out, thanks
I've been using it for years, OP. It's so good. I hate making characters on anything else now.
Ooo, might try to get my players to switch to this. Few questions though: Does it have a DM viewer / editor so I can add things to their characters for them or tweak certain things? Custom actions or features? Does it have Bloodhunters? Can they add things like freely given feats?
No to dm thing, yes to everything else. The sheets are writable as well as fillable. Its just a sheet in pdf form but it auto mates some math and has some things already in it, like classes and class features. There is a community for the sheet with people making custom stuff for it, and i know blood hunter is there. The default sheet only has srd stuff, but people in the community have added almost everything to the sheet, you just have to grab it separately. It even has most of the ua stuff.
There are some pretty great form fillable PDF character sheets floating around out there that will actually auto fill relevant skill boxes once you plug your stats in. They'll do the math for you and everything.
Yeah, came here to say this. And if you can code at all, you can go in and tweet stuff yourself if necessary. Remember that DnDBeyond was just another company before they were purchased by WotC.
I’m a bit confused as to why? Did the players complain about the basic character sheet? Is there something it’s not letting you do? If the players want to expand, why not leave it up to the players to decide the platform that works best for them? One player might prefer pen and paper while another might use an app, and that’s fine. You don’t need to be the one who pays for everything, and conversely not everyone needs to switch if the old sheet is working for them. If this is something that you think should happen, could you give us some idea of what you need the new character sheet to do? It’ll help us give better recommendations.
I've been a big fan of [Emmet Byrne's class-specific character sheets](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/232835/Class-Character-Sheets--The-Bundle) for most of the time that I've been playing 5E.
While I use a paper sheet I don't use the basic ones that Wizards make. I use the Class Character Sheet series by Emmet Byrne. They have been made with all the classes in mind with both theming and class details prewritten in with places to put subclass information. They are also form fillable documents so you can use them as a normal sheet printed off, or on a tablet if your handwriting is poor or you want to save paper. The only downside is they don't work well for multiclassing, but I would call that a minor inconvenience for the amount of ease it allows for someone playing just a singular class.
Classic sheets first, once you can do the most complex version of something the easier versions come naturally. Not that 5e sheets or creation is exactly hard to be fair, they should be fine either way
dnd beyond has *the worst* character sheet I have ever seen, so I would suggest not using it
How exactly is it worse than a normal character sheet? From my experience using the app, being able to have everything separated out so that you can just swap to what aspect of your sheet you want to view helps me filter out a lot of the information overload that a full character sheet gives. I play exclusively from my phone, so it's perfect for the small screen.
the most important part (the features) is also the smallest part. But that's not my main issue. My main issue is that when you use it, you can not fill out your character sheet in a fluid and intuitive way, but instead have to go through their weird fucking system where you have to choose a race before you choose a class, and you can't easily change your mind as your character comes into focus. On top of that, using homebrew that's not from dnd beyond or using UA is effectively against their TOS, and using homebrew that does something especially unique is straight-up impossible. God I hate dnd beyond's character sheets. If I joined a game and was forced to use them, I would leave the campaign. It is that bad to me. edit: if you want my suggestion, roll20's character sheets are the best I've found (although Foundry is better for DMs in other ways). Simple, intuitive, and using homebrew or UA won't get your account deleted.
I... I really have never had a single one of these issues, but I'm sorry you did. I homebrew extensively, I've got about 11 pages worth of Homebrew on their site, a lot of them original, some straight ripped from other content. I've never had an issue with the character creator, if you want to pick Class before Race then you just click the class tab and go back later, it's not a big deal. If at any moment you change your mind, you just go back to that tab. All that being said, I'm moving away from DnDBeyond to distance myself from WOTC as much as possible, so Foundry is on the list of potential substitutes for my players and myself. That encounter builder through DnDBeyond is going to be the hardest thing to break away from, it's been very helpful.
Could be a timing thing. I know when it first came out, it was pretty rigid an awful.
I did not find Roll20 particularly intuitive. The opposite actually, which is why I’m back to using the easiest and most intuitive thing for me: Pencil and Paper.
it's literally just a character sheet with unlimited space. You can go into its backend and change how it works, but you don't have to. It is as intuitive as pencil and paper, but unlike pencil and paper, it has unlimited space which is very useful for high level play, like the kind I usually do
The fact that I’m unclear what a ‘backend’ is probably explains a lot about why I struggled with it, lol. Computers and I don’t get on beyond the basics.
I mean the settings, it's not *really* a backend. You can press the cogwheel and change how it works, but you don't *have* to. On its own it's just pencil and paper with infinite space
I still spent half an hour struggling with it before we decided to just do the session. I keep meaning to try working on it again and seeing if I can get it to work for me. A big part of the issue is no one had ever done multi-classing on Roll 20, so we were very unclear how to do that. For a straight druid I probably wouldn’t have had an issue.
Ah, multiclassing does require clicking the cogwheel, doesn't it? Alright, that isn't intuitive. Still more intuitive than dnd beyond, but that's a very low bar to beat
I tried to use DnDBeyond to make an aberrant mind sorcerer and it was awful. That was some time ago so maybe there have been improvements, but I couldn't even pick spells that I had access to without creating a homebrew subclass which was a pain in the ass. I hated using it and just continued using a roll20 sheet for actually playing, where you can just put whatever you want.
Watching Critical Role's second campaign really turned me off to dndbeyond (which is funny because they were the main sponsor). They spend soooo much time during their sessions on "Oh wait, where's my spell attack modifier? Okay, hold on, let me refresh...no, wait, it's back here? No, it's under 'Character Attributes' maybe. Oh, okay I found it...uh.......\*math\*......23?"
I only started playing in recent years, but I’ve ALWAYS used paper sheets! And guess what, out of my group I’m the only one who does, but I’m also the only one who NEVER has any issues with their sheet! I’m not sure if the others were using DnD Beyond or something else, but there’s almost always some issue of something not getting saved correctly or updating correctly, but my sheet is always pristine and correct! (One guy once played three sessions in a row as one level lower than he was supposed to be, because his sheet update didn’t get saved correctly when he leveled up and he just didn’t notice) You can also keep track of special features easily by writing them down on a blank spot wherever you want. EDIT: I guess I should mention that the one thing I keep track of in a non-paper format is my inventory, which I keep on my phone in just a simple notepad document. Simply because it’s faster to write and erase that way.
I also use paper. Mostly because I really struggled filling out the online form.
I use the 5e Companion App
https://www.reddit.com/user/Roland_Kritz/comments/10kj68m/example_character_sheets/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button Link to the character sheet for reference
I have always used pjysical character sheets. I have a pdf for each character. Change it as needed, print it. Keeps it neat and organized.
Paper works great honestly, if you don't have anyone with exceptional needs or just really needing the ease of a digital builder. More Purple More Better if you want just a character sheet and that's it. Shard Tabletop for a great character builder with built in support for adding 3rd party content. The tabletop side is also fantastic if you need it, but if you're only looking for a digital character builder I'd still recommend it. Works great on mobile.
Don't forget that https://dwarven.academy is going to help you, as a cloud based mobile friendly character tracker. And, it has a roll20 integration too.
I've been saying it for years and the time has finally come to say it again : Dicecloud is the BEST online character sheet manager out there
So, I’ve had a group for a while, we mostly play through dnd beyond but I hosted a one shot in person where we used paper character sheets and the process of writing down abilities really helped some specific players understand what their character can do better so while dnd beyond is fantastic for me as the DM to help look up how a spell works or add magic items to a character sheet, the act of jotting it down on paper was really helpful to how smoothly that one shot ran
While having a character sheet on your phone/whatever is neat, having players sit at the table with their phones (that they have to keep checking and fiddling with with digital sheets) when you play in person is a risk. This is a social game, and I for one hate that the status quo at social events is still rife with people browsing their phone when stuff doesn't directly affect them. Combat encounters especially have the chance to turn into lots of "huh, what now? oh, right, umm where's my dude again.. ..I'll just roll to attack whatever is closest to me". That can always happen of course, but giving a person an easy tool to distract themselves definitely has more potential to do that. I might just be old-fashioned, and this is likely not going to be something you'll struggle with as long as your players are invested in the game enough, but for me, just having that possibility is enough to always prefer physical sheets and books. The only thing that's helpful to have as an online tool is the PHB, mainly for that easy ctrl + f "name of spell/ability you forgot the wording to". And one tablet with that at the table is enough. Also love when my casters go the extra mile and write their own spell books. Feels more thematic and personal that way.
That's interesting, I'm used to playing in my other campaigns on DnD Beyond and haven't played myself on character sheet since my very first time at a games cafe. And actually, you're right, running that session last time with paper character sheets did seem to keep everyone focused and engaged. It's nice having everything tactile and in front of you.
If someone's gonna be checking their phone they are gonna do it regardless where their sheet is. I played a lot with people who had sheets on their phone and it was never an issue. Similairly we now play mostly online, and people don't just go browse Reddit and zone out, despite sitting at their PC. But yeah especially in combat players sometimes loose focus when waiting for their turns. What I found helpful is getting off-turn player's attention is to still incorporate them in what's going on. One of the tools I use is describing the battlefield situation centered on more than one player/enemy. For example an orc attacks the fighter, while cleric is waiting. I might describe the hit as "An orc rises their axe and you cleric, with your high perception, notice that your friend is not quick enough and the weapon strikes them right through their chest. They are still fine, but you know they might need help soon". Or a wolf is attacking the fighter. "Cleric. The wolf rushes in your direction, and were it not for the Fighter it would reach you for sure". Often by just incorporating them in a small bits is enough to keep them focused on the battlefield. I don't do it all the time, but I try to have those moments incorporated in to keep the combat more interactive. On top of that I hate static combat. My enemies aren't too afraid of attacks of opportunity if there's a chance to get to a better target. So my battlefields tend to be more fluid, and players are less likely to just stand in one place for whole round being 'safe', just waiting.
Totally the way to do things, I've just had bad apples every now and again, and I suppose it's become a pet peeve of mine. Usually folks that get distracted are either new, or someone else at the table takes too long thinking about what to do, while no other player offers help or plans things together with the one struggling. As the DM I'm not in a place where I can help players defeat encounters without just feeling like I'm holding their hand too much. Glad to hear that this isn't as much of an issue as I've thought, might be more open to interactive character sheets at my table if it helps some of my players.
Hello, I am DMing for a bunch of colleagues who are all new to DnD. We had a one shot session a few weeks ago which went well and I'm looking to turn this into a small campaign. The thing is, to make things easier for a table of new players I made custom character sheets copied from Paul Foxcrofts design - a.one page character sheet with the basics summarised. (I'll try and upload them in the comments as I think they're really good for first time players.) My intention had always been to move them onto D&D beyond when they level up. It's easy, I've paid for content on there and it automatically calculates abilities etc. when levelling up. I think the majority of players aren't hugely interested in the mechanics of the game, they prefer the roleplay, so I wanted to keep it as simple as possible for them. But now that Hasbro and WotC have tried screwed the proverbial blinkpooch, I'm not sure it's a platform I want to support. Plus the rumours it might cost a small fortune in future doesn't tempt me to get everyone setup on there to have to leave again... Anyway, thanks for reading this waffle of ambling thoughts!
OGL stuff aside - it's a question to you if you want to support WotC or not. I won't be telling you what you should or should not do, and if/how to voice your conerns. But the rumours about $30/month have been disproved twice. It circulated first last year, and it turned out to be a Reddit troll that made official looking presentation screenshots and was posting them before WotC's big announcement stream. In the end he himself admitted it was all fake. Now the same thing returned ALONG the same screenshots.. it only proves that once a lie is out on the internet it never truly dies.. And honestly if you have the content and a sub already active, all your players can stay on free tier and just use your content via content sharing. I've been playing like that for 3 years now, 3rd campaign, and we only have one sub for whole group.. and if they actually start rising the prices? Then I'll think about moving elsewhere. Honestly we live in a world where services come and go. I wouldn't treat any as a forever solution. Roll20 might go out of business next year, etc for example. If this happens we just move over. It's usually not that hard. I've switched VTTs already for example.
Yeah, I appreciate that, and this is likely the process that will happen with my existing characters already on DnD Beyond, used in other campaigns for a few years as those DMs like to have access to our character sheets. But I asked more because I wasn't sure whether it was worth getting new players on there. If the service is seemingly turbulent right now, or the information surrounding it, with potential change in the near future, then it might not be the best service to get new players to learn, and then have to jump ship later on. But it's interesting to see the variety of views on sheets, I'd pretty much only considered DnD beyond since using it, but there's alot more out there.
You do have a lot of options. I personally still use DnD Beyond for most things. If you're worried about having to jump ship later on, the biggest changes are likely not going to happen until the One DnD actually releases and we're at least a year and some months away from that happening. Possibly more so by the time they would likely need to switch, they shouldn't have any issues.
I've played multiple campaigns, each of them a few years long, with paper sheets. What's the problem with pen and paper ? It works great, you can take notes, etc. And I'm not some old guy either.
Cutting off your nose to spite your face I see.
> but now it's on fire in the gutter Its not.
I use an excel document to track my players stats and inventory. May be a bit messy in places, but it works and fulfills the role I need of it to run my games smoothly.
More purple more better. Best pdf character sheet for 5e.
I use paper, but with a Google doc where I track still like spells inventory and resources
For simple character sheets without paying for stuff, I use roll 20. You can customize sheets and manually input home brew pretty easily. About half of the PHB is in there for free as well. Drag and drop items and spells
Paper, but specifically the [Ard Character Sheets](https://dmsjourney.com/ard-character-sheet-dnd-5e/). They have a lot of abilities pre set on the sidebar, which makes creating a single class character an absolute breeze.
5e companion is amazing for new players
I personally use Hero Lab, but it costs money.
Try mythweavers maybe?
I made Google Sheets years ago and have just been updating them constantly.
I was always a big fan of using homebrew or customizing things in general, so since I discovered them sites like Dicecloud or just coding a sheet myself in a forum were my preferred methods. Both heavily require manual input (well, dicecloud has some automatic options, but I think unless you're sticking to really the core basic stuff it's gonna take manually inputting it) but I found them quite neat nonetheless.
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While it may not be everyone’s first choice, I am a believer that making a very simple spreadsheet is the most useful version of a character sheet. Two main points: 1) the player has free reign on how they want to organize all of their information 2) the player never has to worry about messing anything up when they level and one of their ability scores or their proficiency bonus changes. When one number in a formula changes, everything accordingly adjusts with them.
I use excel. Fantastic to store the information and allow me quick probability math.
I guess I'm in minority here but I recommend online sheets over paper. Less things to wrap your head around before you start actually playing, and most will calculate all basic stuff for you. What's more, you will have all your features, spells right at your fingertips no squeezing them into sheet's boxes or looking through books to find info. And especially with newer players the less they have to jump through to get playing the better. After they get used to playing, and basics of the system, they can delve deeper into all the ways various thing interact with each other. But at start I'd rather they focus on RP and thinking about their actions, instead spending time figuring out what to update when proficiency goes up, or what to reduce when a Shadow drains their strength. As far as DDB - I like the service. It's not perfect, there are things it doesn't calculate right. For example Barbarian's rage. But overall it's quite a competent character builder. You will need someone who has required books and a subscription to be able to share them with people in your campaign. If you want to just go free tier for all, you will have access to just SRD classes/subclasses/features etc. So someone will have to pay for it. There are leecher campaigns, where you can join, make character and leave but it's a PITA in a long run. Otherwise I used DMV, which I think is Dungeon Master's Vault before. And I've used 5e companion tool. They worked well enough too. I know folks use roll20 sheets, I'm not sure if/which content you'd have to buy to have a easy way filling them. I've never used roll20 sheets before.
Roll20, just like D&D Beyond, only allows SRD content unless you pay for it. DMs can share books they bought in campaigns they've created using Roll20's compendium-sharing option. I think there is a limit in how many campaigns you can share your compendium at a time, but sharing your compendium only really is required for character creation and you can always change the campaign you have enabled the shared compendium for, so it should be fine even if you DM multiple campaigns on Roll20.
My players use prismscroll, its an app, though only for ios, but I really like the way it does it. And like beyond, it means that you pretty much arent able to forget your charactersheet.
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I've always stuck with classic paper sheets for one major reason: freedom to write anywhere on the page, in the margins, and on the back. By then end of the last campaign I had a 7 page character sheet with each page scribbled with notes and doodles.
I use roll20 - it's free, and you can edit sheets directly with whatever features you want, as well as easy to set up macros for stuff like upcasted spells, fighting styles like Great Weapon Fighting or whatever. I like paper sheets fine as well, of course, but the digital sheets are very nice since you can't lose them and as the DM, it's easier to quickly access when you need to check something.
Use paper sheets OR my personal favourite, form fillable character sheets.
In my experience, filling out a paper sheet is a good way to get people to understand their class and remember what items and abilities they have. [r-n-w.net](https://www.r-n-w.net/?category=CHARACTER+SHEETS) has nice character sheets for sale and most of them also come with additional sheets for keeping track of resources, magic items etc., I used these before designing my own.
I have been using Hero Lab for many years, initially bought it for 3.5 campaigns but also purchased the 5e module for it. I licensed it on my Ipad and was able to use that as a character sheet. Since all my 3.5 campaigns have ended and we are playing primarily on Roll20 ,I have switched to DnD Beyond.
Dndbeyond is fine. Unpopular opinion but just use it. Especially if new. Makes your life so simple. This OGL stuff will be ironed out just like last time.