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View Full Version : Added a new 4E sheet to the PifRO profiler



Reinboom
2011-03-21, 07:09 AM
There is now a new 4E online sheet template that anybody can use at my profiler's home at http://pifro.com/pro/!

I designed this sheet with the ideas of flexibility (allowing newer official classes as well as homebrew more readily), speed of use, and more space in mind.

Features:
Custom Formulas: You can freely add in custom formulas to the sheet that will update as you change your sheet around. Allowing you to build quick references that scale with you. You can even place these formulas into power boxes or use them to change how your defenses are calculated, making classing such as the Warden much more manageable.

Layout Design: I tried to capture a layout setup that would be both familiar by partially emulating the design of the 4E Sheet in the back of the Player's Handbook, as well as be much more accessible for the purposes of online use by giving more space and by placing an emphasis on location as to make you perform as little extraneous work when referencing your sheet as is reasonable. For example, having action points presented near your actions (powers).

Power Limit: As space was one of my core goals, this was one of the aspects I emphasized most. With my sheet, you begin with only 3 power boxes shown; by just clicking "add power" you can freely add up to 99 power boxes to your character.

Power Design: The design of the power boxes is perhaps one of the most significant features of this sheet. You can change each Power Box's header color (colors setup for 'At Will', 'Encounter', 'Daily', and a blue color for you to use however you wish). You can format the text in the major text area of the powers. You can even include formulas into the power boxes that will update at the click of a button.


I'm also definitely willing to add more features and adjust the sheet as requested for any good ideas you're willing to present me!

If you want to preview the sheet, click here:
http://airpg.pifro.com/profiler/view.php?id=114

(note that many of the advanced editing features aren't visible in this, as you require the ability to see the sheet in order to use those. This sheet uses Gralamin's 4E gestalt rules and is one of my character's within an epic level 4E campaign)

Mando Knight
2011-03-21, 12:15 PM
I like this. Especially the power boxes.

Excession
2011-03-21, 03:41 PM
The sheet is has Insight based on Int when it should be Wis. Otherwise seems pretty good.

Gralamin
2011-03-22, 01:10 AM
The sheet is has Insight based on Int when it should be Wis. Otherwise seems pretty good.

Wow, I can't believe I missed the Insight thing when I gave it a look over in it's earlier form.

Looks much improved, and very awesome.

Reinboom
2011-03-22, 06:12 AM
The sheet is has Insight based on Int when it should be Wis. Otherwise seems pretty good.

*notes to self: hire temp for data entry*

What an embarrassing oversight. I guess all the features in the world can't save it if the rules aren't correct. :smalltongue:

That's fixed. Thank you for pointing that out.

RTGoodman
2011-03-22, 01:25 PM
Looks good to me with a quick once-over.

Excession
2011-03-22, 05:09 PM
Another slight problem. Your link goes to www.pifro.com, while some of the links on the site (all the links down the left) send me to plain pifro.com, without the www. This leads to having to log in twice, once for the www domain and once for the no-www domain.

There are a couple of things you can do to fix this:

Don't use the domain name in internal links, just use "/pro/" rather "http://pifro.com/pro/" for example.
If you have enough control over the web server, have any "pifro.com" URL redirect to the same URL at "www.pifro.com". I can show you how to do this for apache2, no idea about other servers.


Back to the character sheet, is there any way to have AC based on something other than Dex/Int? For a dragon sorcerer for example it should use Str.

Reinboom
2011-03-22, 06:26 PM
Another slight problem. Your link goes to www.pifro.com, while some of the links on the site (all the links down the left) send me to plain pifro.com, without the www. This leads to having to log in twice, once for the www domain and once for the no-www domain.

There are a couple of things you can do to fix this:

Don't use the domain name in internal links, just use "/pro/" rather "http://pifro.com/pro/" for example.
If you have enough control over the web server, have any "pifro.com" URL redirect to the same URL at "www.pifro.com". I can show you how to do this for apache2, no idea about other servers.


Back to the character sheet, is there any way to have AC based on something other than Dex/Int? For a dragon sorcerer for example it should use Str.

The "www" vs non, three and a half years ago (when I put up the profiler originally) I cared more about getting to the point. Now I want things to be more formal.
Thus a bit of disparity when it comes to working with my older stuff.

I didn't realize the profiler software baked its cookies with picky ingredients. Hrm. Don't want to change the default as that would mess up too many people's links. I'll just put a .htaccess redirect I guess.

Thanks for pointing that out.



On the other, I have plans to make various parts editable formulas all over. I'm just debating on what the UI should be for this.
If it's more than just the... Druid I think was the other one that did the AC thing?... then I'll hurry up with these plans.


edit:
Oh jeez, the profiler software has a redirect engine of its own. Bah. I'll just drop the www. from the OP.

Mando Knight
2011-03-22, 06:39 PM
If it's more than just the... Druid I think was the other one that did the AC thing?... then I'll hurry up with these plans.

Wardens have such an ability as well. My current method of dealing with it is to add the appropriate modifier to the Armor value, then mark the armor as heavy.

Reinboom
2011-03-23, 09:49 AM
I've now added an edit box to allow you to edit all the formulas that calculate the "Arm/Abil" section of each defense.
In addition, I've added an "if" function to the calculator as well as the ability to reference: Armor, Shield, and if 'Heavy' is checked or not.

valadil
2011-03-23, 12:04 PM
Nice. I do have a quibble with it though.

I'm not using default font size and my minimum font size is significantly higher than most of the fonts you use. The result of this is that nothing fits quite right.

It looks like all your boxes and whatnot were sized by pixel. If they were sized in terms of ems and exs, you'd probably have better luck. That said, it would be a lot of work to fix that and I'm not sure how you'd keep each page at page size if the user could arbitrarily resize things. At the very least I'd include a note about browser settings and font sizes somewhere in your documentation.

Reinboom
2011-03-23, 12:29 PM
-snip-

Would you be willing to look here:
http://airpg.pifro.com/profiler/view.php?id=114

and tell me if that made a significant difference? That's using em measurements for fonts instead of pixel.

valadil
2011-03-23, 12:35 PM
Would you be willing to look here:
http://airpg.pifro.com/profiler/view.php?id=114

and tell me if that made a significant difference? That's using em measurements for fonts instead of pixel.

Gladly. It's not perfect, but it's a whole hell of a lot better. Here's a screenie: px on the left, em on the right:
http://files.sagotsky.com/kira_dnd4e_profiler.png

Reinboom
2011-03-23, 01:24 PM
-snip-

Alright, I spotted a couple other small issues I could fix quickly.
Would you be willing to reload and tell me if you prefer these last couple of changes?

If yes, I'll commit these adjustments to /pro/ :smallsmile:

valadil
2011-03-23, 03:44 PM
Would you be willing to reload and tell me if you prefer these last couple of changes?

Sorry about the delay, work got busy.

Yes I like the changes. Do I detect an 'overflow: hidden' or two in there?

Reinboom
2011-03-23, 04:35 PM
Sorry about the delay, work got busy.

Yes I like the changes. Do I detect an 'overflow: hidden' or two in there?

Yes you do :smalltongue:
em changes / other minor changes now committed to /pro/.


I need to figure out a better way to advertise this thing. Hrm.

valadil
2011-03-24, 10:13 PM
I need to figure out a better way to advertise this thing. Hrm.

I vote you just use it publicly. When someone asks for character advice just link to a build you've already uploaded posted.

Reinboom
2011-03-31, 03:32 PM
I modified the opening post to try to sell this sheet more.

I also added and adjusted a couple features:
You can now use `s#`words`s#` in order to modify the font size in the Effects box of powers. s4 is the 'default' size.
You can now reference the Calc# formulas by the names you give them. For example, if you named one of them "Int Spell", you could refer to that calc line by adding {Int Spell} in the other locations where the sheet solves formulas.

And on a much less significant note, I also increased the available ritual spots from 18 to 36.


Original post for reference:
I just finished adding a new character sheet format for 4E D&D to the profiler software at
http://pifro.com/pro/

I used the myth-weaver's 4E sheet as a VERY loose reference towards writing the new sheet from scratch. This sheet was designed with the mindset of getting frustrated with the myth-weaver's one for not having enough space or doing enough AND with the fact that they used <table>s for layout. :smallamused:


As my sheet is slight bit more complex than most profiler style character sheet, it would be extremely helpful if I could have a few people (anyone who wants to) try it out and report any problems you find here that would be very welcome. :smalltongue:

Or for that matter, any extra requests would be welcomed as well. :smallsmile:



If you want to preview the new sheet, you can look at an example here:
http://airpg.pifro.com/profiler/view.php?id=114

The example is one of my epic level characters from a game using Gralamin's gestalt 4E rules (and thus, it's a bit more demanding on space).
Do note that most of the features of the character can not be interacted with in the preview as they are restricted to the owner of the sheet.

Surrealistik
2011-05-08, 11:40 AM
One thing that would be nice is a weight column for items, as well as a tally which compares your total carry weight to your various carrying capacities: Normal, Heavy, and Drag.

Weapon cards definitely need to be more roomy; I'd personally have them comparable to power cards, with designated fields for critical damage, proficiency bonuses, etc...

In all though, this is a great utility, and far superior to the typical Mythweavers staple.

Gralamin
2011-05-08, 12:57 PM
In all though, this is a great utility, and far superior to the typical Mythweavers staple.

Definitely agree, though it's still a bit buggy, it isn't much big.

VeliciaL
2011-05-10, 04:17 PM
I've been using this to "back up" a character from an online game so far, as well as rolling up a few for-fun concept characters, and I have to say I really like this. I was hoping to find an online character sheet for a game I might be running, and this fits the bill nicely.

My only comments so far would be to echo Surrealistic's comments. Item weight would be nice, as well as making the weapon writeups work more like power cards. I'd particularly like to see the ability to add more weapon cards and rearrange them like the power cards. Being able to re-order the powers tickled my OC tendencies nicely. :P

It would also be nice if Rituals worked that way too.

Surrealistik
2011-05-11, 03:55 PM
Agreed. There should also be an 'orange' colour for power cards to emulate that for consumables/items.

Reinboom
2011-05-13, 10:29 AM
Sorry, I've been caught up in other projects too much and haven't had the time to pay attention to this.


Adding an orange/golden-orange color is simple, I'll definitely do that.

A weight column is quite easy and totaling system is easy.

I'll also be adding a bunch of other features I'll be merging back over from a different character sheet I'm working on (for a different system).


On the rituals and items as power cards:
Hmm, I'm concerned about clutter in these cases (both visual and code), especially for weapons. May I have more info about what you may expect out of this then in these cases? Any input is welcome.

Surrealistik
2011-05-13, 11:19 AM
While I don't advocate copying verbatim the design/layout of the off-line CB sheet generator, this is a pretty good visual example/reference:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/713896/Terrodar%20L2.pdf

As you can see near the bottom, each magical item has its own power card entry, with a formatting similar but not identical to the power cards for powers, with further differentiation between weapon and non-weapon items.