Build formatting guidelines

[TuggyNE]

Or, how do I typed stats?

So, in the past I've posted involved character builds a few times, and gotten a few helpful critiques, and of course I've seen a lot of requests for help from others. But most of them, including mine, share an unpleasant amount of Wall-Of-Textness, and are sometimes almost unreadable by virtue of eye-glazing, like this choice sample.

What, then, are some good best practices to follow for formatting build outlines so that they are readable and not horrendously daunting?

[Curmudgeon]

The various contests (Iron Chef, Zinc Saucier) here have a table structure for the basic level-by-level class information; you might want to grab one of those.

[Squirrel_Dude]

Judging by the given example, one good tip would simply be to remember to take advantage of the post formatting options available to you, and to press your return button more than never.

But in all seriousness, make sure to do those things, they help greatly.

[TuggyNE]

A couple principles I can think of:
1. Use consistent bolding, italicization, and underlining, as well as indentation, lists, and so forth, to denote various aspects of the build.
2. Go easy on colors, fonts, emoticons, and spoilers.


The various contests (Iron Chef, Zinc Saucier) here have a table structure for the basic level-by-level class information; you might want to grab one of those.

I've seen those; they're not bad, exactly, but even the table is a little unpleasant to read (mostly because of things like skill points and class features, and uneven column width). And spell/maneuver/invocation/meld/power selection tends to fit very poorly in that, which means you end up with redundant tables covering the same level progression for different chunks, and so on.


Judging by the given example, one good tip would simply be to remember to take advantage of the post formatting options available to you, and to press your return button more than never.

Well, yes. But beyond that, anything you'd suggest for, say, my old PsyWar Charger work? In particular, most interesting builds have some particular trick, which may or may not be obvious from the level breakdown, and there needs to be an explanation of how that's accomplished.