Been playing since the 1970s, Often when we start a sub-campaign in our 35 year Master-campaign, we begin our characters as zero level, as children or teenagers.
We organically grow stats and gain (race/Species) cultural features over time, and often times bonus traits if they play for a long time in zero level play. The longer you play the more subtle minor, traits you can gain. In the current system it manifests as aspects of the origin feat, and attribute selections, while slowly gaining all the 1st level abilities of a character class.
If pre-rogue you might gain sneak attack but doing just 1 point of damage as a kid. Limited spell casting in the form of limited cantrip, doled out in smaller increments. These are the rewards they get instead of EXP, before graduating into young adventurers. We have a lot of dramatic growth along the way. As children a big threat might be the scary tapestry in the dinning hall. Rolling often to overcome childlike fear, and facing awkward interactions with bully peers, and adults. These games can go for years sometime, depending on where we start.
All the features of a D&D Beyond character sheet “can’t be used by us” until we select a class, and set certain features. rolling die, clicking on custom feats or traits, accessing definitions of things you click on within the sheet.
Can you please allow us to create and view character sheets without setting class choices, or other features first. Allow us to add these things as we manage our characters in an active sheet.
I have placed this request in feature request feedback a few time, and in discord. I wish you could indicate if it could happen or not.
it seems like it would be an easy thing to code/allow.
Otherwise we end up not using D&D Beyond except as a glossary for book references only. We can only use our paper sheets, which is how all used to do it, but I want to utilize the digital resources I have bought into.
i have literally purchased every single book, from Wizards digitally, and every 3rd party Partner you have. I find endless use for all the resources. All the Sourcebooks Adventure Books, and Supplements you publish on D&D Beyond. Plus almost all physical resources books and supplements since the 1970s, That’s a lot of money.
i hope that’s earned some attention towards what i believe to be a very humble request.
How about a Blank Character sheet that allows us to fill in all the fields with whatever text we want. Used for anything we want. no need to have Homebrew classes, we just track information on it, our way. Write whatever class we want, raise level up and down, write features, skills, anything, we can add anything we want from the database so it can be referenced. If it’s all custom text it isn’t referenced.
Unfortunately you are asking for a way to play D&D that is not supported by the 5e version of D&D and since this website caters to that version I highly doubt this will be an implementation.
How about a Blank Character sheet that allows us to fill in all the fields with whatever text we want. Used for anything we want. no need to have Homebrew classes, we just track information on it, our way. Write whatever class we want, raise level up and down, write features, skills, anything, we can add anything we want from the database so it can be referenced. If it’s all custom text it isn’t referenced.
These are the official links within this website to the form-fillable PDFs. It's about the closest you're going to get to what you're requesting. What you're after simply isn't within the 5e rules, as was mentioned above, and changing the website that's deliberately set up not to generate an incomplete character sheet to bypass that would take quite a bit of work. However, you can still open a sheet and use the dice roller.
Alternately, you could always create custom actions on a level 1 sheet to set the modifiers and damage right during the pre-campaign story.
Why do you all poo poo the idea… saying that’s not the style of play… well it’s just a request to see sheet as zero… if you all request it, won’t that incentivize implementing it. What do you all have against it? Is it breaking some code of roleplay? There is a check, that stops the sheet from being viewed as zero, The request is simply take away that check… if the class level isn’t chosen, simply view it that way… all I hear from some of you…. Can’t be done, it’s not the way… we’ll they can make it the way. The reason I don’t want to use an external sheet is because I want use the internal links, to skills, feats, spells, mechanics and definitions from the sheet..
The main reason to speak out against it: The site is designed with the explicit purpose of supporting the official 5th Edition D&D rules. Before they go adding some frivolous feature that's not supported by the rules, every single bug with existing content should be fixed first. Heck, major backend reworks to enable features they can't currently should be done before enabling level 0 sheets to be used.
If you want to play that way, you've been given solutions: Track it manually with a character sheet, or make custom actions to suit what the characters can do before level 1. Don't expect the devs to devote any time to this that's better served on ANYTHING else.
Why do you all poo poo the idea… saying that’s not the style of play… well it’s just a request to see sheet as zero… if you all request it, won’t that incentivize implementing it. What do you all have against it? Is it breaking some code of roleplay? There is a check, that stops the sheet from being viewed as zero, The request is simply take away that check… if the class level isn’t chosen, simply view it that way… all I hear from some of you…. Can’t be done, it’s not the way… we’ll they can make it the way. The reason I don’t want to use an external sheet is because I want use the internal links, to skills, feats, spells, mechanics and definitions from the sheet..
Because per the 2014 and 2024 rules there is no such things as a level 0 PC. So having a sheet for that is not in the rules and not the purpose of this site. It's not "poo pooing" an idea. It is stating the fact that you want to play in a way that is not supported by the current rules officially, and this site is meant for the sole purpose of coding a character sheet meant for the purpose of playing by the 2014 and 2024 rules. Now lots still needs to be added to support those rules, but adding things that are homebrewing rules is for people to do on their own, not for the Devs of this site.
Why do you all poo poo the idea… saying that’s not the style of play… well it’s just a request to see sheet as zero… if you all request it, won’t that incentivize implementing it. What do you all have against it? Is it breaking some code of roleplay? There is a check, that stops the sheet from being viewed as zero, The request is simply take away that check… if the class level isn’t chosen, simply view it that way… all I hear from some of you…. Can’t be done, it’s not the way… we’ll they can make it the way. The reason I don’t want to use an external sheet is because I want use the internal links, to skills, feats, spells, mechanics and definitions from the sheet..
Probably because ultimately your feedback is "Make this D&D tool support a mode of play that isn't part of D&D", whereas most people would prefer the devs focus on making this D&D tool support modes of play that are part of D&D. This feedback is akin to asking for support for changing what type of dice is used to make d20 tests, or changing the number of ability scores, or removing classes and letting players combine traits at will.
It’s simple… it’s asking to take away the check to complete a character, …. not retooling the foundation of all the rules…
Which would be an overall detriment to the user experience for those unfamiliar with the game. The builder intentionally stops you from viewing the sheet until you have made a character that meets the barest minimum of choices as so to minimize the chance of newcomers making incomplete characters.
Been playing since the 1970s, Often when we start a sub-campaign in our 35 year Master-campaign, we begin our characters as zero level, as children or teenagers.
We organically grow stats and gain (race/Species) cultural features over time, and often times bonus traits if they play for a long time in zero level play. The longer you play the more subtle minor, traits you can gain. In the current system it manifests as aspects of the origin feat, and attribute selections, while slowly gaining all the 1st level abilities of a character class.
If pre-rogue you might gain sneak attack but doing just 1 point of damage as a kid. Limited spell casting in the form of limited cantrip, doled out in smaller increments. These are the rewards they get instead of EXP, before graduating into young adventurers. We have a lot of dramatic growth along the way. As children a big threat might be the scary tapestry in the dinning hall. Rolling often to overcome childlike fear, and facing awkward interactions with bully peers, and adults. These games can go for years sometime, depending on where we start.
All the features of a D&D Beyond character sheet “can’t be used by us” until we select a class, and set certain features. rolling die, clicking on custom feats or traits, accessing definitions of things you click on within the sheet.
Can you please allow us to create and view character sheets without setting class choices, or other features first. Allow us to add these things as we manage our characters in an active sheet.
I have placed this request in feature request feedback a few time, and in discord. I wish you could indicate if it could happen or not.
it seems like it would be an easy thing to code/allow.
Otherwise we end up not using D&D Beyond except as a glossary for book references only. We can only use our paper sheets, which is how all used to do it, but I want to utilize the digital resources I have bought into.
i have literally purchased every single book, from Wizards digitally, and every 3rd party Partner you have. I find endless use for all the resources. All the Sourcebooks Adventure Books, and Supplements you publish on D&D Beyond. Plus almost all physical resources books and supplements since the 1970s, That’s a lot of money.
i hope that’s earned some attention towards what i believe to be a very humble request.
I wrote this in the other thread.
How about a Blank Character sheet that allows us to fill in all the fields with whatever text we want. Used for anything we want. no need to have Homebrew classes, we just track information on it, our way. Write whatever class we want, raise level up and down, write features, skills, anything, we can add anything we want from the database so it can be referenced. If it’s all custom text it isn’t referenced.
Unfortunately you are asking for a way to play D&D that is not supported by the 5e version of D&D and since this website caters to that version I highly doubt this will be an implementation.
2024: https://media.dndbeyond.com/compendium-images/free-rules/ph/character-sheet.pdf
2014: https://media.dndbeyond.com/compendium-images/marketing/dnd_5e_charactersheet_formfillable.pdf
These are the official links within this website to the form-fillable PDFs. It's about the closest you're going to get to what you're requesting. What you're after simply isn't within the 5e rules, as was mentioned above, and changing the website that's deliberately set up not to generate an incomplete character sheet to bypass that would take quite a bit of work. However, you can still open a sheet and use the dice roller.
Alternately, you could always create custom actions on a level 1 sheet to set the modifiers and damage right during the pre-campaign story.
Than just the tweak… allow us to see the sheet before setting a class or level. It would just show 0,
You are asking for something that does not fit into the style of this website. If you want a blank sheet then that what PDFs would be for
This website is meant for 5e style play. Which means players start with backgrounds, species, class and at level 1. That's the crux of it.
They want to have a sheet without automation so they can enter custom material not supported by the site but which still fits into the 5e sheet.
Admirable intent, zero realistic chance of it happening.
DM, player & homebrewer(Current homebrew project is an unofficial conversion of SBURB/SGRUB from Homestuck into DND 5e)
Once made Maxwell's Silver Hammer come down upon Strahd's head to make sure he was dead.
Always study & sharpen philosophical razors. They save a lot of trouble.
I mean, that would literally be the form-fillable PDFs I linked above.
Why do you all poo poo the idea… saying that’s not the style of play… well it’s just a request to see sheet as zero… if you all request it, won’t that incentivize implementing it. What do you all have against it? Is it breaking some code of roleplay? There is a check, that stops the sheet from being viewed as zero, The request is simply take away that check… if the class level isn’t chosen, simply view it that way… all I hear from some of you…. Can’t be done, it’s not the way… we’ll they can make it the way. The reason I don’t want to use an external sheet is because I want use the internal links, to skills, feats, spells, mechanics and definitions from the sheet..
The main reason to speak out against it: The site is designed with the explicit purpose of supporting the official 5th Edition D&D rules. Before they go adding some frivolous feature that's not supported by the rules, every single bug with existing content should be fixed first. Heck, major backend reworks to enable features they can't currently should be done before enabling level 0 sheets to be used.
If you want to play that way, you've been given solutions: Track it manually with a character sheet, or make custom actions to suit what the characters can do before level 1. Don't expect the devs to devote any time to this that's better served on ANYTHING else.
Because per the 2014 and 2024 rules there is no such things as a level 0 PC. So having a sheet for that is not in the rules and not the purpose of this site. It's not "poo pooing" an idea. It is stating the fact that you want to play in a way that is not supported by the current rules officially, and this site is meant for the sole purpose of coding a character sheet meant for the purpose of playing by the 2014 and 2024 rules. Now lots still needs to be added to support those rules, but adding things that are homebrewing rules is for people to do on their own, not for the Devs of this site.
Probably because ultimately your feedback is "Make this D&D tool support a mode of play that isn't part of D&D", whereas most people would prefer the devs focus on making this D&D tool support modes of play that are part of D&D. This feedback is akin to asking for support for changing what type of dice is used to make d20 tests, or changing the number of ability scores, or removing classes and letting players combine traits at will.
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
It’s simple… it’s asking to take away the check to complete a character, …. not retooling the foundation of all the rules…
Which would be an overall detriment to the user experience for those unfamiliar with the game. The builder intentionally stops you from viewing the sheet until you have made a character that meets the barest minimum of choices as so to minimize the chance of newcomers making incomplete characters.
Find my D&D Beyond articles here