I play a druid in one of my games. I find it increasingly difficult to deal with my Wild Shape due to the necessity of having to keep different animal stats on hand (or thumb through the PHB to find a creature) every time I want to change form.
This got me thinking about the upcoming D&D Beyond Character Sheets. It would be hugely awesome if there was a Wild Shape/Shape Shift/Polymorph panel built into the character sheet that slid out and offered a dynamic list of creatures (based on your druid level / CR rating of the creature) that you could choose from and it would immediately pull that creature's stats and display them. In addition to the stats being displayed, a hit point counter could be used to track that form's HP independently of your character's HP. I don't know if there will be an online dice roller built into the sheet, but if there is, it would also be handy to have the selected creature change your dice to match that creature's attack/damage rolls too.
What are your thoughts? Any other wishes regarding the upcoming D&D Character Sheet?
I play a druid in one of my games. I find it increasingly difficult to deal with my Wild Shape due to the necessity of having to keep different animal stats on hand (or thumb through the PHB to find a creature) every time I want to change form.
This got me thinking about the upcoming D&D Beyond Character Sheets. It would be hugely awesome if there was a Wild Shape/Shape Shift/Polymorph panel built into the character sheet that slid out and offered a dynamic list of creatures (based on your druid level / CR rating of the creature) that you could choose from and it would immediately pull that creature's stats and display them. In addition to the stats being displayed, a hit point counter could be used to track that form's HP independently of your character's HP. I don't know if there will be an online dice roller built into the sheet, but if there is, it would also be handy to have the selected creature change your dice to match that creature's attack/damage rolls too.
What are your thoughts? Any other wishes regarding the upcoming D&D Character Sheet?
Are you reading my mind? Get out of my head...Gotta attune to my ring of mind shielding!
In the D&D DM guide book, there's information on 2 variant rules stats, honor and sanity. If the character sheets are made online, could these be added please?
DM in the kobold fight club "Yes i know this is insane, but my usual players are murderhobos." Birdman in adventures in faerun "Flapping wings" (telepathy) "The enemies are overwhelming us, i'll go break their minds." Irthos Bladesinger in trouble in timberbottom (DED) (All PbP)
That same mechanic could be useful for non-character attached beasties (familiars, war-horses, trained attack poodles, etc).
What's the better user experience?
Class-defined bestiaries built into a character sheet
or
User curated lists of things that can be added to a character sheet?
I would think the latter would be more versatile. Some of these instances are not defined by class. e.g. A mage might be skilled enough to ride a warhorse that could be counted on to remain stationary and stable in the midst of a fight without the mage having to use a power word on it or the like. That thief that has trained the spider monkey to snag purses, keys, etc. might be needing those stats when the monkey has been discovered.
Good question. Having choices and customization are always good things to have but you wouldn't want to the UX to suffer due to complexity. I would suggest the list be made of all approved class-defined bestiaries then have a mechanism to filter by criteria, mark as favorite, and add custom item... If you wanted to curate a list, it would be simply to mark that item as a favorite and then apply filters to your favorites list.
Lets go ahead and make this a megathread for everyone's hopes and wishlists for the upcoming character sheet. Will make it much easier for us to see all the feedback!
This might go with out saying but it'd be great for summon spells too. I use conjure fey a lot and I still don't know all of the options because it's hard to thumb through the monster manual for things like fey since there's so many. The new search section in DDB is already a God send, but I can't help but ask for more :P. Also it'd be nice if this feature took into account spells that summoned multiple creatures like the conjure spells. Its hard to manage 8 sprites all casting buffs on the team...
P.S.
This may have been said already but it'd also be nice if those spells had links to applicable creatures on the spell page. Just saves me having to flick through another screen to search.
This might go with out saying but it'd be great for summon spells too. I use conjure fey a lot and I still don't know all of the options because it's hard to thumb through the monster manual for things like fey since there's so many. The new search section in DDB is already a God send, but I can't help but ask for more :P. Also it'd be nice if this feature took into account spells that summoned multiple creatures like the conjure spells. Its hard to manage 8 sprites all casting buffs on the team...
P.S.
This may have been said already but it'd also be nice if those spells had links to applicable creatures on the spell page. Just saves me having to flick through another screen to search.
Great idea! As a design question - how do you envision this "multiple creature" panel to look and operate? Would the panel list each creature as a, for the lack of a better term, line item that can then be expanded to see individual stats/HP/actions?
I would like to request either customizable fields in the character sheet OR ones that are based on class and college, circle, domain etc. This could also work for those races or classes that have a once per (day, long rest, short rest) spell or ability. I have modified some character sheets for friends I play with specifically for these, which makes forgetting about them harder.
Examples. For bard have a bardic inspiration tracker, that also resets on the correct rest. Divination wizard having area to input the portent dice rolls.
How's it going to come down to managing variable class features like the Warlock's Invocations? Would having levels in Warlock on a character sheet unlock an 'Invocations' tab/page/list? Or are we intended to simply manage those ourselves on a blank Class Features text field not dissimilar from a current form-fillable pdf?
If I add the mage armor Invocation to my warlock, could my warlock spellbook be auto-populated with the Mage Armor spell?
Is something like that even remotely within the realm of possibility with DnDBeyond?
One of the thing is required in my opinion, is the ability to roll checks from within the character sheets by simply clicking on the stats. Similar to the smart sheets on roll20.
It would also be helpful to design the character sheet so that the abilities and such were sticky at the top/side of the page. It becomes a small nuisance to have to click back to the main page of a character sheet (while trying to reference a spell or note) just to make a saving throw or ability check. Easy access to these basic and recurring actions would be really handy. Any design choice (sticky areas, modal windows, sliding panels) that reduces the amount of clicks and present information on demand is always a good choice IMO.
Good point. The biggest thing that might help out DM's is a health tracker.
I think the most reasonable thing would be a link to the monster entry and a health tracker, but initiative and a spell slot tracker for controlled units would be nice as well. It moves tedious note taking off of the table and onto the screen which I think is the point of a lot of the DDB features.
Of course the devs only have so much screen space so a collapsible list of creatures on the side might be more reasonable. Before expanding it might just list bookmarked creature's name, AC, and HP. After expanding maybe attributes, actions, and spell slots/uses left on abilities. CR and speed could be in there too. If space is a bigger problem I'd take just a picture and name before expanding. This list could be used to track commonly summoned units, wildshape options, animal companions, NPC's, or attack poodles/chiweenies.
Also some spells have ludicrous number of targets so it'd be reasonable if we could just favorite common targets and have those on the side. This could probably work for the druid wildshape issue too and help keep track of our attack poodles. If they allowed duplicate creature types that could cover the swarm spell issues too rather than arbitrarily limiting no duplicates.
In summary, collapsible list of associated creature somewhere on the character sheet page might be nice (my mental image is to the right in a similar fashion to the current spell list page but smaller). HP and AC could show for quick reference and access collapsed and have more detail if expanded. This helps out Rangers, Druids, Summoning spells, and even associated NPC's that someone might have following their character. They could even let us name them if we wanted ^_^.
Its not too different from what you had in mind Mesclin. Hopefully that didn't come out too rambly I had a lot of thoughts all at once... What did you have in mind? I'm just trying to move controlled units and other associated character sheets onto one page with base stats. Basically any class could make use of this I think.
You guys have any ideas I didn't think of or need any clarification? Its kinda hard to describe without visuals :P.
"How's it going to come down to managing variable class features like the Warlock's Invocations? Would having levels in Warlock on a character sheet unlock an 'Invocations' tab/page/list? Or are we intended to simply manage those ourselves on a blank Class Features text field not dissimilar from a current form-fillable pdf?
If I add the mage armor Invocation to my warlock, could my warlock spellbook be auto-populated with the Mage Armor spell?
Is something like that even remotely within the realm of possibility with DnDBeyond?"
(PS sorry this isn't a real quote I meant to but couldnt' figure out how to edit one in so I copied it)
I think that'd be useful for anyone with mage armor. The sheet changing in real time to account for stat changing abilities would be helpful. This especially true for AC since mage armor is on basically everyone's sheet that can have it, and it has an 8 hour duration so its usually up. This might be even more helpful for bladesingers since they also get an AC boost while bladesinging so having the sheet change to account for that would be so useful.
I think one of the biggest things for me will be for classes like druids or clerics that have access to all their spells but need to prepare them, a slim and clean list that i can flag spells as my prepared spells would be awesome. The list should be small and probably scrollable, with hover feature to get details on the spell, and the list of spells should be restricted to my class and domain.
I'm assuming the sheet will take up multiple pages, tabs, or screens. If I'm right, can we separate the stuff thusly:
Combat page: AC, HP, saves, initiative bonus, weapon and armor details, combat abilities listed, prepared combat spells listed. Since we're working on a digital platform, it should be possible to digitally manage space so that all of these fit.
Social/Exploration page: name, appearance, equipment (without listing damage and other combat details), skills, non combat traits, features, abilities and other prepared spells.
Companion page: animal companion, mounts, donkeys, dogs, possible summoning conjurations, and even wildshapes, since they fit the format. So, maybe call it the companion form page.
Spell preparation page: list all possible spells to select those to prepare each day.
Character building page: list all the choices made for the build, from ability score selection or rolling, to race and subrace choices, to every choice made when you level up.
Possessions page: list all equipment, currency, and magic items, but also stuff not carried (this would work well towards the campaign management phase, but also determines the load on the mount). What items are worn where (sometimes we have to pick which magic item to put in a certain slot). Maybe even options for different loadouts.
I play a druid in one of my games. I find it increasingly difficult to deal with my Wild Shape due to the necessity of having to keep different animal stats on hand (or thumb through the PHB to find a creature) every time I want to change form.
This got me thinking about the upcoming D&D Beyond Character Sheets. It would be hugely awesome if there was a Wild Shape/Shape Shift/Polymorph panel built into the character sheet that slid out and offered a dynamic list of creatures (based on your druid level / CR rating of the creature) that you could choose from and it would immediately pull that creature's stats and display them. In addition to the stats being displayed, a hit point counter could be used to track that form's HP independently of your character's HP. I don't know if there will be an online dice roller built into the sheet, but if there is, it would also be handy to have the selected creature change your dice to match that creature's attack/damage rolls too.
What are your thoughts? Any other wishes regarding the upcoming D&D Character Sheet?
That is a great idea.
That same mechanic could be useful for non-character attached beasties (familiars, war-horses, trained attack poodles, etc).
I hate forum signatures.
In the D&D DM guide book, there's information on 2 variant rules stats, honor and sanity. If the character sheets are made online, could these be added please?
I'm that cat guy, and i do stuff. Youtube account: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGyrtkNMBOOCxyH4Eueno3w
Tabaxi Bard Level 15
DM in the kobold fight club "Yes i know this is insane, but my usual players are murderhobos."
Birdman in adventures in faerun "Flapping wings" (telepathy) "The enemies are overwhelming us, i'll go break their minds."
Irthos Bladesinger in trouble in timberbottom (DED)
(All PbP)
Good question. Having choices and customization are always good things to have but you wouldn't want to the UX to suffer due to complexity. I would suggest the list be made of all approved class-defined bestiaries then have a mechanism to filter by criteria, mark as favorite, and add custom item... If you wanted to curate a list, it would be simply to mark that item as a favorite and then apply filters to your favorites list.
@BadEye - Great minds think alike!
Lets go ahead and make this a megathread for everyone's hopes and wishlists for the upcoming character sheet. Will make it much easier for us to see all the feedback!
I do stuff, sometimes.
This might go with out saying but it'd be great for summon spells too. I use conjure fey a lot and I still don't know all of the options because it's hard to thumb through the monster manual for things like fey since there's so many. The new search section in DDB is already a God send, but I can't help but ask for more :P. Also it'd be nice if this feature took into account spells that summoned multiple creatures like the conjure spells. Its hard to manage 8 sprites all casting buffs on the team...
P.S.
This may have been said already but it'd also be nice if those spells had links to applicable creatures on the spell page. Just saves me having to flick through another screen to search.
I would like to request either customizable fields in the character sheet OR ones that are based on class and college, circle, domain etc. This could also work for those races or classes that have a once per (day, long rest, short rest) spell or ability. I have modified some character sheets for friends I play with specifically for these, which makes forgetting about them harder.
Examples. For bard have a bardic inspiration tracker, that also resets on the correct rest. Divination wizard having area to input the portent dice rolls.
How's it going to come down to managing variable class features like the Warlock's Invocations? Would having levels in Warlock on a character sheet unlock an 'Invocations' tab/page/list? Or are we intended to simply manage those ourselves on a blank Class Features text field not dissimilar from a current form-fillable pdf?
If I add the mage armor Invocation to my warlock, could my warlock spellbook be auto-populated with the Mage Armor spell?
Is something like that even remotely within the realm of possibility with DnDBeyond?
I hate forum signatures.
One of the thing is required in my opinion, is the ability to roll checks from within the character sheets by simply clicking on the stats. Similar to the smart sheets on roll20.
It would also be helpful to design the character sheet so that the abilities and such were sticky at the top/side of the page. It becomes a small nuisance to have to click back to the main page of a character sheet (while trying to reference a spell or note) just to make a saving throw or ability check. Easy access to these basic and recurring actions would be really handy. Any design choice (sticky areas, modal windows, sliding panels) that reduces the amount of clicks and present information on demand is always a good choice IMO.
Good point. The biggest thing that might help out DM's is a health tracker.
I think the most reasonable thing would be a link to the monster entry and a health tracker, but initiative and a spell slot tracker for controlled units would be nice as well. It moves tedious note taking off of the table and onto the screen which I think is the point of a lot of the DDB features.
Of course the devs only have so much screen space so a collapsible list of creatures on the side might be more reasonable. Before expanding it might just list bookmarked creature's name, AC, and HP. After expanding maybe attributes, actions, and spell slots/uses left on abilities. CR and speed could be in there too. If space is a bigger problem I'd take just a picture and name before expanding. This list could be used to track commonly summoned units, wildshape options, animal companions, NPC's, or attack poodles/chiweenies.
Also some spells have ludicrous number of targets so it'd be reasonable if we could just favorite common targets and have those on the side. This could probably work for the druid wildshape issue too and help keep track of our attack poodles. If they allowed duplicate creature types that could cover the swarm spell issues too rather than arbitrarily limiting no duplicates.
In summary, collapsible list of associated creature somewhere on the character sheet page might be nice (my mental image is to the right in a similar fashion to the current spell list page but smaller). HP and AC could show for quick reference and access collapsed and have more detail if expanded. This helps out Rangers, Druids, Summoning spells, and even associated NPC's that someone might have following their character. They could even let us name them if we wanted ^_^.
Its not too different from what you had in mind Mesclin. Hopefully that didn't come out too rambly I had a lot of thoughts all at once... What did you have in mind? I'm just trying to move controlled units and other associated character sheets onto one page with base stats. Basically any class could make use of this I think.
You guys have any ideas I didn't think of or need any clarification? Its kinda hard to describe without visuals :P.
"How's it going to come down to managing variable class features like the Warlock's Invocations? Would having levels in Warlock on a character sheet unlock an 'Invocations' tab/page/list? Or are we intended to simply manage those ourselves on a blank Class Features text field not dissimilar from a current form-fillable pdf?
If I add the mage armor Invocation to my warlock, could my warlock spellbook be auto-populated with the Mage Armor spell?
Is something like that even remotely within the realm of possibility with DnDBeyond?"
(PS sorry this isn't a real quote I meant to but couldnt' figure out how to edit one in so I copied it)
I think that'd be useful for anyone with mage armor. The sheet changing in real time to account for stat changing abilities would be helpful. This especially true for AC since mage armor is on basically everyone's sheet that can have it, and it has an 8 hour duration so its usually up. This might be even more helpful for bladesingers since they also get an AC boost while bladesinging so having the sheet change to account for that would be so useful.
I think one of the biggest things for me will be for classes like druids or clerics that have access to all their spells but need to prepare them, a slim and clean list that i can flag spells as my prepared spells would be awesome. The list should be small and probably scrollable, with hover feature to get details on the spell, and the list of spells should be restricted to my class and domain.
I'm assuming the sheet will take up multiple pages, tabs, or screens. If I'm right, can we separate the stuff thusly:
My 5e Houserule Considerations. Please comment freely.