Character sheet (in progress)

[Sir Mad Munkee]

NOTE: latest version is KAPCharacterSheetv06.3.pdf

Hello sirs,

Design's my day job, and I thought why not apply it to fun too?

Here it is. Bigger additions:

• Fealty & Homage (not Loyalty) under passions.
• Skills compressed, and starting values de-emphasised (only need 'em once).
• Added squire details from the BoE.
• Added "Squires lost" – the hard-working (and dying) squire does not get enough credit if you ask me.
• Moved all the Glory bits together.
• Added space for the knight's Entourage on the back.

And bunches of little details.

Still working on it:

• The Attribute banners are stolen from the 5.0 sheet. I'd like to replace them, but I'm not much of an illustrator. Are you?
• It's missing some decorative elements that express the KAP atmosphere. See "are you an illustrator?" above.
• I'd sincerely like feedback and will work it in if possible. What are you missing? Do you see any problems?

Hope you like it and it proves useful. If you do use it in your game, let me know what you think!

 

KAPCharacterSheetv05.1.pdf

Edited April 2, 2019 by Sir Mad Munkee
kent taip

[Sir Mad Munkee]

Added a Family Record 3rd page, and nudged some details:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/6bxlnfwm2r6s0h9/KAPCharacterSheetv06.pdf?dl=0

[7dot62mm]

Nice! Thanks! That last page is especially useful.

[Sir Mad Munkee]

4 hours ago, 7dot62mm said:

Nice! Thanks! That last page is especially useful.

Cool, glad you like it & hope it proves useful in your game. Let me know if there’s anything missing or any errors anywhere. 👍🏻

[Cornelius]

Just some remarks:

Knightly skills: According to 5th ed. all the skills listed on your sheet are considered knightly. Only the skills Chirurgery, Fashion, Industry, and Crossbow are considered not knightly (but you did not place them on the sheet). The 5th ed book says that Stewardship is also non knightly, but I consider that to be an error.

Chivalry bonus: Although the official books still state that this is at 80+. Greg Stafford himself stated that this should be 96. In my game I use this value.

Homage and fealty: I would change the list and start with homage. Fealty is the passion you can have for several lords and I assume that this can be a different score for each of them (at least that is how I play it). So a PK could have several fealties, but only one homage.

[Sir Mad Munkee]

42 minutes ago, Cornelius said:

Knightly skills: According to 5th ed. all the skills listed on your sheet are considered knightly. Only the skills Chirurgery, Fashion, Industry, and Crossbow are considered not knightly (but you did not place them on the sheet). The 5th ed book says that Stewardship is also non knightly, but I consider that to be an error.

Yeah, I was also considering putting in a marker for "Courtly" skills as well, but really, knowing which ones might be knightly or courtly doesn't seem to make much difference to anything, other than maybe a "pump these skills up" guide for new players. I'll take the bold out.

As far as which skills I've listed, I was also specifically aiming at a sheet for Cymric (Spear expertise) knights in the Early Phase (no tournament etc.), so I've left out a few things. But there's space and checkboxes for skills to be added by hand if needed.

46 minutes ago, Cornelius said:

Chivalry bonus: Although the official books still state that this is at 80+. Greg Stafford himself stated that this should be 96. In my game I use this value.

Yup, just started a GPC run, and 2 of 4 characters ended up with the Chivalrous bonus straight out of the gates. Seems a bit dodgy. I'll put in 96.

Thanks for your feedback! 👍

[Hzark10]

Looks very nice.  Since you have Spear Expertise listed, you may as well as put Cymri as the culture as they are the only ones who get this meta-skill.

[Sir Mad Munkee]

Yeah, I guess that's true too. I've really been thinking I'd make a few different versions with, for example, the religious traits underlined, so one sheet for each religion. But then why not one for each culture, and then it'd have to be each culture/religion combo, and no no no. What a mess that'd be. But for my (and I'm guessing, most) games, Cymri is a good default.

[Hzark10]

Yes, I think you are catching on.  As it stands, 5.2 the default is Cymri.  Once you start using BoK&L or Book of Sires, then the additional ones open up.  However, the meta-skills are only in the former.

[Sir Mad Munkee]

So, taking the “knightly” skills thing out, making it clearly a Cymri default sheet, and adjusting the starting values to match Cymric defaults in BoK&L, and I’ll have a new version up Friday. 🙂 Thanks for the feedback guys!

[Atgxtg]

There is free character sheet designer program from NBOS that I used to use for KAP 4. You might want to look at it, because you could use it to make an editable sheet where you could pick culture related stuff. That could let you get away with one sheet for multiple cultures. I could send you my old sheet if you want something to start from. It's KAP 4 but it would still save you some work. 

Edited March 13, 2019 by Atgxtg

[Sir Mad Munkee]

Thanks, but I actually like the work. 😉 But I’d be happy to see what you’ve got.

And one of the main reasons I started on this was not the content, but rather the design. I felt the existing sheets needed a bit of tweaking as far as the order of things and what draws the eye. I’m guessing the program you mentioned wouldn’t solve those problems...

I’ll finish this one as a Cymric default (most common for most games), and then I’ll have a look at a “works for anyone” version.

Edited March 14, 2019 by Sir Mad Munkee

[Atgxtg]

2 hours ago, Sir Mad Munkee said:

Thanks, but I actually like the work. 😉 But I’d be happy to see what you’ve got.

So would I. I've got to find the files. I'll look through the hard drives. 

2 hours ago, Sir Mad Munkee said:

And one of the main reasons I started on this was not the content, but rather the design. I felt the existing sheets needed a bit of tweaking as far as the order of things and what draws the eye. I’m guessing the program you mentioned wouldn’t solve those problems...

Yes it would. You start with a blank sheet and get to put things where you want.It actually takes more work to try and get the layout of the existing sheets.  Now when I used it for KAP and D6 Star Wars I put the text boxes and such on top of a normal character sheet to match the look of the original, but that was actually more work. 

It's a free program so you can download it and give it a try and play around with it. . It might be easier for you that the ay your are doing ti now, and can automate some of calculations (such as hit points and damage dice). But I'm just throwing it out as an option. I don't own stock in the company or anything. 

 

[Sir Mad Munkee]

Ah, could be cool. But... it’s for Windows. That’s me out. 😞

[Sir Mad Munkee]

So, worked in the feedback so far, and a new version is here:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/agn12e5esbrbs5q/KAPCharacterSheetv06.1.pdf?dl=0

[Atgxtg]

Looked at the new version. It looks nice, but you forgot to underline the religious traits.

 

Some suggestions:

1. You might want to add lines next to the check marks for players to write in new skills and passions.

2. The Gear section needs to be bigger. There is really not space to write down the personal gear, war gear, etc. 

3. You might want to expand the wife section a little to include some of her other important skills, that are likely to get rolled in play, such as First Aid, Chruigery, and Siege. In fact most of the family info on the second page is sort of redundant when you have page three entirely devoted to the family. 

[Sir Mad Munkee]

54 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

Looked at the new version. It looks nice, but you forgot to underline the religious traits.

Intentionally. Considering religion is a choice, and different religions have different traits, I couldn't really underline them. I've assumed the GM will go through this with players at chargen, and once they've chosen a religion, he'll tell them which ones to underline. I'm pretty sure this is how all official sheets have been so far, isn't it?

54 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

1. You might want to add lines next to the check marks for players to write in new skills and passions.

Yeah, you may be right. I waver between "people aren't idiots and don't need lines to tell them where to write" and "well, guidelines are helpful", and you've made me aware that it's inconsistent in the current layout. Taken under advisement.

54 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

2. The Gear section needs to be bigger. There is really not space to write down the personal gear, war gear, etc. 

This is a case of me copying something from old sheets that I don't really ever use or think about myself. As a GM I don't get into punishing players for putting something on the wrong horse, and I can't think of anything more yawn-inducing than equipment micro-management. I generally just assume all that gear a knight should have, you have, and if, say, a horse sinks into a swamp, I might make a player roll thereafter to see if the gear he wants now is still on one of his remaining horses. But YPMV, yeah? I'll think about this one.

54 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

3. You might want to expand the wife section a little to include some of her other important skills, that are likely to get rolled in play, such as First Aid, Chruigery, and Siege. In fact most of the family info on the second page is sort of redundant when you have page three entirely devoted to the family. 

You are completely right. I did pages 1 and 2 by themselves, and only added page 3 later, without ever rethinking 1 & 2.

Great feedback, thanks!

Edited March 15, 2019 by Sir Mad Munkee

[Atgxtg]

2 minutes ago, Sir Mad Munkee said:

Intentionally. Considering religion is a choice, and different religions have different traits, I couldn't really underline them. I've assumed the GM will go through this with players at chargen, and once they've chosen a religion, he'll tell them which ones to underline. I'm pretty sure this is how all official sheets have been so far, isn't it?

Most. The lasted batch of offical sheets put cross sysmbols next to them, which IMO don't work as well. I was looking for underlines due to the workding of the Relgious Bonus box. 

2 minutes ago, Sir Mad Munkee said:

Yeah, you may be right. I waver between "people aren't idiots and don't need lines to tell them where to write" and "well, guidelines are helpful", and you've made me aware that it's inconsistent in the current layout. Taken under advisement.

I didn't suggest it becuase players aren't "idiots" (that a whole different debate) but merely that lines make for neater looking writing. 

2 minutes ago, Sir Mad Munkee said:

This is a case of me copying something from old sheets that I don't really ever use or think about myself. As a GM I don't get into punishing players for putting something on the wrong horse, and I can't think of anything more yawn-inducing than equipment micro-management. I generally just assume all that gear a knight should have, you have, and if, say, a horse sinks into a swamp, I might make a player roll thereafter to see if the gear he wants now is still on one of his remaining horses. But YPMV, yeah? I'll think about this one.

In that case why bother wasting space on the character sheet? You could put something else there. From my experience, I've rarely had situations where what was on which horse come up, and then it was more a case of explaining why they can't ride around in armor all the time.  I've found it more useful just to have a list somewhere  (on a back page) with just what is war gear, personal gear etc. Stuff like "Do I have a hatchet?"

2 minutes ago, Sir Mad Munkee said:

You are completely right. I did pages 1 and 2 by themselves, and only added page 3 later, without ever rethinking 1 & 2.

Great feedback, thanks!

It's a good character sheet and page 3 is pure gold, and I am going to print out copies of that for my players to keep track of their families.  You could probably make that it's own PDF. 

[Sir Mad Munkee]

Religious markings
This is one of those areas where I'm wishing that InDesign offered a little more in the way of interactive PDFs. I'd love to be able to make one where, when you select religion from a dropdown, the appropriate traits get underlined, and when you select a culture, the skills and their starting values change. As far as I know that's well beyond InDesign's capabilities, but I'm looking into it.

Gear
Yeah, like I said, copied it thinking, "I'd never use it, but YPMV so maybe someone needs it?" For my purposes I'll happily delete it and use that space for something more important & useful. Thinking about it.

Wives & family
You mentioning separating out the Family Record reminded me: the idea with the wife on page 2 was that, if someone used only pages 1 & 2 (the core character sheet) and didn't want to keep track of all the family stuff in so much detail (our Ps may V), they'd still have a place for the wife. And I imagine even people using the Family Record would only refer to it occasionally, when there's something to add or change, whereas the wife might be referred to more often. Also on the thinking list.

[Atgxtg]

5 minutes ago, Sir Mad Munkee said:

Religious markings
This is one of those areas where I'm wishing that InDesign offered a little more in the way of interactive PDFs. I'd love to be able to make one where, when you select religion from a dropdown, the appropriate traits get underlined, and when you select a culture, the skills and their starting values change. As far as I know that's well beyond InDesign's capabilities, but I'm looking into it.

Good Luck. Does InDesign allow for mutiple layers? That might be a work around. 

5 minutes ago, Sir Mad Munkee said:

Gear
Yeah, like I said, copied it thinking, "I'd never use it, but YPMV so maybe someone needs it?" For my purposes I'll happily delete it and use that space for something more important & useful. Thinking about it.

It's probably more of a page two thing, IMO. Most player know or quicjkly learn which orse carries what, in a basic sense and rarely have to look up which horse is carrying their armor and what not. It usually just "Make a Squire roll" to get something. 

5 minutes ago, Sir Mad Munkee said:

Wives & family
You mentioning separating out the Family Record reminded me: the idea with the wife on page 2 was that, if someone used only pages 1 & 2 (the core character sheet) and didn't want to keep track of all the family stuff in so much detail (our Ps may V), they'd still have a place for the wife. And I imagine even people using the Family Record would only refer to it occasionally, when there's something to add or change, whereas the wife might be referred to more often. Also on the thinking list.

The family sheet is very useful for the Winter Phase. Tracking sons (the next PKs) is important, and having a sheet that keeps that stuff all nice and neat is great. I've been working on trying to combine teh family sheet like yours with a followers sheet with info for Squires, Wives and the Army. In my campaign the landed PKs have been upgrading their footsoldiers as finances and circumstances allow, so tracking them is become more of an issue.  

[Sir Mad Munkee]

6 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

Good Luck. Does InDesign allow for mutiple layers? That might be a work around. 

Oh yeah. This file currently has over 20 layers, but only because I separate the various sections – Passions, Traits, Skills, etc. – into different layers, so I can turn them on and off at will. What InDesign doesn't enable you to do (as far as I know) is to build interactive elements that export into a PDF with logic behind them, like "if British Christian is selected here, turn these layers on and hide those." If I ever decide this is finished-finished, then I could create layers for all the variations, and export a Cymric-British-Christian sheet, and a Cymric-Pagan sheet, etcetera ad nauseum, but that sounds like a bit of a headache. Especially when someone like you throws in one more really good idea. 😆

 

[Atgxtg]

 

On 3/13/2019 at 4:33 AM, Cornelius said:

The 5th ed book says that Stewardship is also non knightly, but I consider that to be an error.

It's not. Knights generally aren't supposed to manage land, that borders on doing work!. That is what their wives or a steward are for. The exception is if a knight is a officer for a noble, in which case it is okay for them to do it. But generally knights only get some skill in this just to be able to follow what their land manager is doing. 

[Sir Mad Munkee]

Used these in my campaign last weekend, and other than the Traits area being perhaps a little too cramped (vertically), we were all pretty happy with them.  When I can get to it I'll adjust based on the latest feedback, and post a new version. 👍

[Sir Mad Munkee]

So, another little update:

• Add the Pugnacious bonus to Traits, for those who want to use it.
• More space for Directed Traits and Passions.
• Moved Gear to page 2, and added Wealth to it (with a reminder how many d. are in 1s. are in 1£, which I and everyone in my games always forget), with lots more space.
• Added space on page 2 for hired fighting men.
• Removed family from page 2. That's what the Family Record is for.
• Removed page 3 entirely, and broke it out into the  Family Record PDF.
• Misc. visual fine-tuning overall.

You can find the new version here: KAPCharacterSheetv06.2.pdf

Edited March 22, 2019 by Sir Mad Munkee

[mandrill_one]

Where does the "Pugnacious" bonus come from?

I think I've never heard of it...