Printable Character Sheet

[Polsih]

Have to give credit to a guildie for this one ... but, it would certainly be a nice addition to be able to print out a character sheet of our characters.

While this isn't PnP, a printable character sheet is almost an essential element of D&D and would seem to be a nice addition to DDO. Or, to kill less trees, the ability to send your character sheet to an email would be a nice alternative.

Something along the lines of:
/sendcharsheet [insert email address here]; to email a char sheet
/printcharsheet; to print a char sheet to your default printer

With your stats/skills & misc info on the first page & your items listed by backpack & bank slots on the second page. Quest/favor could make a third page. All suitable for framing, of course!

[BlueLightBandit]

Ctrl+P does the same thing...

You should notice that the "Character Sheet" often misrepresents the "actual numbers" when it comes to stats that change often. Tohit numbers are obscenely miscalculated based on what the inventory screen shows, and quite often AC numbers aren't updated in real time.

A character sheet like you're looking for wouldn't be hard to recreate with your existing pen and paper character sheet... you know... with a pen and a piece of paper.

This brings about an important question though... what are you going to be doing out of game with your character info... and why should Turbine put forth effort to transfer their data into a format designed to leave their hands?

[Polsih]

I haven't really thought about what evil purposes I or others might do with said information. I suppose there could be some nefarious use of the information with regard to Plat Farming. But, here are some innocent uses I might use it for:

-- Did I mention that it would be suitable for framing?
-- It's just a bit unseemly to me that a D&D based game wouldn't have a Character Sheet. Oh, sure ... there's an electronic version online ... but, I can't send it to my friends so they can see it. Which brings up ...
-- You can readily send it to a friend for build advice or just to share.
-- When on with Char #1 and I stumble across a non-bound item, I can easily check if it's better than the item I already am using on Char #2 without having to log-out, log-in, log-out, log-in and then send the item.
-- If I'm in the Desert, for example, and I wonder what I have in the bank ... it could save me the trip back to the marketplace.

And, Character Sheets are D&D ... aren't they!?

[BlueLightBandit]

Nobody said nefarious... Turbine is going to spend their man-hours to develop the functions and content relating to the game. Here are some alternative sources for what you are looking to do with your character sheet.

You mentioned sending someone your build information for critique... people do it every day here on the forums without a "sheet" from Turbine... Ron's character planner is an awesome tool and even has a function where you can copy and paste your build information in a forum friendly or an email friendly text format.

You can always keep a spreadsheet with your inventory, with columns for equipped and regularly used items as well as items currently held in the bank. That way you can alt+tab from DDO to excel or whatever document you want without having to log into another character.

As far as hanging it on the wall... You could go in any number of directions with that. A. Turbine isn't legally allowed to market DDO, so that may be construed as a contractual limitation. B. Turbine isn't really in the business of spending their man-hours on artwork, heck we don't even have new splash animations during loading screens. C. I dare say you could make your own template in some Google docs or OpenOffice.org document with D&D logos borrowed from any number of similarly themed websites and do a good enough job for that... heck if you want to you could even share the fruits of your labor with the rest of us here on the forums.

And yes... while character sheets are D&D... I have to point out that this is DDO, not D&D. Similar, but just not the same thing.

[baylensman]

A. Turbine isn't legally allowed to market DDO, so that may be construed as a contractual limitation

Explain this please turbine is legally not allowed to market its own product??

[LinBird]

I would love a Char sheet. Does not sound like something that would be to taxing on Turbine Dev staff. Just mere reporting. No in game integration.

[Hambo]

I would LOVE to have this ability! I'm trying to build a database application to track all of my characters and their inventory and having the ability to take "snapshots" of the characters would make it easy(er) to import the data. Combined with the character builder, planning new builds would be much easier.

[Polsih]

I don't disagree that I have alternative solutions ... manual ones. I do from time to time write down or type up my inventory. And, I have utilized Ron's excellent character builder. What I'm suggesting would be a nice little utility which would add some tangible benefits for some folks who are like-minded.

I would expect that this wouldn't take any time away from content/dungeon development as I would think they wouldn't put a dungeon developer on this assignment. It doesn't have to be the most beautiful thing on the planet. Just a simple csv file would be enough for anyone (myself included) to then take and create a functional character sheet from. If Turbine saw it as something that they wanted to take a step further, and wanted to add in jpgs of your character and icons of your equipment ... heck, that would be great.

A char sheet would be an added feature. Those who didn't want it ... don't need to use it. It might attract a few customers. It might be a nice feature that keeps them on for another month or so. One thing I suspect it wouldn't do is deter someone from joining, or drive them away.

So, while I agree that this is DDO ... not D&D ... it is based on D&D and a smart-utilization of the ruleset for the purposes of an MMO. Characters have stats, skills and equipment just like D&D. Call me old-fashioned, but that, to me, screams out for a character sheet that I can hold in my hand.

[Pellegro]

A key aspect of D&D for many is sifting through the numbers, figurign out best configs, etc.

Inventory management is critical to letting these types do this type of thing (e.g. best items for each char; etc.).

Having some kind of printable inventory would be a fantastic addition.

ps - Show of hands: How many of you track your inventory in XL or similar app? I do !!!

[Mr._Dna]

I am far too lazy to keep track of all my items. I don't care about the rest of it, I just want to be able to export a list of all the loot in my packs and banks so I can look over it quickly. It most likely will never happen, but it would be a really cool feature.

[GuitarHero]

A. Turbine isn't legally allowed to market DDO, so that may be construed as a contractual limitation

Explain this please turbine is legally not allowed to market its own product??

its not turbine's product. It is WotC's product, licenced to Atari, who contracted Turbine into developing it. Turbine makes the game, Atari (suposedly) markets the game, WotC oversees all this and lends its name to the game.

[kingzero]

Well if Turbine ever felt the need to relabel some of the core files, we could figure it out on our own...but until then....your guess is as good as mine as to where that information is stored....it's a mystery, like why The George Lopez Show is on Nick at Nite.

.ini files are beautiful things, btw!

HELP US HELP YOU TURBINE!

Maybe its a conundrum?

[whats a conundrum?]

it's a riddle wrapped inside of a burrito

[why would you wrap a riddle inside of a burrito?]

dunno, its a conundrum

[BlueLightBandit]

Call me old-fashioned, but that, to me, screams out for a character sheet that I can hold in my hand.

You're old fashioned... and you should play on a laptop then, I do.

I do my character inventory in my head... not specifics, but I build each character differently, to use different items. So all of my items of X type go to one character, if he/she/it doesn't want em, they get mailed to my bard who then either sells them, puts em on the AH, or finds a nice newb running around the harbor. It works because my bard then uses that wonderful charisma and haggle to buy supplies for my other characters at a deeply discounted rate.

I know the gist of my 9 characters stats pretty much off the top of my head, maxed str, high con, (does it really matter if it's a 30 or a 32?). I have a reasonably good idea of what my characters UMD is (it's either high, or non-existant) so I know if they can use that rr halfing item. Their attack bonuses and enhancements... well there's no reason for me to know those oog, so I don't bother.

I think someone said it earlier... Lazy. If a PnP style character sheet is what you want... you put a little effort into it and make your own, they're not hard at all. The problem comes in game that things change so fast, boosts, buffs, switching weapons... the amount of usable information on a static character sheet would be dwarfed by the amount of dynamic information for every situation... It would make it so all the static info would be a few items combined with stats, skills and enhancements. That really would take... what... five minutes per character to do yourself?