Excel Character Sheet

coronatiger · 09-27-2018, 10:33 AM

Whenever I play an RPG, I prefer to have an electronic character sheet. That way, it's easy to change things without risking rubbing holes in the sheet.

When I started playing GURPS a couple of years ago, I decided that I could use a spreadsheet to calculate all the different formulas (Basic Speed, Basic Lift and so on) automatically. It started off as a pretty simple spreadsheet with four pages (front page, attributes, traits and skills), but over the months and years I've added new content, and it's become quite large. (Of course, a player doesn't have to use all the pages of it, just the ones that are relevant to them.)

At the beginning, I only used it for my own character, but the rest of my play group picked it up as well, seeing the benefit of skipping all the calculations that they otherwise would have to do manually. Most formulas in the GURPS books are pretty simple, but having to redo half of them just because you purchased another level of DX can be tedious.

I know that there exists a character assistant software application, but I like to tinker with things and customize them to suit my own needs, so I decided to make my own. It's developed in Excel (desktop version) and doesn't use macros, but some of the people I play with still have minor difficulties (like being unable to add new rows to tables) when using Excel online or non-Excel spreadsheet applications.

I lately convinced myself that it would be a good idea to upload the character sheet to the big Internet so that other people could reap the fruits of my labor too. Over the past few days, I've made some "final" tweaks to the character sheet, as well as writing a user manual.

In addition to the user manual and the character sheet itself, there is a text document where I log step by step how to upgrade from one version of the character sheet to the next. The log exists primarily for the players in my group who wish to have the newest version, but don't want to copy all their data from an older sheet to the newest one, when they could upgrade by themselves in less time. One of my players suggested that there are some people out there who like to read such things, so I decided to publish the change log as well. Be aware that my language settings in Excel use comma ( , ) as decimal separator and semicolon ( ; ) as parameter separator, so you may not be able to just copy-and-paste them.

I've put the documents in a public Google Drive folder: Character Sheet folder

If you see any bugs/errors, or if you have suggestions for changes or additions to the character sheet, please let me know. New versions of the character sheet will be published at irregular intervals.

coronatiger · 09-29-2018, 04:02 AM

Current Version
24.0 (released 2022-05-26)

General features

Open source; you can see and modify all formulas
Practically no need for manual calculations (and because the character sheet is a spreadsheet, you can easily add your own formulas)
Protected and color coded sheets to prevent unintended overwriting of formulas; no password is needed to unprotect

Front Page sheet

Information about the Character Sheet
General information about the character (name, gender, age etc)
Physical description
Psychological description (aka role playing cues)
Picture (no custom feature, just a possibility with Excel)

Attributes sheet

Purchase primary and secondary attributes
List of points gained initially and during play
Calculation of point value and unspent points; point value may be set to a percentage of another character's point total
Points spent on attributes, advantages, languages, skills, techniques and spells are subtracted from unspent points
Calculation of points received for lowered attributes and disadvantages (to make sure you don't exceed the campaign disadvantage limit)
Extract of reaction modifiers (from Traits sheet)
Extract of fright check modifiers (from Traits sheet)

Attr Mods sheet

Enter your list of enhancements and limitations applied to attributes (attribute costs are automatically modified)
Customize striking strength (you can have different scores with different attacks)
Define different movement types, like ground move, air move and water move

Form sheet

Enter your racial template and alternate forms here
What you enter on this sheet is part of your templates, and don't count towards campaign disadvantage limit

Traits sheet

Enter your list of advantages, disadvantages, perks, quirks and 0-point features
Calculation of costs based on base cost, level, frequency of appearance and self-control roll
You can specify bonuses to reaction rolls, fright checks, skills (including from dabbler traits), techniques, spells, defenses and DR

Trait Mods sheet

Enter your list of enhancements and limitations applied to advantages and disadvantages (their costs are automatically modified)
Enter your list of languages with both spoken and written comprehension levels (in a separate table)

Skills sheet

List of all the skills in Basic Set and Martial Arts; you may add more
Calculation of skill value based on points spent, defaults and bonuses/penalties from traits
Automatic recalculation of skill value if you choose another attribute on which to base a skill

Techniques sheet

List of all the techniques in Basic Set and Martial Arts; you may add more
Calculation of skill values based on points spent, base skill and bonuses/penalties from traits

Spells sheet

List of all the spells in Magic and Thaumatology; you may add more
Calculations of skill value based on points spent and bonuses/penalties from traits
You can specify temporary bonuses/penalties to spells
One college Magery included
Spells can be learned/trained like skills (standard magic) or like techniques (ritual magic)

Current Status sheet

Extract of weapon stats and calculation of damage and range, with attack and defense skill values modified by posture, shield/cloak defense bonus, speed/range/size of target, aim/evaluate bonus
Table of temporary effects which can be toggled on or off
You can choose different skills or techniques for attack and defense scores
Extract of armor stats
Calculation of status based on lost HP and expended FP
List of energy reserves
List of power items
Table of Per-based skills, with scores adjusted for acute senses
Toggle which alternate form you're currently wearing
List of body parts with to-hit-penalties and calculated armor
DR values for both regular and crushing

Calculations sheet

Table lookups
Calculation of probability of crit/success/fail/fumble based on effective skill
Calculation of digging speed
Calculation of how long you can hold your breath
Calculation of jumping and throwing distances
Calculation of slam, shield rush and falling damage
Calculations related to missed sleep
Calculation of daily travel distance
Relative gravity included in calculations
Extra effort included in calculations
Conversion between units of length, area, volume, weight and temperature
Calculation of hearing bonus/penalty based on distance and type of sound

Equipment sheet

Enter your list of equipment, including weapons, ammunition, armor and containers
Optional auto-calculation of cost and weight based on which body parts the armor covers
All items can be containers, and you may put containers inside other containers
Calculation of whether you brought a weapon, armor or equipment with you, based on which container it's in
Reduction of effective weight of items carried in a cart/wagon etc
"Bag of holding" style containers
You count as a container for items you carry that aren't in other containers
Enter your horse and other characters as containers - encumbrance is calculated
Calculation of total weight carried and encumbrance level
Calculation of total value of items owned and carried
Calculation of money owned and carried

Diary sheet

Make notes here :)

Time Use sheet

Keep track of what you spend your time on between adventures
Keep track of study time towards various skills, techniques and traits

House Rules sheet

Toggle house rules on or off. All relevant formulas are recalculated.
"Don't round off Basic Move"
"Loss of ST due to having FP less than 1/3 max FP affects ALL ST-based quantities except HP"
"If a spell belongs to several colleges, bonuses of all instances of college Magery stack"
"Being reeling from both HP loss and FP loss doesn't divide Move and Dodge by 4"
"Magery doesn't add to spell levels"
"Convert extra damage to dice"
"Allow ST in excess of weapon ST requirement x3 to improve damage with weapons"
"Use metric units in Calculations sheet"
"Don't apply encumbrance penalty to skill scores"
"Don't apply encumbrance penalty to Dodge"
"Don't apply encumbrance penalty to Move"

Captain Joy · 02-20-2019, 07:13 AM

Amazing. And, well done!

I've cobbled together a shadow of what you've done for Mac Pages. You've inspired me to continue working on it. If/when I do, I may steel much from your design/algorithms; with your blessing, of course.

coronatiger · 02-20-2019, 09:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain Joy

Amazing. And, well done!

I've cobbled together a shadow of what you've done for Mac Pages. You've inspired me to continue working on it. If/when I do, I may steel much from your design/algorithms; with your blessing, of course.

Feel free to do so! If you have any ideas to stuff I can put into the Character Sheet, post them here.

Mavelic · 02-21-2019, 11:20 AM

Excel'lent job ! ;)
Very useful, a interesting alternative to GCA.
TY

Anaraxes · 02-21-2019, 05:39 PM

In addition to GCA (the official character design program), there's also GURPS Character Sheet (GCS). It's in Java, and open source, if that's your thing.

Data entry for all the traits seems to me to be one of the biggest hurdles, at least measured by tedium per unit progress. One of my wish-list items for a 5e, should they ever do one, would be an official set of data files with a documented format that people could use for their own play aids.

Celjabba · 02-27-2019, 06:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by coronatiger

Feel free to do so! If you have any ideas to stuff I can put into the Character Sheet, post them here.

Nice work !!

One possible addition would be to add a column in the skill tabs with the skills categories (from the free PDF "Skills categories"), so you can filter down by categories ? I find it help a lot at creation.

In my copy, I may also rename the "GM ban" column with "GM order" and add the "Mandatory" choice, for skills the character must have.

Another possible modification to the skill tab: adding a "bonus to default only" column, to enable the use of dabbler perks ?

And another suggestion : modifying the Current status weapon damage calculations to take max ST (=3*min st) into account ? (it is rarely applicable, and would complicate the formulas a lot, so just making the suggestion for completeness. I just mention it because I am trying your sheet with a character from the "DF max ST thread" which do hit a lot of edge cases...)

coronatiger · 02-27-2019, 04:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Celjabba

Nice work !!

One possible addition would be to add a column in the skill tabs with the skills categories (from the free PDF "Skills categories"), so you can filter down by categories ? I find it help a lot at creation.

In my copy, I may also rename the "GM ban" column with "GM order" and add the "Mandatory" choice, for skills the character must have.

Another possible modification to the skill tab: adding a "bonus to default only" column, to enable the use of dabbler perks ?

And another suggestion : modifying the Current status weapon damage calculations to take max ST (=3*min st) into account ? (it is rarely applicable, and would complicate the formulas a lot, so just making the suggestion for completeness. I just mention it because I am trying your sheet with a character from the "DF max ST thread" which do hit a lot of edge cases...)

These are all great ideas, and they are now implemented in version 12.0, which I just released.

coronatiger · 03-01-2019, 05:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Celjabba

I just mention it because I am trying your sheet with a character from the "DF max ST thread" which do hit a lot of edge cases...)

Let me know of any other edge cases you can think of. As long as they don't contradict RAW, I might as well include them, even if most users won't be affected.

Captain Joy · 03-15-2019, 01:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by coronatiger

I've put the documents in a public Google Drive folder: Character Sheet folder

What's up with the "Mattea Vishi (public version)" file?

09-27-2018, 10:33 AM	#1
coronatiger Join Date: Apr 2018 Location: Trondheim, Norway	Excel Character Sheet Whenever I play an RPG, I prefer to have an electronic character sheet. That way, it's easy to change things without risking rubbing holes in the sheet. When I started playing GURPS a couple of years ago, I decided that I could use a spreadsheet to calculate all the different formulas (Basic Speed, Basic Lift and so on) automatically. It started off as a pretty simple spreadsheet with four pages (front page, attributes, traits and skills), but over the months and years I've added new content, and it's become quite large. (Of course, a player doesn't have to use all the pages of it, just the ones that are relevant to them.) At the beginning, I only used it for my own character, but the rest of my play group picked it up as well, seeing the benefit of skipping all the calculations that they otherwise would have to do manually. Most formulas in the GURPS books are pretty simple, but having to redo half of them just because you purchased another level of DX can be tedious. I know that there exists a character assistant software application, but I like to tinker with things and customize them to suit my own needs, so I decided to make my own. It's developed in Excel (desktop version) and doesn't use macros, but some of the people I play with still have minor difficulties (like being unable to add new rows to tables) when using Excel online or non-Excel spreadsheet applications. I lately convinced myself that it would be a good idea to upload the character sheet to the big Internet so that other people could reap the fruits of my labor too. Over the past few days, I've made some "final" tweaks to the character sheet, as well as writing a user manual. In addition to the user manual and the character sheet itself, there is a text document where I log step by step how to upgrade from one version of the character sheet to the next. The log exists primarily for the players in my group who wish to have the newest version, but don't want to copy all their data from an older sheet to the newest one, when they could upgrade by themselves in less time. One of my players suggested that there are some people out there who like to read such things, so I decided to publish the change log as well. Be aware that my language settings in Excel use comma ( , ) as decimal separator and semicolon ( ; ) as parameter separator, so you may not be able to just copy-and-paste them. I've put the documents in a public Google Drive folder: Character Sheet folder If you see any bugs/errors, or if you have suggestions for changes or additions to the character sheet, please let me know. New versions of the character sheet will be published at irregular intervals.

09-29-2018, 04:02 AM	#2
coronatiger Join Date: Apr 2018 Location: Trondheim, Norway	Features of the Excel Character Sheet Current Version 24.0 (released 2022-05-26) General features Open source; you can see and modify all formulas Practically no need for manual calculations (and because the character sheet is a spreadsheet, you can easily add your own formulas) Protected and color coded sheets to prevent unintended overwriting of formulas; no password is needed to unprotect Front Page sheet Information about the Character Sheet General information about the character (name, gender, age etc) Physical description Psychological description (aka role playing cues) Picture (no custom feature, just a possibility with Excel) Attributes sheet Purchase primary and secondary attributes List of points gained initially and during play Calculation of point value and unspent points; point value may be set to a percentage of another character's point total Points spent on attributes, advantages, languages, skills, techniques and spells are subtracted from unspent points Calculation of points received for lowered attributes and disadvantages (to make sure you don't exceed the campaign disadvantage limit) Extract of reaction modifiers (from Traits sheet) Extract of fright check modifiers (from Traits sheet) Attr Mods sheet Enter your list of enhancements and limitations applied to attributes (attribute costs are automatically modified) Customize striking strength (you can have different scores with different attacks) Define different movement types, like ground move, air move and water move Form sheet Enter your racial template and alternate forms here What you enter on this sheet is part of your templates, and don't count towards campaign disadvantage limit Traits sheet Enter your list of advantages, disadvantages, perks, quirks and 0-point features Calculation of costs based on base cost, level, frequency of appearance and self-control roll You can specify bonuses to reaction rolls, fright checks, skills (including from dabbler traits), techniques, spells, defenses and DR Trait Mods sheet Enter your list of enhancements and limitations applied to advantages and disadvantages (their costs are automatically modified) Enter your list of languages with both spoken and written comprehension levels (in a separate table) Skills sheet List of all the skills in Basic Set and Martial Arts; you may add more Calculation of skill value based on points spent, defaults and bonuses/penalties from traits Automatic recalculation of skill value if you choose another attribute on which to base a skill Techniques sheet List of all the techniques in Basic Set and Martial Arts; you may add more Calculation of skill values based on points spent, base skill and bonuses/penalties from traits Spells sheet List of all the spells in Magic and Thaumatology; you may add more Calculations of skill value based on points spent and bonuses/penalties from traits You can specify temporary bonuses/penalties to spells One college Magery included Spells can be learned/trained like skills (standard magic) or like techniques (ritual magic) Current Status sheet Extract of weapon stats and calculation of damage and range, with attack and defense skill values modified by posture, shield/cloak defense bonus, speed/range/size of target, aim/evaluate bonus Table of temporary effects which can be toggled on or off You can choose different skills or techniques for attack and defense scores Extract of armor stats Calculation of status based on lost HP and expended FP List of energy reserves List of power items Table of Per-based skills, with scores adjusted for acute senses Toggle which alternate form you're currently wearing List of body parts with to-hit-penalties and calculated armor DR values for both regular and crushing Calculations sheet Table lookups Calculation of probability of crit/success/fail/fumble based on effective skill Calculation of digging speed Calculation of how long you can hold your breath Calculation of jumping and throwing distances Calculation of slam, shield rush and falling damage Calculations related to missed sleep Calculation of daily travel distance Relative gravity included in calculations Extra effort included in calculations Conversion between units of length, area, volume, weight and temperature Calculation of hearing bonus/penalty based on distance and type of sound Equipment sheet Enter your list of equipment, including weapons, ammunition, armor and containers Optional auto-calculation of cost and weight based on which body parts the armor covers All items can be containers, and you may put containers inside other containers Calculation of whether you brought a weapon, armor or equipment with you, based on which container it's in Reduction of effective weight of items carried in a cart/wagon etc "Bag of holding" style containers You count as a container for items you carry that aren't in other containers Enter your horse and other characters as containers - encumbrance is calculated Calculation of total weight carried and encumbrance level Calculation of total value of items owned and carried Calculation of money owned and carried Diary sheet Make notes here :) Time Use sheet Keep track of what you spend your time on between adventures Keep track of study time towards various skills, techniques and traits House Rules sheet Toggle house rules on or off. All relevant formulas are recalculated. "Don't round off Basic Move" "Loss of ST due to having FP less than 1/3 max FP affects ALL ST-based quantities except HP" "If a spell belongs to several colleges, bonuses of all instances of college Magery stack" "Being reeling from both HP loss and FP loss doesn't divide Move and Dodge by 4" "Magery doesn't add to spell levels" "Convert extra damage to dice" "Allow ST in excess of weapon ST requirement x3 to improve damage with weapons" "Use metric units in Calculations sheet" "Don't apply encumbrance penalty to skill scores" "Don't apply encumbrance penalty to Dodge" "Don't apply encumbrance penalty to Move" __________________ You don't need to spend 100 CP on Status 5 [25] and Multimillionaire [75] to feel like a princess, when Delusion [-10] will do. Character sheet: Google Drive link (See this thread for details.) Campaign logs: Chaotic Pioneering / Confessions of a Forked Tongue Last edited by coronatiger; 05-26-2022 at 11:47 AM. Reason: New version of character sheet

02-20-2019, 07:13 AM	#3
Captain Joy Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Heartland, U.S.A.	Re: Excel Character Sheet Amazing. And, well done! I've cobbled together a shadow of what you've done for Mac Pages. You've inspired me to continue working on it. If/when I do, I may steel much from your design/algorithms; with your blessing, of course. __________________ my GURPS: Star Trek (TOS era) campaign Robin Laws roleplayer-type quiz

02-21-2019, 11:20 AM	#5
Mavelic Join Date: Feb 2019 Location: Amboise, France	Re: Excel Character Sheet Excel'lent job ! ;) Very useful, a interesting alternative to GCA. TY

02-21-2019, 05:39 PM	#6
Anaraxes Join Date: Sep 2007	Re: Excel Character Sheet In addition to GCA (the official character design program), there's also GURPS Character Sheet (GCS). It's in Java, and open source, if that's your thing. Data entry for all the traits seems to me to be one of the biggest hurdles, at least measured by tedium per unit progress. One of my wish-list items for a 5e, should they ever do one, would be an official set of data files with a documented format that people could use for their own play aids.