Character Sheet Tweaks

Torchbearer Hacks and Expansions
1

BWHQ folks:

First, Ben Morgan designed one of the all-time great character sheets I’ve ever used. It contributes a great deal to the appeal and usability of the game, and he deserves much praise for this.

That said, after years of continuous play, I took a hatchet to the thing and made some “improvements.” I have three sheets:

[ul]
[li]A Wizard/Elf sheet that includes a space for tracking your library.
[/li][li]A Cleric Sheet that has the prayers (and playtest prayers) grouped by alignment with checkboxes and notes on atonement.
[/li][li]A magic-free sheet for everyone else that reclaims some space, includes the action table and an expanded camp section.
[/li][/ul]

All three of these sheets have an expanded nature section on the front that outlines when to roll and tap nature, and some helpful reminders sprinkled about.

I would very much like to share these with the community, but I also feel they run afoul of the copyright since they unrepentantly remix Ben Morgan’s visual elements. I could alter the border and scroll elements, I suppose, but I like them too much. Thus, I am asking permission to unleash these sheets. I will happily email them if you’d like to review them first, and I’ll make any changes you deem necessary.

Thanks!

2

Post them here. Go for it.

I made a magic and non-magic version of the sheet a couple of years ago but I am bad at the internet and maybe didn’t post them.

3

The non-magic one either never got made or never got shared with anyone (including me). The magic one is here: https://www.torchbearerrpg.com/?p=308

4

Hey, thanks for the go-ahead. I hope you like these!

On the front of each sheet, I’ve added a helpful nature rules section. I had to reduce the skills section slightly to achieve this. Each variety of the sheet includes the most common skills for the classes that use it, plus a mix of the most common skills in the game.

I also changed the Exhaustion recovery Ob to X to reflect the need to factor fatigue, and pushed things around a bit to make more room for notes. There are also some notes in a lighter typeface that reflect my best attempt at interpreting the rules.

Non-magic Sheet
The non-magic sheet is for classes that use neither spells nor prayers. With the removal of the spellbook section, I was able to add a section for Porters, and transfer the Actions table from the Conflict sheet and the Lighting table from the GM Sheet.

I also included a special Camp form, where you can name a campsite and track what amenities have been added.

Wizard or Elf Sheet
I took it as granted that there would be at least one character in any party using the non-magic sheet, so I did not repeat the Town and Camp procedures. Arcanists have better paperwork to do! Here I retained the glorious Traveling Spellbook section and added a library section for tracking known spells. The library has a column for Swap and Scroll obs. With this information to hand, Arcanists can be most formidable.

I also added some helpful procedural info for when to memorize spells in adventure, camp and town.

Cleric Sheet
This is my favorite sheet because cleric is my favorite class! The Camp and Town procedures are scrapped to make room for a list of ALL CLERIC PRAYERS SORTED BY CIRCLE AND ALIGNMENT. GMs love this, too, because it makes it easy to pick the spells on a failed roll.

There’s also a space for Atonement Ob! And I still had room left over to cram another Porter section in there, and the Actions table. DOMINORIUM VULT!

BONUS: Mount and Baggage Sheet*
OK, this one is a bit strange – this is the sheet for my group’s version of Mount and Baggage rules. This is incomplete of course, and WILL break your game. But perhaps it will also give you some fun ideas to work with? Feel free to give me feedback right here if you’re using it, or for any of the sheets, for that matter.

*These rules are neither official nor complete. Unlike the previous 3 sheets, the rules on this are my own invention and aren’t sourced in the rulebook.

Let me once again express my profound appreciation for Ben Morgan’s work (and I presume the rest of BWHQ’s work, too). I’m literally hacking up one of the best character sheets I’ve ever played on in a long RPG career.

5

Hm. I tried posting a link back to this thread from the Google+ group, and it seems like both attempts have been deleted. I know they watch pretty closely for spam.

Are these OK to post? Say the word and I will pull them down.

EDIT: The post is showing now, huzzah!

6

Wow, these are amazing! I mean, maybe the horse is a bit wonky, but that’s good stuff!

How did you make them? InDesign?

7

I did not have access to the indesign file, so I used the dubious technique of pulling what I could out of the PDF and photoshopping the rest. I cannot stress this enough: I didn’t really design any of these visual elements, I just expanded the form to match player needs.

I think the horse is radical, but the artist who supplied it has been begging me to swap it out for a more professional rendering. If I get around to it I will let you all know.

8

Note: I have just updated a few typos and corrected the beginner’s luck column on the three custom sheets.

9

Update the horse image on the mount and baggage sheet at the original artist’s request. The new horse is by the same artist btw. I liked the wacky one better.

I also changed the columns for Fate and Persona. Now instead of “Current Total” and “Total Spent” there are: “Unspent”, “Spent”, and “Next Level”.