BASH! UE character BUILDER

[Volsung]

Great work

[Samuraidad]

Dig the way those pages look! Kev, you do great work man!

[kevperrine]

Dig the way those pages look! Kev, you do great work man!

hehehe..... and I dig the accolades, but as my graphic design background "needs" ... if you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

The first sheet - is pretty much set in style. I'll be looking at coloring more...

The second sheet is far from "set". I'm looking at ALOT of different folks' sheet's people have shown on the forums for ideas for THAT sheet - as it's an "evolved" form of what BASHMAN made to show his characters on the forums.
He made his (and many folks make theirs) in ComicLife. I'm mimicking this one in an Excel doc that will auto-populate from the character builder process I'm making (very very slowly).
I want to take the "best" of the evolved sheets from everyone to make a nice amalgamation everyone can enjoy.

What I really REALLY REALLY need help on, for this project is actual usable INFORMATION that should/could be on the sheets.

Examples:
Priority is something that's not been on many sheets I've seen made, but it's a very important play stat - that COULD be modified by powers and such (and will be adjusted automatically to show on the character sheet I'm making in Excel)
The words/values that go with the secondary line beneath Soak/Defense/Mental Defense... is it helpful to have an "unarmed" level? If so is unarmed the best word for each?

I need more "technical" wording and rule aid in making the best information that SEES play to list on the final printable character sheet.
Info that needs to be there. What it should be called. And info (that I show) that can either be removed or reduced in visuals (size or grayed out more).


Based on better knowledge of the rules and more actual play experience...
Anyone want to help give me ideas here?
-kev-

[MrJupiter]

Sheet number 1 looks fantastic! I like that the entered text is colored. Can it do blue?

You got just about everything I can think of. Maybe having a spot for the optional Fame score.

Would it work if the power section of sheet #1 wasn't broken down into sections? Not a big deal, but sometimes its hard to make a power fit within the set space and the line-break makes me think 'next power'.

[kevperrine]

Sheet number 1 looks fantastic! I like that the entered text is colored. Can it do blue?

You got just about everything I can think of. Maybe having a spot for the optional Fame score.

Would it work if the power section of sheet #1 wasn't broken down into sections? Not a big deal, but sometimes its hard to make a power fit within the set space and the line-break makes me think 'next power'.

Thanks MrJupiter!

The colored text can be anything wanted. Once finished, and you've downloaded a copy of the Excel Builder - you could easily select those colored cells on the Character Sheet print tab and change them to any color you want.
I may look at changing the default color to blue though - if you think that looks better.

Good idea for FAME, I'll look for a spot for that - I think it's one of the better optional rules for longer term campaigning.

I'm not sure what you mean by breaking the power section to be broken into sections. Please explain. I'd like to make them so you can read them best.
My thought/goal was to have the first "section" of each power LINE (the one in the Crimefighter font) be YOUR name for the power. Then followed by the text (in Arial font and smaller) the actual BASH! UE name for the power and all it's conditions/enhancements, etc...

You can see a couple more examples of this on the sheets I mocked up for a super battle between Spidey vs. Cap HERE

anyone else have ideas?
-kev-

[Jason_Sunday]

Is this available yet?

[Jason_Sunday]

Sorry double post.

[BASHMAN]

Those look great! Would this be an Excel thing?

[kevperrine]

Those look great! Would this be an Excel thing?

Yes.
One of the dozen projects I've put on myself (for the love of the game!) is to make an Excel Character Builder. In the last 5-10 years I've used a variety of Excel character sheets, all of them have calculations for the system built into them.

What I've dubbed "The BASH! BOOK" will be a great Excel Character Builder that follows the steps of BASH! UE character creation from the book. I'm making it very complete for auto-calculating all the stats and point values with each choice a player makes in character creation.

If someone has read and knows the BASH! system well, you'll be able to speed through character creation. But if you don't know the system you'll still need the rule book (don't wanna give anything away!).

Then after going through the build - a player will have 2-3 options of character sheet designs to print. Choose a tab and print it.
I also have a "Narrator Card" tab and a copy/paste text layout set for grabbing/posting your newly built character on a forum like this.


I'm not an Excel guru. But my good buddy is, we've tackled the stats and skills and need to finish the powers and ads/disads before I can put my design look onto it. Really my buddy and I need 1-2 more days of working and it'd be done.
Getting him to hook up with me is tough though with work ugly life.

More to come!
-kev-

[Samuraidad]

Kev, I'm still stoked about this coming out in the future.

[Renny]

Squee!! Looks really good.

[kevperrine]

Update.

I've been working on "design" a little. I'm also getting together with my Excel-guru buddy tomorrow night to work on this project. Hopefully we can get some stuff done. The POWERS section will be a huge bear to overcome. I'm hoping we can tackle the Ads/Disads and the rest at the very least tomorrow night. I'll also be updating the design look as he helps with the working bits.

Any suggestions on WHAT you would want/expect to see with a character builder? Specifics or overall in general?



Also... I'm continually looking for ideas and advice on design. Not ONLY the "look" but also the (most importantly) the practical USE of information layout.


What character sheet styles are your very favorites.
Specifically any sheets folks (including BASHMAN!, here) have designed for BASH!, the layout of info or the style/look.
or
What other non-BASH! sheets have you seen that you like the look/style and info layout of? Supers or not?


And what do you USE in-game that is not normally on character sheets that would be very helpful?

thanks!
-kev-

[kevperrine]

Whew... My pal Bill (the Excel guru) and I got together this evening to tackle another step in this project.
I will report it's going well. If I could do it all myself it'd be quicker and/or done by now. But I can't so I must wait for my friend's aid. That said - he's being a big help.
We've got the Stats, Skills and basics down. Now tackling the BIG problem of figuring out how to layout powers, how they correlate with all the various "Enhancements", "Limitations" and "Power Indicators". We're trying to use the terminology of the books as best we can to be familiar, so "Power Indicators" are the best terms I've found for the: Areas (Burst, Arc, Line), Range, Maintained, and Sustained. The Multi-Power and Linked Enhancements are becoming a challenge to figure as well.


That said.
We hit some big SNAG questions. Building the rules into an Excel Auto-Calculation sheet is complicated to get (what seem to be simple) BASH! rules all easy to choose/purchase and then display. We're getting there, we just need clarifications on some things.

Here are questions we hit on building that I'm actually a little unsure of in character building after re-reading and trying to decipher for the Excel doc calculation needs. Perhaps someone can help.



At the beginning of the power section it notes:
"Each power is formatted with a box indicating how many points it costs, as well as some other information as below:" ... then it notes the Power Indicators (I mentioned above). The "some other information" is a little vague on how you're supposed to purchase this other info, if it's required, if it's built in to the cost, if you can buy it off, etc... etc... Here are some specific questions and our interpretations so far.



Under each power is listed the COST followed by a *comma* or a *semi-colon*. My question is.
What do those mean to the cost of the power?

Here's what we interpreted:

- If a power has a cost then a comma it means those Power Indicators and/or Enhancements/Limitations are things that traditionally go on said power BUT are not required for purchase and not figured into the cost of the power. Is that all true?
If you choose you can purchase these or any other Enhancement/Limitation or Power Indicators as you like. Is that all true?


- If a power has a cost then a semi-colon it means those Power Indicators and/or Enhancements/Limitations are things that are ALREADY factored into the cost of the power. You must take them. Is that all true?
For these listed requirements, you can choose to "remove" them from the power at a cost of 2 pts for each to remove. Is that all true?


- Another big question... If the second point is true (that some powers have Power Indicators, Enhancements/Limitations "built in" to the power cost) then a BIG question I have is: at what "base" do they start? For Example - DAZE 2 pts; Range, Area
Does that mean that the cost of DAZE has Range and Area "built in" to the 2 pt cost? And if so, at what "level" of Range and Area does it start? And which "Area" type (Burst, Arc, Line)?
Do they start at the lowest = Range: Close? Area: Small/Short?
And can you purchase a higher/bigger range and/or area?


- Furthermore... Are there any powers with both optional suggestions (the first above) and required attachments (the latter above).


Another question.
My friend and I hit a big question. We believe it might be a "hold over" from so many other point buy systems such as Mutants & Masterminds.
Are there "RANKS" for powers in BASH! UE? We hit the epiphany that maybe there are NOT ranks in traditional terms. And each power literally only has a COST. Some powers have "LEVELS" associated with the cost you pay, but those are not "ranks" in a 1-for-1 sense all the time. Is that all true?

In an example:
INVISIBILITY is bought at 1, 3, 5 pts. Can you or do you have any reason to PAY for 2 or 4 pts (levels?) in this (or other similar) powers?
The only reason I could think of that would be "YES" would be if you wanted to buy a power (like Invisibility) at 4 pts. simply to have Level 4 in Invisibility if you ever need to make a power check. Otherwise this "Level 4" Invisibility defaults to the usage of what you can do with Level 3.






BASHMAN, we'd love official answers. But for clarification, anyone can help. Anyone have thoughts?
-kev-

[BASHMAN]

Daze has no range or area built into the cost. Those indicators only mean that you can add range and area. So if a power is Daze, Mid Range, that would be 4pts. Daze with no points in range is 2pts and has a range of touch.

[BASHMAN]

Your question about "ranks and cost" is confusing to me, but yes, powers have "levels". That said, I don't think I'd let someone take level 4 or 2 in a power made for levels 1, 3, or 5.

The cost of things like Range and Area are added after this, not taken out of it (an error from the first printing that will be fixed in the next one).

So Special Attack 2, Mid Range costs 4pts.