Character sheets are always an integral part of a role-playing game. They’re a cool to be used before and during gameplay; to facilitate the character creation process, and how that character interacts with the world. 

Forge of Valor has gone through dozens of character sheet permutations, but our design principles have been clear from the beginning: 

• Keep the sheet to one page
• Easy to read and use during gameplay
• Easy to fill in during character creation and advancement

We’ll go over the different elements of the current (draft) version of Forge of Valor’s character sheet:

 

Top Bar

On the top of the sheet are the basic elements of your character: its Name, Concept (what defines your character), Attributes (Body, Mind, and Spirit), Species (and its bonuses), the character’s Level, how many Effort Tokens (in-game action-currency), Heals per Day, and Motivations (what elements drive your character forward.)

The character sheet has been designed to be used as a tool during character creation. If read from left to right, top to bottom, it guides you through the character creation process as well as what elements are most significant to the character.

Specialty Grid

The next, and most prominent, segment of the character sheet is the Specialty Grid. Specialties describe how good your character is at accomplishing certain tasks. For example, the Agility Specialty pertains to how agile, balanced, and coordinated your character is. The higher a character’s investment into a Specialty, the better he or she is at actions within that Specialty.

All of the Specialties have been listed along the left, nestled within their respective Skill’s box. A Skill is a collection of Specialties, and being good at a Skill trickles down into being better at a Specialty. When making a character, one of your first decisions is in what Skills to invest your training and talent. This is marked on the Sheet, and added to each of the Specialties’ Total Modifier. 

As it progresses out to the right, each of the fields become less and less significant to the overall ability of that Specialty. Once all of the different elements have been determined (Skill Ranks, Specialty Ranks, Attributes, Species Bonuses, etc) the Total Modifier is calculated on the far left. This has been done intentionally to make it easier to reference during gameplay. 

To the far right of each Specialty lies a column of small boxes called Specialty XP. This is an optional version of character advancement, in which characters track experience points (XP) for each individual Specialty. Once that Specialty’s grid is full, it gets a +1 Rank bonus. This helps to keep track of everything in a neat and concise manner, as well as provide an incentive for characters to be proactive and attempt actions they may not necessarily succeed at.

Assets and Techniques

Below the Specialty Grid lies a simple space for Combat Assets, Noncombat Assets, and Techniques. Assets are a core part of Forge of Valor, and describe certain permanent, isolated abilities the character has picked up over his or her lifetime. For example, a character might have the Noncombat Asset Natural Smith: Armor, which would allow them to make decent quality armor consistently and without the GM forcing the character to Roll for success.

Techniques are optional rules that provide a flexible, tactical combat style for each character. When a character trains within a Technique, that character excels within that Technique’s certain circumstances. For example, if a character had trained in the Stealth Technique, he or she would be able to perform better Specialty Rolls, deal additional damage to bad guys, or place positive or negative conditions on enemies and allies. Below is a quick list of common Benefits when a character is able to “trigger” its Technique.

Combat Stats

And finally to the far bottom right, a character’s Combat Stats are listed, including its Stamina (physical and mental energy), Vitality (bodily health and life force), Damage Reduction (granted from Armor), and a space for different weapons’ stats like its attack Accuracy and defense bonuses. 

Not Final

Bear in mind that we’re currently in an alpha phase, and that our character sheet is a reflection of a constantly changing and evolving rules system based on internal and external playtesting feedback. Once we get closer to the final version of the game (and successfully funded on Kickstarter) we’ll take advantage of Tiara Lynn Agresta’s beautiful graphical and layout expertise.