DnD 5e NPC sheet clarifications and plans

All, Since the UoH update for the 5e sheet was released I've received a ton of great feedback on it some of which will undoubtedly be incorporated into future releases. one of the most common things i've had feedback on is the NPC section of the sheet. I wasn't sure quite how many people were actually using the NPC section as i've always considered it to be something of an incomplete project that was hastily added to the sheet a while ago to provide some basic level of support for GM's using the sheet. I certainly do not consider the NPC section complete or polished in anyway and have always tried to stress that it was provided "as is" for the moment but that I did plan to update it when time allowed. It does seem that my estimation of how many GM's were using the NPC section were significantly underestimated! So very briefly, here are a few points to illustrate what the plan is for the NPC sheet - The priority in the past has been, and likely will continue to be, the PC side of the sheet. Simply put, the PC section is used by a much wider audience and by players of a much wider experience range and as such it helps to have the PC side of the sheet be as functional, usable and user-friendly as possible. Getting the NPC side to a state where it suits the range of GM's and their needs/wants is actually a more difficult task than getting the PC side doen right. By their nature, GM's tend to have greater game/system knowledge and experience and that, coupled with a wide variety of playstyles for their groups, makes it tricky to get the NPC side "right". And just like the PC side, it's impossible to cover all options. All that having been said the current plan is (subject to change as always) Finish up a few more post-UoH tweaks for the PC sheet Start work on revamping the NPC sheet with a tabbed interface like the PC sheet. In order to maintain maximum flexibility and allow for homebrew/custom content, the NPC sheet will remain largely editable with less auto calc fields. The revamp will likely break any existing NPC's/monsters you already have...sorry but theres no way around this really . I will likely create a tab that shows the legacy stuff to allow you to transfer it over to new sections before removing them entirely. I will post in the mentor forum (as they are the only GM's that can use custom char sheets) asking for NPC sheet feedback once the process has started and will make some test versions of the work completed so far available in the same way I did for the roll template updates. For now though I have enough feedback on the NPC sheet collected over the past several months as well as my own ideas for what needs done. Finally, there are no timescales for getting this done i'm afraid and at a bare minimum it's likely to be several weeks before I can get started on it. I took a week off work to get the UoH updates done to the sheet (not that I spent every waking hour on it but i did spend several full days!) and i'm pretty pleased how that all turned out but unfortunately other commitments mean I dont have a huge amount of free time left....I also have to prep more stuff for my Tyranny of Dragons group to do since they are just about to start Rise of Tiamat! :) Thanks Actoba

Looking forward to the changes. You're enticing me to become a mentor to help give you feedback. :P

You hear that dev's...where's my cut :P

You definitely deserve a cut. This is great news, except for having to re-do all my npcs. For the most part I find the NPC section very functional as is. The NPC traits could be cleaned up, no line breaks makes it ugly right now, but any improvements are greatly appreciated. Thanks for the update and the continued hard work!

I really love the Player Character sheets and use them for NPCs and monsters. I guess I don't use the NPC sheets because I just don't know how to use them for putting in their attacks, spells, etc. I don't see the need for an NPC sheet when you can track everything you need with a PC sheet but maybe I'm missing something?

Free membership for life is what you should get. When community members do this much effort without thought of selling it on the market, they should be rewarded. Because frankly this one tool is better than anything I have seen on the market place.

doug the NPC sheet is less cumbersome and sticks straight to the bare minimum of what you need to control them. They are not good for actual characters or Bosses. Most monsters though have set +to hit and +to dmg, not much of their actions come from their stats. So the coding is just exactly what the numbers are. I made monster sheets for over 30 monsters in the first week of logging on here. So it cannot be that hard. I would like to have that whisper on off button though. Kind of annoying. But also if the actions were coded the same as class actions for NPC it might be more functionable to use them.

Hi Actoba - love the sheet If you are looking for a suggestion, one things that's challenging is spell book management, especially for higher level - If you could just show the top line of each spell, it would look more like a spell book - with a show button to see the all the spell goodies underneath, and maybe a 'show only prepared spells' or a way to reorder them so prepared where at the top cheers, Mavrik

@Pete M - This thread is more targeted towards the NPC section of the sheet, but briefly - I have been asked for simplified spellbook rows previously. It is not currently possible to allow for player re-ordering of rows, but I certainly understand and appreciate the desire for a smaller profile on the rows themselves and will likely address this at somepoint.

I have a couple of suggestions for the NPC Character sheet side. Need a spell book and and weapons just like the Player Sheet. this would make thing a bit more manageable as a GM. Also on the wiki side the NPC side needs a little more information about how it works and how to use in Mcaros. I have tries to pull the AC into a macro attack vs AC and have not been able to get it to work. Love this sheet and I know its always going to be a work in progress.

I love this sheet, Actoba. Thank you for doing this. I agree with Charles C., however. Making a way of having NPCs / monsters attack and cast spells from the sheet would make it damn near perfect. There is probably a way to do that as a GM using macros. I'm trying to figure that out now. Again, thanks, Actoba!