A Hundred and One Spells...

[Super Squirrel]

My character in Fantasy Hero has a lot of spells. It is reaching the point that reprinting the character sheet with spells is a huge waste of paper.

I was wondering if anyone has any experience with characters with handling and organizing characters with a high number of spells.

My thoughts on this is to make a version of my character without the spells on it. I'd use a custom power that indicates the total number of points spent on spells. Then, I'd make a spreadsheet that lists the name of the spell, END Cost, and key spell notes such as foci, duration, and casting time. Finally, I'd have a text document with a list of all of my spells written up into Hero format so that I can see the details if I need to.

This would save both time and paper. If I want a new spell, I add it to the end of the text file and reprint the last page. On the character sheet, I can cross of total points on spells and write the new number. On the spreedsheet, I can write the new spell in the space on the list. I'd only reprint the spreadsheet, say, every three or four new spells I add.

Anyone have another method they use that works?

[Dale A. Ward]

Index cards?

You can put a complete description of each spell on its own card and carry around a box with all the cards in it. When you add a spell, you add a card.

If you can find them, there are spiral-bound decks of index cards. They can give you that "spell book" feeling! However, loose cards are easier to organize.


Dale "Old School" Ward

[Killer Shrike]

For characters with a large list of gear, powers, gadgets, whatever, I make a character file for the character, and a seperate character file for the swag. I've made several "powers only" export templates for HD that match the layout of my various export templates, and I use those to output the powers lists.

Also, since I prefer HTML exports, I can embed a hyperlink to the power list from the main character, making it convenient to get to.

Examples:
Major Savage
Major Savage's Gear Pool
Legend
Legend's Legendary Powers Far Beyond Those of Mortal Men (Sample Powers)
Yortheon Malafrid
Yortheon Malafrid Known Spells List

I also do the same with characters that have especially lengthy backgrounds.

[AliceTheOwl]

My character in Fantasy Hero has a lot of spells. It is reaching the point that reprinting the character sheet with spells is a huge waste of paper.

I was wondering if anyone has any experience with characters with handling and organizing characters with a high number of spells.

My thoughts on this is to make a version of my character without the spells on it. I'd use a custom power that indicates the total number of points spent on spells. Then, I'd make a spreadsheet that lists the name of the spell, END Cost, and key spell notes such as foci, duration, and casting time. Finally, I'd have a text document with a list of all of my spells written up into Hero format so that I can see the details if I need to.

This would save both time and paper. If I want a new spell, I add it to the end of the text file and reprint the last page. On the character sheet, I can cross of total points on spells and write the new number. On the spreedsheet, I can write the new spell in the space on the list. I'd only reprint the spreadsheet, say, every three or four new spells I add.

Anyone have another method they use that works?

I can cap off your XP, if you like . . .

[Curufea]

What I did for one of my players who was new to the Hero system, was to compile a spell book. It just had the spell descriptions in it - and none of the Hero mechanics behind the spells. Just so he could look things up easily.

But in this case - index cards would be good, or a ring binder of some sort. Something you can add pages to.

[Killer Shrike]

You can do "fluff" versions of powers w/o hard mechanics in HD; just use the List object and put the fluff in the notes. In your export template just format to taste.

[keithcurtis]

My solution was pretty much what you suggest SS. I had a character sheet. I had a database for the spells. One report just showed casting time, material components, etc. The other report showed a full write-up of the spell, with a description. So I actually had three resources. Most of the time, I would only need the first two.

Keith "I had like 30+ spells." Curtis

[Super Squirrel]

I think I'm going to do a sort of complex combination of my original idea and the index card method.

Alice mentioned last night that Office Max has a binder with index card sleeves. We can pick one of those up and make a collection of Via spells. I think a single, shared pool of spells would be much better in the long run.

I made the spreadsheet lastnight. I have 15 spells at the moment but I still have 28 unspent experience points. I'll likely have two or three more spells added fairly soon onto my character.

[Killer Shrike]

Why not just make an export template from HD that is index card sized?

[Rapier]

Why not just make an export template from HD that is index card sized?

Depending on your printer, they make dot-matrix, pin-feed index cards. My B&W laserjet will manual feed paper and I can feed index cards.

I'm not hip enough to my HTMLosity to know how to do it, but my first impression was build all the spells in a character called SpellBook. Export the powers to an RTF template. Create a custom page in your word processor that sets the page size to index card (3x5 or 5x8) size. Copy and paste from the RTF export into your index card doc and viola!

I'm actually toying around with a similar idea. We are going Monster Hunter fairly soon, and we will be using the Resource Points idea from DC. I am going to need some kind of handouts for weapons and armour and things, since the equipment will not necessarily be displayed on the character sheets. We could use the pages out of the book, but that is unwieldy to have all these books open all over the place and have to look through the stack to find the page with the weapon you are using, etc.

Index cards might just be the ticket I need.

[Killer Shrike]

You can rig up an Export template for just about anything, although there are limitations. For instance I made one to output Spell files to comma delimited files that can be opened as a spread sheet, imported into a db, etc.

[Rapier]

You can rig up an Export template for just about anything, although there are limitations. For instance I made one to output Spell files to comma delimited files that can be opened as a spread sheet, imported into a db, etc.

Oh yeah, I know the export template concept is very versatile. I'm just not currently savvy enough to get it done!

My way works and is a LOT faster than tinkering with templates.

[Curufea]

It is XML. And that isn't the easiest of 'net languages to work out.

However - if someone has an index-card export template, they should put it on the Hero Designer website so you can download it. I put my Wiki one there.

[Super Squirrel]

Why not just make an export template from HD that is index card sized?

Hmmm. I do have card stock paper. I haven't tried running it through the printer yet to see how that works. If it does, this could also be a workable idea.