Excel Character Sheet for 6th Edition

I found a few problems with the character sheet and thought I'd post a solution rather than complain, since this was great of this member to post.  Please note that I am going off of Champions Complete 6th Edition, which is a subset of the Hero System, 6th Edition.  Perhaps costs are not the same; I don't know:

• Cell H13 should be 1 not 2 (for EGO cost)
• Cell H22 should be 1 not 2 (for REC cost)
• Cell H23 should be .2 not .5 (for END cost)
• Cell H25 should be .5 not 1 (for STUN cost), then the Format needs to be changed to Fraction

• J23 -> =CEILING((B23-F23)*H23,1), then change Format to General
• J25 -> =CEILING((B25-F25)*H25,1), then change Format to General

In fact, the above calculation column could be applied to all of column J in the Characteristics section, allowing GM's to create fraction costs for other characteristics, specific to his campaign.  Also, Excel won't complain about an odd calculation in the middle of the others.

If you want your Characteristic totals to show negative numbers when you "sell back" Characteristic points, change the formulas using this pattern:

=CEILING((B9-F9)*H9,SIGN(B9-F9))

For those that aren't as familiar with Excel functions, I'll explain this.

• By subtracting the F column from the B column, you're seeing how much more than "normal" your character's Characteristic value is.  Like, if your PC has 15 STR, the default is 10, so the result of that subtraction will be 5.
• It multiplies this value by the other value in column H, which is the cost.  If the cost is 3, then 5 would be multiplied by 3 and end up with a whole number.  But if it's a partial cost, then it would end up being divided by a whole number (or multiplied by a fraction, however you see it).  In the case of END and STUN, you could end up with a fraction.  The CEILING function will round UP if there's any fractional part.
• The second parameter of CEILING is what direction you want to round and how many places.  We always want to round to an integer (a whole number) in the case of costs.  BUT, if the player is selling back points, the result of the division will be negative, and you can't round to a positive integer.
• The SIGN function will return a positive 1, if the parameter is positive, a 0 if the parameter is 0, and a -1 if the parameter is negative.  So if the character wants to have less than the starting number of Characteristic points, the subtraction will be negative, and the rounding will be to a negative integer.

[snip]

Because of this, the calculations for J23 and J25 need to change:

• J23 -> =CEILING((B23-F23)*H23,1), then change Format to General
• J25 -> =CEILING((B25-F25)*H25,1), then change Format to General

In fact, the above calculation column could be applied to all of column J in the Characteristics section, allowing GM's to create fraction costs for other characteristics, specific to his campaign.  Also, Excel won't complain about an odd calculation in the middle of the others.

First, thanks for your pointing out the four wrong calculations.

Secondly, to anyone using OpenOffice -- the changes I quoted above don't work as quoted, they generate an error code. I didn't try the versions with the sign function, but since it's the same ceiling format, I assume... anyway, I left those cells alone and saw no problems, albeit with only one use. Naturally, the math changes (which I didn't quote) worked fine.

Lucky timing for me, to have come here for this just after you caught and flagged those mistakes! Thanks again.

I'd like to clarify something, in previous edition(s) (?) of HS, secondary Characteristics base values used to be calculated from their base Characteristic(s). I see that in HS6 the base value is at least a reflection of that, but the calculation has vanished.

Now I don't consider myself a hardcore HS "must-calculate-secondary-characteristics-from-the-dependencies" kind of guy, but is that still the case for HS6 and was just left out? Or was that intentional? Or now considered one of those discretionary GM decisions?

Thank you...

I'd like to clarify something, in previous edition(s) (?) of HS, secondary Characteristics base values used to be calculated from their base Characteristic(s). I see that in HS6 the base value is at least a reflection of that, but the calculation has vanished.

 

Now I don't consider myself a hardcore HS "must-calculate-secondary-characteristics-from-the-dependencies" kind of guy, but is that still the case for HS6 and was just left out? Or was that intentional? Or now considered one of those discretionary GM decisions?

Hero System 6E had few actual rules changes from 5E, but FIgured Characteristics was one of them -- all Characteristics now have a base value and cost (costs were also revamped), and nothing is dependent on something else.