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Now the character sheets are something of a disappointment not because they don’t cover the basics, but because there’s no CD that would allow you to print off your own run. This character sheet is the exact same one in the book. For those who’ve played in the past but haven’t seen the new version, it’s very similar in terms of what’s actually on the sheet, you’ve got the standards like name, race, gender, game mechanics like starter profile and current profile, you’ve got your areas for weapons and armor, your area for armor points and hit locations.
The new material comes in the new mechanics of the game. For example, we have an action summary table so you can see what’s a full action versus what’s a half action. In terms of skills, in the old days you wrote down your skills and information. In this game, skills are all written out for you, at least the basic ones, and have the characteristic next to them, so you know what roll you need to make. A section for related talents is left for the player to fill in.
Now that’s another area left often, talents. Unlike the previous edition, there were no talents. There were just unusual skills that did things for the character. Now they’re like feats or background options or special abilities and fall under the heading of talents.
In terms of completeness, the old sheet had a small spot for some odd miscellaneous information that isn’t on the new one. No section for companions and animals. No section for psychology & health. No location for things like place of birth, parents occupation and family members. There are bits here and there like Star Sign, Birthplace and Distinguishing Mark, but it’s not quite the same.
The new sheet tends to look a lot cleaner then the old one but in many ways, the old one was easier to read. For example, for some reason the logo of the name and the armor point sections are huge while the character prifle is squeezed into the a side unlike the old sheet where you had a lot of room to view everything. Same with wealth and experience points. Where they used to be wide open fields, they’re now little boxes you fill in.
Some good some bad. My biggest disappointment is that the spell grimoire, or the place you write your spells, isn’t actually on the character sheet, unlike the old edition, but it’s in the booklet. Ah well.
What about the covering of the Character Pack? The old edition was a hardy paper that still shows no signs of rips or tears. The interior had the Graf Manfred Inn fully mapped so you had ground, upper, cellars and attic all at your fingertips. The new one is paper thin with some very mediocre illustrations for character use. Very disappointing considering the great art for various careers in the 2nd edition book.
What about the Character Packs? The old one went over the character sheet, had character background bits, including names, build, eye color, hair color, place of birth, spouses and children, social level by career, and an example of character generation. To be honest, while very functional, it was pretty ugly.
The new booklet is much better designed. It actually provides a character generation rules or a recap, so if you have this while someone is hogging the main book, you can roll up your character. It has names, but these names are new and different than the original, although I’m sure there’s some overlap. It doesn’t go into the detail of the names as the old one did.
A new feature is Meet They Doom. Seems that most character geet a foretelling of their demise at their tenth birthday, so you get things like, “The number three.” Or “Morr sends a maiden.” Not too useful, but enough to give the GM some ideas perhaps.
Other bits included are personal heraldry, human birthplace, including the Province of Origin and where in that Province, spell summaries and action summaries.
All in all, not bad, but sadly, not a huge improvement over the old one, with some of the flavor of the old one completely missing.
Thankfully for me, since I still have both, I can keep rolling up those eye and hair colors, as well as the things that are part of 2nd edition character creation, but left out like distinguishing characteristics, although I’ll have to look at the main book for other background charts like star sign and number of siblings.
The outer construction of this is very cheap. It’s the internet age so someone has already made a character sheet. I’d recommend this for people looking for a way to quickly start off characters if they’re sharing a book or for those who want quick summaries of spells and combat actions.
