First off, the tool looks great so far! Love the UI and the layout of the character sheet once done. Big props to the team. For my feedback, I’m going to skip over some obvious bugs like slow loading and focus on the interface. Got a lot so want to start off with kudos for the project and know I only hope for this to be a critical success!
-
One first thing I’ll say is I don’t think the portrait picker right at the start is helpful, especially if someone needs to figure out their character first. It’s kind of assuming the person knows what they want, when I think many people will be using this tool to browse options and see what they want. Same for the name, since those are sometimes puns based off options someone chose. I think these would be better off at a 4th screen after class with other options I will go over later. Level is the only thing you need to establish now.
-
This is a repeated issue with several sections that I assume will be implemented later, but when an option has something additional to select, a screen needs to show up letting you select that option. For instance, when I select “dragonscale kobold” as a heritage, I should be able to pick the draconic exemplar right then.
-
Another general piece of feedback is to change the X button to close to a big blue “confirm” button. That should then take you back to where you were or bring you to the next choice you need to select automatically. For convenience, I would choose the latter.
-
The Ancestry selection makes sense. The one thing I’d like to see is a separation between the versatile heritages and ones specific to the ancestry. You do have the ancestral ones first but I think a subheading saying “Versatile Heritage” is needed. It’s then when you could have a pop up or drop down with “What is a versatile heritage” to save space within the actual versatile heritage screen.
-
The backgrounds should be one long scroll instead of three separate pages. It would also be good to have a filter system to narrow it down, such as by ability boost. If you are planning on a fighter, you likely want to find a background quickly that has STR as a boost.
-
Another piece of general feedback, first encountered at classes, would be to have an automatic filter of feats you have access to vs ones you don’t. If you don’t have access, they should be faded out and at the bottom of the scroll, if not moved to another page (my preference) of unavailable feats. They should still be available to browse, but not to select. This will help avoid choice paralysis, as it will significantly narrow down the feats you have available to choose from.
-
On the character sheet, initiative needs to have a place to select skills other than perception.
-
I would leave “Other Actions & Activities” in accordion mode, it’s a bit overwhelming to see it all.
-
Equipment should be a bit more intuitive.
9a) For one, I don’t see a place for the gold you have on you.
9b) I would include initial purchases as part of the level 1 set up screen. If starting from a higher level, have an option to select either “Permanent Items & Currency” or “Lump Sum” according to Table 10-10. If they choose the items, list the items of that level that they could choose from, similar to picking ancestry or background, etc.
9c) When you go to add an item, there should be a “buy” and “give” button. Buy subtracts the gold automatically from your total. Give just adds it (like from loot). Similarly, like my other suggestion for skills, equipment should have 2 screens: one for items that meet all your requirements to purchase (level, gold available, prerequisites) and a second screen for unavailable items. Again, these can be browsed, bought, or given, but will help with choice paralysis.
9d) It would be cool to have an “earn income” button according to Table 4-2 that you can click by the buttons for rest and refocus.
9e) In the same way, an automatic crafting section would be a cool feature.
9f) I also think the sheet should calculate bulk and assign the encumbered condition automatically when it’s exceeded. -
I don’t know what plans you have for Rest and Recovery, but along with all the normal stuff, having a pop up show up for those classes that have daily preparations would be good. Then they can select those options and move on.
-
Finally, on the character creation front, I think the “Details” section should be included after class. It’s here where I would put name and profile pic instead. This is also where you should have some selection options for alignment, nationality, deity, and gender. Age, height, and weight would also be cool if they were within the specific ranges for adults of the selected ancestry. Deity especially should have the section on that deity show up similarly to how it does for the ABC’s especially since you can go beyond the compatibility license. Appearance and Personality could also be included here.
11a) Campaign integration for APs would be cool. For instance having a place to track silver feathers collected for Fist of the Ruby Pheonix, or listing “Sutaki” as an ally for Quest for the Frozen Flame.
Those are my biggest pieces of initial feedback!
There is one more thing I want to bring tot he teams attention, again with the caveat that I say this wanting the sheet to succeed: The single biggest thing you can do to make this a tool people will want to use (and probably pay for with advanced options I’m sure) is VTT Foundry integration. With all respect to the Foundry team, their character creation so that it incorporates into the system is not as intuitive as they might think. If Demiplane is able to make it so that changes made on THIS sheet show up on a Foundry character, you are golden. Foundry is by far the most popular VTT for Pathfinder 2e. Finding ways to incorporate Demiplane with Foundry will only increase the value to players and GMs.
I suspect that once this goes live, people will need to pay for it in some respects, either to have more than one character, or access to options outside the core rulebook. That is going to severely limit how many people utilize this without an added benefit. Pathbuilder and Wanderer’s Guide are robust and free character creators. However, neither has Foundry integration either. I know a lot of players who like to have their character on one of these makers before making changes on Foundry. Removing that manual middleman is all you’d need to make this worthwhile to those players IMHO.
OVERALL: I would definitely use this character sheet once fully integrated as is. However, the changes I suggested will make it have more utility and better I believe. I’m excited to see the next update!