Home Brew AD&D 1st Ed.

Character Sheet ReadMe and Inventory

Purpose
This came about because I desired an AD&D first edition spread sheet, but I was unable to use the ones I
was able to find published on the internet. While I found what were clearly works of passion, they did
not easily provide the flexibility I required in order to use them in the home brew campaign I was taking
part in.

As a solution I authored my character sheet and companion documents. While the programming is
cruder, and only Excel equations and a few controls are used, they provide a meaningful subset of the
functionality found in other spreadsheets. The Player’s Hand Book, Deities and Demigods, and
Unearthed Arcana served as inspiration. Unlike other solutions I have seen, these documents are
unlocked, and all of the source code is provided in the included text documents. Modification and
experimentation and are encouraged.

As a precaution, however, I do recommend that you archive a copy of the original documents and any
important versions before making further changes or actually using them to record character
information. I have been programming for several years, and cannot count the occasions I have seen
people, seduced by a fatal brew of exuberance and impatience, skip these simple measures and regret it
later.

Conventions
The active, programmed elements are found in in the character page 1 and the character thieves skills
tabs of the excel sheet. In these sheets, labels for fields that require entry from the user are generally
bolded while those that are calculated have normal text labels. When entering pluses, the plus sign is
not shown, that is “+5” is entered as 5. On minuses, however, the minus is shown, sot “-3” is “-3”.
Perhaps quirkiest departure I have made id the representation of strength between 18 and 19.

Because there are 100 possible values between 18 and 19, and 18(100) does not equal 19, I have
resorted to something of a trick to keep the programming simple while maintaining the expected
mathematical relationships. I have placed the “01” to “99” values in the hundredths and thousandths
columns. That is, 18(01) is represented and entered by the user as 18.001, 18(75) is 18.075, and 18(100)
is 18.1 . This preserves their relationships with each other, 18, and 19.

Organization
The primary character spreadsheet is the fillable_1st_ed.xlsx file, and as mentioned above, character
page 1 and the character thieves’ skills contain the active portions of the character sheet. The first
character sheet contains those things that a player needs readily available, attributes, saving throws,
armor class, weapon adjustments, hit points, and readily available items and skills. As an addendum for
thieves, monks, assassins, and the like, the thieves’ skill sheet calculates the percent success for a given
thief/ monk level.

1
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/.
Home Brew AD&D 1st Ed. Character Sheet ReadMe and Inventory

The character sheet second page contains experience, treasure, background, familiars and mounts,
items with you but not readily available, and items owned but not with you.

Sheets r1, r2, r3, and r4 contain the reference tables that are used for the various calculated values. R1
contains strength, intelligence and wisdom tables. R2 contains dexterity, constitution, charisma, and
comeliness tables. R3 contains the logical values created by checking or unchecking the shield or
weapons check boxes. R 4 contains the thief dexterity adjustment and level skill tables. I have done my
best to present these tables in an obvious and understandable manner.

In addition to the excel sheet document, there is also the spell worksheet. This consists of two tables;
the first provides the means to track spells of each level cast per day. The second table provides a quick
reference of known spells. The columns in this second table are:

Lvl. – Spell Level

Name – Spell Name
Mem – Memorized
Bk. – Book
Pg. – Page
Cast Time – Casting Time
Rng. – Range
Dur. – Duration
V – Verbal components required
S – Somatic components required
M – Material components required
Save – Saving throw for spell
I have imagined that for multiclass characters with more than one casting class, a sheet for each class
will be used.

The text files provide the source code for each equation used. Each entry provides a title describing the
equation and what cell it resides in. Below the title is the equation itself. With the exception of those
equations in the Thief_Equa.txt document, all of the equations may be found in the character page 1
worksheet. Equations in the Thief_Equa.txt file are entered in the thief skills sheet.

Finally there is also the bob_example.xlsx spreadsheet. This a partially filled in character sheet for Bob,
a half orc fighter/ thief of level 3/3. It is my hope that this example effectively demonstrates the active
portions of the character sheet.

Example
The example is found in the file bob_example.xlsx. Note Bob’s strength of 18(71) is entered as 18.071.
Note also that strength, intelligence, wisdom, dexterity, constitution, and charisma are entered by the

2
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/.
Home Brew AD&D 1st Ed. Character Sheet ReadMe and Inventory

user. For comeliness, the rolled comeliness and the race adjustment are entered; comeliness itself is
calculated.

For Bob, I have entered a movement base of 30, and Bob is wearing +2 Studded leather armor, and he
has a +1 ring of protection. By a strict interpretation of the rules, a ring of protection cannot stack with
magic armor, but assume that in this world it is allowed. If it were not, then the ring would just not be
entered as an armor item, but it would still show up as a modifier for saving throws. Bob does not use a
shield, but instead fights two handed.

This accounts for the -2 (dex 17) entered for the racial adjustment for the +1 dagger, the secondary
weapon. While, the racial adjustment column was created primarily for elves, it also serves a way to
record plusses and minuses to hit that do not accrue from ability scores or the weapon itself. There is
also room below to show the effectiveness of this same +1 if it were thrown instead of being used as a
secondary weapon. The base THACO must also be entered by the user.

Finally, on the thief skills sheet, the thief level and racial adjustments are also entered by the user. This
allows the skill percentages to be calculated.

Zip Archive Inventory

In this zip archive, in addition to this file you are reading, you should find:
fillable_1st_ed.xlsx – the main character spreadsheet
bob_example.xlsx – an example partially filled in character sheet
Spell_Worksheet.docx – a worksheet to track spells/ day, known spells and memorized spells
AC_Equa.txt – formulas for calculating armor class
Cha_Equa.txt – formulas for calculating charisma effects
Cms_Equa.txt – formulas for calculating comeliness and its effects
Con_Equa.txt – formulas for calculating constitution plusses/ minuses
Dex_Equa.txt – formulas for calculating dexterity bonuses
Int_Equa.txt – formulas for calculating intelligence effects
Str_Equa.txt – formulas for calculating strength related abilities
Thief_Equa.txt – formulas for calculating thief skills
Weap_Equa.txt - formulas for calculating thaco adjustments
Weap2_Equa.txt – formulas for calculating damage adjustments
Wis_Equa.txt – formulas for calculating wisdom effects

Have fun,
Joel Hickman, July, 2016

3
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/.