[X] My Assistant

[Jhaiisiin]

As always, Fantastic Work, DK.

Due to one of my games being a Paladium Heroes Unlimited game, I'm considering doing a similar project for that character creation system. I've only just started and have already come to realize the scope of just what you had to do to make this sheet. I am in awe, sir. Thank you.

[Tyro]

As always, Fantastic Work, DK.

Due to one of my games being a Paladium Heroes Unlimited game, I'm considering doing a similar project for that character creation system. I've only just started and have already come to realize the scope of just what you had to do to make this sheet. I am in awe, sir. Thank you.

Keep in mind that he started with Autarkis and Blakkie's sheet, and we're on pages 76 of bugtesting, feature requests, and moral support ^_^

Not to say it wasn't/isn't an incredible accomplishment for which he deserves much laud. I just don't want you scaring yourself into not trying.

[Jhaiisiin]

LOL I'm still considering trying it. I've gotten to the point where formulas no longer suffice and I'm delving headlong into VBA. Worse, it's Paladium. Just looking at the books induces madness. It's just not as clean as the SR4 system (all things considered).

[DamienKnight]

The SR4 sheet does not require macros to work, and that is very intentional. Originally this sheet used macros to show and hide pages based on your Magic selection. If you were mundane it hid the magic and technomancer sheets... but then revealed them if they were needed. The sheet also originally used buttons to trigger your Optional Rule settings.

What I quickly found out was that macros do not port well between different versions of Excel, and don't work at all in Open Office, which uses its own scripting language.

There are alot of things in the sheet that would have a smaller footprint (like every list which contains a ton of formulas that would be more efficient with simple looping scripts) or things that just would've been a million times simple if not in formulas (Ahem... Armor, Armor upgrades and Armor outfits.) But you have to look at your target audience. If half of your users are using Open Office, thirty percent are using Excel 2007, and twenty percent Excel 2003... then with an audience of 2000 users, you are alienating hundreds of users by making your sheet primarily compatible with a single program.

Finding solutions within formulas that serve your needs can be a brain bender, but most everything can and should be kept out of Macros. I would be happy to discuss any problems you are facing. Send me a PM or start an Excel Character Sheets help thread. We can discuss tricks with Conditional Formatting, Obfuscating code via Names in Data sheets, creating character sensitive selectable lists and even Matrix math!

Oh, and macros can be your friend so long as users don't need to execute them. I use a VB macro to switch the sheet between developement and Production modes easily, and it saves SO much time hiding data sheets, column headers, and resetting a sheets cell focus. Its really a must have for large sheets that get frequent updates.

[Patrick Goodman]

Using version N, which I just downloaded less than an hour ago.

First off...nice work!

Now, I'm fiddling around with things, and in one of my experiments, I created a human magician with a magic of 6. So far, so good. Seems to be calculating everything properly.

Then I add "Vampire" just to see what'll happen. (I work with the Infected a lot in my writing; it's an occupational hazard.) At this point, I get yellow warning boxes on Charisma (which was a 2) and Magic (which was a 6). The 200 BP that had been devoted to stats suddenly became 120, and the 65 which were spent on Magic became 40.

Have I missed something, or is something seriously wrong that I'm not explaining too well? This is in Excel 2003, by the way.

[SpellBinder]

Vampires, as per RC, have maximum Magic of 5 (pages 77, top right hand column; true of all infected). Also, Vampires have their minimum/maximum Agility & Reaction & Charisma attributes increased by 2 (which is why your Charisma of 2 got flagged, it's too low), and their minimum/maximum Intuition & Willpower attributes increased by 1. The cost of your attributes changed because of the change in minimums, and the magic also changed because you exceeded the maximum and the sheet doesn't calculate the extra 15BP like I thought it would.

And on a side note, something I had not noticed because I really have never messed with the infected, they all have a starting Magic of 1, not 2 as what actually shows on the sheet (the max Magic also doesn't show correctly, though the error is proper). Also, starting infected have an Essence of 5 (again, going from RC, page 77).

[Thirty Second Ar...]

Fresh bug from 1N in Excel 2007:

BP Creation - Skills: Having Mechanic (Group) and any vehicle skills (Gunnery, Pilot Ground Craft, etc) will negatively affect skill point calculation and skill list display.

• If the rank of the vehicle-class skill(s) is less than the rank of Mechanic (Group), the rank cell for the vehicle-class skill(s) will highlight.
• If the rank of the vehicle-class skill(s) is less than or equal to the rank of Mechanic (Group), the BP cost for the vehicle-class skill(s) will not be added to the Active Skills BP total regardless of their ranks.
• If the rank of the vehicle-class skill(s) is greater than the rank of Mechanic (Group), the BP cost will be calculated incorrectly. The math is behaving as if the rank of Mechanic (Group) is the zero-point for the affected skills, and determining BP cost based on the difference between the two numbers - for example, Mechanic (Group) X and any vehicle-class skill at X+1 is returning a total BP cost of (X*10)+4, rather than (X*10)+[(X+1)*4].

[Patrick Goodman]

Adding the Vampire quality after initial chargen, though, shouldn't affect the stats or anything like that. HMHVV doesn't lower the character's Magic rating (per Running Wild). And adding 2 to an existing rating of 2 shouldn't flag any warnings, either.

Will continue to play with things....

[Jhaiisiin]

If you're doing it after chargen, you need to go to the settings tab and set Character Creation to false, so it stops flagging things for you.

[Patrick Goodman]

If you're doing it after chargen, you need to go to the settings tab and set Character Creation to false, so it stops flagging things for you.

Thank you! All the things I've been fiddling with, and I never bothered to go look there...damn, I can be a dumbass sometimes....

[SpellBinder]

If you're doing it after chargen, you need to go to the settings tab and set Character Creation to false, so it stops flagging things for you.

Just remembered to check the sheet when I saw this. There's a box you can put a character into next to where you choose your flavor of HMHVV infection for getting it after character generation. It would probably be best to put an X in that box if that is the case for the character. Doing it this way clears up the otherwise error notices for the Charisma and Magic that were mentioned earlier.

And I noticed that the BP count for a post creation infection is erroneous here too, as at a starting Magic of 6 pre-infection is 65 BP, but then drops to 55 BP for a post creation infected (didn't check all of them via the Main_Sheet).

[DamienKnight]

HMHVV doesn't lower the character's Magic rating (per Running Wild).

Page?

[Patrick Goodman]

AWay from my books, but I'll get you the page reference tonight.

[SpellBinder]

No argument that a character's Magic attribute doesn't change if infected after creation. The entries for HMHVV II & HMHVV III in RC, page 83, state this quite clearly; personally I think it's a typo that HMHVV I doesn't say the same thing, and would argue it's the same for this strain as well.

However, page 77 of RC does state that infected characters at the time of creation have an Essence of 5, Magic of 1, and can increase their Magic to a maximum of 5 + Initiation Grade.

[Patrick Goodman]

DamienKnight: Running Wild, page 68, first column, in the description of the disease stats for HMHVV I.

[DamienKnight]

HMHVV doesn't lower the character's Magic rating (per Running Wild)

Page?

DamienKnight: Running Wild, page 68, first column, in the description of the disease stats for HMHVV I.

When the character awakens, he has
lost all Resonance and technomancer abilities, has acquired the appropriate
Infected (Banshee, Dzoo-noo-qua, Goblin, Nosferatu,
Vampire, or Wendigo) Quality (see Positive Infected Qualities,
p. 79, Runner’s Companion), and has an Essence of 1 and Magic of
1 (or retains her own Magic attribute, if higher) .

For Infected characters with Essence Loss, Magic loss does
not occur every time they lose or spend a point of Essence, and
their maximum Magic attribute is equal to their current Essence
+ Initiate grade. If their maximum Magic attribute is lower than
their current Magic attribute, their current Magic rating is adjusted
down to the reduced maximum.

For characters who become a Infected AFTER character creation, their magic should be reduced to Their Essence + Initiation Grade (as per the Magic Loss for Infected with Essence Loss in Runners Companion). For Ghouls, this means Essence 5 - wares + Initiation Grade.

For a vampire, this means 1 + initiation.

Ie.

Fizzle is a human magician with a 5 magic rating. He is NOT initiatied.

He becomes a vampire. He gets 1 essence and 1 magic OR his existing magic attribute, which is 5. So magic 5... but then the rules for magic loss for characters with Essence Loss comes into play. Since his essence is 1, his magic rating is reduced from 5 to 1.

Now if Fizzle had been a grade 2 initiate with a 5 magic rating, he would have a 3 magic rating after becoming a Vampire.

The sheet does not reflect this currently. I will update this to apply appropriate magic loss based on reduced essence.

The sheet will still assume 6 essence for those with essence drain, and 5 for other infected, but Magic Rating after infection will be reduced based on initiation grade.

[Socinus]

Love the generator, but I've encountered a slight problem.

I created a Human Adept with a Magic of 6, but I tried to set Improved Combat Ability to 6 and I got an error that said I was trying to put the power above my Magic rating.

[Dakka Dakka]

You cannot improve any skill beyound 1.5 times its natural rating. So at a natural 6 you could have a maximum of 6(9), which means Improved Combat Ability 3.
Te error message is misleading even though the flagging is correct.

[DMFubar]

Fresh bug from 1N in Excel 2007:

BP Creation - Skills: Having Mechanic (Group) and any vehicle skills (Gunnery, Pilot Ground Craft, etc) will negatively affect skill point calculation and skill list display.

• If the rank of the vehicle-class skill(s) is less than the rank of Mechanic (Group), the rank cell for the vehicle-class skill(s) will highlight.
• If the rank of the vehicle-class skill(s) is less than or equal to the rank of Mechanic (Group), the BP cost for the vehicle-class skill(s) will not be added to the Active Skills BP total regardless of their ranks.
• If the rank of the vehicle-class skill(s) is greater than the rank of Mechanic (Group), the BP cost will be calculated incorrectly. The math is behaving as if the rank of Mechanic (Group) is the zero-point for the affected skills, and determining BP cost based on the difference between the two numbers - for example, Mechanic (Group) X and any vehicle-class skill at X+1 is returning a total BP cost of (X*10)+4, rather than (X*10)+[(X+1)*4].

This problem actually occurs with with any skill that is not a part of any skill (group) already.

[Thirty Second Ar...]

This problem actually occurs with with any skill that is not a part of any skill (group) already.

Huh, didn't think to check that. Other affected skills, bearing in mind that I didn't go through one-by-one:

• Arcana
• Armorer
• Artisan
• Assensing
• Astral Combat
• Chemistry
• Demolitions
• Diving
• Dodge
• Escape Artist
• Exotic Melee (weapon)
• Exotic Ranged (weapon)
• Forgery
• Heavy Weapons
• Instruction
• Intimidation
• Locksmith
• Parachuting
• Throwing Weapons

[Patrick Goodman]

Using version N. Got a character completed. Turned off character creation mode. Added some karma. Went to raise some knowledge skills. Raised them, but it didn't deduct from my available Karma. Am I missing something?

[Misdemeanor]

You cannot improve any skill beyound 1.5 times its natural rating. So at a natural 6 you could have a maximum of 6(9), which means Improved Combat Ability 3.
Te error message is misleading even though the flagging is correct.

That statement is not 100% correct...Aptitude will allow you to have a base skill of up to 7 thus making the the Max 10 instead of Nine

[Misdemeanor]

I've noticed that the character generators Seem to be Missing the Trust Fund Positive Qualities

[ShadowWalker]

Using version N. Got a character completed. Turned off character creation mode. Added some karma. Went to raise some knowledge skills. Raised them, but it didn't deduct from my available Karma. Am I missing something?

It's a bug, that I posted about right after the latest release was released. There is an error in the math for the formula in cell AW8. If you remove the -Free_Knowledge_BP from the formula it works properly, but I've not tested it enough to see if doing that breaks something else.

[SpellBinder]

I've noticed that the character generators Seem to be Missing the Trust Fund Positive Qualities

No, they're there. You can enter a Trust Fund quality by typing out it's exact name, or you can meet the requirement of the Trust Fund quality and choose a SINner negative quality first.