With the realease of 5th edition D&D, Wizards of the Coast has released a set of official character sheets. The problem however lies with the fact that in the US the most common paper size is the US Letter one. People in Europe and other countries, however, most commonly use the A4 paper size. This means that when you print the official D&D 5e character sheets in A4 paper size, a lot of space goes to waste.Â
This is why I’ve created a new character sheet that is optimized for A4 paper size.
This 5e character sheet is optimized for printing on a A4 paper. No more unnecessary margins.
I've tried to completely eliminate unused space on this sheet by adding as much information as can be added on the page.
This sheet is, of course, form fillable, for those of you that like to make your characters on your computer.
The feature I'm most proud of is the auto-calculation of fields. You don't have to input everything manually. The sheet does it for you.
The official DnD character sheets from WotC are very nice but they are made for the US Letter paper size. This is fine but in my country the most common type of paper is A4. Why is that a problem? Because even though I can print them out fine, there is a lot of white space which isn’t optimal. Combined with the fact that I like to write every Feature’s rules to make it easy for new players to reference, it means that every inch of space I can save from the less relevant stuff, I will use.
This fact pushed me to create my own sheet, using assets from the official WotC DnD Character Sheet as well as ideas implemented in other DnD character sheets around the web.
Where X is any other custom DnD character sheet like the Current Standard, Ard, MPMB etc.
The dnd character sheets that already exist are really good. I mean, there are sheets specifically made for any class which is awesome. But for each one of these sheets, there was one aspect that I didn’t really like.
So I made my own. You may use it as you like, or you may use the other available sheets. Whatever works for you.
I hear you, but this is one area that I can’t really improve (in my own opinion) upon. That is because I give my players cards for spells and tokens for spell slots. If you really want a sheet version of this though, I do have a recommendation.
The Class DnD Character Sheet Bundle over at the DM’s Guild offers a collection of great sheets, specifically made for each class and sub-class. One of them is the Spell Sheet, which is as close to perfect as I could find.
The other sheets mentioned in this article are also a good alternative. It’s really up to you.
Just subscribe to The DM’s Journey Newsletter and receive this character sheet for free.
Note: The things mentioned here may not reflect the latest edition of this dnd 5e character sheet. Please check the changelog to see what’s new.
First of all, I increased the available space in the Features and Traits section. As I said above, I really need this space. To manage this, I moved the Personality section to the second page which I think is a more appropriate place for it, as it is next to the character backstory and portrait section. I took this idea from 4chan’s /tg/ DnD 5e character sheet.
Next, I decided to change the hit points box a bit. I liked the big box but I thought the Temporary HP box was too big. Also, my players always used the line for the Max HP to write their current HP which kinda drove me mad. So I looked the Ard v5 DnD character sheet and stole its HP box, providing a small box for the character’s Max HP and another small box for the Temp HP.
Going a little further down, I left everything the same as the official dnd 5e character sheet. I could make boxed areas for the hit dice (which I did for a previous version) but then there’s multiclassing. Adding more boxes would be useless if the character didn’t care to multiclass, so the line stays. The Death Saves box required no change either.
Weapons. I thought 3 weapon slots would be enough. I didn’t really like the boxes’ appearance though, so I stole another thing from the Ard DnD 5e Character Sheet. Each weapon space now occupies two rows, giving it enough area to include the weapon’s range, if applicable. The small area below each weapon is designed to write anything else relevant to that weapon.
I also included two areas for ammunition, also stolen from the Ard Sheet.
The equipment box was the one that occupied most of my time. I knew I needed an area for Armor and Shield. I also needed a box big enough to write all the equipment the characters carry. So I moved the currency boxes to the left and made them stack horizontally. The available space wasn’t big enough for all five of them so I completely removed the Electrum Pieces box as I don’t really use it in my games. This might change in the future.
Moving on to the left side of the sheet, everything is mostly the same. I only added an area for current and max weight the character can carry, and the aforementioned currency boxes.
Turning to page two of the sheet reveals the character details. There is a big enough character portrait area, right above the Personality boxes. On the left of these, there is a big box for the character’s backstory. The official one was just too small for me and my players. This is also mostly stolen from 4chan’s dnd character sheet, although I’ve made some alterations.
On the bottom of this page, there is enough space for additional equipment and a Notes section.
The third page is just for general note taking and other not-so-important info the player might want to write down.
In a game where I was a player, I used this area to write down the stats of my horse, as well as the descriptions for the two spells my Barbarian could cast.
Last but not least, the PDF is not only Form-Fillable, but the skill modifiers (among other things) are auto-calculated.
This is a feature many of the DnD 5e character sheets have but all of them had one single thing that my brain couldn’t handle. Positive values were unsigned, which means that a negative skill modifier would appear as “-1” for example, but a positive one would appear without the “+” symbol. This is a very minor thing that I spent 2 hours trying to make work, but for me at least, it’s worth it.
So you just write down your ability scores (in the small boxes) and your proficiency bonus, along with everything else is done for you.
Other things that are auto-calculated are the max weight, initiative modifier, passive perception as well as an asterisk next to the Stealth skill if you check the Stealth Dis. box for your armor.
Just subscribe to The DM’s Journey Newsletter and receive this character sheet for free.
This D&D Character Sheet is like my pet project so I always find small or big ways to improve it. I’m also open to suggestions and criticism so feel free to leave a comment below. If you have suggestions or criticisms you can leave them below and I’ll consider updating the sheet to include them.
You can check the changelog here.
Download my character sheet, optimized for A4 paper size, form-fillable and auto-calculated
You will receive an email containing the download link for this character sheet
Is there a way to get this without the default-filled numbers? I’d like to print these out for my players to fill in by hand, but the default values are not blank.
Yes the download includes a printer-only version.
The subscribe and download button doesn’t work
Hello and thanks for your interest. Please try again, should be fixed now.
The subscribe and download button doesn’t work for me for some reason. Bit bummed out about it.
Hello and thanks for your interest. Please try again, should be fixed now.
Cool.
Nice
What are the blank fields under skill section? (The one that`s inside skill box and two under the box)
Hi Iraklis, I think this is a great character sheet. Given most characters’ inclinations in many ways, I think there’s ample space for everything. Obviously PDFs have limited interaction once they’re published, so most of my wishes aren’t in your control!
A few things I wanted to comment on!
1) there’s a weird box to the right of Stealth. What’s it for? I imagine a feat’s bonus, but the form doesn’t save any input. Kind of strange.
2) for the purposes of printing the sheet, it seems like the form-filled sections with lots of space will be an incredibly tiny font. Any way you could make it a little bigger? I imagine most races/classes won’t have so much to put there that it’ll take up the entire space, even with feats.
3) I really love that the abilities/saving throws automatically generate, but I wish that it would calculate the total and output the result rather than just showing up as all of the bonuses together. It looks very messy with all of the extra pluses and symbols.
4) I love the weight carrying capacity addition for adventuring items. Excellent. Does the weight of currency factor into that?
5) The equipment section doesn’t seem to multiply weight by quantity to get actual equipment weight, which is a shame.
So far so good, though! Thank you.
Hello and thank you for your feedback. I really appreciate it.
So on to your comments:
1) Click on the Stealth Dis. checkbox at the armor area. An asterisk will appear in that area you’re talking about automatically to remind you that you have disadvantage on stealth checks. 😉
2) I know what you mean. for the purposes of my group I basically inserted all the rules for a class feature or feat because all of my players were new to DnD. So I needed all the space I could get.
Initially the text size was automatic (the more text, the smaller it would get to fit) but that proved wonky so I had to change it to a set size.
Surprisingly though, it’s very readable once its printed. You can also bold text selection by pressing Ctrl+B, or italicize it by pressing Ctrl+I. I think that Adobe Acrobat Reader (free version) has the form creation tool which would allow you to change these settings. Not sure though.
3) I’m afraid I don’t understand what you mean? That’s exactly what it’s supposed to do. It calculates the final bonus and it shows up as “+5” for example. Does it not work like that for you? What program do you use to open the pdf with?
4) Thank you. No it doesn’t calculate the weight of coins from the first page but that’s by design because that area is meant to be written on after the sheet is printed (with a pencil). That’s why the font colour in those boxes is a light grey instead of black. So you can write on top of it. These numbers change frequently so it made sense.
If you do want to calculate the weight of coins though, just add an item “ex. Coin pouch” and input its weight by hand.
5) The whole auto-calculation of this area was really more of an afterthought. I might add this feature in the future.
Thank you again for your valuable feedback. I hope you enjoy this sheet.
can I print the sheet
Yes of course.
Icant download character sheet. Im not the only one to have this problème. Please check
Hey and thanks for your interest in my character sheet.
I see that you’ve received the subscription confirmation e-mail. Did you click on the “Confirm Subscription” link?
Tried signing up for your A4 character sheet a few times, and have yet to receive the link to to the sheet. Could this be looked into?
Hi and thank you for your interest in my character sheet. Have you checked your spam folder?
I have. The email links to this page, confirm sub, and cancel sub, with no attachments. Any ideas?
You’ll have to confirm your subscription to the newsletter in order to receive any other email, per GDPR rules.
Cool, done that now. Just awaiting the link.
I’ll also send you one manually to make sure you get it.
With regards to the two previous messages I sent today, I’ve opened the PDF in Acrobat, and had a look at the code for both the max-weight and the Push/Drag/Lift boxes, and simplified it for my use. I’ll share the code I managed to wrangle, so you can use it in an update if you feel.
First, I added two extra options to the Size drop box: “Medium, Powerful Build” and “Large, Powerful Build”. Next, I changed the code for the max-weight calculation box from what it was to the following (inside the dashes):
—
if ( (this.getField(“size”).value == “Tiny”) ){
event.value = ((7.5 * this.getField(“str score”).value)) + ” lb.”;
}
if ( (this.getField(“size”).value == “Small”) || (this.getField(“size”).value == “Medium”) ){
event.value = (15 * this.getField(“str score”).value) + ” lb.”;
}
if ( (this.getField(“size”).value == “Large”) || (this.getField(“size”).value == “Medium, Powerful Build”) ){
event.value = ((30 * this.getField(“str score”).value)) + ” lb.”;
}
if ( (this.getField(“size”).value == “Large, Powerful Build”) ){
event.value = ((60 * this.getField(“str score”).value)) + ” lb.”;
}
—
FInally, I changed the code for the push-drag-lift calculation box from what it was to the following (inside the dashes):
—
if ( (this.getField(“size”).value == “Tiny”) ){
event.value = (15 * this.getField(“str score”).value) + ” lb.”;
}
if ( (this.getField(“size”).value == “Small”) || (this.getField(“size”).value == “Medium”) ){
event.value = (30 * this.getField(“str score”).value) + ” lb.”;
}
if ( (this.getField(“size”).value == “Large”) || (this.getField(“size”).value == “Medium, Powerful Build”) ){
event.value = ((60 * this.getField(“str score”).value)) + ” lb.”;
}
if ( (this.getField(“size”).value == “Large, Powerful Build”) ){
event.value = ((120 * this.getField(“str score”).value)) + ” lb.”;
}
—
I know at the moment WotC hasn’t put out a player option with both Large and Powerful Build, but if the enlarge component of an enlarge/reduce spell was permanently cast on a Goliath or Firbolg, then it would affect it in such a way.
Would this be something you would consider incorporating into the sheet going forward?
The quotes have broken in the message, they should be Unicode U+0022 or ASCII 0x22 type quotes.
Cheers. Been trying to use it, I think the calculations for Large size are off. If I’ve read the PHB correctly, Large has both double carry capacity of medium, and Push Drag and Lift of medium.
From the SRD
Carrying Capacity. Your carrying capacity is your Strength score multiplied by 15. This is the weight (in pounds) that you can carry, which is high enough that most characters don’t usually have to worry about it.
Push, Drag, or Lift. You can push, drag, or lift a weight in pounds up to twice your carrying capacity (or 30 times your Strength score). While pushing or dragging weight in excess of your carrying capacity, your speed drops to 5 feet.
Size and Strength. Larger creatures can bear more weight, whereas Tiny creatures can carry less. For each size category above Medium, double the creature’s carrying capacity and the amount it can push, drag, or lift. For a Tiny creature, halve these weights.
This, to me, seems that Large size creatures carry capacity is Str score time 30, and push drag lift is Str score time 60.
How hard would this be to fix for you?
Hey Danno. Thanks for taking the time to bring this to my attention. You are right, of course. The Push, Drag, Lift value was incorrectly calculated. Don’t know how I missed that.
I fixed it by just making the value dependent on the max-weight value times 2 for all sizes. I’m uploading an updated version of this now.
And while I think of it, an option for Powerful Build, as a check box next to the size drop down, that doubles the selected size’s carry capacity and push drag lift values, for those that play goliath and such.
That would be an interesting addition. I’ll consider it for version 21. Thank you.
possible i I could have a copy of an AI file? Would like to custom fit it for my campaign, will not use it for commercial purposes
Sorry but I did not make this in AI.
This is nothing short of brilliance. I’ve been hunting for an A4 sheet for…well, when I started playing the fifth edition. Do you have a non-form fill version for the old-fashioned pencil pushers? Not that I won’t be able to make LOTS of use out of this one. 🙂
Can you make a ruled version of the sheet? As an OC in writing, I like my stuff written straight. A ruled Traits and Features section would be nice. Thanks
Hey thanks for your comment. Your suggestion sounds great and I can’t believe I didn’t think of it. From now on every non-auto-complete version of this sheet will come with lines to write on.
Thanks you for the kind words. Here’s a print version of the sheet.
https://dmsjourney.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/A4-Character-Sheet-v16-PRINTER-ONLY.pdf
Hey, i can’t change most of my fields. Anything that i’m doing wrong?
What program are you using to open the file?
Just a thought/improvement to ponder… I usually put hit dice in as bubbles to tick off as I use them (capital O’s on the form-fillable sheet). Would there be a way to automatically generate bubbles based on the data entered for hit dice?
Or maybe an array like this:
d6 OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
d8 OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
d10 OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
d12 OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
where you could toggle the ones you want to appear on/off manually.
Thanks for your comment. Unfortunately this is beyond the scope of my abilities at the moment. It would also require a big rework of the design to work.
this probably a silly question but how do you upload a character photo? or is it possibel t get a version that you can write in the players appearance?
Hello and thanks for your interest in my sheet.
To upload a character photo just click on the area and a popup will appear that will let you choose a file.
Player appearance can be written on the top of the second page.
I hate to sound like an idiot but I am not able to change any of the fields
Hmmm. Can you maybe post a gif so I can see exactly what the problem is?
Also, what program are you using to open the pdf?
Hello,
I’m not a designer myself, but this was essentially what I was looking for in awhile.
Would it be possible to get a version that does not auto calculate?
Warmes Regards,
Han
Hello and thanks for reading my blog. You can easily disable auto calculation by disabling Javascript on Acrobat Reader (if that’s what you are using). Here’s how to do it:
1. Go to Edit>Preferences
2. Select Javascript Category
3. Uncheck the “Enable Acrobat JavaScript” option
4. Click OK.
Hope this helps. If it doesn’t, just let me know and I’ll see what I can do
Hey,
I did as you said, it works lilke a charm, thank you 🙂
Warmest Regards,
Han
possible I can send you a pic? would like to give my thoughts on the character sheet 🙂
I’m sorry but I’m not sure what you mean.