My Revised OSE Character Sheet – Tweaked for Actual Play (ENGLISH!)
Download link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mOLJJxv80wwgqr1FNNur0T9UrOme--kJ/view?usp=drive\_link
Hi everyone,
I’ve spent quite a bit of time working with the official Old-School Essentials character sheet by Necrotic Gnome, gradually refining and expanding it to better suit the needs of my OSE group.
After several revisions, I thought I’d share the current version with you. Maybe some of you will find it useful for your own games as well!
Here’s a quick overview of some of the changes and the reasoning behind them:
Abilities: I wanted to have space for temporary modifiers while still keeping the original ability score visible. This makes it easier to keep track of effects without losing sight of the character’s base score.
Combat & AC: For Armor Class (AC), I added a way to distinguish between carrying a shield and actually using it—after all, owning a shield doesn’t mean you always have it ready. There’s also a reminder of the halfling’s AC bonus against large opponents.
Armor – House Rules: I wanted heavy armor to have a little more mechanical impact, so this section includes some of our house rules. Armor can affect Dexterity checks, falling damage, the ability to surprise monsters, and Strength checks for swimming. These are house rules and not standard OSE rules.
Class Skills: Especially for new players, I wanted class skills and abilities to be immediately visible. Simple checkboxes and a compact list make it easy to see at a glance what your character can do. PS: Fighters automatically gain the CLEAVE fighting skill at Level 1 in our games.
Weapons: The weapons section tracks where a weapon is carried and how much damage it deals. I’ve also added a few small reminders for two-handed swords, daggers, slow weapons, and polearms.
Exploration: There is now a dedicated field for torches, so one of the most important exploration resources can be tracked directly on the first page.
Encumbrance: On the second page, I reorganized the encumbrance system to make it easier to use at the table. The small boxes next to packed and equipped items represent individual slots. So if your plate armor takes up three slots, you can simply write “Plate Armor” once and check off three boxes instead of spreading it across multiple lines.
We also count equipped items toward movement rate. Wearing heavy armor and carrying a weapon may already put you into a lower movement category. The arrows are intended to make this immediately visible.
I also wanted to give strong characters a small advantage, so characters with STR 16+ gain one additional slot for equipped items.
Reference Tables: Finally, I added a few useful tables and reminders to the second page: Thief skills, Turning the Undead, how the various modifiers are derived, and—for groups that want to use it—Save vs. Death at 0 HP.
That’s basically the idea: to keep as much useful information as possible directly on the character sheet without making it feel cluttered.
I’d love to hear what you think. Any feedback, suggestions, or ideas for further improvements are very welcome!
To briefly explain the penalties listed under Armor:
1. DEXTERITY CHECK PENALTY: Leather – 1, Chainmail – 2, Plate Armor – 3
2. FALLING DAMAGE: None/Leather 1d4, Chainmail 1d6, Plate Armor 1d8
3. NO SURPRISE: When wearing heavy armor (Chainmail, Plate Armor), the character or party cannot surprise opponents during an encounter.
4. SWIMMING: Here I based the rules on Dolmenwood. If you enter or fall into water, you can only move at half your normal movement rate. If you are wearing leather armor, you must succeed at a normal Strength check each round or sink and begin to drown. If you are wearing chainmail, the Strength check is made with a -2 penalty; if you are wearing plate armor, the penalty is -4.
Drowning: For each point of Constitution, you can hold your breath for one round (10 seconds) and can be rescued by your fellow players. Once a number of rounds equal to your Constitution score has passed and you have not been rescued, you have drowned and are dead.
Throughout this time, you’ll be flailing about in a panic and won’t be able to perform any other actions.