I've discovered something of an annoyance... in the Equipment section, if you enter say, 5.5, it defaults to date (may 5th) rather than numbers, and since the sheet is locked I cannot change the formatting. This kinda buggers up the rather nifty weight section sadly...

That's odd, doesn't happen for me... Can I ask what regional settings you use and which version of Excel and Windows? I have used the sheet for more than a dozen characters, and they all have fractional equipment weights and this has never happened. It may be that a cell format change will do the job. If you PM me your email address I can try a fix and send it to you to test.

The new version (1.01) is now live on the downloads page. Thanks Pat!

Didn't know anyone was actually using this. I found a couple of errors recently, including one which replaces the level/class based Initiative bonus with the Defence bonus... I'll fire off a new version to Pat/Alex now.

Interesting, thanks. I'd missed the whole halving thing. 

Trip him. A lot of armor benfits go away when you're sprawled...

Can you give an example please? I'm struggling to find any benefit that is lost.

[5]

Hi, I just wanted to check the DR of a character in my current game.

14th Level Soldier with:
Moderate Platemail 5
Heavy Fittings +2
Fortunes of War II +2
Armour Basics/Mastery/Supremacy +2

Total DR 11

Is this correct? Does Fortunes of War stack with the armour (I believe it does)? This seems like a very high value, especially considering that killing machine the Tarasque is only listed as having DR 10. 

When I converted a bard to FC recently, he ended up as a Sage 8/Mage 5. OK, that's high level, but Sage is a great choice for a bard, I think.

If Wrestling/grappling became powered by Unarmed attack, I could easily see an equivalent of the Eagle Eye trick allowing you to substitute your Athletics (Str) bonus for your Unarmed Attack bonus x number of times per combat.

I like that. You get a basic ability with grappling equivalent to your other attacks, but if you make a commitment to learning a technique (wrestling, Judo or whatever) then you get better. Without giving it a great deal of thought, it makes a whole heap of sense to me. 

An interesting question from a re-read of the grappling rules:

As Grapple is listed as an 'Unarmed/1-Handed Melee Attack Action', I guess that means that Unarmed (or 1-Handed? Is this right?) proficiency is applied to the Athletics roll? So not being trained in Unarmed gives a -4 penalty and having a forte gives a +1? I hope this is the case, as it would mitigate some of my concerns over using Athletics for grappling...

FWIW, the training for your body to swim and climb and such is good for wrestling.  When I wrestled in high school a big chunk of each practice was running up and down the stairs.  (The building has 10 stories, it was a whole bunch of stairs.)

Of course, that makes perfect sense. But in game terms wouldn't that be increasing Strength (ie. one aspect of general fitness) which is useful in all three disciplines? Rather than learning skills & techniques for a specific purpose. For instance, learning backstroke isn't going to help you wrestle somebody to the floor. Knowing Judo doesn't help with abseiling. Other than the generally increased fitness level that accompanies continued pursuit of these activities.

I do understand the advantages of having a compact list of skills, and therefore a general 'Athletics' skill, but why is grappling (I believe) the only physical (non-magical) attack technique that doesn't work off of attack bonus? Seems inconsistent. Also, to quote an earlier example, it's good to have a courtier who can learn wrestling, yes, but why can't he learn boxing in the same way?

Well I will tell you I personally love the fact that its a separate skill and not based on the unarmed attack bonus (or any attack bonus).  It means that the courtier can be an excellent wrestler.
Grappling and Striking are 2 very different skills. 
Take a look at your typical High School Wrestler they can grapple the heck out of a person but it doesn't mean they can box you.
Also I think Athletics is a stable of Soldiers.
Interesting factoid for you the regions around the global that developed and made heavy use of metal armor have well codified grappling systems.  It is a battlefield art. 

I can see what you're saying and I agree to an extent (it's good to allow use of skills in combat), but swimming/climbing/wrestling are also very different skills. And if it's a battlefield art, then the soldier should be the master grappler, surely? Also, basing it on BAB/Unarmed proficiency reduces the disparity between characters with high Athletics skill and those without.

As an example: A 7th level Pech Burglar with maximum ranks in Athletics and 0 Str bonus has Athletics +10. A book-standard TL 7 Gnoll has Athletics +3 (no skill, competence only). So the Pech Burglar has +12 (size advantage) vs. +3 to initiate a grapple with the Gnoll and the Gnoll then has +5 (size advantage) vs. +10 to try to break the hold if the grapple succeeds. So because the Pech player wanted a decent climber, he can take down Gnolls with little problem in a grapple. Even if the Gnoll had the entire Wrestling feat chain, he would still likely lose. Now, I know the Gnoll could be given Athletics skill, but this just reinforces my point that Athletics almost becomes a mandatory skill in any game with frequent combat.

This just doesn't feel right at all.

Without interfering too much in the discussions of people with far more play experience than I have, since I read the grapple rules for the first time I have wondered why it's based on Athletics rather than unarmed attack bonus?

To me this would make more sense? I understand that opposed attack rolls are not really used whereas opposed skill rolls are, but surely somebody trained to fight and with an unarmed forte should be better at grappling than an experienced swimmer/climber?

As a GM, when designing foes, having to give most 'warrior' type opponents Athletics as a signature skill just to stand a chance in a grapple against a PC burglar who has full ranks in Athletics feels wrong. It almost makes Athletics a compulsory skill in any game where combat is common.

As a rule, crits don't apply to multiple hits, only the first. And as the supernatural attack is only triggered by the natural attack, I'd say that it would be unaffected by the crit.

Also, Soul Drain to me reads as not applying to wounds in any fashion, regardless.

Thanks for the reply. With soul drain I agree totally, but the question is for life drain. I guess it's down to whether it's regarded as additional damage to the triggering attack or an attack in its own right. For the former, it gets the crit effect, for the latter it doesn't. I do lean towards agreeing with you, though as life drain does lethal damage it would mean that the target gets its DR again vs. a separate attack, wouldn't it? That I'm not so sure about...

No, still undecided...  

So, a vampire bites a target and gets a threat/crit. Resulting damage from the bite goes straight to Wounds, but what about the life drain damage if the target fails its Fort save? Is it also impacted by the critical? Life drain damage to Wounds or just Vitality?

I think it's not included in the crit effect and therefore only drains Vitality, but I may have missed something!

Congratulations on the conversion! Welcome to the Forums!

Thanks, I've been around on the forum for a while now, but just starting to properly get into actual playing of the game, which is nice.