The Character Forge

A free, fully automated D&D 2024 character sheet — offline, no account, yours to keep.

The short version

Fill in your race, class, and background, and The Character Forge calculates the rest — ability modifiers, skills, saving throws, HP, AC, spell slots, all of it, live as you type. It's a single HTML file. No install, no login, no subscription, no character cap. Your data never leaves your computer unless you choose to export it.

It's also the first piece of a bigger pipeline: export your character as JSON, and your DM can pull it straight into The Ledger to reflect a trimmed piece of your backstory onto an NPC at the table — the only tool in this space that connects what a player builds to what a DM runs. More on that below, but The Character Forge stands entirely on its own too.

What's automated

• All 12 core classes and their SRD subclass, with features that unlock automatically as you level
• All 9 SRD species, with their traits applied for you
• The 4 SRD backgrounds, each with its Origin Feat, skills, and ability bonuses filled in
• Every SRD cantrip and spell, with slots, save DCs, and attack bonuses calculated from your stats
• Full weapon and armor tables, with attack bonuses and damage computed automatically
• General Feats, Fighting Styles, and Epic Boons from the SRD
• A portrait slot, multi-page layout that reflows to fit your screen, and one-click JSON export/import so your character travels with you — between sessions, between devices, or into The Ledger

What's not automated — and why that's on purpose

Every SRD race, class, and spell is fully automated — full modifiers, HP, and spell slots calculated for you. Anything from the full Player's Handbook or your own homebrew has a clean fillable slot right on the same sheet — pull the details from your Player's Handbook, D&D Beyond, or whatever reference you already use, and it works the way pen-and-paper always did for that part.

That's not a missing feature — it's what keeps this sheet legally distributable at all. It's built entirely on the free D&D 2024 SRD (Creative Commons), not on reproduced Player's Handbook text, so there's nothing here that depends on a license that could change or lapse. Full PHB content and homebrew both slot into the same open fillable fields, side by side, exactly the way you'd handle them on a paper sheet.

Why not just use D&D Beyond?

D&D Beyond's automation is free too — but only as an online tool tied to an account, with a cap on how many characters you can keep for free. Their downloadable sheets, separately, are static fillable PDFs with no automation at all. The Character Forge is both at once, in one file: automated and offline, with no account, no character cap, and your data staying exactly where you put it. It also never asks you to buy anything to keep using it — because there's nothing to sell you here.

The pipeline (optional, but worth knowing about)

Export your character, hand the file to your DM, and if they're running The Ledger, they can pull your backstory straight onto an NPC card with one click — no retyping, no summarizing from memory. It's part of a four-tool suite, The Loremaster's Kit, where a DM can also build encounters in The Skirmish Log and run the fight on a live map in The Cartographer's Table. Nothing here requires the rest of the suite — this sheet works completely on its own — but if your table uses more than one of these, they talk to each other.

Price

Free. Pay-what-you-want if you'd like to support the project — every bit helps.

Works offline in any modern browser. No account, no ads, no tracking. Pair with your Player's Handbook or preferred D&D reference for anything outside the SRD.