Old-School Essentials Character Creator

Build an OSE character from first roll to print-ready sheet, with source packs, house rules, equipment, saves, and optional AI details.

This browser-based creator keeps the full character-building journey in one guided workspace. Roll or enter abilities, choose a race and class, manage progression and equipment, add final details, save the result, and print a filled OSE sheet. The default rules follow this project's OSE Reforged house rules, while optional source packs can expand the available content.

What's New in 1.1.0

• Assign separate providers and models to creative writing, short text, vision, and image generation.
• Use OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, OpenRouter, xAI, Z.ai, DeepSeek, or OpenCode Go, including xAI device-code sign-in.
• Load heavy catalogs and print tooling only when needed for a faster first visit.
• Import, copy, download, and restore character JSON with clearer save and load errors.

See the full changelog.

What You Can Do

• Build a complete OSE character. Move through rolling, race and class selection, progression, equipment, final details, and printing without rebuilding derived values by hand.
• Combine supported source packs. Start with Advanced OSE/D&D 1e, then mix in The Shrike, Dolmenwood, Gods of the Forbidden North, Mystara, or The Complete Northland Saga.
• Use the project's Reforged rules. Ability adjustments, racial hit dice, class data, silver-based advancement, encumbrance, magic, and downtime follow the maintained house-rules reference.
• Outfit the character with live totals. Apply equipment kits or customize individual items while money, carried weight, movement, combat values, and class requirements update.
• Handle class-specific choices. Manage spell selection, specialist skill progressions, favored terrain, and eligible caster grogs in the same character record.
• Add optional generated details. Create names, traits, professions, portraits, and long-form backstories with a provider and model chosen for each task.
• Keep and move characters. Store five browser-local save slots, restore them later, or import and export JSON through files or the clipboard.
• Print the finished sheet. Export a filled OSE PDF with derived statistics, equipment, languages, abilities, portrait, and other supported character details.

Quick Start

1. Open Sources and choose the content packs for this character.
2. Roll abilities, or use the clearly marked manual-entry path when your table approves custom scores. Pick a race and class after reviewing their requirements and rules.
3. Set level, hit points, wealth, equipment, magic, and specialist choices. Add final details if wanted, save the character, then select Print.

The app can be used without AI. Generated names, text, and images remain optional additions to the core OSE workflow.

Installation

Requirements

• Node.js 18 or later
• npm

git clone https://github.com/apoapostolov/Old-School-Essentials-Character-Creator.git
cd Old-School-Essentials-Character-Creator
npm install
npm run dev

Vite prints the local address when the development server starts.

For a production preview:

npm run build
npm run preview

Other Old-School Essentials Modules

Name	Description
OSE Reforged Rules	Class-feature compendium and automation for OSE Reforged Rules.
OSE Combat Improvements	Combat-tracker declareables and controls for OSE.
OSE Statblock Importer	Import and export OSE/BX character and monster text.
Old-School Essentials Character Creator	Web character generator for OSE with print-ready sheets and optional AI assists.

Optional AI Setup and Privacy

Open the in-app Settings panel to choose a provider, key, and model for each AI task. Provider keys entered there are remembered in browser storage. Build-time environment keys are also supported; see the provider names and variables in the AI provider notes.

AI requests leave the browser and go to the provider selected for that task. Review the generated prompt before sending sensitive character or campaign material. xAI SuperGrok sign-in uses a device-code flow and needs the Vite OAuth proxy supplied by npm run dev; a static host must provide an equivalent proxy.

The character saves and selected source list use browser localStorage. Export JSON if you want a portable backup before clearing site data.

Rules and Content

The maintained rules reference is rules/OSE_HOUSE_RULES.md. It covers the project's combat math, score generation, survivability, classes, advancement, spell access, alignment, encumbrance, group checks, grogs, and downtime procedures.

Optional source packs are loaded from third-party/. Their names and publishers remain visible in the source picker so users can tell which material is active.

Support

Support, feedback, and feature ideas: @ApoMakesMods on X.

License

MIT. See LICENSE.