Making your own power cards

[eloquentaction]

Originally Posted by ronnaldo

I was wondering...could you add the unique items in KOTS and the other "official adventures" the one that comes to mind is Aecris the magical longsword from KOTS

Great job with these by the way...love em

Problem being - when I DM I *never* use official adventures. I find the characters (especially the power gamers) have already memorized the entire plot-line, NPCs, stats of the mobs, where all the treasure is, etc.

I remember running one adventure where a magic sword was supposedly 'hidden' in a pool in one of the rooms. The player kept making his poor character dive into the pool even when I started giving him hypothermia damage and even though I kept telling him there wasn't anything in the pool.

I swore off of 'canned' adventures from that point on.

So - that being said, I don't have a copy of those adventures to look through and place them items / powers / whatever into my power set. If someone would like to create cards for me and send a mini mse-set, I'll take a look at it and possibly release it with my next version.

Sorry about that.

-- Hirahito

[ronnaldo]

Hirahito...no problem if you don't want to add unique items from officially released adventures...i kind of figured out how to make them myself. My group (and myself) are very new to D&D and KOTS is just fine for us :P.

By the way ... your cards are a huge reason we are having so much fun playing the game instead of flip..flip...flip ahh..here it is

[Maskhim]

Hi there ! I've been lurking for a while and I think it's about time to thank those whose work I borrowed to enhance my d&d4 experience.

So, thanks Grandpa for your set of powercards, my players are really happy to use them. I followed other's work and even if I chose Grandpa's cards, everyone did a really good job here.

[eloquentaction]

Originally Posted by ronnaldo

Hirahito...no problem if you don't want to add unique items from officially released adventures...i kind of figured out how to make them myself. My group (and myself) are very new to D&D and KOTS is just fine for us :P.

By the way ... your cards are a huge reason we are having so much fun playing the game instead of flip..flip...flip ahh..here it is

Not sure you understood what I was saying...

I don't have a problem adding the cards from the adventures. I'm just not going to go out and buy a product I'd never use to do so.

If someone (like YOURSELF, *cough*) want's to make the cards and send them to me, I'd be happy to add them into the official set for everyone else.

-- Hirahito

[defendi]

Hirahito,

I think the Barbarian powers are missing keywords in 4.3. Just an FYI.

[Tancread]

Originally Posted by eloquentaction

... even though they all seem to assume I'm insane. Hmmmm....

-- Hirahito

I assure you we mean insane in the nicest possible way, not in the get therapy and stop updating kind of way....

Once you have your tools for doing cards I will be happy to try to go through some of the modules and pull out items for you. I don't run them, but I do get them to loot ideas from.

[Fedifensor]

Great job, guys! One question, as I have a game coming up this Sunday - has anyone done a card set that includes the Swordmage powers from the latest Dragon Magazine? I was hoping to retrain into one of the new daily powers from the article.

[Grandpa]

Originally Posted by Maskhim

...thanks Grandpa for your set of powercards, my players are really happy to use them.

You're super-duper welcome. It's been a pleasure to see them get so much use. If others are lurking and use different sets, I hope they weigh in. Having gone through what I did to make the 1500+ core set cards, I know what an enormous amount of life people like Hiro are putting into their projects and making available to the community, and in a timely manner, no less.

Thanks!

[dekarguy]

Originally Posted by eloquentaction

After the 4.4 release, I'm going to be building a version 5.0 which will have an Ander-like set in it (both Portrait and landscape).

I can't wait

Props to Ander, Hirahito, and everyone who has contributed, these are so much better than writing out powers on cards, or flipping back and forth between 10 different pages in the books. I can't wait for the Ander template for the Hirahito cards

Keep up the good work

[defendi]

Originally Posted by Fedifensor

Great job, guys! One question, as I have a game coming up this Sunday - has anyone done a card set that includes the Swordmage powers from the latest Dragon Magazine? I was hoping to retrain into one of the new daily powers from the article.

It's really easy to do just one card in one of the MSE sets, if you need to. Find a similar card. Copy it. Paste it. Change the new version.

[eloquentaction]

Originally Posted by defendi

Hirahito,

I think the Barbarian powers are missing keywords in 4.3. Just an FYI.

I'll take a look at it. If they are I'll try and get them fixed for the 4.4 release.

Originally Posted by Fedifensor

Great job, guys! One question, as I have a game coming up this Sunday - has anyone done a card set that includes the Swordmage powers from the latest Dragon Magazine? I was hoping to retrain into one of the new daily powers from the article.

Dragon #368? I don't think so. I can see you guys (meaning the users of my cards) are going to force me to buy the Dragon and Dungeon subscriptions. You are, don't lie about it. I can hear you guys already...

Originally Posted by Grandpa

You're super-duper welcome. It's been a pleasure to see them get so much use. If others are lurking and use different sets, I hope they weigh in. Having gone through what I did to make the 1500+ core set cards, I know what an enormous amount of life people like Hiro are putting into their projects and making available to the community, and in a timely manner, no less.

Thanks!

Thank you Grandpa. If I come across as thorough, it's only because I follow in the footsteps of veritable wonders such as yourself. Plus, if anyone really wants to thank me, they should be thanking the patience of my girlfriend, Jojo. She's a saint.

-- Hirahito

[Ghaerdon Fain]

Originally Posted by eloquentaction

... if anyone really wants to thank me, they should be thanking the patience of my girlfriend, Jojo. She's a saint.

-- Hirahito

Thank You, Jojo!

[praetorian75]

I have quite literally spent ALL DAY on this project of mine (since 9am), and I can't get it to work, so I'm going to ask for your collective help.

Goal:

To be able to print power, feat, and certain types of equipment cards through MSE using Tirian's layout, using the most current data.


Problems Encountered:

Primarily, there seems to be a disconnect/incompatibility between Randolph's files (that I download here) and Tirian's tirian.zip (which I can't link because I can't search through the posts and I'm not scrolling manually through 20+ pages). The tirian.zip file is dated 5/5/08. The only actual "mse-set" file I found with Randolph's files is for DDXP (whatever that means) and doesn't include any core powers.

I've tried using Anders' set (which has a later date), but that gives me a "word type 'class' not found" error, which leads me to believe there's a compatibility problem between versions, perhaps.

I am no good at editing the actual 'set' files, apparently, since I get all kinds of erroneous errors and nothing works right, if it loads at all.

I realize that even if I get Tirian's layout working with Randolph's data, it wouldn't include many things (such as the gear, armor, and other things included in Hirahito's set). I can add those myself, later, if necessary.

Ideally, I'd like to see the Tirian style work with Hirahito's data, but I'm not confident enough in my coding to make that happen.



ARGH! Too many options + too little knowledge = x 10.

[eloquentaction]

Originally Posted by praetorian75

I have quite literally spent ALL DAY on this project of mine (since 9am), and I can't get it to work, so I'm going to ask for your collective help.

Goal:

To be able to print power, feat, and certain types of equipment cards through MSE using Tirian's layout, using the most current data.


Problems Encountered:

Primarily, there seems to be a disconnect/incompatibility between Randolph's files (that I download here) and Tirian's tirian.zip (which I can't link because I can't search through the posts and I'm not scrolling manually through 20+ pages). The tirian.zip file is dated 5/5/08. The only actual "mse-set" file I found with Randolph's files is for DDXP (whatever that means) and doesn't include any core powers.

I've tried using Anders' set (which has a later date), but that gives me a "word type 'class' not found" error, which leads me to believe there's a compatibility problem between versions, perhaps.

I am no good at editing the actual 'set' files, apparently, since I get all kinds of erroneous errors and nothing works right, if it loads at all.

I realize that even if I get Tirian's layout working with Randolph's data, it wouldn't include many things (such as the gear, armor, and other things included in Hirahito's set). I can add those myself, later, if necessary.

Ideally, I'd like to see the Tirian style work with Hirahito's data, but I'm not confident enough in my coding to make that happen.



ARGH! Too many options + too little knowledge = x 10.

MSE uses two main files to determine how to read / display MSE-SET information.

The first is the GAME file which is a flat-file that tells MSE what the fields are and how to treat them. This is your biggest hurdle because most sets are incompatible unless the GAME files are nearly identical. MSE itself shows you this by showing the groupings of compatible GAME files when you open MSE and say 'NEW SET'.

The second file is the STYLE file found in the template directory. It's nowhere near as important but it does tell MSE how to draw the fields onto the cards and which background file(s) to use and where.

If you want a Tirian set, you need to find someone that uses Tirian's GAME file. Unfortunately, Tirian took an Ander's set and went his own direction (as most of us did, including myself).

You best bet is to take Tirians template directories and move them over into someone elses GAME template styles. Once you do this, you have to go in and modify all of Tirian's STYLE files to show the new fields. Then you'll have to massage the MSE-SET info to get it to work. It's a painful process, to say the least. But it's definitely do-able.

Last, but not least, if you can wait a month or so - my 5.0 release will have Tirian-like backgrounds for Ander-style cards (as an option - it won't be that way by default). The juries still out if I'll be updating ALL of my set's in the same fashion, but I'm kinda leaning that way. Once I do this, I'm probably going to stop updating my templates and just release new data updates as this will satisfy 90% of the people who use the MSE type cards.

If you need more specific help on something, please feel free to ask me questions - I'll certainly help where I can.

-- Hirahito

[praetorian75]

Originally Posted by eloquentaction

MSE uses two main files to determine how to read / display MSE-SET information.

The first is the GAME file which is a flat-file that tells MSE what the fields are and how to treat them. This is your biggest hurdle because most sets are incompatible unless the GAME files are nearly identical. MSE itself shows you this by showing the groupings of compatible GAME files when you open MSE and say 'NEW SET'.

The second file is the STYLE file found in the template directory. It's nowhere near as important but it does tell MSE how to draw the fields onto the cards and which background file(s) to use and where.

If you want a Tirian set, you need to find someone that uses Tirian's GAME file. Unfortunately, Tirian took an Ander's set and went his own direction (as most of us did, including myself).

You best bet is to take Tirians template directories and move them over into someone elses GAME template styles. Once you do this, you have to go in and modify all of Tirian's STYLE files to show the new fields. Then you'll have to massage the MSE-SET info to get it to work. It's a painful process, to say the least. But it's definitely do-able.

Last, but not least, if you can wait a month or so - my 5.0 release will have Tirian-like backgrounds for Ander-style cards (as an option - it won't be that way by default). The juries still out if I'll be updating ALL of my set's in the same fashion, but I'm kinda leaning that way. Once I do this, I'm probably going to stop updating my templates and just release new data updates as this will satisfy 90% of the people who use the MSE type cards.

If you need more specific help on something, please feel free to ask me questions - I'll certainly help where I can.

-- Hirahito

I had a feeling that was going to be the crux of it. *sigh* I guess I'm just too picky about the design for these things, given that I didn't even know they existed until this morning, either.

I like Anders stuff, but when I saw Tirian's something just clicked and I said that's the one I want. Ah, well.

I'll let you know if I actually manage a working version of this - perhaps you can include it in a future release (or not, as you like). If I get stuck, I'll ask for help - I ain't too proud to beg.

Thanks for the headsup on where to start, though. I thought I was going nuts.

[Drabix]

Here are the Genasi racial powers using Grandpa's template.

Drabix

[soulkeeper]

A favor to ask to all the card developers, esp Ander00 and Hirahito.

I love the cards, and the colors and designs are great, but I'm a black and white printer person, as I assume many folks are. Can folks include a basic, non-fancy, pretty much black and white version in the future?

I didn't see a version like this, and I'll be honest, I don't really know how to use the MSE very well, so if you already have, and I am missing it, I'll be happy for a little re-education.

Thanks!

[Dash]

Josiah, I love your style the best and have been trying to get it to work with the MSE.

I consistantly am getting an error upon opening on your set, which states, "Package not found: [Dir]\D&D-symbol-josiah.mse-symbol-font', followed by another error, "Package not found: "D&D-symbol-josiah.mse-symbol-font".

I've downloaded all of the items on your website and have most of the other sets working.

What am I doing wrong?

[Maxum]

I like to thank Ander00, Hirahito and Grandpa and all the rest of the hard working people making and updating the cards sets. They are such a big help playing the game.

I could use some help printing out the cards in a PDF file. When ever I make a PDF its file size is so large. I just did a PDF set of Hirahito Barbarian powers, It was around 49MB. Am I missing a setting somewere? I am using CutePDF Writer. I know I have seen whole card set smaller then that 49MB size.

I like to make PDF files because , Printing out of the Magic Card Program is a pain in the ass. So I like to do it as little as I can.

Thanks

[eloquentaction]

Originally Posted by Maxum

I like to thank Ander00, Hirahito and Grandpa and all the rest of the hard working people making and updating the cards sets. They are such a big help playing the game.

I could use some help printing out the cards in a PDF file. When ever I make a PDF its file size is so large. I just did a PDF set of Hirahito Barbarian powers, It was around 49MB. Am I missing a setting somewere? I am using CutePDF Writer. I know I have seen whole card set smaller then that 49MB size.

I like to make PDF files because , Printing out of the Magic Card Program is a pain in the ass. So I like to do it as little as I can.

Thanks

Nope. You have the right of it.

Printing cards to PDF is a royal pain in the arse.

And the file sizes are mammoth.

I was going to print all of my cards to PDF and upload them to my site. I kept trying this some 5 or 6 times now.

Each time I tried, the size of the PDF file increased from "Wow-too-large" to the latest "OMFGWTFBBQ-sized".

Needless to say, over 3000 cards does not make a small PDF file.

So I've given up on PDF's for the moment and have started putting them into Word files when I want to heavily control their position on a page. Just go into MSE and export the cards you want into a JPG file and then paste them into a word document as a text-box. In this way, you have complete control over where it goes on the page.

If someone finds a better way, please tell me.

-- Hirahito