Making your own power cards

Alphastream · Sep 25, 2009

If you want to hand-write them, the ones at DragonAvenue are pretty good.
If you want to type in the info, I would use MSE and one of the sets described in this thread.

JoyrexJ9 · May 8, 2011

Sorry for the epic bump, as this thread appears to be dead - I was wondering if anyone had done cards for the powers in the Essentials books (Heroes of the Fallen/Forgotten) ? Preferably in MSE format?

I've googled to death and can't find anything?
Have WotC clamped down on these things?

Thanks!

Llwynog · May 8, 2011

JoyrexJ9 said:
Sorry for the epic bump, as this thread appears to be dead - I was wondering if anyone had done cards for the powers in the Essentials books (Heroes of the Fallen/Forgotten) ? Preferably in MSE format?

I've googled to death and can't find anything?
Have WotC clamped down on these things?

Thanks!

I still have MSE set up with a customized version of Ender's cards, but I haven't made any in over a year 'cause the whole group got tired of having to keep up with multiple stacks of cards. I finally made a generic character sheet that let me get everything, including powers, onto a single sheet of paper so now I really don't need them.

That said, I can zip up MSE for you so that all you'll have to do is type in the text of the cards since I've already done all the tweaking necessary to make the card set work with a newer version of MSE than the one for which it was designed (but I expect there have probably been at least a couple of new releases since I last updated MSE).

DennisB · May 9, 2011

I am still making the power cards as the powers are being released, and I am also reorganizing the powers into class books, combining the powers from all sources into sepperate books, Like all information about fighters into one easy to use book. I have been working on this for about 9 months now, and soon I will start pumping them out. And as soon as I see 4th edition stop making new books I will release the cards as well.

Llwynog · May 9, 2011

DennisB said:
I am still making the power cards as the powers are being released, and I am also reorganizing the powers into class books, combining the powers from all sources into sepperate books, Like all information about fighters into one easy to use book. I have been working on this for about 9 months now, and soon I will start pumping them out. And as soon as I see 4th edition stop making new books I will release the cards as well.

That's commendable. It's a great deal of work than I am unable to do (but I'm hoping that will change after my surgery Wednesday morning) so I'm glad someone else is willing to.

But the last two statements seem to be contradictory. Are you releasing them soon or when the game dies? They're thankfully down to a book a quarter instead of a book a month but there's no indication that they're going to stop making new books any time soon.

knightofround · May 10, 2011

I haven't gone through all 134 pages of this thread, only the last couple pages.

But just in case someone missed it, I really like this online power card generator, it's very minimalist and generates code to format it pretty for blogs etc

D&D Tools - Power Card Creator

Alphastream · May 10, 2011

Interesting. What is the best way to print that? Open xml in a web browser?

I like that you can add custom elements and that the look and feel is like the books. However, I like more control. I like to use custom backgrounds, my own quotes, place the default attack and damage values, write in crit amounts, etc.

I find I can only do that with MSE. I find that once the template I like is set up I just make a copy for a new card and type in my info. Doing this once every level or so (and making any adjustments to default attack and damage if desired) is not much work at all. Setting up a brand new PC at upper levels is work, but it is a one-time effort. With the Compendium to copy-paste, the overall effort is pretty low compared to other things I do.

[sblock=Example MSE power card

[/sblock]

The above is based on Daniel Rivera's template. I talk about it a little, post more examples and have a link to where you can find it here.

Highland_Piper · Jun 26, 2011

133 pages is a lot to wade through. The MSE website does not seem to have a lot of documentation on how to create your own custom templates. Does anyone have a link to some place I could get started with this?

I appreciate it. Thank you.

Llwynog · Jun 26, 2011

Highland_Piper said:
133 pages is a lot to wade through. The MSE website does not seem to have a lot of documentation on how to create your own custom templates. Does anyone have a link to some place I could get started with this?

I appreciate it. Thank you.

What little I used to know about it I learned by hacking the modified Ender00 set so I can't really help you. That said, I'm designing a non-collectible card game and would like to use MSE to fill in the cards so I wouldn't mind some MSE tutorials either.

Alphastream · Jun 27, 2011

I'm not particularly knowledgeable in the underpinnings, so I can't share much on the deep technical side.

As a user, you want to install MSE and then a template you like. Some people like to install MSE once for each template, having the executable into that subfolder. I use this technique, as it keeps things clean.

Fire up the MSE executable that you have for that template folder, then open any of the template .mse-set files. I like Tintagel's core set here. Once open you can create a card very easily, typing in the power. Making a low level PC is a fast affair once you have done it a few times. As you level you usually just need a new card at a time, which isn't a big deal time-wise.

You can make some simple changes by looking inside the data directory and opening the files you find in the Game or various Style directories. It takes a bit of practice, but you can do things like change the background image (I like having an image of my PC in the background) or adjust how things are arranged. Make a copy and work slowly. You could try PMing some of the guys that made sets and see if they can offer more help.

Also, the site where you get MSE has forums. They are mainly focused on Magic, but they do discuss general templating.

Making your own power cards

Alphastream

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JoyrexJ9

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Llwynog

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DennisB

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Llwynog

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knightofround

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Alphastream

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Highland_Piper

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Llwynog

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Alphastream

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