Making your own power cards

Hirahito,

I have to say that I REALLY enjoy your style of card, however I was wondering a couple things.

A) Is there any way you could put a version out that did not have the parchment background, instead had the plain white in the back but leaving the colors on the top and bottom the same. Basicly making it more printer friendly
B) Do you have any plans or designs in the works to put magic items into the mix for your complete PHB set? Or at least do like Ander and make a basic set that one would have to edit themselves. (I like Grandpa's set, and respect that he went through all that trouble but it is excessive to only have 1 card per page in a .pdf like his is.)
C) Do you have any plans for Ritual cards, as no one has yet to release a set for Rituals in any shape or form.

Thanks,
Eronian

Grandpa said:

Just an update:

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Grandpa, your cards are completely baller.

I do, however, have one request: could you do a second wind card? Its not technically a power, but as a per-encounter resource it would be nice to be able to tap it and have a reminder of the defense bonus. A minor action version for dwarves would also be excelsior.

Using Grandpa's templates as a start, I made just a few condition cards. Pretty plain, although for total defense I found a simple black on white line art image of a shield and for that card put the text (+2 to all defenses until the start of your next turn) inside the shield. I think it would be great to have icons like Grandpa has created for use with his power and item cards, although probably much larger in this context. G, how did you go about making your icons? I can't imagine how to make anything look as good as them but I was at least trying to think of what they should look like, e.g.:

Dazed: head with stars around
Stunned: head with concentric arcs radiating from its left and right sides
Prone: just a typical person icon but horizontal

Ones for ongoing damage would be great, too. I made a Giant Oil Beetle monster (conversion from OD&D) and its Blistering Spray causes ongoing acid damage and a penalty to attack rolls (save ends) so I made a card for that and gave it to affected players to remind them of the penalty, when to take the damage, and when to save. When they saved, they handed back the card. Worked very well, but I wish I could create a nice sylized icon of a hand with blisters on it for that

I made some magic item cards using Grandpa's templates, too, but I preferred significantly bumping up the font size because it's so tiny otherwise and there's not too much text for what I needed. These were GREAT for potions of healing because it FORCED clarity on exactly who had which potions. No problem of someone assuming someone else has it or not writing it down or two people writing it down because each thinks he has it. I put the cards down --> they decide --> whoever has the card has the friggin potion When it's used, I'm given the card back. Even if you don't care for cards for other items (weapons might just go on a char sheet if they're not going to be traded around), I think they're still great for potions.

eronian23 said:

Hirahito,

I have to say that I REALLY enjoy your style of card, however I was wondering a couple things.

A) Is there any way you could put a version out that did not have the parchment background, instead had the plain white in the back but leaving the colors on the top and bottom the same. Basicly making it more printer friendly
B) Do you have any plans or designs in the works to put magic items into the mix for your complete PHB set? Or at least do like Ander and make a basic set that one would have to edit themselves. (I like Grandpa's set, and respect that he went through all that trouble but it is excessive to only have 1 card per page in a .pdf like his is.)
C) Do you have any plans for Ritual cards, as no one has yet to release a set for Rituals in any shape or form.

Thanks,
Eronian

Click to expand...

A) I'm making a new type of card that does not have the wax blots. I'll see if I can make a plain background set as well.
B) Yes. I have the Silver and Gold background cards. You can make Magic items now by going to CARD -> ADD. Eventually, I will put out a new card MSE-SET that has a lot of items and Magic Items. Right now I'm doing some other cleanup. I'll get to it.
C) Ritual cards weren't actually on my radar. I'll look into it. Since they don't really come up during play, they would be my lowest priority (sorry - just being honest).

Right now I'm cleaning up my card set programmatically (and I'm almost completely redoing the GAME and SET files from scratch).

Part of the things I'm doing is adding even more options on the look and feel, adding a lot of the new icons for magic items and monsters into my icon file, and cleaning up the cards themselves.

Then I'm going to be adding condition cards.

And lastly I'm going to be adding just about any Race or class into my set.

That's my next release; which I'm hoping will be sometime next week.

After that, I'm going creating a monster set for the DM's out there (of which, I am one). I think I have an easy way to knock this out of the park, so I'm hoping it will be a quick release. The Monster set will (I hope) have a lot of the new monsters I've seen on ENWorld.

Last, but not least, I have an idea for magic items Set, but it's going to require a bit of work. In the meantime, I threw the Silver and Gold cards in there. You can make new cards if you like.


-- Hirahito

I took Grandpa's awesome templates and made cards of the Illusion spells from Dragon 364.

I did them in Keynote, so they might not look exactly the same, but it had an easier time understanding the files than powerpoint (go fig).

Grandpa: if you want to put these in your post with all the cards, feel free.

eloquentaction said:

A) I'm making a new type of card that does not have the wax blots. I'll see if I can make a plain background set as well.
B) Yes. I have the Silver and Gold background cards. You can make Magic items now by going to CARD -> ADD. Eventually, I will put out a new card MSE-SET that has a lot of items and Magic Items. Right now I'm doing some other cleanup. I'll get to it.
C) Ritual cards weren't actually on my radar. I'll look into it. Since they don't really come up during play, they would be my lowest priority (sorry - just being honest).

Right now I'm cleaning up my card set programmatically (and I'm almost completely redoing the GAME and SET files from scratch).

Part of the things I'm doing is adding even more options on the look and feel, adding a lot of the new icons for magic items and monsters into my icon file, and cleaning up the cards themselves.

Then I'm going to be adding condition cards.

And lastly I'm going to be adding just about any Race or class into my set.

That's my next release; which I'm hoping will be sometime next week.

After that, I'm going creating a monster set for the DM's out there (of which, I am one). I think I have an easy way to knock this out of the park, so I'm hoping it will be a quick release. The Monster set will (I hope) have a lot of the new monsters I've seen on ENWorld.

Last, but not least, I have an idea for magic items Set, but it's going to require a bit of work. In the meantime, I threw the Silver and Gold cards in there. You can make new cards if you like.


-- Hirahito

Click to expand...

Thank you for the swift reply. I think the biggest thing is I was hoping for was the plain background for printer friendliness. I run on a very limited budget at the moment which limits me to being careful what I print.

As for the magic items, thanks, I will just type them up on an as needed basis for now until you get your set up and running.

I will keep my eyes peeled for your new sets. I am not running my next game until this next Friday, maybe I will see more outta your neck of the woods then, if not, I am a patient man.

thanks again,
Eronian

Been out for a bit with Comic Con...

kg_kharkov said:

Powerpoint is fully editable. It takes about 10 seconds to customize one of Grandpa's "Thundering Weapon" cards into a "+1 Thundering Warhammer".

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Thanks for sticking up for the card editing and letting me know that someone is using the magic item cards. Woot!

Nail said:

Your cards rock. I've downloaded everyones, and yours are the clearest and cleanest...

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Thanks! I'm glad someone else is enjoying them.

Nail said:

For the record, everyone posting card designs on this board is just the coolest. These things clearly take weeks of effort (check out the timeline on this huge thread!), and it must be a labor of love. Huge kudos, guys! You all are way on the positive karma side of the ledger.

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This is so true. Thanks for giving everyone a boost. It really helps.

Foxman said:

[/LIST]I would suggest adding these simple instructions into a .txt file with the zip

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Great idea. It's been added.

DonAdam said:

Grandpa, your cards are completely baller ... could you do a second wind card? ... A minor action version for dwarves would also be excelsior.

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I whipped one up just and attached it to this post. I will add it to the whole set when I get further with non-power cards; I still having a lot of formatting questions to resolve before I make real progress.

Magus Coeruleus said:

Using Grandpa's templates as a start, I made just a few condition cards...

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Share!

Magus Coeruleus said:

G, how did you go about making your icons? I can't imagine how to make anything look as good as them but I was at least trying to think of what they should look like ...

Click to expand...

I made them in PowerPoint, using the generic (Office) shape editor that comes with it. I am still considering making cards for any kind of handy player reference (racial/class abilities, skills, feats, actions, conditions, rituals, etc.) because I notice they work kind of like flash cards to fidgeting players, and I might expand the icons to coincide with the chapters (skills, feats, equipment, combat, rituals, etc.) of the PHB they come from, but I have no plans to go further with icons ATM.

Magus Coeruleus said:

I made some magic item cards using Grandpa's templates, too, but I preferred significantly bumping up the font size because it's so tiny otherwise and there's not too much text for what I needed. These were GREAT for potions of healing because it FORCED clarity on exactly who had which potions. No problem of someone assuming someone else has it or not writing it down or two people writing it down because each thinks he has it. I put the cards down --> they decide --> whoever has the card has the friggin potion When it's used, I'm given the card back. Even if you don't care for cards for other items (weapons might just go on a char sheet if they're not going to be traded around), I think they're still great for potions.

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That's awesome. It makes me extra-happy to see people tweaking the PPT files and templates. And just so everyone knows, potions of healing are already available in the latest all-consuming PDF ZIP file.

DonAdam said:

I took Grandpa's awesome templates and made cards of the Illusion spells from Dragon 364. ... Grandpa: if you want to put these in your post with all the cards, feel free.

Click to expand...

Awesome. I've done just that.

Grandpa said:

Share!

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Okay, here's what I have so far. Notice I use purple to avoid confusion with powers or items (red, green, black, gold). I've tried stealing/making some iconic images. I'll work on the rest later, but if anyone wants to improve on these and post feel free, especially anyone good with the images that can make a nice consistent looking set. I think a decent size font and quickly recognized icons are useful to remind the player of the condition. I also included a Blistering card to give an idea of how one might also want cards for ongoing damage, etc.

I'm looking for a nice backs for power cards. I'm using Ander00 sets but backs for other would be great too... Anyone made such a thing?

Alright, I feel like a complete idiot. I've downloaded and installed a couple of the MSE templates for the power cards - Ander00's and Tintagel so far - and they're loading up alright. My problem is that I can't figure out how to change the card's background color to match the card type. So if I enter an Encounter power, or an At-Will power, the card background doesn't change. Is it supposed to change automatically to match the type of power entered; or do I have to change the card background manually, and if so, how do I do that?

I've been searching the net for two days and still haven't managed to find an answer to my problem; hopefully someone here can help.

Well, after a bit more playing around, I managed to figure out how to change the color; I figured it out by complete chance. So all it good now; except that I feel like a complete fool.

I gotta say, MSE and these power card templates are very sharp. Kudos to all who had a hand at building up any of these templates.