With all the ruminations on Essentials, are Power Cards even worth buying any more?

[Minifig]

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You can call this LEGO Wilden Warden wildly confused.

Power cards, in their barest most essential form seem to be a brutally wonderful implement to any D&D 4e gamers arsenal.

The sheer concept of being able to tell what Encounter, Daily and other powers I've used without having to pay for the Character Creator seems..well.. extraordinarily beneficial to someone on a limited budget.

However, with all the ruminations on Essentials, are Power Cards going to be even worth buying any more? Especially, if you're like me and your playing a class in PH2, or PH3, or dare I say it, a class out of the AP, DP or PP books?

 

[The Human Target]

They never were worth buying in the first place IMO.

You're getting waaaaaaay more value with a DDI account.

Especially if you like most groups split the cost.

Plus if you use any of the errata it makes a lot of power cards outdated.

But Essentials (though I remain very leery of it) won't seemingly change much if any of the older powers in and of itself.

Well, unless you're a wizard.

 

[Minifig]

You'd think they'd re-release UPDATED Power Cards.

 

[GRStrayton]

I love Power Cards. I like the fact that they're on heavy cardstock and laminated. I put them in protectors and write my stats on them with wet-erase markers. I still haven't played any of the PHB3 classes because they haven't released cards for them. And I really hope WotC makes more Essentials cards -- I bought the Red Box primarily because it came with some. The design of the Gamma World cards looks amazing -- I wish they'd put the same amount of creativity into the Power Cards.

Who knows, maybe a third-party company will come along and license the rights to print Power Cards, since it looks like (from the 2011 schedule so far) WotC won't be printing any. I'd love to see stats on one side and an illustration of the power on in 4-color on the other side. I can always dream....

 

[noodle fish mice]

I agree that they were never worth buying in the first place unless you really like them aesthetically. They're very pretty, but you can get a month of DDI for less than a single pack, and your access to the character creator doesn't go away once you let your subscription lapse.

 

[corwyn77]

I love Power Cards. I like the fact that they're on heavy cardstock and laminated. I put them in protectors and write my stats on them with wet-erase markers. I still haven't played any of the PHB3 classes because they haven't released cards for them.

Um, I guess, but IMO you're really missing out. What I do is spend 10 bucks every 6 months, update CB, download back issues of Dragon and Dungeon. For characters, I print powers on cardstock and stuff them in sleeves. I can reprint each level if I want, or just write changes on the sleeves.

As opposed to the cards for one class, say cleric, cost $10 for PHB 1 and another $10 for Divine power Cleric. Then more if you want to multiclass (though I suppose that can be mitigated if your whole group goes in on it.

There are 25 classes in 4e. In my group's experience, we tend to play something that we haven't seen before, at least as a core class. Cards would be a pretty expensive option, certainly more than the $20-30 a year I spend now. And I also get all the feats, Paragon Paths, EDs all in one place and the magazines.

 

[Minifig]

See, what I was thinking about doing was buying my Warden Power Cards, updating my powers every six months and re-laminating the fresher powers on the old cards so they'd still be of use, and be nice and stable, and durable instead of just.. laminated pieces of paper.

 

[Maccwar]

If you're going to do your own laminated cards then these templates might be what you're after.

Cards - Game Aids

 

[cdrcjsn]

The Character Builder on DDI really is the easiest way to handle cards.

You can print out a new set every time something changes.

You don't even really need to print them in cardstock. Just normal paper. Put them in protective sleeves and slip a regular playing card behind them to give some rigidity.

 

[hopeless]

Okay

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You can call this LEGO Wilden Warden wildly confused.
Power cards, in their barest most essential form seem to be a brutally wonderful implement to any D&D 4e gamers arsenal.
The sheer concept of being able to tell what Encounter, Daily and other powers I've used without having to pay for the Character Creator seems..well.. extraordinarily beneficial to someone on a limited budget.
However, with all the ruminations on Essentials, are Power Cards going to be even worth buying any more? Especially, if you're like me and your playing a class in PH2, or PH3, or dare I say it, a class out of the AP, DP or PP books?

If you have a printer you could always download a resource that allows you to type up your own although I myself have bought three of these card sets it really comes down to whether you can afford to replace your printer ink cartridges or whether its cheaper to buy the card sets!

PS: Last time I checked they don't provide action points versions of the cards and I haven't checked on condition card downloads.