Whatever Happened to Power Cards?

Stormonu

NeoGrognard
Some time back, WotC put out power cards for the PHB, PHB2 and Martial Power, Divine Power...then nothing more. I'm guessing they must have cancelled the line, probably due to poor sales (and that they couldn't keep up with errata on the cards probably didn't help).

Does everyone pretty much use DDI print-your-own cards, or make their own now?
 

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I think they're kind of silly as a product.

I understand that they have a very functional intent, but the sad fact is that their utility to dollar cost ratio is pretty poor. Buying all the class power content and not being safely sure that you will use all of them for your character(s) kind of puts a cramp in their value.

Then there's the matter of having to write on them just to keep track of your bonuses and damage. And let's be honest: there's a fair number of geeks who hate writing on things they bought, even if they're meant to be written on.

Another minor point, is that I suspect that customers and WotC alike found it silly to sell content in cards that exist in books and vice versa, with the possibility that one could cannibalize the sales of the other in some statistically insignificant but annoying fashion.
 

I think WotC also gave up on trying to support a power based game. Besides they would never be able to keep up with all the new powers being put up.

I for one hated the idea of buying boxes of cards for an rpg. That's why I will never buy Gamma World and will never buy these Fortune cards that are coming out this year.
 

Eh, the ones that CB prints are perfectly fine. You get what you need, you can just scribble on them, if there's errata or you switch powers you can just print out new ones, etc. Buying them never made sense to me. I have a cheap laser printer, so printing out reams of cards is just not that big a deal, they don't need to be color. The power card concept is great, they just aren't a really great product line.
 

I have three sets of the printed power cards, cause I have never been a fan of the CB anyway, and they are handy to me, but not required.

Worse came to worse, there are 3x5 index cards.

That said, the people above are right. The CB killed the Power Cards line. Why pay for what you got free with your CB?
 

I for one hated the idea of buying boxes of cards for an rpg. That's why I will never buy Gamma World and will never buy these Fortune cards that are coming out this year.
Good thinking! I bought the Gamma World box set and was then forced, AT GUNPOINT, to purchase more cards for it at ruinous prices!

Or no, come to think of it, that's pretty much the opposite of what happened. Turns out you can play the game as is and not buy more cards. But the other thing would have been CRAZY.
 

Eh, the ones that CB prints are perfectly fine. You get what you need, you can just scribble on them, if there's errata or you switch powers you can just print out new ones, etc. Buying them never made sense to me. I have a cheap laser printer, so printing out reams of cards is just not that big a deal, they don't need to be color. The power card concept is great, they just aren't a really great product line.
Yeah, we even tried laminating the ones we printed for a while, but you have to change them up every time you level, so why bother? At the end of the day a power card is pretty disposable.
 

That said, the people above are right. The CB killed the Power Cards line. Why pay for what you got free with your CB?
But the CB isn't free. You pay for it through DDI. Unless of course, your copy of the CB is from teh torrentz, you piratey scum!

Kidding aside, I get your point... at the very worse, you're double paying. Just pile the cost of ink onto yr Charbuilder and you've got Power Cards!
 

I've taken to hand-writing power cards (on the blanks the the old CB will create). I leave spaces to fill in the numerical information that will change, such as attack and damage. So my card will look something like...

Tide of Iron
+___ vs. AC,
1d10+___ damage
& push __ squares

... and I'll fill in the relevant numbers based on level, equipment, feats, etc.

Eventually the card gets beat to heck and I make a new one, but at least this way I'm not burning printer ink every time I level up or find a new magic item.
 

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