Create your own D&D 4E Power Cards
4E Power Cards. Some like them, some hate them. I didn’t like them at first, but now I am starting to. I wanted to share my method with everyone on how I made mine. They are quick, easy, and look really good.
When beginning my Power Card quest, I remembered an old program called CCG Maker that I used to make my own Magic the Gathering cards back in the day. It is windows only, so us Mac users need to use bootcamp / parallels / VMware, or use some other machine. This program is very simple, but very powerful. Here are some screenshots from some of the cards that I made.
In the top section you have a graphic area. I chose to use scans of the actual power from the source book or magazine. They look much better with actual graphics, but I like the power of having the complete rules at my fingertips (and they still look good).
The space at the bottom is for text. You can fit a lot of text in there, but the more you add, the smaller the font. I chose to have just a quick reminder of the rule there in a nice big font, so it was quick and easy to read in the heat of action.
You can choose from several colors of cards. I stuck with the Green, Red, and Black layout of the At-Will, Encounter, and Daily Powers. However, I used silver for my powers coming from equipment. This way, when I use one, I can easily find and turn over the rest (remember your 4E equipment rules).
In the process of finding backs for my cards, I ran across a post by another player who was doing something similar to me. Except, he was using a program called Magic Set Editor. So, I downloaded and tried this program out as well.
MSE was a little more complex to use (but not hard at all) and it did come with more templates then CCGM. Its operation was very similar to CCGM. MSE did crash on me several times, though it is still in Beta. So overall, I like both programs. My cards are now a mixture from both sets. Here is an example of MSE in action.
Going forward, I will probably just use MSE for development, as I like their templates better.
From there, you just need to print them out. Both programs save the graphics in the standard 2.0 x 3.0 inch format. You can print them and put them into card protectors. They have really cool ones with artwork built on them, so you don’t even need to worry about backs. However, I like to use the Ultra Pro 3”x4” Toploaders and print my cards at 2.75 x 3.75 inches. This way they are a little bigger and easier to read. And I just print the same sized back and throw them both into the sleeve.
In the end, here is my 3rd level Barbarian’s power cards:
Enjoy,
Haaldaar – The Holy Knight of Haruspice
Just post a comment here if you have any questions.
CCG Maker can be found HERE
HERE is an Enworld article with some really cool card backs
Magic Set Editor that is found HERE .
