Ability Note Cards

For Valor · Post by **For Valor** » Mon Oct 18, 2010 2:24 am

So I'm writing up a campaign focused around ToB, Invocations, and shit like the Fire Mage. To help my players keep track of their abilities, I wanted to have note cards with relevant material on them.

I was wondering what to put, and if you guys had any formatting suggestions. I was kind of thinking about mimicking the 4e powers.

Should I have anything other than this?..:

Power Name
Save
Damage or Detrimental Effect

Blicero · Post by **Blicero** » Mon Oct 18, 2010 3:44 am

Depending on the seriousness of the campaign and the storytelling ability of the players, you might want to bullshit some description of what happens when they click that button on their toolbar. Just make sure they realize they can totally personalize it if they want to.

Akula · Post by **Akula** » Mon Oct 18, 2010 4:01 am

WotC had cards for Tome of Battle stuff on their website at one point. So you might be able to save a bit of work looking through their archive.

cthulhu · Post by **cthulhu** » Mon Oct 18, 2010 4:14 am

Yeah this is a good idea.

For Valor · Post by **For Valor** » Mon Oct 18, 2010 4:50 am

I find it hilarious that the first letters of the first three responses are B, A, and C, though not in precise order.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Oct 18, 2010 8:51 am

Akula wrote:WotC had cards for Tome of Battle stuff on their website at one point. So you might be able to save a bit of work looking through their archive.

Those Still Exist.

-Username17

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Mon Oct 18, 2010 12:10 pm

Include pretty pictures. There should seriously be an appropriate Touhou pic for every single power - there is for every 4e power, even considering there are like fifty variations of "You violently smack someone in the face and they fall over".

You can do it with the Magic Card generator, even. Though there's probably a 4e card maker which would work slightly better I guess. I'd do a bunch, but the majority of images on my hard drive are porn, so, um, yeah.

kosall · Post by **kosall** » Mon Oct 18, 2010 6:29 pm

So now I'm imagining a game of 4e where all the power cards have pron on them... gee thanks.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Tue Oct 19, 2010 1:22 am

kosall wrote:So now I'm imagining a game of 4e where all the power cards have pron on them... gee thanks.

That would mean there was something interesting/entertaining about 4e at least.

For Valor · Post by **For Valor** » Tue Oct 19, 2010 2:02 am

You could have picture-relevant powers like "cockblock" and "penetration"...

anywho, where did you find that magic card generator? I'll look around.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Tue Oct 19, 2010 2:17 am

Here is it.

I googled "magic card generator". Because I remembered there being (at least) one out there. Mostly because of forum/4chan threads filled with custom Magic cards (some actually balanced to work just fine in game, others... not so much). You know, Pedobear, Nevada-tan, IN AMERICA and so on.

If you go ahead with ability cards, some other useful things may be:
[*]Little "WAIT" tokens. If an ability has a cooldown (like a Breath Weapon), then after use you place (turns) Wait tokens on it, throwing one away each turn.
[*]Condition/status effect cards, to remind people "Bitch, you are Shaken, remember the -2 penalty". Use WAIT tokens with it, to track when the status effect ends.
[*]The DM may wish to prepare such cards for any Poison attacks he anticipates using, too. That way, poisoning occurs, you then hand them a "Secondary Damage" card and 10 WAIT tokens and start ticking down.

For Valor · Post by **For Valor** » Tue Oct 19, 2010 2:37 am

I googled "4e card maker". Found an excellent website.

Unfortunately, no pictures.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Tue Oct 19, 2010 5:55 am

There are pictures:

-Username17

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Tue Oct 19, 2010 7:28 am

Frank, didn't those cards ship with 4e player's handbook?

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Tue Oct 19, 2010 7:42 am

...actually, now I kind of want to make a series of power cards for some of my classes (the ones that have a list of simple abilities). Or perhaps just power cards for the PCs in my game.

With worksafe images, that is.

Right, so the ones for my game (not including the Jester's spells... though that's worth considering: she always just goes Twinflask Smite BOOM!)

Mostly for the abilities people might forget to use, really:

See: Knight's Challenge

I can do these (with dumb pictures and stuff) for other abilities or whatever if people so wish.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Tue Oct 19, 2010 1:33 pm

What the hell, here are some status effect cards that are likely to be relevant:

kosall · Post by **kosall** » Tue Oct 19, 2010 1:33 pm

That pretty much rocks. Status cards would go a long way to not forgetting stuff.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Tue Oct 19, 2010 1:49 pm

Yeah, it's easy to forget shit from status effects, including beneficial spells cast on you and all that. People tend to be able to manage their own character sheets okay, but once you bring in outside interference (effects that change their numbers, caused by anyone else and thus not already on the sheet as "I always PA for 5 and have Ooglyboo cast on me"), they forget.

On the topic of printing cards out, I am so proud of my youngest sister. She collects Pokemon cards (along with her friends), and found a website that has all the cards there, so she printed out her own custom deck, doing likewise for her friends. She really understands, and is truly getting into the spirit of things.

(That said, the amount that she wanted me to trade her, thanks to my Action Replay...)

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Tue Oct 19, 2010 3:01 pm

Let's get some more conditions in, then!

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Wed Oct 20, 2010 4:58 am

I expect to hear all about player reactions to any of these cards that get used, by the way.

Status Effects (Continued)

kosall · Post by **kosall** » Thu Oct 21, 2010 6:55 pm

I love the anime themed ones but then I'm a sucker for that kind of stuff.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Fri Oct 22, 2010 10:00 am

In tomorrow's game, Vertigo Field will likely be relevant. And people get dizzy and fall over when suffering from vertigo. Therefore...

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Fri Oct 22, 2010 4:02 pm

Other things that could very well be relevant tomorrow:

For Valor · Post by **For Valor** » Sat Oct 23, 2010 4:10 am

your status cards are getting progressively more depressing, Koumei...

the_taken · Post by **the_taken** » Sat Oct 23, 2010 4:19 pm

For Valor wrote:your status cards are getting progressively more depressing, Koumei...

Status effects are mostly negative...

Oh wow, these are fun.