4th & Dragon : Dungeons and Dragons...and stuff

Redid the card again.  How’s this one?

After 3 hours of futzing, I have workable code.  Yay!

The below is the MSE output.  The post above has my mockup in GIMP.

wow very nice

No texture on the color bars for At-will and Daily?

Also, what do the icons on the left mean?  Are those supposed to be iconic representations of the words?  If so they’re kind of redundant.

And yes, the sheen on the gem’s looking good.

Call me crazy but I like the symbols and the words.

Black Plauge - 19 July 2008 11:34 AM

No texture on the color bars for At-will and Daily?

That’s an easy fix, but I wasn’t sure if that was a good idea.  I can check it out tomorrow and post the results.

Also, what do the icons on the left mean?  Are those supposed to be iconic representations of the words?  If so they’re kind of redundant.

Yes they are, and they are redundant.  I was considering doing something like we did for the power cards - icon only and icon with words (but not words only).  The boxes would be different.

And yes, the sheen on the gem’s looking good.

Is there anything else you would change?  I’ll try to post the new game and style files tonight.

I am working on this as well on my own (but would be willing to help in your effort if it could help).  I am stuck though at understanding how to edit the styles.  I have access to the new blank cards released by WOTC in the character sheet pack and wanted to start with using their format for the items. 

Also how did you create the card backs with the class names on them?  I have photoshop and imageready both which can do what you have done but I figure why reinvent the wheel.  I am more than happy to give credit for the source files. 

All in all if I can be of help let me know.  I already have 90% of the items text and such entered into a word file so that copy and pasting is faster than typing it in. 

For the card backs I googled for a photoshop tutorial and found the one I used here.

The styles is something I’m not sure I can explain because I literally just muddle my way through until it starts working.  BP is much better at coding than I am.

The word file would be pretty nice.

Attached is the updated game folder and the new item folder.  (err - zip file won’t attach?) Link to Mediafire download.

I like the version with the images of the items in the center. Something about the green at-will and black daily rectangles being left-justified conflicts with the rest of the feel of the card. Before there was a really nice symmetry at work. I like the gem-icon and I like the top header part.

This is all said with the grain of salt from someone not making their own cards!

Alphastream - 21 July 2008 11:00 AM

I like the version with the images of the items in the center.

The problem there is that there is a lot of text for some items and it just wouldn’t fit.

Something about the green at-will and black daily rectangles being left-justified conflicts with the rest of the feel of the card. Before there was a really nice symmetry at work.

That’s a pretty easy fix - I just set those bars to show up in the center.

I like the gem-icon

That was BP’s original idea, so credit for that goes to him, but it was kind of hard to make it.

With this setup how would a person input the data from the book as a single card for all levels.  What I mean is with the Anglesteel Armor (chosen only due to being first in line) the block looks like this
Angelsteel Armor Level 19+
The links in this armor glow with the silvery light of the Astral Sea.
Lvl 19 +4 105,000 gp
Lvl 24 +5 525,000 gp
Lvl 29 +6 2,625,000 gp
Armor: Chain
Enhancement: AC
Power (Daily): Immediate Reaction. You can use this power when you are hit by an attack. Gain a +2 power bonus to the defense that attack targeted until the end of the encounter.

most everything is fine except the level, cost, and bonus which change depending on level.  I would really like to just make a full set of cards have them printed and laminated and when a player gets the item they use a grease pencil and put a mark by the one that applies for them (or something).  Other than that the layout is great.

----
Another thing that would be nice would be to have keywords for the items (to be able to sort the list in the case of armor and weapon enchantments by the type of item they can be applied to)

My idea was to have it be individual items for use.  So if the party is 5th level and you have a 5th level treasure to hand out, you print out the 5th level incarnation of an item.

I think I’d have to completely rework the setup or else add in a plain text box near the bottom.

Things like the enhancements I thought were redundant.  A +1 Flaming Weapon isn’t going to apply its bonus to armor.  I just thought it was obvious, especially because none of the magic items break that trend.

The armor type is something I was thinking of adding in somewhere.

Also, I’m by no means complete and I’m very much open to any suggestions as to how to incorporate that information.  I have the xcf file and can tweak just about anything.

As a final note, I’m waiting for some more feedback from my cohort Black Plauge who’s been very much my co-equal partner in the design of all these cards.

EDIT - Missed your edit.  The keywords is something I do intend to put back in.  BP already had a good setup for it from the Power Cards and I’ll be looking at finding a way to put that code into the Item Card coding.

Cameron - 21 July 2008 05:17 PM

My idea was to have it be individual items for use.  So if the party is 5th level and you have a 5th level treasure to hand out, you print out the 5th level incarnation of an item.

I am trying to reduce the printing and laminating cost, but it would be possible to make each level and just change the values.  I will see how much more it would cost and if not much more I will go that way.

I am having problems getting the image to link right, here is the full url the img tag was clipping the front part.  I am not good at BBS code

http://www.mediafire.com/imageview.php?quickkey=mtg194xz9lx&thumb=4

If the Property area had a option for being blank or to say “Values” or something that could work and would require nearly no redoing of anything.  Still counting up the redundancies for making each level its own card.

Also I know I put the Chain part in where you would put the bonus for the weapon damage so it wouldn’t work all the time I just was trying something.

Don’t take it like I’m brushing you off.  I’m asking for help.  If it would make your life that much easier, let’s see if we can make it work.  What I tried to do with the Power Cards was avoid a straight cut and paste.  I don’t really want that in my home cards.  I think I’d be better off just printing the blocks from DDI onto a character sheet if I wanted to do that. 

I tried to keep the same basic philosophy with the Item Cards and the Character Cards.  Tailored specifics that use visual cues if possible and make sense in a flowing stylistic way.  If there’s a way to make the cards do what you want too, I’m all ears (well, eyes, I guess). 

But I’m blank inspirationally on how to do it, so that’s where I’d need some help.  I’m not a graphic artist nor a designer in any way.  I’m a poet and married jobless grad student with too much time on my hands and a pretty serious computer addiction.