I know someone else has taken a stab at these, but I wanted something different.

I've been working on a PSD that lets me generate 600dpi NPC Cards; They're M:tG Scale, so they will easily fit in sleeves.

If you opt for standard sized borders, print the images at 600dpi, and they should be 3.48 x 2.49.

If you use the large borders (wider corners), you'll want to slightly change the aspect ratio and resize them to the same size as Magic's plane cards (I'm uncertain what that is at the moment, its approximately two magic cards side by side, I will look it up later).

Base Templates (Uses fonts from Magic Set Editor)
Template
Template (Regular Statblock)

Base Templates (Standard Fonts - Cambria)

Template

Template (Regular Statblock)

Can't see anything.

How's that? Can you see it now? I reuploaded them using a different service.

Nice idea. tho i would want it's weapons and relevant skills also. i usually make "Cards" for my NPCs that has all the needed info on them as well as Boxes to check off as it takes wounds

I often use the same NPC statblock a few times in one session with different equipment, and sometimes the skills might change a bit too; the most obvious/common one being switching which weapon skill they have to match the new equipment I've given them; so it seemed simpler to not include the weapon stats I'm not using anyways, and shortcut the skills into Primary and Secondary. Most of the NPCs have two tiers of skills anyways, so I figured I may as well give myself the wiggle room with the statblocks to decide which skills those are as needed.

I use cue cards like you just mentioned as well. My cue cards include a reference to which statblock to use, mention of what weapon I gave them, an initiative tracker, and wound/strain tracker; but I do that on a per combat basis, not on a per NPC basis. (I've also been using cue cards to track planets, NPC notes - plot notes not game mechanics- , and Factions. Some of those things may end up also getting pretty cards once I am done with the NPC cards.)

So when a fight comes up, the idea is that I will use my cue card for the combat, and have any NPC stat blocks I'm using in the fight in front of me on cards (so I dont have to flip through the book for them, and so my custom ones are with the prebuilt ones).

Then I have my GM screen, which has the equipment, keywords, and talents/abilities, so I'm not having to slow down the game to check in the book what the stats of weapon "Bla" are.

How's that? Can you see it now? I reuploaded them using a different service.

Yup.

I'd like the initiative information. House rules are cool but if you want people to use them you probably need to stick to RAW.

Initiative info would be good, good suggestion.

As for using non-condensed stat blocks, that would be less useful to me, but if other people like the card templates, I could tweak it to get rid of the two extra boxes on the right easily enough, and you can easily write in the equipment and skills your npcs have in the big box, if you want it on the card. The box will come in a handful of sizes, so you could use whichever size you need.

These are mostly the result of me wanting something for my own game, and thinking: hmm, it's possible other people might like this/have a use for it as well.

My reaction to the images: "Sweet. Awesome. Okay, whatever man."

Blank ones would be nice for custom use!

@hencook I have no idea what to make of that.

@tremayne: that's the idea, once the template is done I will skate the PSD and thou guys can make things with it, and if I get a mse template working, I'll share that as well.

@hencook I have no idea what to make of that.

I think he dislikes adding Geralt to Star Wars.

In the sense of weapons, you could make weapon/armor cards that go under the character card, and line up with the relevant stats. (eg, a set of armor that has "+1" on the right edge at the height of soak, so you can shove it under and see that "yes, this NPC is wearing armor and it adds +1 to his soak" quickly.)

Initiative info would be good, good suggestion.

As for using non-condensed stat blocks, that would be less useful to me, but if other people like the card templates, I could tweak it to get rid of the two extra boxes on the right easily enough, and you can easily write in the equipment and skills your npcs have in the big box, if you want it on the card. The box will come in a handful of sizes, so you could use whichever size you need.

These are mostly the result of me wanting something for my own game, and thinking: hmm, it's possible other people might like this/have a use for it as well.

Excluding weapon stats is fine imo. Depending on player characters and what you want to use against them would make that pointless effort. The skills seem more necessary to me.

Updated Version.

I can put up a version with Cool/Vigilance instead of Primary, Secondary, and Initiative, if people would like, but I think for my purposes the NPC template is now basically finished.

Here are just a couple of examples. A Minion, a Rival, and a Nemesis.

I will probably toss together a B&W version of the same, so I can print some things out at home instead of needing to get them printed at a copy place, but for the super-pretty full color option, I think I'm set.

What do you guys think of the new iteration/do you think it's now good enough that it would be worth sharing the template now?

The first post has the updated PSD Files, for those of you who want to make your own cards using the templates.

[Edit]

So I printed out the ones I currently have, and I came across a few things that were less than stellar. Looks like I'm not finished with the templates yet after all.

So, they're totally usable, but the card shape I grabbed came from a planechase card, which is approximately 3.5x5. If you print it at the 2.49x3.48 that makes up a typical magic card, you'll notice that the corners don't match up. Apparently the planechase cards have rounder borders than the normal sized ones, so I need to adjust that shape.

The second thing I noticed (since I have a B&W Laser Printer) is that the white text in red boxes comes out really hard to read if printed in B&W. I may darken them, or turn them black, but I want them to come out okay in black and white as well, so that's going to see some more changes as well.

If anyone has any comments or suggestions for these in the meantime, let me know.

Maybe use a non commercial font so people like me that don't have it can use it.
ModMatrix is apparently a MTG font, from what i could gather from the few links that came up when I looked for it.
So:

if it IS a commercial one, would you mind using a freely available one/linking to the one you use OR
if it isn't a commercial one, could you link it?

Maybe use a non commercial font so people like me that don't have it can use it.

ModMatrix is apparently a MTG font, from what i could gather from the few links that came up when I looked for it.

So:

if it IS a commercial one, would you mind using a freely available one/linking to the one you use OR

if it isn't a commercial one, could you link it?

Oh. I have the Magic Set Editor installed, it must have come with it.

http://magicseteditor.sourceforge.net/

Let me know if that program is where the fonts came from. I'll look into it further tomorrow at some point. Sorry about that. I had assumed it was one of the fonts that came with Photoshop.

I will see about making a "MS Fonts/Free Fonts" version available in my next update.

I wish someone here would make a toolset for the Strange Eons custom card creator. It would make it very simple for anyone to make these kind of cards. The same was done for FFG's Warhammer narrative system that EotE was based upon. It doesn't supply created cards, but makes it VERY simple to create sheets of your own cards.

Interesting. I've never heard of Strange Eons before. I will check it out.

Updated the PSD Templates in the first post, and included ones that use Cambria instead of MPlantin and ModMatrix.

Hi Sylrae,

Your work on this cards is great.

I'm a French player of Edge of the Empire and i want to translate them in French but the card template isn't updatable. Can you share a version i can work with ?

Thanks again !

Hi Sylrae,

Your work on this cards is great.

I'm a French player of Edge of the Empire and i want to translate them in French but the card template isn't updatable. Can you share a version i can work with ?

Thanks again !

I sent you a PM.