Card templates for custom cards?

Fallout Wasteland Warfare
1

There’s been a little talk about customizing miniatures around here, but I haven’t seen anyone really bring up the creation of cards yet. I thought I could remedy that.

Has anyone worked out the formula for characters? Stats vs Cost? Has anyone made up a blank card template for use in custom characters?

What I am hoping to do is find a blank card template (I have effectively zero artistic talent or I’d try photoshopping the printable versions to make a blank card for use myself.) that can be used to create custom cards to go with any custom characters I may choose to make. Then when my preorders finally arrive one of the things I want to do is figure out the formula for how they build their stats so that creating fairly balanced custom characters would be easy to do.

Anyone else interested in this? Or that has already started working on something like this?

2

There are some blank cards in some boxes (noticed AI and Quest, could be more, I tried avoiding looking through them as to not spoil any surprises).
I’d be very much interested in a formula like that. It would make it way easier to balance games with a role-playing approach where characters slightly improve their stats between games.

3

Blank cards with the current content, that would be pretty nice. AND it would imply that they intend to give us rules at some point for creating our own content. After all, who doesn’t want to create their own character as the hero in their armies?

I know that perks was something they plan to let us use to improve our characters over time, but I’m like you, I’ve avoided doing more than skim the rules because I don’t want to spoil the full experience for myself when I get around to opening everything up and discovering the game for the first time.

4

@Modiphius-SteveH
Since you seem to be fairly engaged with the community, and have proven to be very open when you’re able, I figured you would be a good person to ask:

Does Modiphius have a formula for how you calculate the point value of characters and items in the game? Or do you just play it by ear and balance through play testing? If you DO have a formula for adding characters/items/etc to the game, would you be willing to share it with the community?

The reason I ask is because I’d love to create characters from scratch to reflect my own characters from various ways I’ve chosen to play the video games in the series. This would also be helpful for creating our own items and scenarios moving forward.

If you have something you can share, that would be ideal. If not, I’ll sit down one afternoon and figure out a formula (I’ve done it with a few other games. Just takes a little time. :wink: )

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5

There’s no formula for creating units or their points costs. As you mention, our playtesters work out the points values during their testing and comparing their performance. Whilst there is no formula for creating units, there are lots of units and items to look at to give you ideas of how strong/weak equivalent units and items are - so those can serve as a good guideline for you. The designer’s advice is nothing is good at everything so units should have weaknesses, remember skills can be assigned to different attributes, and don’t be scared of some low attributes as even a skill roll of 1 is still a 25% chance.

6

Thank you for the detailed reply. It seems like most developers don’t use a formula, but I’ve also discovered that in most cases I can crack a formula that can be used to get things really close.

When I’ve broke things down in the past, I usually start with the weakest character in the game and use that as a “Base Value” then work my way up from there. With as big a range as is available for this already, I should have plenty to work with. I’ll be sure to share anything I come up with. :wink:

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7

@GateKeeper I look forward to your results! :slight_smile:

8

I did exactly that for GW’s BloodBowl a number of years ago and it worked great. I tried the same approach with F:WW with little success so far. I’m not planning on working on it any further, but if I were, I’d look at grouping units and running calc’s within those groups. For example put all unique characters together, all multi-model groups together, etc
Good luck to you and I also look forward to what you come up with :+1:

9

If you started working on it, you don’t happen to have any of your work saved in written form? Might give me a starting point, or at least show me a couple of things that don’t work, to get me started.

I’ve done Star Wars: Starship Battles, Warhammer Fantasy, D&D Minis (WotC), and the Star Wars Miniatures (WotC) as well as a couple of less recognizable games. Some of them can be harder to crack than others for sure. Breaking it up by faction is actually fairly common. I remember that for Starship Battles the formula needed to be adjusted for each of the four starship classes but the formula was exact for all but one model when done (The set included 60 models).

I’m looking at groupings like this right now:
Super Mutants: 9 models (Not counting the Enslaved Tech since I’m not sure how he will calculate into all of that yet since he’s a cross-faction model. Will size it up once I’ve got everything in front of me.)
Brotherhood of Steel: 9 Models (Not counting Eyebot since it’s a robot and I’ll group it there first.)
Survivors: 15 models (Not counting robots or the tech from above, AM counting the Sole Survivor variants.)
Creatures: 4 Models (Not counting Dogmeat or the Alien.)
Robots: 6 Models (Counting Codsworth)

Since Survivors have the best range of stats, that’s where I’d be starting.

The trick is usually a case of finding the cheapest model (Models with equipment as part of their cost actually helps a lot since there’s values for those items already) then start comparing models of a similar value to figure out what is different, by how much, and that the point difference is. Once you reach that point it’s usually not too bad to start working out a formula (Unless the game has a sliding scale where lower cost models have one price, and at higher values things cost differently. Those games are a pain to figure out.)

“Unique” almost always has value associated with it. Sometimes it adds to cost, other times it subtracts (Usually adds.)

If I can get the Survivors worked out, then I’ll look at the other factions to see how they compare. If they fit the formula, great, if not, then I’ll need to break things down again and start again for each faction that doesn’t conform. (And even if the formula doesn’t work between factions all the time, its almost always is similar enough to set you on the right path for the next grouping).

I’m not going to work at it until I get my models (When I heard from Modephius last, my orders should be shipping today from the UK, so it’s probably going to be a couple of weeks before I see them still.) I like having physical cards/pieces in front of me when I work on something like this, makes referencing things easier for me. (I’m a very visual person. Spreadsheets just don’t work for me. Give me a pen and paper plus a bunch of physical product, and I’m in my element. :wink: )

10

Gatekeeper,

I think it’s possible to make blank player and item cards out of the free PDF’s in the Fallout shop. You need a basic understanding in photoshop, and I don’t know if it is still possible with the current PDF’s. I have an older PDF called “Card Selection” from months ago, whit this PDF it’s possible to make them but I haven’t checked those currently on the shop.

11

My problem is that I have virtually zero artistic talent. Even so, worst case scenario is that I take an image of a card and use “paint” to remove the numbers from a card so I can pencil in my own if it comes to that.

Closer to time I’ll poke around at the pdf files like you suggest, see if I can’t figure something out that way. I also work with a couple of artists through my job, so I might b able to get one of them to lend a hand too if it comes to that.

12

Since I felt ambitious, I printed off a couple of the cards for the game and started tinkering around with a formula for how to price models. My first couple of runs at something like this is typically a stab in the dark, so don’t expect a usable formula right out of the gate.

Below, I’ve posted my initial notes and formulas, plus what I’m looking at as possible solutions. It’s a mile off right now, but I thought I’d post just to give people an idea of what I’m trying to do.

If anyone would be interested in helping out, I’d love people to share their thoughts on what I posted below. Also, I haven’t played the game yet since I’m still waiting on my orders, so any insights on what models people think are over/under priced when playing them would be useful as well.

Fallout Cost Notes:

Unique Cost:

SPECIAL Costs:

Dice Costs:

Movement Costs:

Ability Costs:

Armor Costs:
-Nothing has less than 2 armor points across armor types in core set

Creature Type: ??? Uncertain if this will affect anything or simply serve to group models.

Range Order:
Orange
Yellow
Red
Green
Blue
Black

Dice:
White: Skills
Yellow: Armor Reduction
Red: Armor
Green: Accuracy
Blue: Special Effect
Black: Damage

Enslaved Tech: 33
S: 3
P: 3
E: 3
C: 3
I: 8
A: 5
L: 3
Total Attribute: 28 (31)

Armor Physical: 1
Armor Energy: 1
Armor Radiation: 0

Movement: Red (3)
Charge: Red (3)

Abilities: (3 Abilities)
Free: +1 E, +1 Physical Armor
Genius: Never Locked out of Computers
Back-Up:Friendlies within Presence gets + Black Die

Awareness: Green (4th Range)
Prepare

White Skills: 8
Red Skills: 1

Settler: 30
S: 3
P: 6
E: 4
C: 4
I: 4
A: 4
L: 3
Total Attribute: 28 (29)

Armor Physical: 1
Armor Energy: 1
Armor Radiation: 0

Movement: Yellow (2)
Charge: Red (3)

Abilities:
None

Awareness: Green (4th Range)
Prepare

White Skills: 7
Green Skills: 1 (4)

Aspirant Goddard: 105
Unique: ?
S: 5
P: 3
E: 4
C: 5
I: 4
A: 3
L: 1
Total Attribute: 26 (26)

Armor Physical: 2
Armor Energy: 1
Armor Radiation: 0

Movement: Yellow (2)
Charge: Red (3)

Abilities:
Power Armor (Item) 72

Awareness: Blue (5th Range)
Prepare

White Skills: 8
Red Skills: 1 (3)
Green Skills: 1 (4)

Goddard without Armor actually costs: 33

Sole Survivor Day One: 70
Unique: ?
S: 4
P: 5
E: 4
C: 5
I: 5
A: 6
L: 4
Total Attribute: 33 (34)

Armor Physical: 3
Armor Energy: 3
Armor Radiation: 1

Movement: Yellow (2)
Charge: Red (3)

Abilities:
Dog Handler

Awareness: Black (6th Range)
Prepare

White Skills: 9
Blue Skills: 1 (5)
Green Skills: 1 (4)

Early Speculation:
Unique: Free?
Attributes .5 each (Special above 5 becomes 1?)
Armor .5 each
Movement ranges .5 each
Abilities: 1 each
Awareness .5 each
Prepare .5
Skills .5 each
Skill Ranges: .5 each

Using that formula, Enslaved Tech is 32.5 points, but that’s the only model I ran that came out about where it should.

Settler would come out to 26
Aspirant Goddard would be 27.5
Sole Survivor Day One: 32.5

Next up:
-See if armor might multiply rather than add.
-Possibility of Attributes having a base cost for XX points, then add past that? May still be affected by higher numbers?
-Possible that items related to combat will price differently than non-combat skills and such. (After all, this game is built around fighting.)

13

Second pass at a point buy system. This one came out quite a bit closer, but still needs work.

I ran five models stats. Four out of five of them came out within 10% of the actual value, but I’m hoping to get that down to under 5%. The one discrepancy is from the “Sole Survivor” model and since the only change on that one is the addition of 4 attribute points compared to the “Day One” version, which means that those four points somehow account for a 25 point difference between the models.

Not sure when I’ll have time to poke at this next, but I’ll run Dogmeat, Aviator, Mutant Hound, Brute, Super Mutant, and the Deathclaw through it the next time I have time (Got digital versions of those cards so I can reference them. I don’t have access to the stats for anything else.) to see if those fit the formula so far. If they look good, then I’ll work on refining what I’ve already got a bit. If not, then I’ll step back and take another look at it.

Enslaved Tech came out at 33 (Real value 33) 0% Discrepancy
Settler came out at 28 (Real value 30) 7% Discrepancy
Aspirant Goddard came out at 31/103 (Real value 33 without armor cost, 105 with T-60 Armor) 7% / 2% Discrepancy
Sole Survivor Day One came out 69 (Real value 70) 2% Discrepancy
Sole Survivor came out 77 (Real value 95) 19% Discrepancy

Thoughts going into this:

Base Cost 15

Base Attributes: 28 Points to distribute. +2 per additional point

Starting Armor: Value times value. (1=1, 2=4, 3=9, eyc

Abilities: 2ea

Speed increase: 1 each (Default Yellow/Red)

Skills: 1 each (Red Default)

Awareness Upgrades:
Green: 0
Blue: 1
Black: 3

Skill Upgrades:
Red: 0
Green: 3
Blue: 6
Black: 12

Enslaved Tech: 33
S: 3
P: 3
E: 3
C: 3
I: 8
A: 5
L: 3
Total Attribute: 28

Armor Physical: 1 (1)
Armor Energy: 1 (1)
Armor Radiation: 0

Movement: Red (1)
Charge: Red (0)

Abilities: (3 Abilities)
Free: +1 E, +1 Physical Armor (2)
Genius: Never Locked out of Computers (2)
Back-Up:Friendlies within Presence gets + Black Die (2)

Awareness: Green (0)
Prepare

White Skills: 8
Red Skills: 1

Total: 33 (Actual 33)

Settler: 30
S: 3
P: 6
E: 4
C: 4
I: 4
A: 4
L: 3
Total Attribute: 28

Armor Physical: 1 (1)
Armor Energy: 1 (1)
Armor Radiation: 0

Movement: Yellow (0)
Charge: Red (0)

Abilities:
None

Awareness: Green (0)
Prepare

White Skills: 7
Green Skills: 1 (3)

Total: 28 (Actual 30)

Aspirant Goddard: 105 (Armor accounts for 72 of that.)
Unique: ?
S: 5
P: 3
E: 4
C: 5
I: 4
A: 3
L: 1
Total Attribute: -3

Armor Physical: 2 (4)
Armor Energy: 1 (1)
Armor Radiation: 0

Movement: Yellow (0)
Charge: Red (0)

Abilities:
Power Armor (Item) 72

Awareness: Blue (1)
Prepare

White Skills: 8
Red Skills: 1 (0)
Green Skills: 1 (3)

Total: 31/103 (Actual 33/105)

Sole Survivor Day One: 70
Unique: ?
S: 4
P: 5
E: 4
C: 5
I: 5
A: 6
L: 4
Total Attribute: 33 (5 additional for 10 points)

Armor Physical: 3 (9)
Armor Energy: 3 (9)
Armor Radiation: 1 (1)

Movement: Yellow (0)
Charge: Red (0)

Abilities:
Dog Handler (2)

Awareness: Black (3)
Prepare

White Skills: 9
Blue Skills: 1 (6)
Green Skills: 1 (3)

Total: 69 (Actual 70)

Sole Survivor: 95
Unique: ?
S: 5
P: 7
E: 4
C: 5
I: 5
A: 7
L: 4
Total Attribute: 37 (9 for 18 points)

Armor Physical: 3 (9)
Armor Energy: 3 (9)
Armor Radiation: 1 (1)

Movement: Yellow (0)
Charge: Red (0)

Abilities:
Dog Handler (2)

Awareness: Black (3)
Prepare
51
White Skills: 9
Blue Skills: 1 (6)
Green Skills: 1 (3)

Total: 77 (Actual 95)

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