I'm sorry, I must have missed this. Can someone point me at the rules change? Does the monk's "craft ability" no longer mean that he's limited to adding his starting craft?

It means players who are used to the 80's game want to continue adding 15 Craft rather than 3.

I'm sorry, I must have missed this. Can someone point me at the rules change? Does the monk's "craft ability" no longer mean that he's limited to adding his starting craft?

It means players who are used to the 80's game want to continue adding 15 Craft rather than 3.

Which is why it was changed in the new version... You could always add the Monk's Craft counters instead of all Craft!

Oh...I've never played the older editions. IMO, the older way sounds way to OP.

Oh...I've never played the older editions. IMO, the older way sounds way to OP.

..and thus the nerfing

Speaking of OP, anyone else play the expansion characters in the digital edition? I've been playing them alot lately and am starting to find that they make the game too easy, it's like each one has just one ability to many or makes another character totally obsolete (e.g., the Genie or the Exorcist vs. Priest, respectively). I am hoping to see characters with similar themes in some future character-only expansion but I also hope they rigorously playtest them and do some nerfing.

Speaking of OP, anyone else play the expansion characters in the digital edition? I've been playing them alot lately and am starting to find that they make the game too easy, it's like each one has just one ability to many or makes another character totally obsolete (e.g., the Genie or the Exorcist vs. Priest, respectively). I am hoping to see characters with similar themes in some future character-only expansion but I also hope they rigorously playtest them and do some nerfing.

I think the Martyr is the most powerful of the new characters from the digital edition, especially with the Dungeon or Highlands expansion. Obviously the Genie and Exorcist are better than the Priest, but isn't everyone?

Anyway, my friends and I have tried a number of different methods for character selection:

1. Each player gets 5 random cards. Then each player may ban up to 2 characters held by other players. You can choose not to ban any characters, and you can choose to ban a player's character even if two or more of his characters have already been banned. Then, for each banned character a player has, he draws two new random characters from the deck.

2. Each player gets 5 random cards and chooses 1. The chosen characters are shuffled and distributed to the players randomly.

We've changed around many bans there are and how many cards get distributed. I prefer less cards (so that the less played characters get played every once in awhile) but my friends don't always see it that way.

We've found that the second method results in middle of the road characters being played, while the first results in generally powerful characters.

The Genie is pretty nasty. Out of the Digital Edition charcters to choose from he's my favorite.

I like the Martyr too but I don't see them as horrible.

The Exorcist is really a better Priest, But the Priest is maybe one of the worst characters right now along with the "new" Monk.

Being as the Priest and Monk have high Fate and I believe Fate is used as kind of a balancing crutch, I think with Dark Fate these two will become much better characters.

The Priest is pretty nice if you have the Neither Deck in play.

Conversely I find the Priest and Monk to both be really good characters, easily on par with the likes of the Thief, Sorceress, and Warrior. With the Priest I can just straight up convert craft 1 or 2 spirits into spells and the monk comes with a built in warhorse effect which gives a nice early game advantage as he'll be stronger than many other characters with weapons. I don't see their inability to use weapons during battle as much of a weakness since they can use them in psychic combat. The Priest, especially, will be taking the craft route to victory and, with a few victories under his belt the Monk is quite competitive on the Strength route. If you're playing with one of the expansions that includes the Warhorse, his ability even stacks with it. The Ghoul is the only character I find frustrating, and it's mostly because his abilities lack anything resembling focus.

This topic of which character is "overpowered" or "sucky" goes back at least 30 years, in my experience of playing 2nd ed. Talisman when I was a kid. As someone who's played this for decades, I can say pretty confidently that the randomness of the game basically means that no character is automatically over- or under-powered. Anyone can win at any time. And there's something satisfying about winning with a character you wouldn't have chosen, especially if it's after you've already died once and drawn a new one you didn't like. Randomize as much as possible in this game: it's what makes Talisman Talisman! It's not a game for those who like to plan ;-)

In one of the groups I play it is a simple, draw 1 from random, then you get one mullygon but have to play with the second choice. I've played with many of the characters using this method. This is playing the 2nd edition however...

In another group I play with playing 4th edition, since I haven't had the expansions very long and I got them all at once, we are playing one expansion at a time, using the characters from the expansion. Once everyone has had a game with each character, a new expansion is selected.

One method I have been toying with is the give every character a number, then roll 2 D10 dice to come up with a two digit number (one die for tens, one die for units) - Just need to number every character now! lol

As for OVERPOWERED - although we do not take any characters out, you can tell by the evil laughter when someone draws the prothetess or the assassin or monk

Why is having Strength 1 so bad for the Sprite? The Troll has a Craft 1 and you don't see anyone complaining about him...

Well you have more chance of battle then psychic combat when encountering other characters who will kill you off if you've only got one strength.

I guess the other thing is that (in the past anyway) you were more likely to come across a high level strength character than craft. If I recall correctly in the 2nd Edition, there were 3 dragons you couldn't beat in strength but one ghoul type character of craft 10 or 12. Either way, the odds seem to indicate more strength battles on the main board starting out.

Warhorses came later and you still need to be able to draw the card or afford it.

I like both the Troll and the Sprite. If I had to choose I'd probably go with the Sprite due to the "always two spells" ability.

Strength/Craft 1 is mainly problematic in Battle/Psychic Combat but you are able to gain points in both attributes in loads of other ways (objects/followers/strangers/places/temple and so on).

Yep - I absolutely love the 2 spells constantly. It's great. I think that in the original 2nd Edition main game, you could sort of semi-plan your strategy around the cards. One reason why the Prophetess was so powerful was due to the original limited cards - you'd come across counterspells, temporal warps, random etc fairly frequently and then the deck would need a shuffle.

Now, it's a bit more hit and miss if you have all the expansions and whilst there are great cards out there, you're more likely to sit on cards that have no effect. Or possibly it's fairer to say that with the wide range of cards you're less likely to come across a Psionic Blast to help a spell caster in battle in the early stages of the game.

So whilst I love the Sprite, it is quite a test at the start before the gaining of followers etc so that she is buffed. Even with followers, they are more diverse and you're less likely to come across one that adds +1 to strength to assist early game.

Sprite is one of those characters that are really strong when you are buffed up later game, but really weak when you start and its really a case of making sure you stay out of the way of other characters and not let your progress fall behind other characters too much (as others will win the majority of their battles). And you sort of depend on a reasonably lucky set of spells coming in early in the game.

By the way, in terms of the original thread, I agree that Alchemist is overall most powerful.

With the City expansion, certainly the Alchemist and Leprechaun stand out.

With the Dragon expansion there is some kind of (can't remember exactly what it's called) dragon master? card that kicks ass really fast as you draw more dragons. There is that in between stage where other characters haven't got quite the strength to defeat dragons reliably but you can accelerate faster. Given the right rolls, you can progress to the Crown of Command whilst the Alc and Lep are fighting for more gold and weapons. Definitely not an overpowered character when the Dragon expansion is not in use - possibly quite weak in fact.