When a player receives the Princess and Hunchback as a follower, they can infinitely heal inside the middle region.

Princess = Heal 2 lives per visit to the Castle

Hunchback = When you roll a movement die, you can move up to that many spaces. (ie. roll a 4, you can move 1,2,3 or 4 spaces)

When an opposing player is on the Crown of Command, they can only take one life from everyone, but the 'glitch' player is healing 2 lives every other turn.

The 'glitch' player is also burning up the adventure deck getting lots of level ups. Granted he/she will eventually get the hag as a follower, but that is 1 in hundreds of cards, the Adventure "Stack" is huge now. This causes the Player on the Crown of Command to idle, while the 'glitch' player levels up indefinitely.

This is usually called a stalemate, and it is frustrating. We eventually remedied the situation by saying that if the game is over due to time constraints, the player on the Crown of Command is victorious. After healing full health at the castle, the 'glitch' player is only 6 spaces from the Crown of Command, and he/she by that time had become ridiculously powerful.

I guess within those 6 spaces you should be able to kill the 'glitch' character, but Talisman does not always happen as you plan. Keep in mind, this is just the basic problem, Princess-Hunchback-Castle Glitch, never mind the additional cards that can cause the hag to be discarded or spells that swap players' positions.

The only solutions to this 'glitch' I can think of are:

1. Whoever is at the Crown of Command at the end of the game wins

2. When you bring the Princess/Prince to the Castle you discard them if you have the Hunchback

I searched the forums beforehand and did not find any results addressing this problem, sorry if it is a re-post.

There has been a problem with people whose sole aim is merely "not to lose" the game hanging around the Chapel with the Poltergeist when Good and such and causing the game to go on and on. My advice in these instances is to beat them with fluffy cushions until they surrender or tell them not to be such a humbug.

Some people instigate a rule whereby healing is not permitted when somebody reaches the Crown. It's a quick and dirty compromise when you are playing someone who would resort to these "tactics".

Bear in mind that having those two cards does not guarantee that you will be able to land on the Castle. What if you roll a succession of 6s and 5s?

EDIT

Doh! That'll teach me not to post as soon as I've wandered out of bed! Matt is absolutely right!

I don't have the card in front of me but I'm 99% certain that it says on the Hunchback card that you must discard him once you leave the dungeon. This should solve your stalemate problems

Matt is right

But what about the Clockwork owl

So you will still keep this problem. Here we go again

Their are ways to beat this as someone did this with clockwork owl over here. If you are stronger than them then go attack them and steal the princess or owl. if not, try to get the mesmerism spell, and then steal one. Or you can just wait for a cursed by a hag card to come and get him.

If this becomes a problem, you can insist on playing with the Blood bath rules.

As stated by previous posters, Hunchback has to be discarded when you leave the Dungeon. However, there is nothing in the rules about a player on the main board acquiring Hunchback through Dark Denizens or the Mesmerism spell.

Archdruid said:

That's a very good question you got there.

But if a Hunchback must be discarded if you go out of the dungeon, what happens if you draw him on the main board?

Must he be discarded right away or can you keep him....

I think Hunchback is from the Dungeon deck, so you couldn't draw it anywhere else.

crimhead said:

Yes you can...

It is possible if you draw Dark Denizens..

We made 6 unique (house rule) endings. We still have the Crown of Command as one of the possible final 6 endings but there is alot more randomness now with how to win the game in our group.

I am actually very puzzled that alternate endings were not one of the first enhancements that FFG did for Talisman.

Malthule said:

If i am right... ( the alternate endings came with the second expansion called Talisman Adventure.

Right now, we have only one small expansion called... The Reaper..

The third became the dungeon, but all cards are based on the dungeon itself.

So maybe that FFG will include the ending cards in another small expansion.

Or maybe that we get the Dragon Tower with no ending cards... ( i want them both !

This type of situation could happen in the base game, too. A good character with the pltergiest next to the chapel or any character with the poltergiest next to the healer, or if you have the prince/princess and poltergiest and you're next to the castle.

The sensible thing to do is for the player not on the Crown to admit defeat or go after the other player. If you really need a rule to fix this, though, you could rule that a player automatically wins if they control the Crown of Command for 30 turns or so.

We encountered another loop with the Elf in the Woods containing a healer. I believe there are several such "bugs" and the solution to them all seems to be to play Sudden Death all the time. Being on the CoC is totally boring/choiceless and the rules about when you are allowed to leave and multiple characeters on the CoC are too complicated to remember easily.

Sudden Death does seem to turn the Dwarf into a juggernaught, but I kind of like that...

If a stalemate type situation occurs, just simply implement the following rule from page 21 of the core rulebook:

Another way of playing a Sudden Death game is for players to agree to stop the game at a certain time and then count up the total number of Strength and Craft counters each character has, plus gold, Spells, Followers, Objects, and Magic Objects held in addition to the number the character started the game with. The player who’s character has the highest total wins! If players are obliged to stop the game before it is properly finished, this is a satisfactory way of deciding who has won.

We always use this rule and specify different times for the amount of players playing the game.

Ell.

...or if a player is intent on just "not losing" then throw them to the Trolls.

grim_reaper_zig said:

If you're on the CoC, you cannot leave, can you?

Yes you can leave, actually. I've done it to get to a character who was owling the chapel, so i wnet their, owned him in 2 rounds, and won.

grim_reaper_zig said:

In Revised 4th, no leaving (barring Transference thus far).

Maybe that the future will contain ending cards so that you must leave the crown.

I was just wondering about it..

If someone has the Hunchback or Clockwork Owl , and they try to make themselves stronger while they are also healing on the chapel, then they have a chance to win the game.

But for that, they must first reach the Crown and staying in life..

You cannot blame him for that, because he want to win the game, unless he is only healing and healing.. ( that's low and no fun)

If that person can also possess a healing spell or the transference spell, that will increase the chance to win !

Maybe you can walk to the Crown with a strength 20 against the person who has only strength 11..

And if you don't have time anymore to play, you can call it a draw...

These kinds of standoffs can come up in many ways, though rarely, and they always involved some type of quick access to healing for that one player not on the CoC. In almost all cases, a rule of some kind can be declared before a game begins.

If (1) one adventurer is on the CoC, and (2) only one other adventurer is still alive outside of the Inner Region, then (3) that other adventurer has a set number of turns to reach the Inner Region. If the other fails, the CoC holder is declared the winner because s/he has successfully pinned down that last remaining adventurer. Overall, we've found that 5 turns to reach the Inner Region is enough, and if the other adventurer can do that, play continues until one adventurer remains (on the CoC or otherwise).

Yesterday we had a play where a player was at CoC and a Priest had a poltergeist near the ruins (where a healer stay). So my brother go and come from healer, dungeon entrance and places next to the healer for so much time, get him more stronger. Now, to get matches faster we have decided few months ago to let CoC work with 2,3,4,5,6 if anybody is in the inner region, but it wasn't enough for this match. Priest tried to get the CoC and with a fast walk he got it, beating gladiator and wins... but it was so looong wait for it.... i think we will decide to put an end at X number of turn since CoC is reached first time, so

Another way to go to skip the silly kill-all approach is that once one adventurer reach the CoC, all other adventurers have 1 round to get into the Inner Region. If even one of them does, play continues normally, including use of the Command spell. If no one else makes the Inner Region in that one round, game over, winner declard. Simple and fast ... and let's everyone know they have no option to try for any stalemate via game loopholes.

Jimsan Ixata Centarus said:

This is the same as what i mean in my other post.

One player on the COC, and the other will try to make himself stronger, and the game will take longer as usual, because that player does not want to give up !

In the end, he is so strong that he take his chance to defeat the player on the COC who cannot build himself up...