So I have this thing for analyzing and balancing games and I just compiled my work on talisman and thought I'd share. It's not as neat as it could be but I tidied it up somewhat The method is simple; assign values to various abilities to find a medium to assess and compare characters/units/strategies etc.

I started of course with core abilities: strength, craft, life, fate (S/C/L/F). In my estimation these are equally valuable so each point in any of these is worth 1 "point". However, because of the nature of talisman; in combat a difference in values is a huge difference in chance to win, the race to get a high enough score to pass the crypt/mine, and because certain effects replenish life/fate a high value is worth more than just the points. So i created a table where each value beyond the cost of the points has an extra cost.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1G0krvyByZifChTwGvoXb72JYwhff69QcK6LFAsPaUy8/edit?usp=sharing

See page Main in link.

using this table fx a character with 7 in all 4 values would cost 7*4=28+5 for strength, +3 for life, +1,5 for fate and +3 or 6 for craft depending whether the character hasthe ability to attack using psychic combat.

The total cost of such a characer would be 28+5+3+1,5+6=43,5, and would need some heavy disadvantages to be balanced with characters who start with just 3 or 4 rather 7 as their values.

Battle/Combat abilities: Some characters like the warrior and the assassin have abilities that increase their value in battle only: the warriors ability to roll 2 dice and choose the higher roll increases his average by 1 (see page dice in link), and his ability to use two weapons further increases his score by one. Similarly the assassins ability to sometimes deny opponent a roll increases his strength by 3,5 with certain conditions.

Such abilities are costed at half price , because they are only relevant in some turns (only 1 in 3 of the adventure cards are enemies and characters do not, on average, interact every turn because they must usually land on the same space to do so), and do not count against what might be considered the primary use: passing the tests in the inner region.

For the warrior increasing his strength by 2 would cost half of 2 + 2,5 extra (3-0,5) ie (2+2,5)/2=2,25. However since he doesnt start with two weapons we'll round this down to 2

The assassin can use his ability only when attacking creatures already revealed (this isnt clear on his sheet but i believe most people use it this way) and when attacking characters only if he takes a life, which, in a multiplayer game is usually not a good use of a turn, except when attacking a character far ahead of you or a character at 1 life. So in addition to reducing the cost to half for only affecting battle, we'll reduce it to half again for only affecting some battles, and restricting the reward for other battles.

cost of increasing strength to 6,5 from 3: 3,5+4=7,5 . 7,5*0,5*0,5=1,875,

Abilities that dont affect S/C/L/F: Some abilities do not affect the core abilitie, but instead affect the characters chance to get a good result (yield) in a turn, changing the odds or providing abilities that can steal items or followers.

The prophetess fx allows to change her draw a second adventure card in lieu of the first one. To assess this ability we need to first look into the average draw from adventure cards. In tab adventure in the link are the cards listed as well as the "effect" using the following estimates:

gain 1 S or C : 1 point

gain 1 life/fate: 0,2 point

1 spell 0,3

items worth 2/3 of innate abilities/stats because they can be taken away more easily

creatures worth 1/7th their S/C in points, divided by half, because they must be defeated first. This is roughly the worth of creatures in basegame if your average strength/craft is 6, (% chance to win times gain minus % chance loss times 0,2 for lost life)

Overall, the average result of drawing an adventure card is a gain of 0,33, and about 33% of the adventure cards yield 0,5 or more. this is for the basic revised 4th edition no expansions

The prophetess' ability gives a 33% chance that the 67% bad or mediocre draws will be good draws =0,33*0,67=0,22. This only affects turns where she draws adventure cards though, we'll estimate that to be ca 67% of the time, giving an average increased yield pr turn by ~0,15 (=0,22*0,67). This is pr turn. To find a value of this ability vs innnate ability points we need to estimate some average number of turns the ability will be active, while factoring in that high innate scores increases your chance that draws will be beneficial (enemies and tests). We'll go with 20, making the cost of the sorceress' ability cost 0,15*20=3

The ability of the Thief to steal objects can now be conceptualized as an alternative to drawing adenture cards with a higher yield: we'll set the average gain of a stolen item to 1,1, or an increase of 0,8 vs adventure cards, the ability can onlybe used on turns where you land on the space where another character is and we'll estimate that the ability can be used about once every 5 turns on average, and increase the cost by 1,25 because unlike adventure cards another player will be losing something as you gain something. final cost:

(1,1-0,3)*0,2*1,25=0,2, like the prophetess ability this is a ongoing ability so *20=cost of 4

The sorceress ability would be costed similarly, except the average chance of 1 in 3 makes the ability rarely yield better than average draw, and she is barred from taking most of the valuable followers making it cost 1 at most

The Leprechauns ability to teleport might be assessed in a similar way. Teleport can bring the Leprechaun to spaces like the ruins where it doubles the yield of that turn, and many other spaces, especially places that tend to have better yields than a single adventure card. We'll estimate the increase in yield to be 0,45 on average with a chance of 1 in 6 making the cost 0,45/6*20=1,5

Finally an extra turn can be assessed as 20 times an average yield of a turn where an adventure card is usually the minimum and sometimes better destinations are available especially in the middle region, we'll set the average yield of a turn to 0,5 and set the ability to take an extra turn, every turn, to 10.

Knowing this we can set the cost of being able to use an ability in addition to taking a turn when landing on another character to 2 (=10/5). We'll call this ability Free Action.

This will prove useful for the next step: assess the power of spells.

Incidentally: the extra yiel for high stats (% chance to win times gain minus % chance loss times 0,2 for lost life) is roughly 0,025 pr turn adding 0,5 to the cost. This is included in the prices already set forth)

Spells can be assessed using the principles set forth above. By answering the question; what would it cost to have this ability every turn and averaging out the cost (healing has been assessed slightly different way though), see page Spells in link . Acquisition fx, is the thiefs steal ability as a free action that can be used every turn, not just when landing on another character. Cost: (4+2)*5=30

The average cost of spells or of being a caster that always has 1 spell is 8,75, and because ca 1 in 3 spells can reliably be cast immediately or during other characters turns the average number of spells a caster can use pr turn is 1,5 making the final cost 13,125. Given that most abilities cost 1-4 points this is far too much and in column C is the cost of being a caster using the following rule: " Spells can only be cast on other characters in the same space as you. in addition if there is no timing restriction on them you can only cast the spell on them at the end of your move or if they attack you" this equalizes the restrictions for using the ability with that of other abilities and greatly reduces the cost of spells like aqcuisition.

Finally let's use these principles to assess the cost of each character, S ee page CharactersOriginal in link the spread is ca 14,5-32 points. The spellusers are, not surprisingly, the most powerful, and The warrior and assassin the least powerful. I'd estimate that it means that the prophetess has a more than twice as big chance of winning the game as the warrior. Despite being so much more powerful, in the end the game is mostly about luck.

In page Characters I've set forth my suggested fixes which puts the characters at a range of 20-22,1 points, which is a small enough difference to be indetectable. Simply making spellcasters follow the rule above does much to balance the characters though, and if you prefer to meddle as little as possible this is an acceptable fix, putting the range at 14,5-21,3 with the warlock being odd man out at 26,1, and likewise a provision could be added that drawing necromancer, warrior or assassin, players may draw again if they dont wish to play those.

These numbers have greater validity for base game, more expansions means encountering players is rarer, and alternative endings that require high S/C to clear a boss make abilities that increase yield (including combat abilities like the warriors) worth more and abilities that allow entering the inner region earlier worth less, even worthless.