I don't get the pit fiends space in the inner region. You have to fight D6 Pit Fiends one-by-one until all of them are defeated. Fine... But they only have 4 Craft!!!

The problem is that any player who bothers to take the eastern route to the Crown of Command must first navigate the Mines by rolling 3D6 against his Craft. Therefore, such a player almost certainly has at least 12 Craft. If I understand the rules for the Pit Fiends correctly, any player with 10 or more Craft automatically defeats the space, no rolls required. Even if you have 9 craft, your only risk is a draw.

Is it possible you are supposed to add all the Pit Fiends' craft together? That doesn't seem right, either, because then you could be faced with an opponent with 24 Craft.

So the space is broken, right? I honestly can't believe FFG could make such a disasterous mistake on the game's penultimate challenge!

Can anyone propose a fix for the space? My solution is to roll 2D6 for the Pit Fiends' Craft and fight it as you would the Werewolf in the Werewolf's Den.

Lars Gnomish said:

Pit Fiends have 4 Strength, not Craft. They are still a speed-bump most of the time, same as the Werewolf is a pathetic puppy in need of weaning.

Though you have the stat wrong for the fiends i agree that the space is a waste of time. Except for the mines and crypt i think the Inner region needs changing completely, adding more of a challange (it needs to be tougher then the dungeon as its a quicker route then the undergoung lair).

3rd edition Tower was good except the creatures were far to weak to offer a threat to anyone beefed up enough to fight the dragon. We housed ruled all craetures were at +3 Strength/Craft and no experience (trophies) were gained from the encounters.

I don't think parts of the main game should be altered based on what happened with any expansion. The Dungeon should be tougher than the Inner Region, if its to be a shortcut around the Inner Region directly to the CoC. But I do agree that some parts of the Inner Region might have always been a little weak.

Perhaps the Pit Fiends could be fought collectively all at once, but re-rolled for count each turn you are stuck there. It certainly would be more of challenge, though offering some leniency if you roll high on one particular turn. Maybe in that case they even need to be toned down to Craft 3 to keep the total from becoming too outrageous. At Craft 3, the average total wold be 10.5; at Craft 4 (the current level), the average total would be 14.5.

Craft is still the harder attribute to build as a way to get into the CoC, so it should be slightly less of challenge than by the Strength route inside the Inner Region.

I've only ever seen one game where the pit fiends made any difference at all. It was a Prophetess who pulled the Map and the Gnome in the first 3 turns. She gained 2 craft from Solomon's Crown, a sword, and went for it.

She did have 2 turns of killing fiends, but made it through with final numbers of craft 6, strength of 4. The game was over in less than twenty turns. It was pretty awesome.

I don't see any reason why the Pit Fiends couldn't have a 5 Strength, as most characters can beat Str 4 enemies within a dozen turns or so. If you're going the Craft route, even trying to focus on Craft enemies, you're still likely to fight (and thus gain) Strength more often than Craft. The Pit fiends are worse than the Werewolf who can (occasionally) have a 12 Strength and pose a minor challenge. The Pit Fiends, no matter what is rolled, almost always instantly lose each battle against Strength 9+ wizards and such.

On the other hand, making them Str 6 seems a bit high, and 7 seems out of the question. I do like that it's a minor strength challenge on an otherwise crafty path, which keeps the lucky Prophetess from winning in 9 turns, at least.

In the interview at Talisman Island , John Goodenough said that the Lord of the Pit from the Reaper expansion was originally a card to beef up the Pit Fiends, but it did not work out well in testing. He also said that it might be revisited in the future...

It would be easy enough to add in a card that, when drawn, goes onto the Pits or the Werewolf's Den and bulks out the spaces. If anyone has some reasonable suggestions I'll make the cards up and put them on the site as a small expansion!

talismanisland said:

It seems that John is pretty sure about cards that he want to use for the inner region to make the creatures stronger there..

he once said that he want to make the inner region a more dangerous place for strong characters.

There are two minor problems with drawn-card add-ons for the Inner Region:

1. The chance of drawing them. This decreases dramatically the more expansions are used, even just one almost doubling the Adventure deck. And of late, I hearing more and more of characters getting to the CoC faster and faster (because of items/followers, not building up). The chance of drawing that add-on card is also dependent on how much of the Adventure deck is access in conjunction with its size.
2. Created inequality of the two paths through the Inner Region should only one path pick up an enhancement. There's an inherent design paradigm for the Inner Region as standard encounters, and messing with that is going to create imbalances that need to be addressed. This is likely part of why the original card was shelved.

Well, that would be the case if it was a single card, though it would be offset if they just made a series of replacement spaces. I might even have a go at making some to overlay the Crypt and Mines. Maybe even some more besides!

Hi guys

I may be card obsesed here but it would have been very easy to have made the inner region a place where you have to go from the door all the way around in a spiral which would have given the inner region more spaces as the stairs of the picture in the middle take up tones of board room.

Thier would only be one route around in this version but you would have to step on every space and every time you landed on a space you pick up a card from an inner region challenges deck. this chellenge would then stay on that space so every one would have to do the same challenges and would create a new inner region evey time you played.

Each inner region challenge card would have a way of complting it that would be crafty and a way that would be subtle for a warrior.

This would fix problems with the inner region and would my replayability of the game go through the roof.

I would be happy to see cards added in the future to beef up all the set encounters. Not alot mind you, but individual cards that grant +X/+X to the encounter.

I like overlays more than placing a new card on the ( already existing space) for the Inner Region

But the Dragon tower is my ultimate ending board for the Inner Region haha

But if we play with a Dragon Tower, then we have no Ice Queen? ( because she is a ending card? that's disappointing..

But maybe that there is a way, so we can still activate her...

I actually want both Ice queen and dragon king into the same game, or i am asking too much...

it can be done i think...

Anything can happen, the game is called Talisman and we used to have "horrible black void" and "space marine with laser guns"

So an "Ice Queen" and a "Dragon King" together in the same game is not too far fetch if you compare.

Nothing presently mention that the "Dragon King" is replaced with the "Ice Queen", furthermore, nothing is mention to my knowledge that Taliman is limited to 4 or 5 expansion regions and that those regions have to connect in some way to the main board.

So imo this Ice Queen do not remove the chance to see a 4er dragon tower

Cheers

Old Master said:

Hi Old master,

I have not seen you around for some time

They can always used a new rule so that the Ice queen maybe exist in the mountain expansion or you place it beside the board, so she is always present if the Dragon tower show up..

I am already happy that the Ice queen gains a big entrance, so she is already on the cover of the box !

But why she is in the inner region is a big question to me, because it's not her home land and her castle exist in the icy mountains..

What is she doing so far from home....

How will FFG fix this. Maybe a new rule...

Anyway, i think i will always choose for the dragon tower ending if FFG will make the expansion..

talismanisland said:

Good notion... an Inner Region "deck" where all but the Portal of Power and the Valley of Fire are a draw... and once drawn by the first entering adventurer, they stay in play. So after the first adventurer enters, one path is set. The next one in can decide to face that path, or take the untried one and see what comes of it. If there were more than six "space" cards, say 12, then there would also be no way to know what the remaining 3 spaces would be until they are tried. Of course, six of those cards should be the standard spaces, though perhaps with altered attributes and/or mechanics.

Hi Velhart,

I've been here all the time but very busy these days.

I think JCHendee has the right idea about the ending path, anyway this looks like a highly possible way to do it.

If not then the Dragon King may have to breath some fire, the Ice Queen way, to send her back to the mountain

Cheers

Old Master said:

Haha

Well, as far we have no dragon tower, then we can do it with overlays that gives us a route with new challenge's.

Maybe they can combine it with overlays and cards together?

Overlays that has a special text attached to it like the inner region spaces and overlays where you must draw a card from a inner region deck maybe..

The only problem is that it may not be to easy.

Because of the mines and crypt, we know that we must be very strong if we want to succeed or we need luck..

If the mines and crypt will vanish, then there must be a good replacement so that it is not to easy to walk to the crown.

The last sentence of your text sounds not like a bad idea haha

You're right, V. Something at least akin to the Mines, etc. is needed. And so among the 12 cards should be at least those 2 and perhaps 2 more like them, so there's at least a 33.3% of getting on on each path. And likewise, other challenges need to be somewhat equal in risk of being stalled or backtracked.

As to the Ice Queen being out of place, so where most ending cards when you think about it. But the whole endgame itself is rather out of place for a land that has king anyway. Another notion I've seen pop up in various manifestations (and not particularly liked because it makes for a longer game) is that reaching the CoC simply reveals an uberenemy somewhere else on the board. Reaching the CoC first gives you something of advantage (I hate to say it, but likely a special magic object) for defeating the "boss"... though it is still possible someone else might get to it first.

As an example, some reaches the CoC, an endgame card is drawn, and its the Ice Queen, who shows up in the Crags (the only space equivalent to Mountains that might have high cold places). That first player gets some of use, say a weapon of fire that does +4 Craft/Strength against her, and is immediately transported to the Portal of Power. Other adventurers (or rather godly players) know what needs to be done, but that don't have the first players advantage. Its now a race to see who can bump off the Ice Queen first.

Other variations have been random placement of end "boss," affects upon the land that change the game (movement, challenges, shutting down certain spaces, etc.), roaming end "boss" that starts hunting down any adventurer in reach, ones that grow stronger if they pass over (and eliminate) cards still one the board, etc.

There are lots of possibilities, though all of these I've seen in the past would not appeal to most modern players.