Does anyone else think the Sentinel is too strong? I find the game starts to drag on while players are trapped in the outer region, forced to build up enough strength to take on the Sentinel and constantly going back and forth over the same spaces. By the time players do take on the Sentinel, they are almost ready to push into the inner region. The middle region doesn't get much play in our game.

I wonder if the game would be better if the Sentinel had a Strength of 6 or 7. Then players could take more risks in the middle region.

There are plenty of options for going to the Middle Region without taking on the Sentinel: Tavern, Imp, Axe + Woods for Raft, Raft, Evade by Spell, Water Walking (Reaper), Boatman (Reaper)...

I agree with you Lars, I don't see the point with having the sentinel so strong since no other options of crossing the river requires you to be so beefed up, the only effect of this is that you almost never fight the sentinel (of cause, evading him with a spell is a different matter). It is generally more difficult to defeat him than passing through the Portal of Power and usually if you have more chance of winning than loosing against the sentinel you should already be fit for the inner region as well.
It is such a shame really as he has his own board space and no one wants to fight him (an exception to this is when a player enters the inner region and another player, still in the outer region rushes after him).

As a house rule we always play with a sentinel with strength 7 and it works better for us. Still a worthy opponent for most characters but not so difficult that no one wants to fight him.

Part of the imbalance in the Sentinel is because of other ridiculous elements in the game for gaining the Middle (let alone Inner) region. Crossing the river via the boatman (Tavern) or a Raft somehow brings everything (Objects) and everyone (Followers) with you... and of course that's not the only ludicrous travel issue in the game. Having equine followers and vehicles in the Dungeon is another. It's true that hitting the Tavern or getting a raft is utterly random for the most part, but still the take-whatever 4ER Dungeon takes most of the challenge out of going in there... especially for the hope of a shortcut.

There's no way one could get equines let alone something like a Horse & Cart into / onto the water transport mentioned. Same for going through the Dungeon in the hope of a short cut. Same and more so for things like Waterwalking.

Step by step, the Sentinel has become dull and impotent as the option for keeping everything you have through an immediate way to get to the Middle and Inner regions by land. Its an issue of game imbalance via changes over the years and not the Sentinel itself. In the days of 2E playing with friends in college, the Sentinel was challenged a lot, even once the Dungeon was introduced, for it was a Dungeon where you had to choose carefully what you could take with you and what you had to leave behind... especially if you were too dependant on "stuff" vs real built up Strength and Craft.

Making the Sentinel weaker as an option is just a sign of how the game has changed... in order to make him as easy as other access options that require no sacrifice to make him a option worth considering.

The Sentinel used to be an effective means of balancing spellcasters. Once upon a time, there were far fewer ways into the middle region and spells were much more powerful and easy to cycle (a la Wizard/Prophetess). Now with many spells that will be stuck in hand for turns on end (stormcrow usually sits for half the game), spellcasters have already seen their power diminished greatly.

Once upon a time, a Wizard would have to hoard gold and save for an axe to make a raft or repeatedly land on the tavern hoping for a 6. Now there's a spell that allows him to cross the river. It's not a powerful spell, per se, and the Wizard isn't well-equipped to handle monsters in the middle region (especially in the runes where most Str monsters will defeat him easily). For Strength-based characters, a trip to the middle region earlier was advantageous for two reasons.

First, the Str characters were not in the region with most of the others, protecting them from many events (Plague) and special abilities (Sorceress follower-theft, etc.). This is because most cards would be pulled in the outer region by the other 3-5 characters, and it takes many turns for the Sorceress to follow into the middle region, making you immune to her in the interim.

Reducing the Sentinel's strength to 7 would make defeating it extremely easy, particularly for the Troll or Warrior, and as early as turn 3-5. The game is designed with high-risk/high-reward spaces in the middle region, allowing a character to accelerate quickly (hidden valley anyone?). If these characters can then freely wander to the chapel, graveyard, or city to get back their life and fate, then return to the middle region, what hope do the characters in the outer region pulling a mere 1 card per turn have of keeping up? Especially if their special abilities cannot be used on the Troll, Warrior, Knight, etc. basically for the entire game? With the addition of the Dungeon, a quick profitable jaunt to the middle region early in the game could make a character capable of taking on the dungeon after a quick refresher with a healer, allowing them to continue to accelerate quickly.

It is the Strength of the Sentinel that makes the game balanced. When I was creating new characters (there are some 40+ at TalismanIsland), I often wanted their starting spaces in the Middle Region. And yet in playtesting, they would always annihilate their outer region brethren because of exposure to the temple, hidden valley, and oasis, in addition to using the 9 Strength Sentinel as their personal bodyguard. If a character happens upon the boatman by chance on turn one, they're unlikely to spend more than 5 turns in the middle region before needing to flee. The deserts, black knight, and runes spaces, in addition to the dangers of the hidden valley (I've seen 3 monsters pulled at once before) will likely make someone run, but only after exposure to craft or strength gains at the temple and some objects from the hidden valley or elsewhere. Basically, I learned to keep players out of the middle region in the early game. And not just because its imbalanced, it's also not fun. Player interaction is fun. Having 2 people playing essentially solitaire Talisman is not.

Also, try to beat the game with a 9 Strength and no craft. It's not impossible, but it's not likely either. I personally hate the Strength path (I've lost to death 7 times in a row after spending fate on the low die all 7 times), and that means you'll likely spend several turns in the middle building.

In short, the Sentinel's an important gatekeeper, and if you decrease its strength, it ceases to be so.

From a practical standpoint, you can get anything across any river on a raft. It just depends on the size of the raft (just ask the Army corps of engineers who do it daily). And the boatman is a thinly veiled reference to a magical boatman with a magical boat who could cross a deadly river with literally anyone on board. As for getting horses into a dungeon, that depends on the dungeon. Don't forget that this is home to the Lord of Darkness, and it may be sized as if built for giants. Another follower I've eyed warily in the dungeon is the Colossus, but if he fits, there's no reason you can't drag a cart along.

Librarycharlie, is it just my imagination or do you have a serious man-crush on the Sentinel ? That was a rather verbose post.

librarycharlie, I don't get it. Do you say that by making the sentinel strength 7 you prevent player interaction? In my experience it is the other way around. More people have the chance of running around in the middle region midway through the game (as I think it was intended to be; outer region = first part of the game, outer/middle = mid part of the game, middle/inner = last part of the game).

besides, if you have strength 9 or 10 then the middle region is not as much a challenge (and not as fun) as if you have strength 7 or 8. And I think the region itself should be more of a factor if you want to enter or not (if you think you will survive) instead of a too difficult sentinel.

I don't want the middle region to be just an obstacle to get to the inner region when you decide to head for the crown. I want it to be more part of the game itself.

Perhaps there is other ways to achieve this but it sure is easy just lowering the strength a notch or two.

My thoughts anyway.

Troll, Priest, Thief, Assassin, Sorceress, and Merchant start a game.

Turn one: Troll gets the Sword of Light (+2 to Strength). Other players go.

Turn two: Troll (strength 8) passes the strength 7 Sentinel (with ease).

Turns 3-30: Other characters battle it out in the outer region, suffering pestilence, sirens, and worse, while the Troll wanders the middle region alone, building rapidly. If he were in the outer region, his objects would be traded to the Merchant, stolen by the thief, his gold beguiled by the sorceress, his followers stolen by the sorceress, and his life drained by the assassin.

Instead, due to infighting and assassinations, the other characters lose lots of life, forcing them to hover near the city to heal, rarely accomplishing anything more as items swap back and forth.

There is basically no interaction in the Troll's game, because he crossed too soon and too easily. It will be dozens of turns before the Merchant can build the 4-6 strength needed to cross the Strength 7 sentinel. If it's a Strength 9 sentinel, then the other characters (Thief, Merchant) have a chance to take the sword of light from the troll, evening the playing field against both Troll and Sentinel. (Thief+sword=5 Strength to the Troll's 6, far better than 3 vs 8.)

I liked the Toll Bridge from 3rd edition. It made money very important especially when you plan for a 2 way trip - being stuck in the middle region when low on life.

We housed ruled sometimes and Raised the fee to two gold per crossing.

Librarycharlie, I see your point, but then, the Troll is always going to be way ahead of the the other characters with strength-based combat. He tends to mop up all the monsters the other players fail to beat, so he levels up his strength at a far more excelerated pace. So the troll is probably going to cross first anyway. Lowering the Sentinel's strength at least gives the other players a chance to keep up. Personally, I'd say it's a foolish to take the Troll over the bridge at the beginning of the game anyway, since he needs to develop his Craft first.

Besides, can't the Theif evade the Sentinel and cross on his first turn too? I must admit I haven't played the Theif in the revised edition yet, but I do know he could evade the Sentinel the BI edition.

I like Mind Robber's idea to have a toll to cross the bridge as an alternative to fighting. Gold is pretty worthless in this game and any opportunity to make it more valuable would be a very welcome addition. But how much to charge? 3 gold, 4 gold?

Tangent...

Regarding leveling up... has anyone ever tried a house rule where the number of trophies you need to level up is equal to your current total in the attribute +1. (ie... You currently have 5 strength, so you will need 6 trophies to level up to 6; you have 9 Craft, you'll need 10 to level up, etc). Such a rule might balance the characters out over the course of the game: it could help the weaker characters catch up quickly, and prevent the overpowered characters from running away with the game (Troll, Warrior). I might test this...

Lars Gnomish said:

Troll + Craft = me so confused. Troll has no need for Craft, he can pound away to the Crown with Str. What Troll really wants is Cross, for those pesky Craft enemies, but even that's not a must as 6 Life is plenty.

Lars Gnomish said:

Thief starts from the City, so he can't even reach Sentinel on turn one. And Thief could never Evade anything without a card to do it, not 2nd ed, not BI ed, not Revised ed.

JCHendee said:

This is very true. I seem to have a memory of a more important Sentinel. On the other hand I think that you should not have to linger in the outer region if you are at equipped to take on the middle region. In fact, I like the mid/late part of the game when players can walk between the outer and middle region without to much trouble having the whole board (almost) to roam.

To librarycharlie: There are more ways to cross to the middle region, and a lot of them happen by chance (also very early in the game). By lowering the strength of the sentinel you let more players be able to enter middle region (relatively) early if they wish so no one will be alone in the middle region for the better part of the game. I think this solves the problem of no player interaction when gaming with 4-6 players.

An even bigger problem with player interaction occur when playing 2 or 3 players and one of them gets into the middle region. And the solution to this is (in my opinion) NOT a strong sentinel. Rather remove him completely (boring option), lower his strength further (also a bit boring) or remove the middle region (a not so ease option to achieve, and the most boring of them all). Perhaps is introducing a admittance fee a interesting way to solve this.

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Off topic:
To Lars Gnomish: As a matter of fact, I have tried a similar way to calculate "experience": To calculate the required number of you strength/craft trophies you need to gain 1 strength/craft counter, simply count your present number of strength/craft counters (not the staring value and not ones gained from followers or objects) and add 4 (3 if you want to level faster). You may count "trophy points" left from another exchange if you immediately exchange for more strength/craft.

I found it very nice (this prevents in a way the exponential growth of strength/craft) and quite easy to implement. One player thought it added unnecessary complexity but I do not agree with this. You quickly get a hang of how to think. A brief example:
You have:
1 x strength 4 trophy
1 x strength 7 trophy

1 x strength counter

You may now exchange the strength 7 trophy to add 1 strength counter (this only requires 1+4 = 5 "trophy points" but points not used are lost since you cannot save them between turns).

or you can exchange the strength 7 and the strength 4 trophies to add 2 strength counters (this requires 5+6=11 "trophy points" in total -- 5 (1+4) for the first strength counter and 6 (2+4) for the second strength counter since you then had 2 strength counters when you made the exchange).

Another example:
If you have 3 counters and want to add another 3 in one go it will cost you 7+8+9=24 "trophy points"

On balancing out characters through graduated skill point costs...

Our group has tried this once or twice, but not based on Starting Strength/Craft. Certain characters have more advantages than others were Special Abilities are concerned. Once average Strength and Craft balance out, low powered ones gaining more quickly than high powered onces, a new imbalance is created. Lowe S & C characters often have more or more potent Special Abilities, and the catch up approach now makes them more potent vs characters of late game equilization in S & C. Take the Troll as reverse example. It has very paltry Special Abilities, so once characters start to balance out through skill point cost, where coast is lower in Strength for say the Wizard an Propetess, there Special Abilities can still out strip the Troll, and the've "leveled" up more quickly than the Troll.

We used a set base number as per the rules for starting cost of a first point in skill for Strength or Craft. For a faster game, we might use a base cost of 5 trophy points to gain a first skill point. From there, the cost of the next skill point is based on how many skill points an adventurer already has plus the new total of skill points that will be achieved.

For example, Character X has 3 skill points in Strength. To get the 4th one, we simply added 4 + base cost of 5 = 9 trophy points for that 4th skill point. This way, all characters face exactly the same challenge in "leveling up", irregardless of Starting Strength and Craft balanced against different types and amounts of Special Abilities. Catch up for low Strength and Craft characters then doesn't create a later imbalance where Special Abilities are concerned. And in using less than 7 for the base, characters level up more quickly in the games first half but must work harder to go very high in the later third of the game. (It also keeps some of the Enemies nasty and pushes off those boring automatic kills.)

The downside to this is that most players won't want to use it... or it will be essentially pointless. The game is more and more pushed toward speed of play, and as the cost of the next skill point goes higher and higher, they are more likely to look for the easier gain of finding more Magic Objects and Followers. It might improve on PvP, as they turn to trying to steal such from each other, but overall, one way or another, it might lengthen the game. That's something most players no longer like.

To JCHendee:

I assume that when you say "skill points" you mean what the rulebook refers to as Strength/Craft counters. If you do, than your system is EXACTLY the same as the one that I described in the previous post =)

But it's good that we agree then. And that makes it two groups that has play-tested this variant of "level up".

Yes, you are right on all points. I mistook your approach, probably because I've seen multiple groups use Starting Craft / Strength as the base cost. However, we have found that when and if we use this system, starting at 5 instead of 7 works better. A few skill points (counters) are picked up a little more quickly, the third one being at a cost of 7, and keeps the upper end of the scale (trophy costs) from getting a little too high.

Absolutely, 7 as base cost would lead to a too slow game for most tastes. We even use 4 as base cost in our games (and once even 3 - the game becomes a lot faster with 3)

I suppose 3 would be good if you had a lot of people, but with the average Strength and Craft in the standard deck at just over 3, that means two skill points / tokens picked up in two kills usually. With just a couple people, you'd barely touch the Adventure deck by the time people are already into the Middle Region. We usually have 2-4 people (my wife and I mostly by ourselves), and 5 works pretty good. I suppose maybe a good rule of thumb (?) might be reduce from 5 by 1 point per players over 4??? Or do you think maybe, say, over 3?

Sounds like a good rule of thumb. I think I will practice that from now on.