So Black Ice is another demigod spell that can be cast from anywhere to anywhere? Hmmm....

Velhart said:

Hydra Spell might be good, however, it is one of the Spells that You will keep for better occasion, for example for Mesmerism or Temporal Warp.or Finger of Death. But mostly player will be stuck with it. Just like usually is with Transference.

Metamorph is only good, if we can cast it at ourselves. If not, it's crap. Character with 1 life won't attack anything, so mostly we have no chance to kill him. Also, until now in Adventure Cards deck there is exactly 1 card that might take 2 lifes instead of 1.

Time Steal is combined version of Sleep and Temporal Vortex Spells.

Black Ice commonly will be used to cast it at any space in order to get rid of it. I don't see a well future for it.

Dam said:

Nah, yes, but these are very special and rare situations, so no one will keep that Spell wishing that one of Your situations will happen.

N. is right. These types of spells will be an impediment more than a benefit. They will most often be dumped or just used up any old way to get rid of them in the hope for something more utilitarian with wider potential of use. Most especially because of the limit of 3 Spells once one has the Craft for that many and no more. Ah, those poor true mages and theurges who never get any better with Spells than other characters.

Just checked

http://www.esdeviumgames.com/newreleasesheets/November2nd2009web.pdf

who supply shops in the UK. No sign of Frostmarch so at least another weeks wait for me

Geoff

Nemomon said:

If it's about the normal Warlock rules, then i agree.

But Nope If you play with the Warlock ending, and your character is dead, then they are not removed from the game.

It looks like, that the new character will get the warlock cards..( not sure about this one) maybe that the warlock cards will be worthless and stick with the killed character..)

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If you don't play with the Warlock ending, and a character is killed, then the warlock cards are returning to the deck

Dam said:

Good points

But it are rare situations, and you don't want to keep that spell for too long..

I think that players want to get rid of it as soon as possible

JCHendee said:

It seems you can't cast it for the Inner region..

And that's only good, otherwise it would be way to easy to reach the final space

Now that we are talking about spells..

I hope that the frostmarch have cards, that gives a chance to get spell cards..

Because, if 84 cards will be added to the deck, then it will decrease the chance to get the Sorcerer Shop or the Mage etc..

Yes, sometimes increasing the Adventure deck decreases access to such things, including the Market and Market Day as well. This is the problem that occurs with a poorly balanced expansion that doesn't consider all of a game's dimensions and the full range of its mechanics. A good expansion maintains the ratio of all types of cards AND all types of game mechanics in the same proportions (though with some new internal variations perhaps). Fingers crossed that the design of Frostmarch's Adventure cards was more mindful of this than the Reaper.

Of course, many expansions, though used generally in a giant mix, are better off to be used one at a time to add to a game. I've discovered this with some other games as well. You might consider trying a base game with just the Frostmarch for the main board. The Dungeon is fairly autonomous so that could be added without impacting the main board and its deck too much. But throwing in others, like the Reaper per se, would certainly decrease the chance of favored individual cards coming up during a game.

Yeah, but i like to add everything..

So i hope that FFG will find a balance somehow..

Maybe that FFG can add more market days?..or with a other name and different prices..

From what i have seen from the Frostmarch card list topic, it seems that we get some cards from the mountain expansion

Adventure cards:

Howl Of the Wendigo ( from Mountain expansion

Winter Wolf str 1 ( almost similar to Snow Wolf str 2 from mountain expansion

Frost Drake str 7 ( similar to Ice Dragon str 7 ( from mountain expansion

Eastern Dragon ( almost similar to the Wyvern ( from mountain expansion except he has only strength

Griffon ( from Mountain expansion

Yetti ( from mountain expansion

Glory seeker ( maybe a dwarf replace for the chaos dwarf from mountains..? ( but with new text)

Medusa ( from mountain expansion

Ice Queen Palace( From mountain expansion)

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Altar !!! from the dungeon ?

I am glad that we have finally Medusa !

I don't know if i am happy to see, that the Ice Queen's Castle now exist on the main board, but afterall, snow exist there now..

We must accept it, but it makes no sense..

Even the Story says, that the Ice Queen brings the Frostmarch across the Northern waters..

So her castle should be on the other side of the northern waters right?

The Expansion looks pretty good. i can't wait to get my hands on it

If we ever get the Mountain expansion, i wonder what for cards we get. Now that we have already some cards from that expansion, there are only a handful of cards left.. ( with all the objects and magic objects off course..)

Another thing to notion..

How do we get ever a dangerous main deck, if only 7 events will be added and a lot of objects and magic objects etc..

On top of that, most spaces on the mainboard are draw 1 spaces, so what we need are a LOT of strong enemies and dangerous events, so there is no place to hide..

It let's me think about a hide and seek game

Hide on the mainboard, and seek more challenge in the dungeon..

i was actually hoping that the Frostmarch gives us more dangerous cards... Mmm

I did count about 29 (?) Enemies, but you are right, V. There seem to be around 21 Objects and Magic Objects, not counting Gold. Very unbalanced compared to the ratios of the standard deck. Looks like another freebies pack by comparison, though to be certain, we would have to do an analysis of the base deck + Reaper + Frostmarch. Then we could truly see the total ratio of card types compared to the base deck's ratio. Frostmarch is at least slightly light on Enemies to fight when looked at on its own.

Ummm... considering the standard Wolf is Strength 2, why is a Pack of Wolves (S2) not stronger and a Winter Wolf (S1) weaker, though hardy enough for a harsher climate? There are some other very strange numbers in there.

The Ice Bear also seems wimpy compared to a real world Polar or Kodiak, which are real forms from our colder biomes that would easily rate at 3 to 5 or more. The standard bear, a typical Brown, is S3 in the standard deck. Maybe these new ones have something special that makes them nasty in another way... I would hope?

And an elk at S1? You gotta be kidding me? Whoever wrote that one never had to try to drag a full grow buck out of a park camp ground without getting gored. It took 5 men and 30 minutes to do it without a tranquilizer gun. I know Talisman is supposed to be simple and make people feel like magical heroes... but come on!

Back in the 2E days we were foaming at the mouth for something truly scary to face, and not just in the Dungeon or an endgame. Well, at least we got the Eastern Dragon again, though I don't know what its doing in Frostmarch; that one was nice for mid-game, since it would always come at you by your weakness.

JCHendee said:

I count 28 enemies..( same as Reaper)

In comparison with Reaper expansion, we have less events, less followers, less magic objects

And they have increase the objects from 10 to 19 ! and strangers from 6 to 8 ..

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It's not a problem for me that they decrease the followers, and magic objects, but it's the Events.

Events can do nasty things in the game, and we only get 7 of them..

( they should decrease the objects, and add more events to the game..

The counts aren't really what matter as much as the overall proportions of one card type to another. Most critical will be the proportion of objects usuable for Battle and Psychic Combat versus the number of Enemies, and then the average and median of Enemy Strength and Craft vs the average and median of Object and Follower bonuses applicable to defeating them. The reduction in Followers MIGHT counterbalance the increase in objects where such bonuses are concerned. The real number crunching would take a some time and can't be guessed off the cuff.

Well.... if Talisman is all about drawing objects, and defeating enemies, then it's pretty boring..

For me, Talisman is all about adventure, and the exciting dangers that awaits them..

But from the looks of the Frostmarch card list, The frostmarch don't look dangerous at all !

I was really hoping for a lot of traps, and what do we get... ( only 7 events... pff

And from the 28 enemies, only 6 of them are strong... **** !

How do we ever get a dangerous main board.. !

What do we need.... ( draw 2 space overlays for middle region and a lot of strong enemies and many dangerous events !

Velhart said:

And there are more Objects and Magic Objects proportionally, though we don't know for sure how many provide advantage over Enemies.

Velhart said:

You and I may be in the minority on that one. Most players probably want stuff to kill and stuff to get for free. I like more of a mix, including Strangers and Events (and other non-stuff).

Velhart said:

And some are downgraded, wimpy (for what little is known) compared to their standard game card counterparts or equivalents.

But increasing draws on the board won't fix that, since it doesn't guarantee drawing two monsters of the same subtype... less chance in fact, since there are new subtypes being introduced.

I wonder what happens if we add the frostmarch to the deck..

How high is the chance to draw a event card..

23 events vs 144 other adventure cards.. ( reaper, dungeon, frostmarch)

Not counting base edition ( i don't have a card list from it..

Thats's pretty low actually..

Velhart said:

I don't mind a drawing a dragon from time to time but I cirtainly don't want the main board to get more dangerous than it already is. If you want to draw big nasty monsters then go to the dungeon board. The main board should be pretty safe or at least safer then other areas like the dungeon. When characters are weak and starting out the game they shouldn't be drawing lots of dragons and cave trolls.

It seems like you and JC like to whine about the card count. Personally I don't care about card counts as much as how cool the actual cards are! Who cares if there are fewer events in the deck if the new events are cool and more powerful. I would rather have less events and have them do something interesting than adding tons of events that make everyone in the realm lose a turn or discard stranger cards.

ameritrasher said:

The main board don't have to be so difficult as the dungeon ( who has a lot of enemies) that will not fix the problem.

But it can't hurt, to add more dangerous, and exciting events to the game ! ( more chances to lose a life for example( with rolling of dices)

Or other nasty things..

The problem with this expansion is that there are too many objects in the game, while events are the cards that makes the adventure a challenge, and more exciting.

Well, i hope you are right about that the only (7 events) are really powerfull..

I don't know what they do yet..except that Howl of the Wendigo is a very dangerous card..

Velhart said:

I believe there are 13 Events in the base deck of 104 cards. However, I'm working from memory and there might actually be less than that by a card or even two. 12.5% chance of an Event. 23 events out of 144 cards in expansions is 15.27% chance of an Event. Combined for 36 Events in 248 cards is 14.5% chance of an Event. However, this does not account for which events are for a single space, a region/realm, multiple regions, or the whole Land. Nor does account how many events are not ones that impact one or more adventurers in direct fashion, such Market day being neither negative or positive, since it depends on any one adventurer (1) having gold and (2) needing / wanting to buy something.

Overall, it appears Events have remained stable. I would be more interested (given some time) to analyze the average and median of total Strength and Craft enemies, and then the average and median of Magic Object and Follower bonuses applicable to Battle and Psychic Combat versus the same for just the base deck. That would be the more important analysis.

ameritrasher said:

It's called not altering the game balance, if you were paying attention. Stronger characters and weaker opponents equals boredom.

ameritrasher said:

Cool factor? Yeah, like that's something that can be defined and discussed. Forums are for discussion, and if you don't like the discussion, find or start a topic that appeals to you. And it sounds like you're only interested in whatever benefits you personally when you play. We're talking about a balance of positives and negatives and neutral effects that keep the game interesting... and keep it at least as challenging as the base game when it comes to expansion. Having an uber-baddy at the end is only interesting when you get to the end. If you look at some the creatures in Frostmarch and compare like ones found in the base game, that appears to not be the case. But we already covered that.

It seems i made a mistake somewhere

We have with the frostmarch 290 adventure cards now. (104 + 90+ 10+ 2(promo) + 84 )

that would be 36 events vs 254 other cards(not events included) ( to make things simple..)

Velhart said:

I think we agree on this Velhart. I would also like to see more dangerous and exciting events to the game but without bloating the card count. Let me put it this way, would you rather have five events in the deck that makes the person who draws it lose a life or would you rather have one event that makes all people lose a life even if they are in separate realms? Would you rather have five events that make a person lose one object or would you rather have one event that makes a person lose all of his objects?

Given these choices, I would rather have less event cards but have them be more powerful and affect all characters or do more damage instead of flooding the deck with a bunch of weak events that only prove to be minor hindrances.

JC is right (if I understand him correctly) that we can't just look at card counts for events, we also have to look at how much impact the cards have on the game and how much it affects all of the players. Until we actually get a copy of the expansion we're just looking at numbers of card counts which only tells half the story.

JCHendee said:

If you were paying attention, Jon just posted that Black Ice cannot be cast in the Inner Region (if forms part of its text).