Velhart said:

Other than the Ice Queen ending where you want 14 in the stat you're going to use + weapon/follower, there is little need to hit the Dungeon as you can boost up in no time normally. Today, the Warlock won in 55 minutes finishing with Str 12, Craft 9, Amazon at Str 12 (and Shovel), Craft 7, Necromancer/Dark Cultist never really got off the ground. If we get one char that's getting most of the gains, that char will hit the Crown long before the others will get enough gains in the Dungeon to challenge him. And even if they do, it's a long way from the Dungeon to the Inner Region and Crown, unless you're going to beat the LoD by 8+. Often you'll get the gains you need, but fail to reach the Crown before you die (would get even worse with the Crown and Sceptre ending), so people don't chance it. With the base + Reaper + Dungeon setup, pretty much every game someone would hit the Dungeon.

Just thinking today, that the Priest will be very happy with all those low craft enemies from frostmarch

Priest+ low spirits= spell gaining

At least, it's something worth...

Velhart said:

Well, that works as a segway for today's game, as the Priest was involved. This is more about the Ogre Chieftain though, his third game, the Dungeon-busting people worried about fully highlighted.

Leprechaun vs Priest vs Ogre Chieftain. Well, the character draw immediately suggested this game would be tailor-made for the Ogre, but even that wasn't close to just how perfectly it fit him. Leprechaun starts off by hitting Woods, as has been his standard fare, collecting 3 Gold. Ogre Chieftain defeats an Orge and takes it as Follower. Priest draws a Gargoyle and fails to defeat it, so the Ogre takes advantage and kills it as well, adding a second Str 5 Follower and starts eyeing the Lord of Darkness. Leprechaun keeps collecting Gold, buys the Armour to go with his Fate Stealer in the Concealed Pouch, but then draws another Armour from the Adventure deck. Ogre has added the Maiden to his entourage and takes the Mystic Portal to the Temple, further boosting his Craft. Then the Reaper lands on him and the Ogre finds himself tapped out of Fate, but he lucks out and rolls a 6, taking a Strength point (his only Str boost of the entire game).

Leprechaun keeps collecting Gold, closing in on 20 Gold, with nothing to spend it on. Priest joins the Ogre on the Middle Region via the Mystic Portal and gains Craft as well. Ogre hits the Dungeon, but runs into a couple of tough Craft Enemies, losing 2 Lives and the Maiden to the Vampire Prince. But after that it's all smooth sailing. He draws the Torch, then adds a Str 4 Monster as a Follower after defeating it, putting him at possible Str 20 in battle. Following turn he meets Str 10 in monsters and uses one of his Str 5 Followers to aid him in battle, effectively spending 5 points to gain 10 points. Turn later he meets a Colossal Ogre and uses a 6 point follower to kill it, taking the Ogre as a Follower. On the way to the Treasure Chamber, the Ogre Chieftain also picks up the Gauntlets of Might. 30 minutes into the game, he reaches the Treasure Chamber and uses 3 of his 4 Followers in the combat, giving him a total of Str 25 (6 for himself, +2 for Gauntlets, +8 for Ogre, + 5 for Gargoyle and +4 for Kobold Brute). He defeats the Lord of Darkness by 10, getting the Cloak of Feathers as his Treasure and exits at the Crown of Command. And he still has a Str 4 Follower left in case someone reaches the Crown.

As the Ogre was closing in on the Treasure Chamber, the Leprechaun met the Basilisk, who rolled doubles and killed the Leprechaun, leaving a pile of 20 Gold on the space. Reborn as the Prophetess, she starts spell-cycling, hoping to get Transference and maybe throw a wrench into the mix. Priest lands on the Basilisk and kills it, taking the pile of Gold. Ogre hits home with the Command Spell and the Prophetess falls quickly. But the Priest manages to land in the Castle first, spending 3 Gold to heal, then the Chapel to heal up. When the Pedlar appears, the Priest spends 10 Gold on 2 Mules and 3 Spells. After casting one of the Spells, he buys another Spell soon after. And he is still holding 15 Gold, even though he has very recently just spent 15 Gold! Eventually, the Priest runs out of the Fate and luck, fails to land in either the City or the Chapel and the Command Spell kills him. Ogre Chieftain wins.

Yes, he had his share of luck with the Enemy draws, but still. He only got +1 Str once in the game and still molested the LoD by a mile.

Played tonight my first game with Frostmarch, starring Prophetess, Amazon and Necromancer, with Warlock Quests variant.

Besides depriving the game of a climactic ending, Warlock Quest Alternative Ending is excellent to give people an objective which is neither boosting themselves to full power nor rushing for the Crown. This game was won by the Prophetess, the Character with the worst final stats, that tried to reach the Crown after completing the last quest and managed to arrive first, mostly because the Amazon was delayed by an annoying Whirlwind at the Ruins and definitely screwed up by a the Dungeon Keeper (no Gold to buy Followers back, most notably Colossus, Tunnel Fighter, Pedlar and Horse & Cart, that forced the Amazon to additional 5 Objects).

Game was finely balanced. Necromancer could have become a powerhouse thanks to Warhorse and Familiar drawn in the first 10 cards, but he had a Warlock Quest that forced him to discard Two Followers... this compulsory loss greatly nerfed his game, that proceeded well indeed, but not with great improvement.

Prophetess had a wonderful combination of her ability and Fiend Slayer: it was a card drawing feast for her, but the final result was a middle-of-the-road Character with Str 7 Cft 11 (all bonuses included). Lake of Visions helped the Prophetess to override the painful limitation of a "Take one life from another Character" quest, which was impossible to complete for her as the opponents were always stronger.

Amazon had an excellent game that was ruined by the above mentioned card draws, that happened in the worst moments. Prophetess couldn't have done anything if she didn't have the Fiend Slayer and hold on him until Vampire's Tower. I can count about 4-5 battles when she could have lost the Follower, but luck was with that player tonight. Never lost a fight, even a couple of times with a disadvantage of one Strength Point.

People who know the usual outcome of my Talisman games may guess which Character I was playing.

I agree with Dam: main board is much safer to navigate now. There are lots of Objects to acquire and few dangerous Enemies. There are still fearsome cards that can easily stop a player's progression, but not that much. Going in the Dungeon is not a must, especially if you're playing with Warlock Quests or Crown and Sceptre Ending. By the way, we couldn't figure out what happens if a Character emerges from the Treasure Chamber to the Crown of Command, but hasn't completed all his Warlock Quests... is he lost in time and space? Maybe in this case he can leave the Crown, but if he doesn't have a Talisman he can't enter the Valley of Fire...so what?

Ah, in this game Prophetess ended with 12 Gold and other Characters with 0. Dam, you must explain how do you gain all that Gold in your games, because I have a hard time finding the 10 Gold bags I need to spend. You must also tell me what the Leprechaun was doing with 20 Gold... trying to gain all 30 available pieces, in order to prevent others from acquiring Gold from Bags and other cards?Never had so much Gold in my games, and my surprise is even greater when I read that your games last about 30 mins per player. We usually need 1 hour per player, but we don't play that slow; we just draw more cards.

The_Warlock said:

Well, I can't find it right now, but there is a rule somewhere (I think) that says that if a variant, ability or card power over-rides the main rules, ignore the main rules and go by the variant.

With 4 Warlock Quests being the ending, since the person appearing via the Dungeon may not have the 4 quests, then, I'd say this from p.19 main rulebook =

"A character in the Inner Region may decide at any time to turn back and move back towards the Plain of Peril. A character who has turned back still only moves one space per turn, but ignores the instructions on all of the spaces on his return to the Plain of Peril."

So, stands to reason that the "must have a Talisman" part is ignored, and the person can Turn Back all the way to the Middle Region and can restart on getting Quests. Sure, the main rules also stated you couldn't turn back from the CoC but that was printed before Warlock Quests existed.

Or, I suppose, you can go with the "sucks to be you" way, and that's that for the Dungeon hopper; but that seems less fun, at least for us.

The_Warlock said:

I would say he's SOL. Once you're at the Crown, can't move anymore, can't turn back, so don't challenge the LoD and beat him by 8+ unless you're packing 4 completed Quests.

The_Warlock said:

The BI version gives you 60 Gold, so no risk of running out at 30 Gold ! Leprechaun was landing in Woods and always taking 3 Gold (I mean, why not?). There was a Fountain of Wisdom in one Woods, he drank from that 2-3 times (thanks to his teleport), landed at least twice in Woods at Middle Region (rolling 1 from Temple) where he drew the Cave on his first visit and rolled 5 and 6 on his trips (+11 Gold).

That last game, Adventure deck was less than 1/4 done, not sure if it has been 1/2 since Frostmarch was added.

Dam said:

I agree with Dam,

So don't challenge the LOD if you have not enough completed quests.

Or your level must be low, and you know for sure that you will not land on the crown. Then you can at least defeat the LOD, to get a treasure card

PS: Fate can help too, to prevent, to land on the warlock ending space

The_Warlock said:

I assume you have played with the Warlock quest replacing variant?

Velhart said:

You don't have to assume. I said a lot of times in my post that I played with Warlock Quest Variant.

The "SOL" solution doesn't fit to my games; I like to have it solved somehow. If you remember there was a discussion in the first days of 4ER about this text at page 20:

Once any character has reached the Crown of Command, any
character that gets killed is out of the game. Note that this
rule stays in effect for the rest of the game, even if a character
leaves the Crown of Command.

I say a Character that cannot win the game shouldn't be stay on the Crown and do nothing. He should be able to leave the Crown and Turn Back. Losing about 5 Turns doing nothing but moving it's a sound penalty for having faced the Lord of Darkness before time. The question is: once he has reached the Crown, are killed Characters out of the game?

Velhart said:

I understand the interest of your Leprechaun player for the Fountain of Wisdom, but to teleport back to the Woods just to visit the Cave, when he had plenty of Gold, well, it's good fun but not very useful.

We drew about 1/2 Adventure Deck and 1/4 Dungeon Deck in this first Frostmarch game. I must admit I have a soft spot for the Dungeon, because I like fights, but that Dungeon Keeper was so nasty at that point of the game, with no Gold. I have to blame myself for not doing what should have been done: kick the Prophetess' ass and make her lose the Fiend Slayer. When I moved closer to her with this intention, I drew the Whirlwind and lost my best Objects (Skull Wand, Ring, Talisman), retained the less useful ones (Armour and Ancient Artifact, one of the crappiest Magic Objects ever) and lost 6 Turns to grab everything. At least Amazon can move quite easy. By that time, Prophetess was in the Middle region with 2 quests still to complete. I was done with mine and Necromancer was stuck with the "Defeat the Sentinel", I chose to take the Dungeon path and emerge on the Crown. With a battle score of 12 and a psychic combat of 8, I had nothing to fear (eventually drew the Tunnel Fighter). Armour was my only normal Object, so no fear of Green Mist. The only card that could harm me was the Dungeon Keeper. Unfortunately I drew this Stranger just before facing the Lord of Darkness.

When we briefly analyzed the game after the end, everybody admitted that these two draws decided everything. I said: "why don't you ever draw a card that makes you lose the game? It happens me every time". "Because I can discard it" - said the winner.

The_Warlock said:

He didn't teleport there. He was at Temple and rolled a 1 for his move on two occasions. Desert or Woods? Gee, that's a hard decision .

The_Warlock said:

I would say yes. As soon as someone lands on the CoC, all deaths are permanent and the Endgame begins, regardless of whether the end "option" is met.

I think of it this way, soon as someone lands in CoC, The Gathering begins (from Highlander movie, not from the Talisman card). Then, if people want, unless it's an insta-win (4 Quests on WQ ending), the entire game can become Bloodbath PvP if people want.

For us, all but 1 of us intensely dislikes PvP and/or rushing to end game, so, we'd just run around trying to meet the end game criteria at a slow pace. It's usually a RL thing that causes us to end a game. "Hey guys, it's almost midnight on our third night of this game. Someone land on CoC please, k?"

Are there people who have not play with the Warlock Quest variant, and are playing also with the dungeon and frostmarch etc?

My old father, has receive the Frostmarch expansion already.

Maybe that i will take a look at the Frostmarch cards tomorrow

I must still wait for my order, here in the Netherlands... sigh.. it will probably be january..

Yay, the Warlock has been stopped! (and there was much rejoicing)

Of course, his nemesis proved to be the Gypsy, who pretty much hits the Warlock where it hurts the most, his spell-cycling. Of course, the coup de grace was delivered by the Elf (thanks to the Demigod), when he took and cast Mesmerism on the Warlock's Warhorse, meaning the Warlock didn't reach the Ice Queen with any amount of advantage. But the Warlock was forced to make a last ditch run, as the Gypsy exited the Dungeon (via Dungeon Entrance) with a neat Str 16 (she had no weapons and no carriers, so could only haul 4 Objects the entire game). Three times in the Dungeon the Gypsy traded in 14+ points in trophies!!! And naturally, when the Elf cast Mesmerism, Gypsy had room to spare, so she took the Warhorse herself. Upon reaching the Ice Queen, she cast Brainwave (double Craft value until end of turn) and *****-slapped with Ice Queen in battle, Ice Queen's Str 12 no match the Gypsy + Warhorse combo of Str 25 (Str 17 naturally and doubled Craft value 4). She even had Psionic Blast in case of overkill. With Brainwave, Gypsy would've had Craft 17 in psychic combat, so the Ice Queen was going down either way.

Ice Queen ending adds to the amount of grinding characters have to do in the game, since instead of hitting the Inner Region at main stat 9 or so, you're looking at 14-15 in general. Still, game took 90 minutes.

I must say, that the Frostmarch expansion has very cool artwork.

Some art that i really like are the Goblin Sapper, Medusa, Fate Bound, Chalice of Shadow, Winged Boots

All impressive

I saw indeed that there is a lot of gold cards in this expansion.

5x 1 gold

2x 2 gold

With treasure map (2x) , you can reach max 6 gold

with treasure chest (2x ) you can find 3 gold, if you don't find any object by drawing the top 5 cards

-

Max total gold you can get with luck =27

Off course, there is a chance that it will be share between players

I hope that we can spend it somewhere in future expansions ( City)

-

I think that the Frostmarch should be at least 90 adventure cards, then we could add the 6+ cards for events, so we would have 13 events at least, instead of only 7 That would be still not enough.

Velhart said:

What's with your man-crush on Events ? Reaper had 12 I think (looking at one of the cards lists), but only 2 that I would consider bad: Whirlwind, Horse Thief. Werewolf I'd class as so-so.

Dam said:

Hi Dam,

I like to have more dangerous events to the game, and less objects, to make it a real adventure.

Reaper has indeed 12 events.

Cards, that i consider as bad(dangerous) are: Whirlwind,The Gathering, Horse Thief, Werewolf, Fools Gold, (i have count Earthquake too, but it's not really bad for the character himself, ( still if i don't count that card, we have 5 negative(dangerous) cards to draw

we still need more

------------------

From Frostmarch

Snow Drifts is a laugh, and is worthless ( it's almost similar to Snow Storm from Mountains, but Snow Drifts could be changed to 2 dice)

I do not consider Howl of the Wendigo dangerous, ( you can evade pvp fights)

And Fate Bound is the only bad(dangerous) card you can draw ( i have not count Ragnarok, but if i did, it's still not enough.

-----------

I am afraid, that FFG is going to easy on this game.

There is only a few cards that can be nasty, but that's it !

Frostmarch is not what it should be, and that's very disappointing

Velhart said:

Gathering and Werewolf can both be either bad, "oh well", or utterly pointless (no Spirits or Followers). Fool's Gold is already utterly pointless, Gold is the most useless thing in the game and there is plenty of chances to get more.

Dam said:

Yeah oke, but they still give a negative impact on the player if you are out of luck. You know my point.

On top of that, the Frostmarch has also a object( astrolabe) to negate event cards..

Let's hope that the future will give us more bad (dangerous) cards.

Dam said:

Oh my, all this rich people is going to upset me since I lost many games because of Gold.

Anyway, Frostmarch adds a lot of Events with negative outcomes, but some of them (like Snowdrifts) have different effect depending on the moment when they're drawn. For instance, with the Amazon I was down to 1 Life after 2 Turns, having a Warlock's Quest that forced me to discard a Life and a Lesser Demon and an early Snowdrifts that did the rest. I was eagerly looking for more Gold to spend for healing!!!!

Events and Strangers are extremely funny (and bitter) when you draw them exactly when they hurt you the most. It doesn't matter what they do or how effectively can they hurt you, no matter how strong you are. In my games I'm the only one that really suffers such bad draws (to my delusion), but theoretically this could have happened to the opponents hundreds of times. Horse Thief is funny when it is drawn exactly by a Character that has the Warhorse and is relying on Mules and Horse & Cart to carry Objects.

Don't underestimate Frostmarch Cards, as they can hurt bad if you draw them at the right time. I agree with you when you say there are too many Objects; I would say too many useful Objects/Followers, while the Enemies and bad events are not well balanced. Enemies could have been stronger, but in the end it's only an extension of the base deck, which brings the main board to the same level of danger of the base game board. Problem is: there are too many useful Objects now. Your best bet is to draw from the Adventure Deck now, because Dungeon is dangerous in comparison.

The_Warlock said:

I can not say, that Frostmarch adds a lot of events with dangerous outcomes. (only fate bound is dangerous for losing all your fate)

Snow Drifts, is only dangerous if you have low craft or you draw it earlier in the game.( as you said)

Many characters starts already with 3,4 or 5 craft in the game. Snow Drifts should read, roll 2 dice instead of rolling 1 dice. This keeps the card interesting and dangerous to draw.

Well, i hope that Frostmarch actually don't bring the same level back as the main base game. ( the base game was very disappointing, and Reaper has fix this problem a lot, so i hope, we don't start from the beginning again !

Velhart said:

Oddly perhaps, the Sky Screecher becomes auto-defeat later on in the game IIRC. Its text reads something like "if your attack roll is less than your Craft (so Craft 7 is auto), you are defeated".

Dam said:

It's true. A poorly written card which makes no sense at all. It works well until you Craft is 6 or less, then it becomes unbeatable.

Perhaps it could be fixed by substituting "Craft value ", but still it's oddly balanced. "higher than your Craft" might be a better solution: it cuts the Troll's legs and will defeat many Strength-based Characters in the early game.

The_Warlock said:

It seems the Troll cuts the Sky screechers legs.

Characters with low craft can win easily from the Sky Screecher. The troll has only 1 craft, so he can easily roll higher than that.

Warlock and Wizard will not be happy with this bird. They already starting with 5 craft, and reach 6 + easily

This bird becomes very dangerous it seems, if people have level up their craft to 6+