Hi, I notice that some of the characters are extreamlly powerfull and some are lame.
could you make a list of this characters? (alchmist for example)
another thing, does anyone have an idea of how to make the lame characters (like the elf) to a better one?
https://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/402911/my-talisman-statistics
Some of my thoughts after now 204 plays of Talisman, going through the thread, you can see how some characters have progressed in terms of win-loss as well, since the first post was after 41 plays and updates then after each expansion.
Also funny that you mention the Elf as lame, along with the Troll and Monk, he has the best record of base game characters.
I don't know that any character is really so much more lame than others. On this board I have heard some say that the Dread Knight is one of 3 weakest characters. But I've had good luck, not sensational with him. My son, who only plays once every 3 Blue Moons with us, LOVES the Dread Knight. He has bought the digital and is on Steam and what not (Malek? is his name?)
But he loves it more on digital because of the runestones; he's made the Dread Knight unbeatable, nearly.
PS. I believe the other characters that a majority of thread posters consider lame are Ghoul, and Sprite. Again, my mileage has varied with these characters too. (of course my preferred Sprite is a Lycanthrope, with Plate Armour, various other rings, belts and wands. Must have the Scribe as a Follower and also the Totem Staff from the Dark Lord. There! The Sprite Rules!
The beautiful thing about Talisman is that ANY character has a chance of winning due to its random nature. You could have the "best" character, and have a series of very bad turns leading to a loss and of course vice, versa. Some of the "weakest" characters can become very powerful with the right luck as well - as exampled by 0beron and the sprite.
I'll agree there are stronger starting characters out there - but then again, they become a target. Even the strongest alchemist can be humbled by 2-5 other players focusing on him.
I really feel it is just all part of the charm.
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You could have the "best" character, and have a series of very bad turns leading to a loss and of course vice, versa. Some of the "weakest" characters can become very powerful with the right luck as well...
Sure, I think everyone agrees that a strong character is not the a guarantee for victory but that's not what defines a strong (OP) character.
A strong character has an advantageous starting point and The Alchemist certainly fits that description..
On my list (back on topic):
Alchemist
Prophetess
I don't have much fun at all playing these characters. Winning feels like "meh.." since I can't really attribute the win to my gaming, feels more like I won due to the unbalanced character.
Played a game last night, friend got the Martyr, which is probably the most incredibly OP character. He kept running highlands and dungeon to insta-win by sacrificing a life.
While some characters are much stronger than others, that doesn't really limit the fun for me, though. Means I just have to play harder against them and know exactly how to counter them.
The most OP characters I tried come from the Base game: the Assassin above all, he's a Strength farm machine; the Prophetess' ability to switch Adventure Cards you don't like is too good for a card-driven game, and she can always have a spell and we know the spellcasters are the best in Talisman; the Druid is extremely safe to play because he can refull Vitality, Fate and Spells very often.
We played around 20 games so far and we all agreed that the Assassin is the most OP...in strength at least. But we found that everything is really relative to the kind of players around the table. we all said that the dark cultist is the most OP, while she gain a bonus each time she kill something, but each time someone took her, she was kill pretty quick and had no victory yet.
We played with each character yet, at least one time, and for reasons unknow. the dwarf and the troll have the most victories.
like chemical22 said, its all about random.
You never want to have the strongest character in Talisman; your "friends" will gang up on you, kill you...kill you again when you respawn for being a whiner and then kill you a third time for good measure.
Unless you are the rare girl playing the game, then everyone will let you win....
I like overpowered characters. At the very least we feel that we're playing a game and actually can do anything in it. It is always better to play overpowered character than for example ability-less Elf, or Priest.
I don't think there are "over powered" characters in Talisman. There are characters with useful abilities, or with abilities that can be used very often, if compared to others who have skills that don't help so much or work only in rare circumstances.
Still, your special abilities are not what makes you win or lose the game, even though their correct and frequent use helps a lot. You win the game by drawing better cards than the others from random decks (Adventure, Spell) and by gaining Strength & Craft at a higher rate. Abilities can help, especially abilities that ensure you draw more cards or that let you replace cards just drawn (hence the Prophetess and Warlock claims), or that help you increase your stats faster. Dark Cultist's gifts come to mind, as well as characters that tend to autowin some attacks, like Assassin, Ogre Chieftain, Necromancer and Fire Wizard. Personally I think that the Ogre Chieftain, played with only base game and Dungeon expansion, is very difficult to stop if his player concentrates on reaching the Crown ASAP through the Treasure Chamber. That was the only character we ever banned from the game; we did it after 4 consecutive wins, 3 of them within the first 60 minutes of play. Now he's back, but the game has changed a lot since those early days.
The Alchemist is also a controversial one, especially if played with standard CoC ending (he's really difficult to kill with that scenario), and the City expansion allowed new abuses for his gold conversion ability. We house ruled him so that he cannot gain more than 1 gold per Object (including Magic Objects).
Besides that, there are some characters that lack some really useful ability, like the poor Priest or the Elf from the base set. Recent characters received a more interesting design and tend to be equally thematic and satisfying to play with
You shouldn't underestimate the Conjurer - moving cards to her space allows her to rinse the region for its goods, she is VERY powerful
casters are clearly the most powerful, although if city expansion is used merchant, alchemist and leprechaun get a hefty powerboost, possibly enough to rival casters. In the case of alchemist CLEARLY overpowering every other character inwhat is likely the greatest failure of balancing new rules in boardgaming history, troll is strong and w some luck dwarf can be good
of expansion characters: ancient oak, doomsayer, spy and digital shapeshifter, black witch and martyr deserve honorable mention.
But honestly if you spam spells casters are a good deal more powerful than other characters. more powerful means they have 2 or 3 times the chance of winning as the average or bad character. no character comes close to guaranteeing a win thankfully but you can sure have the odds in your favor - or against you.
This link has some points given to each character, my assessment of their power
casting has been set to add 5 points because we use houserules that nerfs them, add 7 more to see caster power with normal rules.
@Warlock: that's an awesome strategy with the chieftain, seems crazy risky but clever
Edited by Rawsugar