Hi there

I know this isn't really a new idea, but I thought I'd throw this open for a bit of discussion.

I've recently been thinking that I might take the plunge and move to using dice to represent attributes for the game, including gold and fate.

I think it would be less fiddly, and could actually help with introducing some caps in the game.

Talisman: The Horus Heresy and Relic before it have introduced caps of 12 for most attributes which is ideal if you use 2d6 to represent them.

When you hit 12, it's about time you were heading for the centre anyway, so I don't see this as a problem.

The potential problem comes when representing gold, fate and life.

Life is not such an issue as in Relic it is capped at 12. You could also just use 1d6 and cap it at a maximum (before modifiers) of 6.

Similarly gold can be nicely limited to 12 in this way, which might stop a few runaway "exploits" used by some characters in the game.

Fate is the only one that might give a problem, given the introduction of light and dark fate in the Woodland expansion.

However, this could simply be sorted by using 2 different d6s, one for light and one for dark which would mean a cap of 6 per fate type.

If you are not using dark/light fate rules, you could use either 1 or 2 d6s and cap at 6 or 12 as with life.

Can anyone see a problem with this?

Apart from personal preference, I don't see anything game-breaking in this, but would like some opinions.

Not the first time I've heard of using dice to track stats in a game. A friend of mine bought colored sets for his DnD board games character. Each character has his own d20 for attack and separate dice for his health, which can be traded out for the larger die when the character levels.

The big difference of using dice in Talisman is the idea of capping Strength and Craft at 12 because there is at least one character on board with a Strength/Craft of 12. That's the only area of the game I see this problem arising. Capping gold and fate? Yes, for the same reasons you mentioned earlier.

Over all it's a great idea but one which would need to be agreed upon by everyone at the table.

For whatever reason people get funny about using anything other than D6's. Personally I started out playing RPG's and all sorts of systems so I have thousands and thousands of dice; everything from D3 (d6's with each number twice) and D4's to D100's and everything in-between. Our group caps all base stats as double of your starting stat. Weapons and equipment can raise that beyond.

We use a variety of dice and munchkin kill markers to give the total in combat but still use the cones for base stats. The munchkin ones are the best honestly, I wish someone would make them for talisman as they are a lot less fiddly and work great. In fact we thought it would be great to have one of each color for each individual for each stat..... ;-) Also, ones for toads, missed turns would be great too. hint hint....

When we play, everyone will have a collection of D4's, D6's, D8's, D10's and D20's in front of them to use as they see fit. I give out red ones when there are negative effects and you are responsible for changing it when it is your turn....if you forget, oh well, you lose another turn or remain a toad for another turn :-D

I have used Dice for years. d12's for Life, Strength and Craft, d6's 1 Black and 1 white for fate. We tried a d12 for gold but switched to real coins, I use 45 old Mexico 20 centavos coins, they have an eagle on one side and a Pyramid on the other and 1.5 inches across and stack real nice.

I've toyed with using dice in the past, but never bothered. It just struck me the other day to try it again with the caps introduced in Relic and Talisman: The Horus Heresy.

I know it would be easier to use different classes of dice, but d6s are generally a bit cheaper and less prone to being knocked.

Actually, talking it through in the OP made some things clearer in my mind.

I'll be posting something interesting off the back of this quite soon

Just spotted this on eBay: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/3D-printed-Talisman-player-board-for-use-with-12mm-D6-/272196521834?hash=item3f602d4f6a:g:YtIAAOSwQgpW~umj

I wouldn't be too happy with the max 12 points cap.

I know the cones/coins can be fiddly but I still prefer them to dice, I only use dice on the Character cards when the base values have increased (Quest reward cards etc)

Just spotted this on eBay: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/3D-printed-Talisman-player-board-for-use-with-12mm-D6-/272196521834?hash=item3f602d4f6a:g:YtIAAOSwQgpW~umj

I wouldn't be too happy with the max 12 points cap.

... the dice solution looks very ugly! I wouldn't be happy with the max 12 points, too.

We don't like dice and coins, so we only use cones! All our additional cones are taken from old cosmic encounter and old talisman core boxes!

The original green - life, red - strength, blue - craft ... and yellow - gold, orange - light fate, purple - dark fate ...

To be honest I think "ugly" is rather strong!

This is actually why I was asking about the caps etc. Personally I like the idea of capping "actual" attributes as people trying to accumulate needlessly high amounts can add so much time to a game.

I've had plenty of games where I've made a run for the Crown with ridiculously low stats and needing to roll three 1's in the Inner Region.

As is clear, dice aren't for everyone, but plenty of people use them, hence the development of the tray. There is a second tray being developed for purists to accommodate the cones and tokens that comes with the game as standard.

I don't think we're ever going to use dice instead of cones. I've added some small plastic gems in different colors that we use for value increases.

On the other hand I really like the idea of caps for different stats and I've to take it up with my gaming group to see if and hoe to handle it. I definitely agree that many games ending with someone going for the Crown 'too early'.

Since I found some cheap packs of different colored D6s at Dollar Tree, I've been using dice in my games. Red - Strength, Blue - Craft, Green - Life, Yellow -- Gold, White - Light Fate, & Black - Dark Fate. Since I only get to play at the local FLGS's Board Game Night & play time is limited to 5 hours (minus whatever's spent on socializing before playing) we usually get 1 game in & most of the people don't think about heading for the Crown Of Command until they're at least 9 in either stat. I'm personally opposed to a cap on any stat, gold, etc. but that's me & YMMV. If somebody raises something above 6, then they add another D6. The highest I've ever seen either Strength or Craft go was in a game where the person had an 11 in the stat & gained 2 points to the stat. Having added the Properties Expansion to the game has handled a player having large amounts of gold.

How does this work with a cap on health/stats? For example, there are many places that can "recover" health or fate, but not so many that "increase" your max health or fate. How do you keep track of the maximums using this dice method? As another example, when a players max health raises to, say 6, then he takes damage dropping his health down to say 4, his max is still 6 so if he goes to the Castle and replenishes his health, he can get it up to 6-max. But I'm wondering how you'd track that max with this method?

Your life value remains the same, so you can gain up to <whatever>, but you can only heal up to your life value.

Your life value remains the same, so you can gain up to <whatever>, but you can only heal up to your life value.

Hum, perhaps we are misunderstanding one-another, because that didn't answer my question whatsoever.

Lets say you start off with a Wizard. He has a starting Life of 4, Strength 2, and Craft 5. *IF* I land on, say the Castle, I can heal up to my "Life Value". This is *NOT* the same as landing on the Temple and Gaining 2-lives. The prior tile will only give me life up to my life value, so in this case, assuming I haven't done anything else in the game in increase my Life Value, the Castle can only replenish up to 3 to my life value (three, because if I had to replenish four, I'd already be dead). The later, on the other hand, increases my maximum life value by 2, so if my Wizard landed here first, his maximum life value would now be 6 and if I lost life due to battles, I could go to the Castle and heal up to my live value, which is now 6!

Using the dice method, there is no way to track your current max value as it increases/decreases unless you have a second set of dice to represent your maximum value. Seems like too much work to me. We just stack the cones to the side of our character sheets when we lose life/strength/craft so we know the current maximum.

Your life value remains the same, so you can gain up to <whatever>, but you can only heal up to your life value.

Hum, perhaps we are misunderstanding one-another, because that didn't answer my question whatsoever.

Lets say you start off with a Wizard. He has a starting Life of 4, Strength 2, and Craft 5. *IF* I land on, say the Castle, I can heal up to my "Life Value". This is *NOT* the same as landing on the Temple and Gaining 2-lives. The prior tile will only give me life up to my life value, so in this case, assuming I haven't done anything else in the game in increase my Life Value, the Castle can only replenish up to 3 to my life value (three, because if I had to replenish four, I'd already be dead). The later, on the other hand, increases my maximum life value by 2, so if my Wizard landed here first, his maximum life value would now be 6 and if I lost life due to battles, I could go to the Castle and heal up to my live value, which is now 6!

Using the dice method, there is no way to track your current max value as it increases/decreases unless you have a second set of dice to represent your maximum value. Seems like too much work to me. We just stack the cones to the side of our character sheets when we lose life/strength/craft so we know the current maximum.

That's not how Temple works. If you gain life, your current life can go above your life value, but your life value doesn't change. You can have, for example, 6 lives and life value of 4 (in fact, that's quite common). You obviously can't heal while your current life is above your life value. Once you lose at least 3 life from 6 to 3, you can heal again to your life value of 4.

Permanently changing your life value is a rare effect. Some Destiny cards do it, few harbinger cards, and not much else.

You're correct that using dice there is no way to track your life value. But using normal tokens from the box there is also no way to track your life value.

Ohhhh, now what TalismanIsland posted makes much more sense. Hahaha, wow, we've been playing incorrectly this entire time!

I really hate to ask this, but would you mind pointing me to where it states this in the rules or errata so I can show my gaming group? I've read over the rules a few times, but don't recall that bit and I feel this new epiphany will be a hotly contested subject with my gaming group without some real ammunition to back it up. I'd really appreciate that.

Page 6 in the core rule book: 'Healing and gaining lives'. Same thing goes for fate (page 7).

There is some level of satisfaction from throwing coins at a player in exchange for a flail. You just can't get that from dice.

Found it on page 5 & 6! Thank you Rigmaster! In case anyone else is interested:

https://images-cdn.fantasyflightgames.com/filer_public/bf/c2/bfc2adbb-31d4-4674-88d3-abe3ac0c49c1/talisman_rules2.pdf

Lives

Lives represent the character’s durability. Lives are lost through battle, psychic combat, and other dangers that are encountered. A character’s lives are recorded by placing appropriate life counters (green cones) beside the character card. Characters may replenish lost lives by healing or gaining life.

Each character starts the game with a number of lives equal to the life value listed on his character card.

Healing and Gaining Lives

Healing can never replenish a character to more than his life value .

A character can gain lives (as opposed to heal) over and above his life value .

Bold emphasis mine. The Healing and Gaining Lives is such a small blip, seemingly outside of the STRENGTH, CRAFT, and LIVES section, that it's very easy to overlook, even after numerous read-thoroughs!

Thoughts; I feel like I've seen cards that not only say, "Gain a life", but also seen cards that say, "Increase your life by one", although I'm fairly certain I have not seen any cards that say, "Increase your Life Value by one." Do cards that use the verbiage "Increase" increase your life value?

I like Relic's Dials

Gold should remain as coins imho.

Since playing Talisman in 1986, I have never played with anything but dice.

When I bought 4th edition, I went to the DollarTree and bought many packs of there dice for Talisman, as it was perfect.

There was a yellow for gold, green for life, Blue for Craft, Red for Strength, white & black dice for Fate.

These are only $1.00 per pack! and are the perfect Talisman dice. yes they are low quality, but since they are counters and not for rolling, I don't care.

However, I think the DollarTree has a different assortment in the pack now, it may be 2 less white, but am not certain.

Unfortunately, at least here in NJ, USA, dollar Tree only has white dice available in the packs currently. Hopefully they'll go back to the multi-colored packs.

My thanks to DomaGB for pointing out these dice.

Unfortunately, at least here in NJ, USA, dollar Tree only has white dice available in the packs currently. Hopefully they'll go back to the multi-colored packs.

My thanks to DomaGB for pointing out these dice.

Sometimes you have to go to different dollar trees to get different stuff! I have little condiment cups that are Yellow, Red, Blue, White, Green, Orange, Pink and Black for the different cones.

Just spotted this on eBay: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/3D-printed-Talisman-player-board-for-use-with-12mm-D6-/272196521834?hash=item3f602d4f6a:g:YtIAAOSwQgpW~umj

I wouldn't be too happy with the max 12 points cap.

... the dice solution looks very ugly! I wouldn't be happy with the max 12 points, too.

We don't like dice and coins, so we only use cones! All our additional cones are taken from old cosmic encounter and old talisman core boxes!

The original green - life, red - strength, blue - craft ... and yellow - gold, orange - light fate, purple - dark fate

Did you get that idea from me? lol We have been using the cones from Cosmic Encounter & the colours that match the stats the same as you!

Did you get that idea from me? lol We have been using the cones from Cosmic Encounter & the colours that match the stats the same as you!

... of course! It was your idea ...

Not that it really matters, but the amount of global possible stat points in the game is limited. How can you circumvent that using dice?

I use dials myself and I couldn't care less about the limit (i actually cap my attributes as a house rule), but I'm curious.