He seems so much worse than the prophetess. The prophetess has that wand ability, and her Orb ability is far better than his adventure manipulation ability. Is there something I am missing?

1) You get to redraw useless Spells,

2) You also can land on really good adventure cards and redraw them.

Other than that he's useless .

We all understand that the characters in Talisman are not balanced, instead its a case of having a choice before the game of which one (you draw of course) to take to win so its not a case of "This ones the best" or "That character is OTT" but instead a case of lucky dip .

A clever player might (in a big game eg 5-6 players) pick the Philosopher to become a lesser threat to other players. No-one will be threatened by this gimp in a game hehehe. Or even a challenge, one fun way to play is allowing the player to your right to choose your character hehehe. Then its a real challenge.

since he's not a caster he's much less powerful than prophetess, but like uvatha said for some reason balance is not part of character design in talisman....at all. (which is why some people houserule it so heavily )

his ability is pretty decent although i'd also prefer the orb one. BUT the philosopher can wander unto a space that other players have activated and discard the huge dragon guarding the wand or the hag so that he might get his hands on the unicorn. that's pretty powerful but also fairly situational. AND it requires him to walk with 1 or 2 more other players into a zone w many draw multiple card zone like highland which with his strength 2 means he's less likely to keep that wand...

his ability also makes him less likely to be caught between moving to two bad spaces which is useful

Other than the Minstrel, the metrosexuals weren't represented enough in Talisman, hence, Philosopher .

Lol

To me he/she looks like they are wearing Roman or Greek robes. I guess he/she is studying the stars and using mathematics to understand the world...

Really though, the abilities of the Philosopher do not tie into the idea of philosophy much.

1) You get to redraw useless Spells,

2) You also can land on really good adventure cards and redraw them.

Other than that he's useless .

We all understand that the characters in Talisman are not balanced, instead its a case of having a choice before the game of which one (you draw of course) to take to win so its not a case of "This ones the best" or "That character is OTT" but instead a case of lucky dip .

A clever player might (in a big game eg 5-6 players) pick the Philosopher to become a lesser threat to other players. No-one will be threatened by this gimp in a game hehehe. Or even a challenge, one fun way to play is allowing the player to your right to choose your character hehehe. Then its a real challenge.

? Explain plz.

1) You get to redraw useless Spells,

2) You also can land on really good adventure cards and redraw them.

Other than that he's useless .

We all understand that the characters in Talisman are not balanced, instead its a case of having a choice before the game of which one (you draw of course) to take to win so its not a case of "This ones the best" or "That character is OTT" but instead a case of lucky dip .

A clever player might (in a big game eg 5-6 players) pick the Philosopher to become a lesser threat to other players. No-one will be threatened by this gimp in a game hehehe. Or even a challenge, one fun way to play is allowing the player to your right to choose your character hehehe. Then its a real challenge.

? Explain plz.

Our group agrees with this sentiment. If you start the game out as a Bounty Hunter, Assassin or some other uber power everyone gangs up on you and tries to kill you. They will exhaust their spells to hinder you and generally make the game a hard time. If you play as the dread knight or some other pansy they will pick on you just because it is easy pickings. It is when you play as one of those middle of the road characters like the Elf or the Philosopher that you are ignored until you have a few good turns and are suddenly strength 12 craft 12 with a bunch of items and some spells that everyone finally notices you! ;-)

But yeah, characters in Talisman are not balanced but that is one of the fun things about it....The same as if role-playing. Some characters require a lot of "diplomacy" when playing with your friends in how to approach the game....get the masses ignoring you and believing your shenanigans about someone else being the real threat. :-D

He's asking what Uvatha meant in statement number two, I must admit I'm at a loss myself.

He's asking what Uvatha meant in statement number two, I must admit I'm at a loss myself.

Precisely what I was answering to... ;-)

1) You get to redraw useless Spells,

2) You also can land on really good adventure cards and redraw them.

Other than that he's useless .

We all understand that the characters in Talisman are not balanced, instead its a case of having a choice before the game of which one (you draw of course) to take to win so its not a case of "This ones the best" or "That character is OTT" but instead a case of lucky dip .

A clever player might (in a big game eg 5-6 players) pick the Philosopher to become a lesser threat to other players. No-one will be threatened by this gimp in a game hehehe. Or even a challenge, one fun way to play is allowing the player to your right to choose your character hehehe. Then its a real challenge.

? Explain plz.

To stop other players from using them of course . Well really good adventure cards for other players also really. I never said it was good or even handy...

Oh now I get it lol

This discussion appears to have a very narrow view of the usefulness of the Philosopher. Suggested usefulness has been limited to, "Oh, there's something good hiding under something bad. I can get rid of the something bad to get the something good so that other players can't get it."

While that is certainly one possible usage, that is a very isolated usage. Think more generally.

The Philosopher's usefulness is in that he (she? I can't quite tell) will never get stuck having to encounter a card that he doesn't want to encounter. He will never get stuck having to pick between the lesser of two evils. So you have a strength 7 dragon in one direction and a craft 7 lesser demon in the other? No problem! Land on one of them bad boys and chuck it into the discard pile!

This ensures that the Philosopher (almost) always has the ability to draw a new card--which is the primary means of advancing your character. That's the Philosopher's strength. It certainly isn't the strongest character, but I would choose this one over quite a few others.

The Philosopher's usefulness is in that he (she? I can't quite tell) will never get stuck having to encounter a card that he doesn't want to encounter. He will never get stuck having to pick between the lesser of two evils. So you have a strength 7 dragon in one direction and a craft 7 lesser demon in the other? No problem! Land on one of them bad boys and chuck it into the discard pile!

Not "never" the Philosopher can only discard a "face up" adventure card he (or she) can't discard one that he (or she) draws.

The Philosopher's usefulness is in that he (she? I can't quite tell) will never get stuck having to encounter a card that he doesn't want to encounter. He will never get stuck having to pick between the lesser of two evils. So you have a strength 7 dragon in one direction and a craft 7 lesser demon in the other? No problem! Land on one of them bad boys and chuck it into the discard pile!

Not "never" the Philosopher can only discard a "face up" adventure card he (or she) can't discard one that he (or she) draws.

I don't believe I ever stated that the Philosopher can discard one that he draws. In fact, the scenario that I presented listed two bad things in either direction, indicating that cards were already drawn and in play. Perhaps I could have stated it more clearly by saying, "He will never get stuck encountering a card that has already been drawn and is on the board that he doesn't want to encounter," but that adds too many words to a sentence that exists within a context where we should all be understanding that this conversation is only referring to cards already in play; especially since I went on state, "This ensures that the Philosopher (almost) always has the ability to draw a new card."

The Philosopher's usefulness is in that he (she? I can't quite tell) will never get stuck having to encounter a card that he doesn't want to encounter. He will never get stuck having to pick between the lesser of two evils. So you have a strength 7 dragon in one direction and a craft 7 lesser demon in the other? No problem! Land on one of them bad boys and chuck it into the discard pile!

Not "never" the Philosopher can only discard a "face up" adventure card he (or she) can't discard one that he (or she) draws.

I don't believe I ever stated that the Philosopher can discard one that he draws. In fact, the scenario that I presented listed two bad things in either direction, indicating that cards were already drawn and in play. Perhaps I could have stated it more clearly by saying, "He will never get stuck encountering a card that has already been drawn and is on the board that he doesn't want to encounter," but that adds too many words to a sentence that exists within a context where we should all be understanding that this conversation is only referring to cards already in play; especially since I went on state, "This ensures that the Philosopher (almost) always has the ability to draw a new card."

Ah, ok I was just going by your "will never get stuck having to encounter a card that he doesn't want to encounter" statement.You also encounter cards when you draw them so you really can't say the Philosopher will never get stuck encountering them.

Or when he uses his ability and draws another terrible or even worse card lol

Or when he uses his ability and draws another terrible or even worse card lol

Which is no different than if he landed on an empty space.

My overall point is that the Philosopher has the ability to treat every single-draw space as if it had no cards on it at all. He gets the ability to draw cards, which is what the game is all about. Now, if there are two horrible cards on a single space, then he might want to consider fleeing in the other direction as fast as he can.

And, of course, every time you draw a card you take a chance that you are going to draw something awful. It's no different than the Prophetess using her ability to replace cards. It's no different than the Highlander using his ability to draw an extra card on Hills spaces. Every draw is a risk.

But that's the point. You get to draw. And that's where the Philosopher's strength lies--in discarding unwanted cards (which are already in play) and drawing new ones.

Played Philosopher with Firelands, got rid of lots of nasty ifrit.

on average you find yourself caught between 2 cards you dont want to meet once or twice in a full game, and the price is usually 1 life each time. a few times you find yourself going to a "dead" space where nothing happens. I mentioned that power as well but its very situational and very inconsequental when you do get to use it. It also helps a little that you can choose what direction to go rather than go the direction w draw (you want to go to city but your roll would take you to a dragon you arent strong enough to fight so you end up going opposite direction..)...but again not much impact on the game. Far from the most useless ability but not great.

Especially because by removing bad cards you are in fact likely to aid opponents, making the ability even less desirable. (except perhaps for "diplomatic" purposes...)

Ability to make multiple cards already drawn more favorable somewhat more useful but also very situational.

compared to prophetess ability the philosopher just isnt very strong - before you even factor in prophetess being a caster which is arguably

the strongest ability in the game...

By the way, it says in the rules that he is a he.

Played Philosopher with Firelands, got rid of lots of nasty ifrit.

Thats a point good with Firelands.

By the way, it says in the rules that he is a he.

Now it's bugging me, he reminds me of a particular character from a movie and I cannot put my thumb on it, some spoiled prince that gets all up I'm arms about something rather

Got it, prince Edward from braveheart

I love the philosopher. But I like Stompy too, so there's that.