Hello all. During recent gaming sessions of Talisman, my gaming group has encountered a few anomalies regarding the Spells. In some cases I need input on how a situation should be resolved, while other cases, I just need clarification.

Player A casts Acquisition on Player B and Player C then Hydra’s the spell so that it affects Players D and E as well. Does this mean that Player A gets to take an object from players B, D and E? What if the Acquisition was Hydra’d to include the original caster (Player A), does Player A simply take an object from themselves and gives it to themselves?

It is Player B’s Turn and Player A casts Time Steal. Player C then casts Hydra Spell so the Time Steal affects A, D and E as well. Who all misses turns and who gets free turns?

D) Reflection: This one seems to cause a lot of kafuffle. “Cast as required. Any Spell that has just been cast, including the Command Spell, is turned back onto the character who cast it. (The chosen target is unaffected by the Spell; the caster suffers the effects instead.)”

1) What about spells that will not affect the caster right at the moment, because the situation is not valid, will the effect happen on the caster’s turn instead? Or just nothing happens?

Examples: Misdirection, Sleep and Immobility. Since it is not the caster’s turn, does the effect of this spell wait until it is the caster’s turn?

Example: It is Player A’s turn and Player C casts Misdirection/Sleep/Immobility and Player A casts Reflection. Since it is not Player C’s turn, the spell should not affect them. Do they then get the effect of the spell when it IS their turn? In the case of Misdirection, who determines the direction, the original caster, or their original target?

In the case of Slow Motion, which lasts for 2 turns, I think that the original caster moves 1 for their next 2 turns. That seems pretty straight forward.

2) Fireball “Roll 1 die and add your Craft. If the total is higher than an opposing creature’s Strength, it is killed. If the total is higher than an opposing character’s Strength, he must lose 1 life.”

Player A attacks Player B, who then casts Fireball and Player A casts Reflection. Player B still has to roll 1 die and add their Craft and compared the total to their own Strength. If the total is higher than their own Strength, then they lose a life. Is that correct?

3) Spells that require the caster to something from a target, such as Acquisition, Mesmerism and Shatter. When the spell is reflected and affects the caster, who chooses the object/follower? The original caster or their original target?

4) Spells that take something from target and give to the caster, such as Acquisition, Mesmerism and Siphon Strength. Does the original target benefit at all from these? Or is simply a case of the caster taking something from themselves and gives to themselves?

Example, Player A wants to steal Solomon’s Crown from Player B, who casts Reflection. Does Player B now get to take something from Player A? OR does Player A simply take an object from themselves and gives it to themselves?

5) Time Steal: “Cast on any character at the start of his turn. That character must immediately end his turn. Then, you immediately take an additional turn.”

It is Player A’s turn and Player C casts Time Steal and Player B casts Reflection. What happens?

-Player A gets to go twice, and Player C misses their next turn?

-Player A takes their turn as normal, and Player C misses their next turn?

-Player C steals their own turn, meaning they miss a turn and get a turn, effectively nullifying the spell?

6) Toadify: If this is reflected and a ‘1’ is rolled (meaning that the caster is turned into a toad), is the original caster still turned into a toad, or is the original target turned into a toad, since basically this effect was rebounded twice?

Gelmaron said:

Gelmaron said:

Toad still has to roll if enslaved at the Temple, even though he will move only 1 space. Maybe the target of Vortex would need to roll as well, if the roll is 4+, they move to wherever the Vortex would dump them, if 1-3, they stay enslaved.

Gelmaron said:

Gelmaron said:

If something fights in your place, I would say Howl has not been resolved. For Armour, I'd say choosing to take a life is enough to fulfill Howl,even if that life loss is then prevented via something.

Gelmaron said:

It is Player B’s Turn and Player A casts Time Steal. Player C then casts Hydra Spell so the Time Steal affects A, D and E as well. Who all misses turns and who gets free turns?

Not a fan of the wording on the Hydra Spell (or the Spell itself TBH). Like your Acquisition example, seems just way off that the original Spell affects 1 character, the Hydra version could potentially affect 6+ characters. I don't know, maybe the Hydra was meant to be just a simple duplicate effect, doing just what the original does, so in case of Acquisition, A zaps B, C Hydras another char with an "Acquisition" of their own.

D1: I'd lean toward the effect fizzling since they cannot affect the original caster in the way they are worded when it's not their turn. But the Reflection user gets to avoid the effects as well, so not all bad.

D2: Sounds about right.

D3+4: Wording is problematic again. I think the intent was that you would treat the Caster-Target as flipped around, so in the Solomon's Crown example, B would get to choose something from A.

D5: Don't think C is affected at all by Time Steal, at least not losing his next turn. Since Time Steal reflected against you when it's not your turn does nothingm I'd say fizzle, play continues with A's turn, then B and C.

D6: Reflection just changes target from original to caster, doesn't change caster, so only caster would still get Toaded I think.

stupid quoting and editing

Hi,

I'm just adding some thoughts where Dam didn't already give a full answer.

Gelmaron said:

Hydra Spell doesn't duplicate the Spell, it duplicates the targets the Spell can affect. If player A casts Acquisition, there's no reason that player C casts Hydra because it could only increase the number of Acquisitions by player A. Most useful will be Acquisition AND Hydra Spell to be cast by player A; he can get an Object from every other Character, if able!

There are many ways to use Hydra Spell on the Spells you cast (Mesmerism, Time Steal, Shatter + Hydra Spell... no other Character has a Talisman anymore!), but there are also many situations when you could benefit from Spells cast by others. If you're attacked with a Finger of Death, you may cause the attacking player to be affected as well; not as good as a Reflection, but it can help you wiping him out before he touches you (i.e. you have 3 lives and the attacking Character only 2). You could benefit from Healing, Enchant Weapon and Strength/Craft Spells (not the best use of course), you can extend the effects of hideous Spells like Transmute and Whirlwind... this Spell is REALLY powerful if used well, it can revolution a game in a single turn.

Gelmaron said:

There was an answer from Elliott about Immobility & Reflection. In that case the caster would be Immobilized for the current Turn and could do nothing else. Basically, you avoid the effects of the Spell and the affected Character has no real drawbacks.

Gelmaron said:

Yeah.

Gelmaron said:

I think this is the way to handle it. Player B has to cast Fireball on himself.

3) Spells that require the caster to something from a target, such as Acquisition, Mesmerism and Shatter. When the spell is reflected and affects the caster, who chooses the object/follower? The original caster or their original target?

Reflecting Mesmerism and Acquisition has no sense, because target is caster, but caster is always the same. The caster chooses. At least with Shatter he's forced to destroy one of his Objects (his choice), with Acquisition/Mesmerism he's just wasted a good Spell. This answers also question 4)

5) Time Steal: “Cast on any character at the start of his turn. That character must immediately end his turn. Then, you immediately take an additional turn.”

It is Player A’s turn and Player C casts Time Steal and Player B casts Reflection. What happens?

-Player A gets to go twice, and Player C misses their next turn?

-Player A takes their turn as normal, and Player C misses their next turn?

-Player C steals their own turn, meaning they miss a turn and get a turn, effectively nullifying the spell?

3rd answer looks like the correct one. Moreover, player A takes their Turn as normal.

But I admit this case is pretty weird, because the Caster is not taking a turn so he's nothing to lose.

Gelmaron said:

Caster is always the same. With Reflection, there's about 67% chance that the caster is turned into a Toad.

NO WAY to get good quotes.

Dam said:

I would say yes, because you are actually still moving on the Crown of Command.(even if the manual says not..)

As long as the card does not say roll a die, then it is allowed.

This new rule is there already for a long time. The thief, merchant etc can also use their special abilties on the crown(because of the landing word)

Since the Vortex spell says normal moving, then you can use the spell.

It still needs to be clarified in the faq. It confuse a lot of players with this.

Velhart said:

That's a bit different I think. Landing on = encounter with regard to the character abilities.

Also, didn't you say once that a char at the CoC can't cast Temporal Warp ("Cast at the start of your turn, before you move") because they don't move? I could be remembering wrong, but that's the impression I have.

Dam said:

Dam said:

Yes, i remember that i have said something about the Temporal Warp Spell.

But can't remember the answer right now..

But for me, there is a difference between rolling a die and normal movement.

If encountering= landing, then you can only land by normal movement on the crown.

i wish that FFG could clarify these rules once and for all, in the faq.

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PS: it seems that the quoting has messed up my previous answers.

Sorry for that, but i could not fix my message

Gelmaron said:

I see the Hydra spell as a copy spell.

If you cast it after you cast a other spell yourself or after a other player has cast a spell, you can copy the spell and use it on yourself or on a other player of your choice.

It's a very powerful spell.

If someone cast Acquisition, and you copy it with Hydra spell, then you can use the acquisition spell on one of the players of your choice.

Gelmaron said:

Nothing will happen if you cast misdirection..

With immobility, the player is immobilised in that turn, and they can move normal in their own turn, so it's worthless to do that.

Same would be for sleep i think..

Reflection is meant to use on negative spells that takes immediately effect on the other player( if the words will allow that). ( such as random, Nullify etc

With Mesmerised for example, you cannot steal a follower from yourself, so the spell don't work ( same for Acquisition) you cannot steal a object from yourself.

Or the word (steal) must be changed in discarding( then it would work.

Thanks for the replies everyone. It looks like, for Reflection the solution is to simply narrow it down to this "The caster stays the same. The target is changed to the caster. Then resolve the effects." The will help out for future rulings. Most of the time, we come down to the 3rd edition suggestion of "If there is debate over a rule, instead of holding up the game, just roll a die: 1 - 3 it is yes, 4 - 6 it is no".

Dam said:

Hi Dam,

I have contact John Goodenough, so we get finally a answer for all these questions about the Crown space, and today, i receive his mail.

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Can you use the vortex spell or temporal warp spell at the start of your turn if you are standing on the crown of Command?

A: Yes. However, Spells that are cast "instead of rolling the die for movement" cannot be used unless you are able to roll a die for movement following the standard rules for movement. For example, a character cannot cast the Teleport Spell in the Inner Region because players do not roll a die for movement in the Inner Region.

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This means that all spells that says normal movement and not roll a die can be use on the crown !

Everything makes sense now.

did not say anything