Hello everyone!

My group and I are a bit new to Talisman, and we played a game that included the Grave Digger character for the first time yesterday. However, his ability to draw from the top of the discard pile brought up several questions from our group that we could not answer alone. So I turn to you!

Since the order of the discard pile and what is on top matters greatly with the Grave Robber in play, we were wondering how you determine what order cards get discarded when multiple are discarded at once, like when another player trades in trophies or encounters and defeats the Crypt Keeper, as a couple of examples. Do you let that player choose? the Grave Digger? We settled for shuffling the discarded cards face down and then placing them on the pile, but that didn't seem like the full solution. It was especially bad with game efects that instructed a player to discard several useful cards from the board all at once, like the Closed Shop event. How does this work then?

Also, sometimes it was unclear just when a card has been discarded BY the Grave Robber and thus should be placed on the bottom of the pile. If he draws a game event like Closed Shop, is he the one discarding all the places on the board? Closed Shop and similar game events are worded in a way that made it sound like it was the Closed Shop event itself that was discarding them, not him. A similar question was raised about Lunar Events that get discarded when the Grave Robber draws an event. Surely these cards are being discarded by the game rules due to the change from day to night, and not by the Grave Robber himself? But we could find no clear solution to these problems.

Anyone who could clear some of this stuff up would be very helpful! Thanks in advance.

Welcome to the forums.

I've read every rule "book" we have - there is no set order for discarding cards.

If the player is forced to discard, I would do it randomly. (e.g. Closed Shop and similar game events or discarding lunar events, for example.)

I don't think these count as "discarded by the character" for the grave robber, because he has no power over it. (my opinion)

If it is something like trading in trophies and other "beneficial" abilities, I would let the player make the choice.

Should you think that this would be too powerful, you could of course just always do it at random.

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Another question - am I just imagining things or do you sound like your grave robber did pretty well during your game?

How many players?

I'm asking because we usually play with at least five players and while there are sometimes multiple good cards on top

of each other in the discard piles, we discard so many that the top card changes like 10 times before the grave

robber would have any chance of getting it.

- We have only played one game where he survived longer up until now, but I don't think he was doing good.

Rather the opposite, actually.

Thanks for trying to help with my rules question. It is very unfortunate that there appears to be no official answers.

My group changes between 2 and 4 people, usually 3, but I think the game with the Grave Digger in it was actually a 2 player one. It was also the Sacred Pool ending using the reaper and the city and the dungeon (and blood moon of course). We don't have any of the other expansions yet.

The Grave Digger did win in this particular case, but it was an extremely close race at the finish where the other player was only one space behind me on the Valley of Fire when I reached the crown. I don't know if it's enough to call it a good character or not yet, but getting the witch's broom early was a nice boon as it meant I could do my digging at the graveyard almost every other turn. That only probably helped out quite a lot!

According to the Simultaneous Effects rule in the FAQ, the player whose turn it is decides the order the effects are processed. So, for something like Closed Shop, the player who drew Closed Shop decides the order the Places are discarded.

That helps with the first question. Thanks!

Does that mean if the Grave Digger draws close shop that he is supposed to discard everything to the bottom? Is he the one discarding them if he is the one choosing the order?

And does the Closed Shop card get discarded before or after all the place cards on the board? My gut says after, it I don't know.

That helps with the first question. Thanks!

Does that mean if the Grave Digger draws close shop that he is supposed to discard everything to the bottom? Is he the one discarding them if he is the one choosing the order?

And does the Closed Shop card get discarded before or after all the place cards on the board? My gut says after, it I don't know.

As the Grave Robber ability simply says "Whenever you discard an Adventure Card , you must place it at the bottom of the discard pile", I would interpret it in the following manner:

If the GR encounters Closed Shop, the GR is the one doing the discarding, so all of the Places and the Closed Shop Event would be placed on the bottom of the discard pile.

For cards that instruct players to discard other cards as part of their effect (like Closed Shop), the effect processes and once complete, that card itself is discarded last. So, for Closed Shop, all faceup Places are discarded in an order decided by the current player, then the Closed Shop is discarded last.

If any player encounters a card that forces all or some of the players to discard something, like an Object or Follower, the Grave Robber's discard would go to the bottom of the discard pile, while others would go to the top.

Thank you, that clears things up quite a bit! I appreciate it.