Premise: We know, in Talisman characters are not thought to be balanced; the best character in this game is just the luckiest one.

But...

...Some characters are patently broken and they flatten the game
...Other characters are too weak or just too unexploited

This is my TOP 7 Fixed Characters

#7 MAGUS

Magus is not comparable with other casters or followers-characters:
He cannot create his own followers or cancel cursed followers

evil with 1 fate

+2 Fate

+ enchant the blade ability

First time i've heard "Magus" I've thought about D&D, here the inspiration for a Weapon-ability. Now he has the same Wizard's Fate and he can lose a useless spell if he uses a weapon.

#6 JIN BLOODED

Jin blooded + Wand can easily get ALL THE CURRENT FATE IN THE GAME.

/ Second ability: "Gain Fate" replaced with "Replenish Fate"

#5 ELF

Elves are one of the most interesting races in Fantasy, why so weak here?
Using woods just to evade or teleport is a very weak ability; in the middle region you cannot even teleport because there is only a Wood.

+1 Life

+1 Spell at the beginning of the game

/ Forest and Cursed Glade included in third and fourth Abilities

Now Elves are masters of the nature! I've added 1 Life because they are immortal, similar to Vampiress, and 1 spell because they are demi-gods in mythology.

#4 PRIEST

Probably the weakest character. If he destroys spirits, he cannot get trophies; more Malus abilities than Bonus.

+ Cross effect

/ Undeads included in destroy

+ uneffected by 2 adventure cards

Our Priest has found a Cross and now is similar to an exorcist. I've extended his ability with the terrificant Undeads.

#3 BOUNTY HUNTER

I treat this like a bugged character: Bounty Hunter + Stand-offs effects = Always wins. It's a broken mechanic: BH with "Full plate" strenght 5 VS Enemy strenght 999.999 = BH wins

and... Most infamous ability in the whole game: Stealing trophies

and... he's a crazy slot machine

-1 strenght

/ you must choose to take one of character's life if you want to gain gold from pvp

/ totally fixed third abilty

No more bugs, you win just the "natural" stand-off. Now it's less op, but it's still one of the best characters in the game.

#2 DREAD KNIGHT

Best kickass design in the entire game, I'm speaking about the worst character (with Priest). It's a frustrating run to the Graveyard. Not comparable with alter-ego chivalric knight.

Evil with 1 fate

Low status

If you turn in Good Alignment you are always teased by other players. NOT FUNNY

+2 fate

+ Undeads will not attack you

/ you gain a spell if you take one of character's life in pvp

+ Always evil

"I'm the Evil Knight. Graveyard is my house with fate 3 and a Warhorse. When I kill, I become a caster. Undeads are my bros.

SHOW ME RESPECT!"

#1 ALCHEMIST

This is a story of a broken character, who gains infinite gold in a broken City

In Talisman is very advantageous to control all these stats like fate, life and even spells, and there are many ways to gain infinite golds in the City. For example you can repeatedly buy 3 potions in the Apothecary, or just gain the Reward "Prolific Pocket": THIS MEANS INFINITE LIVES.

/ "1 gold per potion" changed in "2 gold per potion"

"Alchemise" is only turn something into gold; the most correct word for the inverted process is "transmute". I've distinguished the two key words for a matter of style.
2 gold per 1 life/spell/fate means no more infinite lives/fate/spells.

It's still a op character, because you can manipulate a lot of stat at your leisure and you can alchimise cursed objects.

What do you think about my fixed characters?

What's your TOP?

Alchemist should go a little farther - drop fate to 1, reduce gold gain to 2 for magic objects.

You have priest abilities assume he might change his alignment during game, which is not something any other character does.

Change 2nd ability to graveyard only.

Change 5th ability to evil-themed cards: devil, mephistopheles, evil darkness, etc.

Priest can destroy the undead. Demons would make more sense.

Where is Elf's bow?

Magus's blade ability seems to come out of nowhere.

I love the artwork of the elf card. Is that something you made up yourself?

Alchemist should go a little farther - drop fate to 1, reduce gold gain to 2 for magic objects.

I think 2 golds per potion is enough, expecially without City expansion. You begin with 5 golds: this means only 2 available potions instead of 5. This character needs to sacrifice important objects if he want more gold... for the rest is a normal character 2/4/3/4.

You have priest abilities assume he might change his alignment during game, which is not something any other character does.

Change 2nd ability to graveyard only.

Change 5th ability to evil-themed cards: devil, mephistopheles, evil darkness, etc.

Druid

anyhow, I prefer to assume Priest has got a Cross: " If you are evil , you do not lose a life in the Chapel . If you are good , you do not lose a life in the Graveyard ... "

If I just say "Your spiritual attitude protects you from losing lives in graveyard and in chapel" is better?

Same for the 5th ability: Angel and Devil are mirror cards, just a little bonus. I don't want disequilibrium.

Priest can destroy the undead. Demons would make more sense.

Undeads make sense too.

Demons are too much important for lore of this game: Herald of Death , Herald of Diseas , Herald of Famine , Herald of War , THE BEAST

A priest cannot destroy the apocalyptic beast... c'mon

Where is Elf's bow?

Elf =/= Archer. Don't be racist

Magus's blade ability seems to come out of nowhere.

Inspiration by pathfinder http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/magus

I love the artwork of the elf card. Is that something you made up yourself?

I've made a very long research for the perfect picture (my point of view) in pinterest and deviantart and i've just included in the character card. The original picture was an ugly Legolas.

The biggest issue with the Magus is that he cannot choose to attack other characters in Psychic Combat. That simple fix right there makes him a craft-based mirror of the Gladiator.

I think 2 golds per potion is enough

If I just say "Your spiritual attitude protects you from losing lives in graveyard and in chapel" is better?

Where is Elf's bow?

Elf =/= Archer. Don't be racist

The biggest issue with the Magus is that he cannot choose to attack other characters in Psychic Combat. That simple fix right there makes him a craft-based mirror of the Gladiator.

A strange list.

jin-blooded and bounty hunter: I don't see either becoming an issue terribly often, especially jin-blooded who is also generally very weak so an exploit only helps a little. Bounty hunter potentially becomes one of the strongest in the game but not by much.

elf priiest and magus are midlevel characters imo, if they need fixing so does most characters (incidentally : most characters need fixing;) )

dread knight is very weak I agree, but your fix seems insufficient, although I can agree to the always evil ability:) I'd prefer +2 strength or +1 strength +2 fate

alchemist its important to note that the issue is interaction w city, without city he's actually midlevel at best. My preffered fix is to limit characters to 1 scroll and alchemist to 1 transmutation pr turn at beginning. And starting with 0 gold if city is in play.

Imo it's hard to point to specific characters that need fixing, most non-caster characters are fairly evenly spread out from bad-good and while the strongest are far stronger than the weakest, they are only slightly stronger than the 10 characters next-strongest characters. So either you'd had to redo 90% of the characters or just live with the imbalance and allow 3 picks to make sh*tty characters less likely.

My one exception, other than alchemist+city, is casters, those that gain spells every turn or so, who are by far the strongest. My fix has been to remove the ability to cast spells on characters on other spaces (and in turn remove the timing restriction on spells: immobility takes effect on targets next turn fx)

The biggest issue with the Magus is that he cannot choose to attack other characters in Psychic Combat. That simple fix right there makes him a craft-based mirror of the Gladiator.

Mmh... mirror characters, very interesting.

I've thought about Magus'abilities for months and I've never noticed these familiarities with gladiator.

But I love my enchant the blade ability + 2 fate... It's something new... I don't know

The biggest issue with the Magus is that he cannot choose to attack other characters in Psychic Combat. That simple fix right there makes him a craft-based mirror of the Gladiator.

But is that a good thing?

I would say it is neither good nor bad. It simply is a thing. There are characters who are near opposites of each other in terms of stats. Having players who are near opposites in terms of abilities is logical.

Besides, the ability to use his followers to add to his craft is already a mirror of what the Gladiator can do. But really, what use is that ability if you can't actually attack other players in craft? It places a severe limitation on his ability when you would naturally assume that he'd be able to do that since his ability is craft based.

The biggest issue with the Magus is that he cannot choose to attack other characters in Psychic Combat. That simple fix right there makes him a craft-based mirror of the Gladiator.

But is that a good thing?

I would say it is neither good nor bad. It simply is a thing. There are characters who are near opposites of each other in terms of stats. Having players who are near opposites in terms of abilities is logical.

Besides, the ability to use his followers to add to his craft is already a mirror of what the Gladiator can do. But really, what use is that ability if you can't actually attack other players in craft? It places a severe limitation on his ability when you would naturally assume that he'd be able to do that since his ability is craft based.

I agree magus could use a boost but giving him craft attack seems a bit lazy.

The biggest issue with the Magus is that he cannot choose to attack other characters in Psychic Combat. That simple fix right there makes him a craft-based mirror of the Gladiator.

But is that a good thing?

I would say it is neither good nor bad. It simply is a thing. There are characters who are near opposites of each other in terms of stats. Having players who are near opposites in terms of abilities is logical.

Besides, the ability to use his followers to add to his craft is already a mirror of what the Gladiator can do. But really, what use is that ability if you can't actually attack other players in craft? It places a severe limitation on his ability when you would naturally assume that he'd be able to do that since his ability is craft based.

Craft has other uses than attacking characters.

I agree magus could use a boost but giving him craft attack seems a bit lazy.

But the Magus only gets to use his followers in psychic combat. What's the point of being able to use your followers in psychic combat if you can't engage other characters in psychic combat? It's the logical conclusion of having that ability in the first place.

Craft enemies are a thing too.

I would like if magus used his followers for all craft rolls, not just combat. That would make him stronger and he wouldn't look like lazy copy of gladiator.

Craft enemies are a thing too.

I would like if magus used his followers for all craft rolls, not just combat. That would make him stronger and he wouldn't look like lazy copy of gladiator.

Except that he's not a copy of the Gladiator. He's a mirror of the Gladiator. He already is that whether his abilities are adjusted or not. That is, the ability between the two is similar but not the same, where one uses it for craft and the other for strength. Attacking other characters in craft is a thing, too, so why not let it also be for the character who can use his followers to add to his attack score in psychic combat?

Copy/mirror whatever, you know exactly what I meant.

Copy/mirror whatever, you know exactly what I meant.

No, I really don't. I only have your words. He's not a copy because he doesn't do the same thing. He's a mirror because he does something similar, just with the opposite stat. That's what makes him an interesting character. He is equal to the Gladiator--except that he can't initiate psychic combat in order to fully utilize his special ability.

There is no logical reason whatsoever that he can't do this.

If I just say "Your spiritual attitude protects you from losing lives in graveyard and in chapel" is better?

No, it's the same thing.

Either way sounds like you can't lose a life in graveyard or chapel, by any means. So if a Demon craft 10 found its way to the graveyard or chapel, then can you lose a life? You are afterall still encountering the space when you encounter a card. Further, how about the command spell? We would assume the command spell over-rides your ability as it generally does over rule everything.

If you fight a character while on the chapel or graveyard then presumably the ability would not apply as you are encountering a character, not a space.

If you wanted to avoid such questions then you might say :-

" You do not lose a life in the Chapel or Graveyard if instructed to do so as a result of your alignment"

If I just say "Your spiritual attitude protects you from losing lives in graveyard and in chapel" is better?

No, it's the same thing.

Either way sounds like you can't lose a life in graveyard or chapel, by any means. So if a Demon craft 10 found its way to the graveyard or chapel, then can you lose a life? You are afterall still encountering the space when you encounter a card. Further, how about the command spell? We would assume the command spell over-rides your ability as it generally does over rule everything.

If you fight a character while on the chapel or graveyard then presumably the ability would not apply as you are encountering a character, not a space.

If you wanted to avoid such questions then you might say :-

" You do not lose a life in the Chapel or Graveyard if instructed to do so as a result of your alignment"

The better wording would be, "You do not lose a life when you visit the Chapel or Graveyard."

That way you can still lose a life when you are on those spaces should you encounter something horrendous there, but you don't lose a life by interacting with the space itself.

On 22/1/2017 at 11:32 AM, Osbo25 said:

The better wording would be, "You do not lose a life when you visit the Chapel or Graveyard."

You're totally right. I've changed my priest

On 17/1/2017 at 11:08 AM, Bludgeon said:

But he can still gain insane amount of gold by buying scrolls and potions in the city. His ability to transmute is inconsequential with this tactic

I think this is the point of Alchemist.
I think the most important thing is to put a limit to infinite lives, so we cannot tolerate "1 gold per life" because there are too many ways to have at least 1 gold.
At this point we can choose one of these nerfs for transmutation :

• 1 gold per potion --> 2 gold per potion
• potion= life/fate/spell --> potion= fate/spell

At this point you can choose to nerf the alchimization process too... But IMO if Alchemist spends a lot of turns for buying scrolls or potions in the City, including the restriction for transmutation , he becomes a random caster. Also i think some potions are more usefull than transmutation ability, so Alchemist must give up something.

On 17/1/2017 at 11:08 AM, Bludgeon said:

You sure? Look at the original picture.

Ugly Legolas, I know.
But I prefer to consider Elves like an unstereotyped race. In fact there aren't abilities bow-related (I don't care about the bow in the miniature, it's just a bow, not the character itself)

Interesting fixes. Am wondering how you would fix the #1 weaksauce character -- the Ghoul.

On 17/1/2017 at 0:41 PM, Rawsugar said:

jin-blooded and bounty hunter: I don't see either becoming an issue terribly often, especially jin-blooded who is also generally very weak so an exploit only helps a little. Bounty hunter potentially becomes one of the strongest in the game but not by much.

Jin Blooded is not so weak... he's practically immune to spells if you play well. Remember the Wand, I think it's not nice when you gain at the end of the match ALL THE 30 FATE TOKENs in the game, this is why I hate infinite fate combos.

Bounty hunter can dominate (break) the game, there are many posts in this community about BH. I've played with him taking advantage of his third ability. Easy win, not funny.

On 17/1/2017 at 0:41 PM, Rawsugar said:

elf priiest and magus are midlevel characters imo, if they need fixing so does most characters (incidentally : most characters need fixing;) )

Priest is the second worst character imo. His characteristic ability prevents to gain craft trophies
Elf is a run away-character :/ In Talisman you cannot win by evading creatures. I suffer the waste of potential for this character.
Magus ... you're right, he's a caster, he takes advantage of followers, not so bad at all. This is why I've made a minimal changement. It's a fantastic design for an interesting mythical-historycal character. Magi appear in pathfinder too.

On 17/1/2017 at 0:41 PM, Rawsugar said:

dread knight is very weak I agree, but your fix seems insufficient, although I can agree to the always evil ability:) I'd prefer +2 strength or +1 strength +2 fate

The world agrees with a "always evil" Dread Knight
If you increase strenght or craft values, remember the war horse: you begin with 6 or 7 in battle! too much OP

Don't understimate +2 fate for an evil character related with graveyard!
Also, if you gain a spell when you defeat a character is a great thing for pvp

On 17/1/2017 at 0:41 PM, Rawsugar said:

Imo it's hard to point to specific characters that need fixing, most non-caster characters are fairly evenly spread out from bad-good and while the strongest are far stronger than the weakest, they are only slightly stronger than the 10 characters next-strongest characters. So either you'd had to redo 90% of the characters or just live with the imbalance and allow 3 picks to make sh*tty characters less likely.

My one exception, other than alchemist+city, is casters, those that gain spells every turn or so, who are by far the strongest. My fix has been to remove the ability to cast spells on characters on other spaces (and in turn remove the timing restriction on spells: immobility takes effect on targets next turn fx)

Yes, this is MY top 7 : ) I have no problems with unbalanced characters. I just hate 3 things in Talisman:

• Bugs or demi-bugs (Alchemist, Bounty Hunter, Jin Blooded)
• Waste of potential (Elf, Dread Knight, Magus)
• Personal Sensation of uselessness, different by weakness (Priest, Elf, Dread Knight)

1 hour ago, Vandal Thorne said:

Interesting fixes. Am wondering how you would fix the #1 weaksauce character -- the Ghoul.

I thinked about Ghoul for a long time. At the beggining my intention was to put the Ghoul in my TOP 7. Just look at the picture! He clames Vampiress'ability:

• Whenever you visit the Graveyard , you may heal up to your life value .

That's why he's not in my top 7:
2str/4craft is normal
4 fates for an evil character is a good and rare thing!
psychic combat + Steal life in psychic combat is an understimate combo! The best way to play Ghoul is to hunt strenght-character and kill them.
Raise ability can be usefull in a domino of fights.

So, I think Ghoul is a funny and understimate character, but I know he's weak.
Here's a potential changement.

+ heal up life in graveyard
/ you can use more raised followers at the same time

Ghoul is a mythical creature strictly related with graveyards, this an example of waste of potential.
I've changed picture because it wasn't in high definition.

jin-blooded who doesnt get a source of spells is one of the weakest characters, relying entirely on an item you can lose and might not even get makes a character weak imo, and he's not even that strong with spellbook/wand

bounty hunter is strong without and very strong with full plate but even then he's just strong in fights, so much of the game is about so many other things than simply winning fights a caster will outpace him more often than not even if he does get his hands on a full plate relatively early.

+2 fate makes the dread knight mediocre, i like to fix characters to top 25%. Having his strength depend on the horse that is easily lost to follower eating ancounters or craft enemies is a SERIOUS drawback.

there's a lot of characters as useless as elf and priest, their abilities are among the least useful, admittedly, but their high starting stats help them just past the shittiest characters (knights, philosopher etc).

I only have an issue with mechanics that interact with other mechanics in unforseen ways if they are broken, only the alchemist comes close imo and he's not VERY OP vs the strongest characters.

But I can agree about the uselessness, in some ways the worst part about many characters abilities isnt that the characters arent strong enough but that the abilities dont affect the game enough and give it a different feel, that's potentially the strength of a game like talisman where you choose abilities before starting; that each game is very different from the other. But again, this is an issue with the majority of characters imo.

There are few characters that can just rip through the game on an approximate 75% of the time - The Bounty Hunter is one of these characters. Sure, this is Talisman, he can lose and the Ghoul can win but the Bounty Hunter is severely OP.

For the Ghoul:

We currently have-

• When you attack another character , you may choose to make the attack psychic combat . You may not do this when you are attacked by another character .
• Whenever you defeat a character in psychic combat , if you choose to take one of his lives , add it to your own.
• When you kill an Enemy in battle , you may raise it from the dead and keep it as a Follower instead of a trophy . You may have one of your raised Followers add its Strength to yours for one battle , after which it disintegrates to the discard pile. You may only use one raised Follower per battle .

I would update it to a character with Tokens-

***You begin the game with 4 Macabre Tokens

• When you visit the graveyard you may heal up to your life value.
• When you kill an Enemy you may feed on the corpse - Discard the enemy and place one Macabre Token on your character card.
• After rolling in psychic combat or battle, you may discard Macabre Tokens to add 2 to your attack score for each Token discarded.
• At any time - discard one Macabre Token to gain 1 life.

The Ghoul would still be weak but it would be a fun character to play as the abilities would be useful.