I've played 2nd edition since 1987. The game has legendary status amongst my friends and I for all the epic games we've played.

After playing 4th and loving it, there were a couple of things I was curious what the community thought.

Keep in mind that I only have the main board and the Reaper expansion at this point so if some of these items change in other expansions I am unaware.

1) The Warhorse - we house ruled him into having D6 uses before he was killed in the line of duty. Unlimited use was game-breakingly powerful. We didn't want to remove him since he could give a Mule (our term for a weak player in the game that was just walking around carrying objects for the more powerful ones for whenever they decided to come take them) a chance to suddenly fight back. I was hoping FF would have found a fix of some kind, but I would say it's even more powerful now since its a follower instead of an object.

2) Followers are too hard to get rid of - there weren't many ways to get rid of powerful followers your opponent's had in the first place, but it seems that 4th edition has even less (with the Leper being nerfed). Cycling through the spell deck asap trying to get Mesmerism is still the best chance barring bad luck with Cursed By Hag.

3) Very little movement modification - I like the Carpet, the 2nd edition Horse was way too powerful (to the point that followers were happily abandoned for the movement of a horse), but the Horse and Cart was pretty balanced and not overly powerful. A few of us have found it a little rough going entire games with never having the ability to control our movement at all, to the point that we added "The Docks" to the City. You can visit The Docks and pay 2 gold to take a ship to space in the Outer Region as your next move.

4) Cerebus - I don't really get the point of this card. By the time Characters are strong enough to get to the Portal, Cerebus is a free trade in. Seems like he should have had "fight him with whatever ability is your weakest."

5) Is there somewhere online I can see a spoiler list of the cards available in Frostmarch? I want to buy it, but my wife is giving me a hard time about the $ I've spent on 4th so far. She loves the game too, so if I show her the cards and prove to her it was worth getting...

Sorry for the lengthy first post. I can't beleive I didn't know 4th edition existed until 3 weeks ago!

Hi T.M.

I'm another old schooler like yourself, having skipped Talisman 3E, not only recently came back to the game in 4ER

Talismania said:

The real problem is how the Warhorse gives its bonus. Using a Craft from was mistake an breach of the game. Combat/Battle skill in Talisman is not craft based. it should have had an "in Combat/Battle" bonus and that's that. ( See here for details on alternatives if you are interested; you might look at other related posts there if enticed.) I do remember equines being classed as Objects, though in later expansions that changed with some. And they shouldn't have ever been Objects by most people's standards. Equines were fully followers by Talisman 3E.

Talismania said:

I feel you pain. 4ER is built primarily for speed of play. That means sacrificing things that made it tougher in the old days and adding on more freebies and nerfing setbacks. It's 50/50 among players as to this being good or bad, but you will find more of it 4ER as you procede. You may have noticed the Raiders were nerfed as well... and there are others.

Talismania said:

And pain again. You won't see those control mechanics returning in 4ER. Movement modifying cards in expansions have almost always gone for increased range of number (2D6 instead of 1D6, etc.) rather than giving choices. Don't ask me why, because I don't like it either. Someone else here may be able to give you a counterpoint. Movement modifiers in 4ER are more about distance than control, of course when its random going farther doesn't mean getting where you want to go any quicker.

Talismania said:

I'm curious now, and I bet I know the answer. If you think back to 2E games vs 4ER, have you notice a difference in the max of Craft and Strength for characters at the end of the game. There was a time when Cerebus would've a potential challenge... not anymore.

Talismania said:

Try THIS topic and see if you can get some hints. You might also go to boardgamegeeks.com and search for Frostmarch. One its list page, scroll down and check the forum topics and files available. Someone may have posted and inventory by now.

Welcome aboard... and never apologies for a long post that's full of real content. That's always appreciate more than endless pages of "tweet" posts. Please excuse my typos... as usual, I'm in a rush and short of spare time.

Talismania said:

First off, did you note that the Warhorse only adds Craft Value (aka starting Craft), not total like things were back in the 2nd edition (ditto for the Monk)? Second, IIRC, you will lose the Warhorse if you lose a life in battle OR psychic combat.

Talismania said:

Main point I think is this, when Cerberus is on the board, you have to land EXACTLY on the Portal of Power and kills Cerb. Normally, passing from the Middle to the Inner, you just need to roll more than you'd need to reach the Portal of Power (roll 2+ at Castle for example).

I will touch on what JC also said. Around here, our 3-player games average 60 minutes. Once in a while you get your aberrations, where some character just gets really lucky and has a stat 14+ when he reaches the Crown, mostly the winner has pre-teens in stats (so 12 or less). Mainly, once your main stat is 9+ and you have a Talisman, you're going for the Crown (barring Ice Queen ending from FM). At least for us.

Talismania said:

Feel free to take a look here.

Frostmarch Card List:

www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp

JCHendee said:

As usual, heh, I’ll defend the lack of movement options and provide the counterpoint. I can’t speak for FFS, but, it does seem like they share my disdain of movement control. Too much movement control? Some squares (Chasm, Cursed Glade, Desert with no Water Bottle, Normal square with ST/CR 7+ creature at game start, Graveyard/Chapel when of the wrong alignment) will almost never see the use. Why bother put a “If Good lands on the Graveyard” spot if it’ll never see play 95% of the time? Adding movement control means that’ll never see play 99.999% of the time, barring oddities like “Lose 1 life” quests or effects or whatever.

Even what is left in FFS is either 2 dice / Area limited (Torch), or, “Pick up to max of dice roll” but expires (Hunchback). ONE card of “up to roll” is permanent (Clockwork Owl) but that’s a treasure, presumably rare, assuming you don’t use the Warlock Quest treasure variant.

As for the range of number, just by nature of probabilities, you use a 2D6 to either get something that’s 7+ squares away, or really want to avoid something that’s 2-3 squares away (2D6 is bell curve vs the flat 1D6), or (personal group bias here), to avoid PvP. Thief is 1-6 squares away? Use the 2D6 movement, get 7+, and he CANNOT get to you barring Teleport spell, etc…

But, essentially, movement control = even LESS chance of encountering a “bad” square and even MORE of a chance of encountering a target square, ergo, faster game (which is bad for us, but hey, that’s our personal bias).

I hope the counterpoint was clear, though, obviously, not in synch with the majority of board users here.

Dam said:

Thank you very much for the constructive responses .

I'm going to have to read the Warhorse again. Definitely just adding Craft Value makes it not as stupidly overpowered as it was in 2nd edition. Still powerful, just not broken.

I do agree that Movement options should be limited and we argued the point quite a bit at our last session. But never having an option, especially when someone is doing decidedly better than you are and that movement choice could make it into a good game again instead of a "I'll just walk around the outer region while you go win" can be very frustrating.

I looked over the Frostmarch list in the post, but just card names don't help much. Does Toadify really turn someone into a Toad?! If so the expansion is worth that alone .

For now we are going to play the Rules as they stand (other than the Docks) before we start to House Rule.

Talismania said:

I looked over the Frostmarch list in the post, but just card names don't help much. Does Toadify really turn someone into a Toad?! If so the expansion is worth that alone .

1/6 the caster Toaded, 50% target Toaded. Of course, IIRC so far nobody has actually succeeded with that spell for us (14 games with FM). Seems the 2-3 result comes up quite a bit and even with 4+ result Toading the target, there is always that risk of a 1 coming up, so people just leave the original result and don't use Fate.

A general note: the issue of Craft and the Warhorse in 2e was covered in an FAQ I believe... though a lot of us didn't know about it and were still using total Craft instead of starting Craft. So the 4ER versions isn't really any different.

Also, on the issue of movement and avoiding detrimental spaces, lack of control hasn't made any differences in our games. Control is used to get somewhere; it isn't used to not get somewhere.

All players would rather face a tough fight or a calculated risk elsewhere than lose an automatic life for going someplace like the Graveyard, Chapel, or Desert. I've played with both 2E and 4E / 4ER in multiple groups. And they avoid it with or without a horse. I've seen more that once someone simply turn the other way, or even diverge into a fight with the Sentinel to not land on the graveyard if they are Good, or the Chapel if the are Evil.

We've seen no difference in avoidance of automatically damaging locations based on such things as having a Horse or not. We have seen a difference in slowing down adventurers from getting to something special with 4ER cards that don't allow actual control. The only advantage we have seen in the 4ER horse is in a dead on run towards and ending destination that will stop you automatically (end of the Dungeon, getting to the Sentinel, Portal of Power, etc.) But even the old 2E horse could accomplish that to a degree... and then some.

Fair enough. I will admit, the example wasn’t the best. But I know that if I lead with the other one, I’ll lose even more people if I want some to agree with me.

Actually, NOT getting where you want to go is another aspect that I like. I’m ok at chess but I prefer dice games. I like that, last game, with the leprechaun, when a Pool of life showed up in my region, drawn by someone else, I never got ONE of the 3 remaining Life cones. That’s not rolling a 6 (Leprechaun teleports on a 6), or the “right” number, for 22 turns. I counted (I’m kinda OCD heh). Group of 3 that night. Lots of cancellations. Random (for me and mine) is what makes each game special and different. In the game before that, each pool lasted 4 turns max as a feeding frenzy of good rolls happened.

To be somewhat flippant, with too much movement control, it no longer becomes “Put 4 life. Random people get one over many many turns of trying.” (my paraphrase) and it becomes “Put 4 Life counters. Pass 1 around the table within a turn or 3.”

Then again, for our one-off group member (the one that likes PvP, hey, each group has a “don’t fit in but lovable” type), my missing the pool for 22 turns with a Teleporting character was “Like watching a bad rerun of Gilligan’s Island. He couldn’t get off the island. You couldn’t get a Pool drink. Bad luck like that should have mitigation.”

Well, I was the victim, and I didn’t mind. But you like what you like. If missing landing on a pool, or the Mystic for a quest, or the last Dragon on the board, or the Runesword dropped from a draw by a Good Character makes you want to tear your hair out, then yeah, movement control might be for you.

For me, it was, chuckle, laugh, “Woo Hoo. Another turn without a (number I needed to land legit) OR a 6! Turn # X! And counting.” And chuckles all around.

FYI, all my post favour randomness, or the game playing me. If I sound like that is THE way to play, I apologize for that. But, choices on a dice game isn’t my thing. Heck, I’m sad there isn’t an official Talisman “1 always misses, 20 always hits” rule of AD&D from the old days, though I’ve seen a few home brews on 6-1 rules.

But that’s just me. For your sakes, I hope they put in Controlled Movement cards in future expansion. For us, they’ll just hit the “never in play, out of the game" deck. Kinda like Dam removes all Fate things from the board. To each his own. So I honestly hope you get your movement control in some future expansion. It’s your turn too to have cards you like…

I can definitely see where you are coming from. There is no doubt that movement manipulation makes Talisman a very different game. The Horse was too good and the Horse and Cart was right on the line. I recently read the Clockwork Owl and that is also way to good. I'm curious whether anyone thinks the following attempts at movement control negatively affect the game:

Walking Stick - You may divide your die roll in half (rounding up) for movement if you wish. (1, 2 = 1, 3, 4 = 2, 5, 6 = 3).
Cloak of Blinking - on a 1, an opponent gets to teleport you to any space in the same region. 2 - 3 - you pick the number, 4 - 6 move as normal.
Version of 4E horse - roll for movement, then if you wish, roll another D6 and add it to your first roll.
Boots of the Sage - you may reroll your movement die. You must accept the 2nd roll.
The Docks - a new option on The City square - pay 2 gold to take a ship to any space in the same region as your next move.

As long as the movement device is an object you have a fair chance to lose that item. As far as I can tell, making anything into a Follower is making it practically immune to loss.

Hey THR, nothing wrong with preferring the randomness... and by the by, I suck at chess... though I can be chaotic and agressive enough to utterly frustrate my wife and father-in-law, who are both excellent players. And on the other side, I love backgammon, and I usually win; it is THE game of perfected balance between randomness and control.

And I wouldn't confuse control through a dice with teleports. I am sick of those, and that mechanic seems to be spreading like a virus through the game. You will note that no horse was used in the scenario you describe... but a teleport was (???). At least with the 2E horse you still had to roll die and accept the base number you had to work off of with any modifiers. And as far as the Horse & Cart being more balanced, it wasn't, for the Horse (2E or 4ER) still magically hauled along all Followers... even though neither was magical.

I would agree that having upto +3 on the 2E Horse was excessive, giving one up to 4 spaces to choose from, which is 66.6% of a die's range. Even I preferd upto +2 instead, and with some limits on Followers who aren't riding. That gives a range of choice equal to 50% a die range. And the custom made old horses we use have +1 or +2 only depending the type of horse. (Yes, we use some "retro" and altered reconstructed cards from the old days.)

And the whole issue of a horse hauling along all that you had... including marching troop of followers... was a bit much in both editions of the game. Of course that's now even worse with the 4ER Horse... which can go into a dungeon of all things, and race to its end, and of course all followers come along. And that the 4ER horse shows a herd of wild horses doesn't cut it as a justification. NOTE: average distance traveled with the 2E horse is 5.5 spaces without considering its maximum run; average distance traveled with the 4ER Horse is 7. So even between the two, even putting aside the non-sense of a horse in the dungeon, the 4ER version has yet another abuse built into it.... in that dead run scenario I previously describe. For guess what goodies are waiting at the end of the Dungeon, aside from a potential shortcut to win the game?

I've always been found of control through choice, but it can be worked through randomness as well. And some of Talismania's latest notions hint at something that might be the best. We have a special item in our game called the Compass (one in the deck and one as a Purchase card at a high price), and players will beat each other to death for it... and they can by the way it works. It allows one to roll one extra die on top of any form of die based movement and choose one die to discard. Multiple roll and choose is one of my favored ways to balance randomness and control.

Imagine if you will a Horse that wasn't 2D6 but rather roll two and choose one. Imagine if all movement modifying cards were like this, and that some but not all could be combined. Imagine having that kind of Horse and the Compass, then rolling three dice and choosing 1. Yes, potent, but still random - you might still roll three 1s. To achieve that control, you have to acquire it... and be ready to defend it, since the range of movement wouldn't get you far. You would be more likely to be left in reach of someone else who wants to take part of that advantage than with either the 2E or 4ER horse.

How does that sound as an option, just for kicks? I'm not saying its the way I would play things, or would want all movement cards to be like that. But it does keep things random and control has to be gained through acquiring multiple randoms .

And Talismania is partially correct in that a Follower that allows movement mods... or worst, a Teleport... is very difficult to take away from someone. Not impossible, but more difficult than an Object, and more difficult if it has over a 6 space average movement or a Teleport. In theory, as a Treasure card, the Clockwork Owl is difficult to acquire since one has to face the Dungeon, but that won't last. Not with the addition of Treasure cards being accessed through Quests, most of which are far too easy to complete.

By the by, my group too has used something akin to the Docks in the City, but we require any adventurer to pay 1G for itself, and 1G per two Followers. Anyone with an entourage will have to make a hard choice if they don't have enough gold. You will note that with this type of pay arrangement, the cost of possessions is built into it, for if you can only pay for yourself, you can only take 4 Objects with you most cases. If you have 2G, and Followers that carry objects, your transported possesions increase but only so much. And we count a Horse & Cart as 2 Followers in this case.

PvP, or preferably CvC, isn't the only way to play a challenging game... it isn't even the best way. The game itself should be a challenge, but roughly equal for all. Sometimes it seems like the game is getting to easy aside from amplified frag-fests.

Oh, and thanks for all the chat and debate; it's good to have people willing to do that. I appreciate it, sincerely.

I LOVE the idea of having movement modifiers taking the form of another D6 you can roll for movement. This is being implemented in my own super special secret version of Talisman immediately and I am totally ripping off the Compass .

Talismania, as an old fart at Talisman (I too got my start with the 2nd edition), have you played with the Assassin in the R4th yet? I'd be very interested in how you perceive the RAW Assassin (who can Assassinate even cards he just drew).

JCHendee said:

That sounds like a great option. Thanks for bringing it up. Hopefully, FFS will use some of them. Not enough hours in the day for us here to take the time to do the printout on correct card stock, but I enjoy reading the Homebrew section, especially the non-card options Ex = “No mules / horses etc… in the Dungeon” home rule that requires no special cards, just a rule.

JCHendee said:

You’re welcome. I also reciprocate. Sometimes I worry due to the language barrier, English being second language, that the words I use come off as too forceful, or a “this is THE right way” kind of deal, by language, culture and upbringing. To use (hopefully correctly) an English axiom, my family believes there is only “One way to skin a cat”.

Which… incidentally… gross…

Talismania said:

I LOVE the idea of having movement modifiers taking the form of another D6 you can roll for movement. This is being implemented in my own super special secret version of Talisman immediately and I am totally ripping off the Compass .

The actual Compass card will be part of In the Balance 2.0 , coming in another month, at a guess. (I'm waiting until the French and German translations are done so all three are released at the same time.) In the Interim, you can download that card HERE , complete with Adventure and Purchase versions and card backs. I recommend you stick only one in the Adventure deck and one for Purchase (at Market, not Market Day or Blacksmith) for 4G. Yes, its potent and sought after enough for that, so make those adventurers work for it one way or another. That way it'll remain an enticement for mayhem.

Tons-Home-rules said:

I understand. I am into using custom cards, but some days I'll look at the next to cut out and just groan. I have them printed on photo stock, front and back separate (16 to a sheet), then slip the two parts back to back into card sleeve. Simple, and with commercial cards in sleeves with extra printed backs behind them, you can't tell whats what until you drawn one. Learn this trick from Dth (Dorian) and Jon New; it works well, and other than cutting out card fronts and backs, its real quick and easy to the assemble them.

Dam said:

Aaarrgh! That character rarely gets played in our games; when it does, its a HURT magnet! Everyone throws every bit of nasty at it they can based on pure hate and spite. Three games its been used (by the same person), and it has never finished the game without dying at least once (one game, three times). And of course we make sure it never wins.

You'd think that schmuck that keeps picking it would learn his lesson. Fortunately he's not a regular.

Talismania said:

Oh my... well, I am a forceful "debater" too... and grew up with a father with you whom you not only don't say the wrong thing... you don't even think it. Then I got real stupid and married a woman whose probably smarter than me and won't argue at all (very frustrating). Being forceful can come from lots of sources. As someone who has failed multiple times to learn anythng but English, I'd bless anyone in the world I can talk to who isn't as utterly hopeless as me in that.

Oh... and don't touch my cats!

But actually the saying is "there's more than one way to skin a cat."

I am not certain if this is the right thread to post this in, but I played my first game of Talisman 4th Edition today. I had a fantastic time. Excellent game.

Wilfred Owen said:

Hi Wilfred,

You can also take a look here if you want;)

And if you want to rate the game, click here

Greetings,

Velhart

Dam said:

So far we are playing with the rules as they are before we start the house ruling, but the Assassin has come up 3 times in 5 games and won each one of them, so he's on the short list .

Talismania said:

Try to kill the Assassin next time before he goes to the Inner Region

Listen to V. Whack that backstabber every chance you get... and maybe you won't have to house rule it.

Of course the other option is to rule it like in the old days. What an Enemy is drawn, it is attacking, and the assassin should only get to assassinate when it is on the attack. Same for when it gets jumped by another adventurer (tough luck)! It is a fairly decent character when returned to a state of balance on that ability.

Velhart said:

Yep, just like the effing Sage. I hate his looking-at-decks-ability. "Noo, the next card is bad, lets go to the Mystic." WHen I played the Sage for the first time, I was killed quickly by spells and Reaper (for a good reason), and I will do that to the next Sage player as well.

redsimon said:

Sage (aka the Philosopher from the 2nd ed) has been the bane of Talisman for years. At least for me. Even in the R4th, he's still one of top-ladder chars. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at), each expansion has added more powerful characters. Sage retains his high ranking (6-7 after 13 appearances), with Gypsy from Dungeon and all but Leprechaun from Frostmarch besting him in win-loss. From base + Reaper, he's #1.

so i just bought 4th edition...... let me explain,

So i too have actually just bought 4th edition,

so what can i expect?. I am a complete Noob, and my game hasn't arrived yet. It's due this week. Admittedly your above posts mean very little to me but i thought it best to tag my situation here rather than start a new post that is similar to this one.

So what can i expect from this game? i bought the 4th revised edition. I picked this game to play with my two girls, and then also with my gaming group and i picked it over Decent, Prophecy, return of the Heros, and Magic Realm. i did my comparisons on Boardgamegeek.

Will my money be well spent?

Yes, your money is well spent. Even those of us who find faults with it are still avid fans and play it whenever time allows. It is a perfect selection vs the other games you mention for it is simple enough for almost any age of player to get started playing immediately. Though the rules have some subtlies once you get started, you can almost play it straight out of the box and play it 90%+ correctly. But...

Make sure you read the manual at a time when you aren't trying to start an immediate game. It will take a little time, with pauses to look at components, but you will then have an overview to help the young ones jump right into the adventure. Grab a favorite beverage, open the box when you have nothing else pressing to do, and have a good read while you look at all the pretty components. Then at another time, maybe later that same day or night, have at it with some family and friends for an introductory game that will likely take a bit longer than the listed timeframe.

Again, don't try to play while reading the manual ... don't create that frustrating mind state that will put a cloud over your first experience. The manual is actually a little tiny bit more convoluted than the actual play of the game. Get through that, and you're going to have fun!

thanks bro,

that's good advice and i am looking forward to geting the box open, mmmm that special new game smell, i'm sure FFG put their own brand of scent in their games.

Is there any errata i should know about?