Looks like another base game character (Sorceress) gets one-upped by an expansion character . Sorceress used to be special, able to steal Followers (Minstrel can also take Maiden), but Vampiress trumps the Follower stealing, gets more Life, better healing, only missing Beguile, which to be honest only works on Evil chars, time to time with Neutrals.

Dam said:

I will agree with you Dam. I also miss some more balance with the characters. Would have been better if she had to beguile the followers and convert them into some vampire debutants (wannabe vampires) or something, who she ofcourse just take the life of.

Nah, she is fine as she is

But that is my opinion off course

We have finally a Vampire..

Thanks FFG

Dam said:

Honestly I think the Vampiress is weak. Psychic combat is good, but lots of character's have that. Other wise all she really does is steal followers and gain life. Compared to the Alchemist or the Frostmarch characters she seems like a throwback to (roughly) the base game power levels.

Yes, life is good, and I can see Vapmiress not dying very much. But in our games death is rare anyway - we have a lot of games with no deaths and few games with more than one. Often death is by the hand of The Reaper, where neither life nor healing will help at all - rather fate is paramount.

At first I was glad to see (what I perceive) as lower power, but in retrospect I'm not sure it will matter. Now that we already have so many very strong characters it hardly matters if new ones are on the weak end or strong end of the existing range (as long as they don't get even more powerful, as that would further widen the gap). Once the gap is established it can never be closed.

As far Sorceress is concerned, Vampiress only barely trumps her follower stealing. Life and healing are good but hardly fantastic. Beguile isn't great, but it's useful sometimes. When we get dark fate, Beguile might become very good (albeit situational) against any alignment.

That's my two cents. I can't wait for the expansion!

Edit - I was expecting her to have a life stealing ability - take a life from a character in battle/psychic combat to gain a life.

Vampiress is nice but I would like to see more "neutral" characters to show up.

Sometime it's nice to be good and it make being bad so much more fun, but in the end, it's better to be neutral and do the unexpectable

Cheers

crimhead said:

I wouldn't say lots of chars can psychic combat another. Only 5 out of the current 27 can do it, if I counted correctly. I'd say psychic combat ability is uncommon or even rare if you go by the numbers.

crimhead said:

For us, death isn't that common, less than 1 death per game, 74 mid-game deaths in 97 games (again, if math is correct). But only 18 of those have been Reaper kills, leaving 56 from Enemies or the most common case, PvP kills. Life losses are an issue every game, most games someone will be at risk at some point and look for healing.

As for Fate, I think Vampiress landing in Graveyard will go back to 5 Lives AND also boost her Fate to 3 by encountering the space. At least her ability is worded like that of the Druid's and Leprechaun's, both of who get their stuff (Spells or Gold) first, before any encounter, so same should apply to the Vampiress, land on Graveyard, heal up to starting Lives, then encounter space (or character). Of course, we have the BI board, but only use the Village errata, so no Fate replenish for anyone.

crimhead said:

I would also say the 3/3 split of her stats will keep her alive more than the 2/4 of the Sorceress. And allow her to make gains faster. There are still more and better Craft Followers than Str Followers, the latter only seem to work in combat, while the former (Maiden, Familiar) boost your stat AND help you in psychic combat.

I think the Vampires biggest advantage is the lifereplenish on the graveyeard. Usually evil have it harder to get life and good to get fate. She suffers nothing there and combined with all her other great skills, she seems a bit unbalanced with others characters.

But the sorceress still have other advantages like starting the game with 1 spell, and that can in many cases give a good start.

cheers

crimhead said:

I can't say that the vampire is weak.

In my eyes, she is powerful.

The vampire has the psychic combat ability, and the alchemist not. ( that's a throwback for the alchemist )

Stealing followers, gain lives and healing in a graveyard makes her far more dangerous than the alchemist.

Dam said:

Yeah, i think that too.

That's a very good ability.

Evil characters have always a difficult time to heal, but the vampiress don;t have to worry about that.

-

But if she is good and land on the graveyard, what should come first. losing one life or replenish to 5 lives?..

I think that the replenish comes first...?

Mr. Brogger said:

Well, there are enough spells that are less powerful..

But if she has some luck to draw transference, or random etc, then it can make a difference later in the game..

Velhart said:

This is a good qustion Velhart.

Dam said:

That's almost twenty per cent. It allows you to beat other players with higher strength but lower craft than you. It's goood, but not really that special.

Dam said:

True, life loss is always an issue. Having to chase healing spots can divert you from otherwise better actions. Of course Alchemist won't have any problem with life loss either. And he'll have spells and fate up the ying yang.

You have the advantage of actually recording statistics. I'm going by memory which is unreliable because some things are more memorable than others.

Dam said:

Sorry to hear about your board.

A life plus fate boost is good, but you have to actually land in the graveyard for that. Sometimes I've spent all game trying to land there. The alchemist can get life and/or fate anywhere just about any time.

Dam said:

We play with the speed rule of one extra strength or craft to start, so for us booth these characters will most likely be 3/4 anyway. But not everyone plays that way, so your point is valid.

Velhart said:

Healing is easier for the Alchemist, I think, as is replenishing fate. Spells are amazing.

But I meant weak by expansion standards - I think she's about average for base game standards, maybe on the high end of average.

Mr. Brogger said:

I thought maybe she did. All in all I might be as happy to play Sorceress. Both of these characters are better in games with lots of players, I think. I'll take the Alchemist over either.

Cheers!

Sorry, double post.

I'm not comparing Vampiress to the Alchemist (tough call between those two, probably would give the nod to the Alchemist), I'm comparing Vampiress to the Sorceress, since their abilities overlap in the key parts. To me, Vampiress is another case of the power creep, which sees the base game (and quite a few of the Reaper ones as well) becoming weaker and weaker overall. Already they are struggling to hold their own (barring Troll and Sage), now the Sorceress for example loses her unique status as being the only real threat regarding Follower taking. Vampiress gets the same psychic combat as Sorc, 1 more life, same Fate, but gets to heal + Fate at Graveyard, where Sorceress only gets to replenish Fate.

As for my board, dont' be sorry . I dislike Fate and thus I only use the Village errata. I have to keep Fate in the game so that I don't have to remove any of the Adventure cards that give Fate, but I minimize the amount of it. Most of the time, the Fate you start with needs to last you the whole game. If you get Fate Stealer, you're going to get a lot more use out of Fate than the other characters, which of course makes you a target for PvP.

If it is sorceress vs Dark cultist, then the beguile from sorceress is interesting.

Rolling 4 or higher to beguile is a good chance to take a object or gold.

Every character has his own abilities, otherwise it would be boring..

PS: this page is corrupt now. i hope that the next page is normal again...

Yes, sadly i can't quite read these.

It is possible.

Press reply and look below.

Then you can see what everyone is saying.

Thanks for the tip, Velhart!

@Dam - while Vampiress may be better than Sorceress

(I'm not sure on that), I don't think she's much better

(beguile and the spell count for something).

And I think Sorceress is bellow average for the base game.

Thus I conclude that Vampiress is not actually stronger than

your average base game character, but that's only my opinion.

If we get more alignment change events, then it is possible that characters will change to evil, so that the sorceress has a higher chance to use her beguile ability..

There are only 2 ? alignment change cards.

That's not much compare to a 290 card deck..

I think it is clear that the Vampiress, if turned to Good and lands on the Graveyard will loose a life before anyother actions there.

Why? Land ability for Druid and Leprechaun happens before anything else, so why not Vampire? Suppose there is another char at Graveyard. Vampiress lands there, gets her Lives back to full, then chooses to encounter the character. She is not encoutering the space, so Graveyard doesn't do anything for her.

Velhart - As this thread has gone skewy (not the first to do so), why not start a new topic for Talisman: The Highland expansion - Part 2?

Oh.... forget that as it seems to have righted itself now... What odd forum software!

Only previous page went mad

Hi, Velhart

Only parts of the previous page went bonkers. I say we blame crimhead, it was his quoting that messed things up .

I was expecting already that the next page would be good again.

I counted the reply's on the previous page.

15 reply's were needed to go to the next page..

Let's go on with the talk