Hi all! I had these character ideas rattling around in my head, and thought I’d put them out there for fun. Comment or critique as you will. I’ve made four separate posts you can check out: King, Conjuror, Gambler, and Vampire.

Vampire
Stats:
Strength: 4
Craft: 3

* Life: 3
Fate: 2

Home Base: The Graveyard
Alignment: Evil

Powers:

Your life max is equal to your out-of-combat Craft, up to a maximum of 6.

When you defeat a character in battle or psychic combat, you may choose to take one of their followers instead of any other reward.

When you are about to encounter a character, you may attempt to mesmerize (gain control of) one of their followers instead of other encounter options. To do this, roll a die.
Success:
3, 4, 5 or 6 vs. a Good character
4, 5 or 6 vs. a Neutral character
5 or 6 vs. an Evil character

At any time during your turn, you may consume a follower (discard it) to heal up to 2 Life.

i like it,,although i don't understand what you mean by life total of 6 with your craft

The Vampire I created starts with a Life of 3 (and can therefore Heal up to 3).

The Vampire's Life Maximum, and therefore the amount he can "heal", goes up as your Craft increases. When your craft is 4, your Life max is 4, Craft 5 = Life 5, and Craft 6 = Life 6. Your life max stops increasing when your Craft hits 6.

The Vampire is my fave of the characters I created, so I'm putting up a more balanced version:

Vampire

Statistics:

* Life: 3

Strength: 4

Craft: 3

Fate: 2

Alignment: Evil

Powers:

The Vampire's Life Max is equal to his out-of-combat Craft, up to a value of 6.

The Vampire may initiate Psychic Combat when encountering another character.

When the Vampire wins in Battle or Psychic Combat vs. another character, he may choose to take one of that characters' followers instead of any other reward.

At any time during his turn, the Vampire may consume (discard) a follower to Heal 2 Life.

___________________________

The Vampire's pic (another favorite game of mine):

Another way to handle lives is to limit how he gets them and not set and artificial maximum on top of an attribute parallel.

• You start with 3 Lives.
• You may gain any Life you take in Battle or Psychic Combat.
• If you defeat another character in Psychic Combat, you may take 1 Follower instead of other victory rewards.
• You automatically defeat any Enemy Undead.
• You may discard 1 Follower to gain 1 Life.
• Your total Lives may never exceed your current Craft.

And perhaps...

• Lose 2 Lives instead of 1 if you land on the Chapel or are defeated by any character bearing the Cross, Holy Grail, or using the Holy Lance.
• Gain 1 Life when you land on the Graveyard.

There's no need to state "out of combat." Anything that adds a bonus explicitly in Battle or Psychic Combat isn't counted at any other time.

Some people mistakenly or willfully misinterpret such cards as Weapons, etc. as applying in general (do to poor wording on those cards). But the cards do read explicitly as "in Battle" etc., which means they don't count at any other time or for any other purpose.

Nice ideas, but unfortunately "Life Max" does matter, what with the Healing spell, St. Josephine, etc. I think I'll keep my current wording on that.

The life gain is a neat idea, but I think it would have to specify "when you take a life from another character", other wise he'll be gaining Life left, right and center...

I'll also keep the discard a follower to heal 2 wording. It is in part a tribute to Vampire: Prince of the City, which was a great board game.

I don't want to pack this guy down with too many abilities, so I think I'll give your other ideas a pass, although they are interesting. Maybe put in "the Vampire's alignment must always be evil" so that the chapel is guaranteed to hurt him.

Final version:

Vampire

Statistics:

* Life: 3

Strength: 4

Craft: 3

Fate: 2

Alignment: Evil

Powers:

The Vampire's Life Maximum is equal to his Craft, up to a value of 6.

The Vampire may initiate Psychic Combat when encountering another character.

When the Vampire defeats another character and takes a Life, he gains 1 Life.

When the Vampire wins in Battle or Psychic Combat vs. another character, he may choose to take one of that characters' followers instead of any other reward.

At any time during his turn, the Vampire may consume (discard) a follower to Heal 2 Life, or to gain +1 Strength or +1 Craft until the end of the turn.

The Vampire's alignment must always be evil.

But does an undead really "heal"? Especially in Talisman? Think about the personas that offer healing, and would they really be able to do anything for a walking corpse?

In the end, you should of course do whatever works for you and gives you the most fun.

That picture lets me think about the legacy of kain...

/st Velhart yeah, too bad they're never going to finish that series. The team went their separate ways, Silicon Knight is no more, and the dude who did Kain's voice is dead. I just bought Blood Omen on the Playstation network for old times' sake. I can't help smiling every time I hear "Call your dogs, they can feast on your corp-ses!"

If you're not married to that image from the game, I might have something up my sleeve for an image... though it won't be so oriented towards the video style.

Nah, I just posted that pic for fun. Go nuts.

Okay, let me show you something. If you like it you can have it... or I'll pump out a card with your text on it. I'll be back tomorrow to display the sample.

Okay, B.D., here you are. If it is not to your taste, just say so; no loss, no offense. Not real vampire-ish in the stereotypical manner, but he has some of the pale, pasty-faced and ominous undead look going for him.

Wording has only been change so that all of it could fit on the card; the meaning should be the same as you intend. If not, I'll edit it to suit you. The graphic is full 300ppi (so 400+k) and simply dimension reduced here for display. You can right-click and save if you want it, and the character card back is available at Talisman Island. I can also mock up a standee if you want one.

Much as the Graveyard is the standard for uber-evils, you might consider the City for his starting space. It's an abundant feeding ground, where is kills would would be less noticed than say the Village. And afterall, exactly what is going to eat in the Graveyard?

Very, very nice. I see he's got Kain's white hair.

Kain? Must be from a game... but I'm not much of a video gamer anymore. If you'd like a Standee (for a lack of a miniature to match), let me know.

Thanks JC, but apparently Fantasy Flight beat you to it.

Apparently I'm a male chauvinist psychic

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=1211

Actually, FFG's simply simplifies and emulates any number of past vampire characters. I may have a slightly different take than yours on such a character, but yours is better than theirs. I'm pretty tired of the way they give such absolute powers (just take any Follower) to characters. It's a cheap and lazy way to force more conflict between players as a distraction from doing something more interesting and challenging with the game. Placing the taking of a Follower as a reward option, or requiring some form of action/doing to take the Follower, is better.

I don't even like the illustration on this one. They probably just made it female to have enough of both genders in the game, thinking that was an actual balancing thing. But how many real fighter or rogue types are female in the game? She certainly doesn't qualify.

Don't give up on your own vampire just yet. I'd take it over that official one any time; though yours may be a little overgunned, it is certainly more interesting to play. Here's the standee/token to go with it. Right-click and save to get the full 300ppi printable version.

Very, very neat. Thanks for the kind words! I'll take it to mean my game design skills have not yet completely rusted away.

Now to convince my friends (who love to argue about everything) that my Vampire is better...

Black Dawn said:

Oh my... good luck with that! Escpecially if their the kind to assume that the "official" stuff is always the best.

JCHendee said:

Ooh JC - I'll have one of whatever you're drinking....

heh heh... no glass of wine in hand this time... its just purely me spouting off.