Hi all, first post but have been reading quite a bit on the forum. I apologize if any of these questions have been answered, I did go through many posts and found the search results unfruitful as they included other game forums as well.

I've played Talisman on and off for years but recently just picked up the revised 4th and all expansions to go with, our family has been having a lot of fun ( and a few tears ) with it

I have a few questions about some rules that I couldn't find a totally clear answer for.

With modified followers, those acquired by Adventure or Dungeon cards such as the Haunt, Centaur, Lone Dwarf, Spirit of Vengeance, and Black Unicorn, are these treated like Followers in every respect? Can they be taken by the Sorceress? If so, can she take the Black Unicorn? Can the Gladiator train these type of Followers? Are they affected by the Dungeon Cell and Dungeon Keeper? I can be more specific with these cards if it helps.

After finishing a Warlock's quest and you are immediatly teleported to the cave, what if there are some cards on that space? Can the character pick them up? Before or after they receive the Talisman?

We've been trying to keep it pretty basic with movement modifiers, such as you can only use one of the Clockwork Owl, Riding Horse, Torch, etc at a time. What about the Amulet of Speed, Troll regeneration, or Amazon & Leprechaun movement skill? Say, if the Troll had the Amulet of Speed and got a 6, could he regenerate and teleport? I'm not sure if there are any other instances where there are natural dice rolls that could be used by character skills and objects at the same time, but that's the gist of what I'm wondering. Can you use the movement die roll for more than one action in any situation?

With the Poltergeist you can only move one space at a time. It isn't possible to fight the Sentinel to cross the Storm River is it? You have to have enough movement on your dice roll to cross the bridge, and you are not allowed to roll a die when you have the Poltergeist. Am I understanding this correctly?

I've read on the forums that you can't use Fate tokens for Death rolls. 'Fate can only be used to re-roll a die for your own character ' What I wasn't clear on was, can you use Fate tokens *at all* with Grim Reaper encounters? Either when the Grim Reaper visits you or on the Dice with Death space.

There's more I'm sure, but that's what's off the top of my head! Thanks in advance and also for all the clarification for rules we've found on the forum so far.

Hi there, nice to have a new big fan of Talisman revised 4th edition!

I'll do my best to give you proper answers.

inkblob said:

These are many questions in one.

Generally speaking, Followers who have no "Follower" keyword printed on them are treated like Followers only by the Character who has them. They cannot be taken by Sorceress/Mesmerism since they're not Followers to the Sorceress, but they should be affected by Dungeon Cell, Dungeon Keeper, Chasm, Vampire Prince, etc... Same applies for Ghoul, Minstrel, Necromancer and Ogre Chieftain Enemy Followers.

The Gladiator often generates problems with his ability to train. He looks able to train even the Hag, which is a Follower by all means, and he can do the same with "modified Followers", since they're Followers to him.

There's still some debate about such Followers in the main section, since the author John Goodenough has said that you can't ditch them voluntarily and if you're forced to lose one of them it is discarded. I prefer this solution as it is plain and simple, but things are not 100% defined yet.

inkblob said:

Yes, you can pick them up after receiving the Talisman. If you look at the Talisman Encounter Sequence at the end of rulebook, you should be able to understand what to do. In this case, the only difficult passage is when you receive the Talisman. You receive it as soon as you're teleported back to the Warlock's Cave, then you follow the rules for encountering the non draw card space. You might also accept a new quest if you want to. Before the end of the turn, you can pick up Objects on the space.

inkblob said:

You can use only one of these Objects at a time, but there are some differences. Riding Horse is a choice that excludes everything else: you roll two dice instead of one and that's it. All other Objects/Abilities based on the result of the single movement die are not triggered (i.e. Troll's Regeneration).

Torch (and Amazon special ability) allows you to roll 2 dice and choose the result to use; then you have several options:

1) move according to the result;

2) if Troll and it's a 6, regenerate but NOTHING else (you forfeit movement to regenerate as per Character Card);

3) if it's a 1 or a 6 you can use Amulet of Speed;

4) if it's a 6 you can use Flying Carpet./Leprechaun Special Ability

Torch does help you determine the result for moving. According to that, you can activate Objects/abilities that require a certain result.

inkblob said:

Sure you can lose the Poltergeist if you cross from Outer to Middle Region. If you're on the Sentinel Space (which is a Draw 1 card space) you can move to the Hills space in the Middle Region even with the Poltergeist. If you manage to pass the Sentinel, Poltergeist is gone.

inkblob said:

Dice with Death has 2 rolls: 2 dice for you Character and 2 dice for Death. You can use fate for your Character's roll but not for Death's roll. Other examples are rolls for Enemies such as the Hydra or the Cave Troll.

Thanks Good(enough) you can use Fate to re-roll on the Grim Reaper table, otherwise most games will result in a gruesome carnage, at least around here. It's considered a roll for your Character.

I think Fate Rule is excellent, but the paragraph that disciplines multiple dice rolls is a mess. The text puts it like re-rolling "only" one die out of 2 or more is a bad thing; on the contrary, this gives a great control over the final result, since it allows you to keep the other dice and this INCREASES your chances to succeed. I use a house rule and force people to re-roll all dice. I think it's more consistent with the spirit of Talisman and of the Fate rule itself, even if it contradicts the Rulebook.

ignore I shouldn't be learning a new quotes method at this hour, feel free to delete these posts!

ignore, learning quotes

ignore this too

The_Warlock said:

That definitly helps thanks! Basically, from whoever's POV that it's a Follower, then it's a Follower, whether that's a character or a space. If it's a Follower for the Gladiator, that dosn't make it one for the Sorceress, but it does for the Dungeon Keeper. How we've been playing it here is any Follower, positive or negative can be trained. It makes it amusing for sure.

The_Warlock said:

I wasn't sure because it was a specific sort of move. How we've been playing is that you have to come back to the Warlock's Cave a second time if you want another quest, I didn't know you could pick another one up right away! However, our Warlock quests are a bit modified and not sure if this is the best place to get into that. We'll definitly start picking stuff up if it comes up again. I'm still confused about what happens to stuff ditched on the Treasure Chamber, the jury seems to be out on that one

The_Warlock said:

We might be needing to make a flowchart up something just like this ^ You wouldn't think that it would come up that often but it invariably does. My wife loves the Amazon and Leprechaun and my first treasure pick is generally the Clockwork Owl, so movement always gets confusing! Before I did any research here on the forums it was just a mess, with riding horses and grim reapers....

The_Warlock said:

See, that's where I'm confused. On page 17:

A character may cross the Sentinel Bridge in either direction if the die roll for his move is sufficient to carry him across it and into the Region on the opposite side.

So if you are limited to one space a turn and no die rolls because you have the Poltergeist, then you don't have the 'momentum' to cross?

The_Warlock said:

That makes a lot more sense, of course you shouldn't be able to reroll Death's die, that would be like rerolling an enemies, crazy. We were rolling Fate on Death up until the last game, but it didn't matter as the player didn't have any more Fate to use. She was having a bad game... died 3 times, even with our nicely padded inheritance rules and turned into a Toad twice. Payback for the whipping I got last time though

Thanks for your great explanations! Part of the fun is always having to interpret the rules and find little loopholes and exploits, but for some of these it's fundamental gameplay that is pervasive throughout the whole session, so best to have a good bead on it!

inkblob said:

As the Faq states, when a character is teleported to the warlock cave to gain a talisman, his turn ends.

The character will not encounter the space or a other character there.

That means that you must land on the space again, if you want to take another quest

Velhart said:

Aah, thanks Velhart, I completely forgot this important clarification. It's a situation where you don't have to follow the flowchart but the FAQ.

Sorry inkblob, I gave you the bad answer for Warlock's Cave.

About the Sentinel, if the Rulebook says that your die roll must bring you after the Sentinel in order to cross the Bridge, it doesn't mean you technically have to roll the die for movement in order to cross it.

A better way to say it is "A character may cross the Sentinel Bridge in either direction if the extent of his move is sufficient to carry him across it and into the Region on the opposite side" .

If you have the Poltergeist, you may cross the bridge if you're on the Sentinel Space at the beginning of your turn. Obviously there are only 3 bridges in the game, which are 3 ways to get rid of the Poltergeist. The other is building a Raft.

ok, thanks guys! That sorts out some of the major wrinkles we've been having. It seems like we err'd on the right side of caution by having the player with the Poltergeist hobble their way over the bridge after a failed attempt at the Sentinel.

Now that I'm thinking about it, the turn of events was attempt to pass the Sentinel and it was a standoff, so she stayed there until her next turn, and then tried to pass the Sentinel again on her next which was successful, and then on to the Middle Region. Did we play that correctly, not having to move away first or anything?

inkblob said:

Yes, correct. She tried to pass once, failed, stayed on the Space (could not complete movement because of Sentinel), then tried to pass again next turn, succeded, and moved to the Hills, discarding Poltergeist and encountering the new space.

I'm still a bit confused actually. How we've been playing the Sentinel and the Portal of Power is you have to have sufficient movement to pass through, if you land exactly on it then you can only encounter the space. On pg. 19 it says:

A character can only try to open the Portal if his move is sufficient to carry him beyond it.

One time that I had the Poltergeist I remember that I was just boned and had to raft my way across, though there is the possibility of teleporting through portals or other methods like that.

Now, if you land on the Sentinel space on the Outer Region you would first have to encounter the space, as you are moving by one and your movement has to be suffcient to carry you across. The *next* turn, after you've been on the space 1 turn, then you should be able to cross over right? So with that logic, this would apply to the Portal of Power space as well?

If you're in the Sentinel space with Poltergeist, the 1 movement you have from Polt is still enough to carry you beyond the Sentinel space (to the Hills on the Middle Region), no? No different than you're on the Sentinel space at the start of your turn and roll a 1, except with Polt you don't get to roll and thus no Reaper activity. But otherwise, that 1 point of movement is enough to carry you through.

The more I think about it, the more it makes sense and we *almost* played it right. On her first turn with Polt she landed on Sentinel and battled him, that was an error. It was a stand-off which was good, but she should have pulled a card, which threw off the odds on the deck though. Her second turn she battled the Sentinel and then moved through, which was correct.

She brought up the Reaper because she was moving one space and of course I was 'hell no!'

inkblob said:

Yes, you engage the Sentinel in battle when you try to move across the bridge. Sentinel space is nothing more than a "draw 1 card" space.

Remember also that the Grim Reaper is activated only when a Character rolls a 1 on a single movement die. If you use Riding Horse or don't roll the die because of some effect/rule (Poltergeist, Slow Motion, Blizzard, Teleport, Inner Region), you don't have a chance to activate this "character".

I'm only unsure about Speed Spell... did we already talk about Speed + Reaper?

The_Warlock said:

It's not standing on my list, but it wil be the same as Horse+reaper..

You roll 2 dice's to move, so the reaper is not activated

Velhart said:

Technically, you don't. You roll 1 die and can then cast Speed to roll another die, adding that roll to your movement. End result I suspect is the same as Riding Horse.

Dam said:

Yeah oke, but the end result for moving was not a 1, because the player cast speed, and adds it to their die roll.

I also think that it will be the same result as the riding horse

I think an argument could be made for the situation where you roll a 1 on your movement die, then cast Speed. Regardless of the roll for Speed, you still rolled a 1 for your movement, would Reaper activate?

Dam said:

i still think that the Reaper will not activate, because you move more than 1 space because of the speed spell.

Same idea as the Horse, but a little different.

In other words. the player has roll higher than 1 with both dice rolls combined, and you move that many spaces around the board.

Depends on how interpretive you want to be with it, but I would lean towards just natural rolls. I think that I'm going to have to make some sort of chart for movement combos, what's permissable and not.