So I know you're all familiar with Tahlia. In my opinion, she's one of the more powerful characters in Descent. I'm also of the opinion that she's broken.

That being said, I have a friend who plays Descent and always hopes to pick her. When he is her the game isn't very fun for me as Overlord. It also isn't fun for the other heroes because she kills everyone.

So, my question: How would you nerf her and still keep the essence of her ability? Be creative. It could be anything from creating specialized counters for her, to a new interpretation of her power (or the rules).

Thanks!

Scottwick

PS - I don't want this to be a discussion of *whether* I should nerf her. I just want ideas on how to do it.

(for reference)

Worst. Character. Ever. Speaking from an OL's perspective. She also has like three questions in the FAQ on the many confusing ramifications of her ability. Want something even worse? Tahlia with Leadership. Effectively a run and a battle every turn for 1 fatigue.

As for ways to neutralize her, it's pretty tough without house rules. Dark Relics, I suppose. Frost, if you can swing that. If you're going to use house rules, I don't know - say she can only use her movement points for movement, and not for drinking potions or re-equipping and so on? Only let her move before attacking, and only if she can actually make an attack? Each space moved removes one power die from her guard attack?

Fun Tahlia story - we were playing the Prince of Thieves rumor level in RtL, in which the heroes start in one area, and you can pay 20 (?) threat to open a rune-locked door from another area to that area. There are lots of mean monsters in the rune-locked area, so you effectively can pay 20 threat to swamp the heroes with a ton of monsters. Our Tahlia character sat in front of the door the entire time with a guard on, so that if I ever opened the door, he could just interrupt my turn and close it immediately. So frustrating.

You could change her ability to the following:

When Talia discards a Guard order to make an interrupt attack, she may spend up to 3 fatigue to gain movement points that can be used before or after attacking.

This doesn't really change the concept of the ability but makes it much more expensive to use.

pit traps!! falling boulders!!! web!!! really just have those saved just for her annoying lil move thats how i nerf her!........and it works (most of the time)

Cymbaline said:

As OL I would love it if Tahlia spent the entire dungeon beside this door. I'd never pay to open it, of course, but I'd sure keep 20 threat around so I *could* if she even thought about leaving. Meanwhile I'd do everything in my power to pull the rest of the party far, far away. Worst Hero Ever - Neutralized.

Also, whatever nerfs you come up with, remember that a Guard order is lost if the hero takes a wound. If you know she's waiting for a particular monster to use Guard on, try to pelt her with less important monsters first and see if you can nix it. Remember that although guard can be used at any time, it can't be used between rolling dice and resolving the attack, since that's all one "thing." If she decides to ignore the skellie, she might end up losing out. The same plan would work if you really wanted to open that door in the Prince of Thieves rumour level. Spawn some skellies on the near side somewhere and pelt her until she loses (or uses) the Guard order, then open the door.

Steve-O said:

True, true. I suppose it all worked out pretty well for me, but it just sucks to have all these devious plans for swarming the heroes, and then have them neutralized. Such is the nature of the game!

Cymbaline said:

Actually the way I read the description, Tahlia is NOT allowed to do things like closing doors or using glyphs etc since it states that she 'may move a number of spaces' which probably is a good way to balance her up as well. She can only move (and PURELY just move) but cannot do actions like opening chest etc.

Wanderer999 said:

That is a completely reasonable and rational conclusion to reach, but through the magic of Descent, it also happens to be incorrect. "You can move X spaces" is the normal language they use for handing out movement points; they use the same langauage for the Advance, Run, and Ready actions in the rulebook.

That may not be definitive, but there's also a quote from the Gathered List of Answered Questions, page 3 :

"Tahlia receives movement points as a result of her ability (it's the same wording as always), so she can perform movement actions with them. Note that if she opens a chest or a door or whatever, that's okay. It simply gets resolved and then (once her interrupt action is done) the OL's turn continues as normal. Think of it sort of as her getting an Advance instead of just an interrupt attack (but she doesn't REALLY get an Advance, so no munchkining combos).

But no, she can't spend fatigue on extra movement, as it isn't her turn. Items like the ring of quickness don't give her extra movement because again, it isn't her turn. OLs beware, however, as she can use her interrupt movement to go through a glyph to town, or even to lurk in town with a guard order, only to pop back through into the dungeon on the OL's turn (remember, only 1 trip through the glyph per turn, though). You will need to watch your monsters around a guarding Tahlia. In fact, several of the heroes in AoD will force you to change your strategies. Hey, why should the heroes be the only ones to have to do that?

-Kevin Wilson
Fantasy Flight Games"

As for balancing her, you could consider using my point-buy hero generator . The point value assigned to abilities is fairly subjective, but it might at least give you a position to start from.

Under the default settings, you can bring Tahlia's BP (build point) cost down to "normal" levels in various ways:

• Reduce her armor from 2 to 1, and move one of her fighting skills into another category.
• Reduce her wounds from 16 to 12, and move one of her melee dice into another trait.
• Reduce her fatigue from 3 to 2, and change her trait distribution to 1/1/1.
• Replace her ability with the following: "You may discard a Rest order during the overlord's turn to immediately move your speed."

Do those sound more balanced to anyone?

Wanderer999 said:

Unfortunately, what the card says is not actually what the card means.

FAQ:
Q: Can Tahlia drink a potion or use a glyph on the Overlord's turn when she Guard interrupts if she already drank/used one on her turn?
A: No.

Implicit in this question is the assumption that Tahlia can drink a potion if she has not already met her 1-per-turn quota, and the response does nothing to contradict that assumption.

There's also the GLoAQ quote, but Antistone beat me to it so I'm deleting that part of my post before publishing.

Actually in my current RtL campaign i had massive problems about tahlia as well, especially b/c she has tiger tatoo. So we nerved her in a way i'm not completely comfortable but the hero fraction wouldn't agree to other suggestions. So tahlia is only allowed to attack monsters, to which she has LOS during any time of the OL turn. Furthermore she may not interrupt spawn spells. She is still strong but as OL i can at least hide my important creatures.

Hinni said:

I'm confused; you can't normally attack a monster unless you have line-of-sight to it, and Guard attacks are made during the overlord's turn, so if you permit her to attack a monster as long as she has line-of-sight to it at some point during the overlord turn, what exactly does that prevent?

Also, the rule about not interrupting spawn cards is weird. Does that mean that you don't allow her to use her Guard order at all until the overlord stats activating monsters, even though other heroes can do so? If you only mean that she can't decide to use her Guard in response to the overlord declaring the intent to play a spawn card, that's pretty specific and seems fairly minor. You know that if the card is interrupted, you "rewind" to before it was played, and the overlord can choose to play a different card or no card at all, right?

Well that rewind thing is everything but clear. E.g. you can't rewind a dark charm as stated in the FAQ. So i guess you can't take back a spawn spell either (for example by my understanding the rules state that tahlia could interrupt a spawn spell and move so that there are no valid spaces to spawn anymore). But you are right thats only a minor point, my heroes didn't even want to do that but we agreed to that rule to prevent later arguments.

By our houserule tahlia may only interrupt to attack a monster if she had LOS to that monster at that space that she ended her movement in the heroes turn (at any time during the OL turn). When I want to write that down it kinda sounds confusing. So I'm trying again, sorry my english is kind of bad.

Tahlia ends her turn on some space X. If she interrupts the OL turn, she may only attack a monster to which she had LOS at some time during the OL turn from space X.

Hinni said:

The FAQ answer is a bit confusing, but I don't think it means that. You're presumably looking at this sentence: "If you interrupt the Dark Charm and kill the target hero, then the card is canceled without further effect." I believe "canceled" here means that it's as if the card was never played; it remains in the overlord's hand. Any other reading contradicts every other clarification of Guard orders. In particular, this part from earlier in the same answer:

"Guard orders can interrupt the overlord at any time. However, each action should be resolved in its entirety once it’s been begun."

And this from the GLoAQ :

"Does the OL have to continue his same course of action when interrupted by a guard action?

The OL may change his mind after being interrupted. (…) the OL can change his mind after being interrupted, (…) treat it as though you did a little 'rewind' to right before he declared an attack. The OL, after being interrupted after declaring an attack, may choose to continue with the attack, change its target, or even not to make the attack at all. (Edited to keep the context of the answer)"

Hinni said:

Your English seems to be pretty good, actually. I think that sounds confusing because it's a complicated rule; it makes the actions a hero can take at one point in time dependent on line-of-sight at a whole bunch of different board configurations that no longer exist. I wouldn't want to try to keep track of that.

So she can't target any space currently occupied by a monster she didn't see, even if she saw the space itself during the overlord's turn? That could have fairly bizarre ramifications if she ever uses an area weapon.

I've rarely had a problem with Tahlia as OL. One Skeleton standing more than three spaces away is usually enough to get rid of the Guard token, otherwise any number of traps to interrupt her progress work as well.

Even if she has Tiger Tattoo the traps still work. Especially pit traps. Yes she won't take damage but having to spend the extra 1MP to get out of the pit can make a difference.

Now, when Tahlia gets Shadow Soul or Unmovable...then she gets problematic.

I think my favorite build in RtL with her is Tiger Tattoo, Shadow Soul, Unmovable, Knight.

Antistone said:

Sure looks good to me, more 'playable'! But the last part should not be introduced. (The replacement of her ability) This is because Tahlia was created with the intention to be one of the MOST powerful heroes out there, and yet is a female. Something like a legendary swashbuckling lady that can kick the ass of even her toughest male teammates. If u change her ability, she no longer becomes the deadly being all OLs fear and hate. I will say just your stats-changes is fine enough.

Ok, I've read 'canceled without further effects' as 'discard the card without effect' and looking at the dictionary 'cancel' seems to have so many meanings. :)As there is nothing mentioned about regaining your thread I'm not so sure. On the german board we came to a different conclusion. I like your interpretation better though.

Tahlia with Tiger Tattoo is really really strong. You can't play pit holes and she has another MP which allows her to target so many monsters (well I just looked at the english text of tiger tattoo and it's different than the german translation they used 'ignore' pit traps). My heroes used to hide tahlia behind two other heroes so she could not be targeted and then waited for my important monsters to advance. As almost all dungeons in RtL have a small corridor at the beginning that strategy was very hard for me to deal with.

My houseroule is a bit complex that's right and you have to remember which monsters she has seen. But it works well for us balance-wise.

I'm not sure about your question Antistone. So she didn't see that monster but she saw that space the monster is on? So are you thinking about a large monster which blocks its own LOS? In that case we would probably allow the hero to attack. If Tahlia was knockbacked we would not. I'm not sure about area weapons as Tahlia is melee and while it's theoretically possible it's seems unlkely for her to use a magic weapon.

Antistone said:

Antistone, could you elaborate your belief that "cancel" means "card remains with the OL, threat is given back to him" in this case?

Parathion said:

If you look at the FAQ answer in isolation, I would think it means the card and the threat are "wasted". (They did result in a hero death, so it's not entirely wasted). The answer would be much clearer, though, if it said "the card is discarded without further effect"...

I won't presume to speak for Antistone, but the comment in the GLoAQ could imply a different answer.

The OL may change his mind after being interrupted. (…) the OL can change his mind after being interrupted, (…) treat it as though you did a little 'rewind' to right before he declared an attack. The OL, after being interrupted after declaring an attack, may choose to continue with the attack, change its target, or even not to make the attack at all.

Technically, this answer is strictly addressing the case of the OL being interrupted after declaring an attack. But if you imagine the answer applies to any action, not just attacks, you get something like this: (changes in bold)

The OL may change his mind after being interrupted. (…) the OL can change his mind after being interrupted, (…) treat it as though you did a little 'rewind' to right before he declared an action . The OL, after being interrupted after declaring an action , may choose to continue with the action , change its target, or even not to take the action at all.

By this reasoning, the Dark Charm card would go back in the OL's hand and the threat would be returned. He could then choose to use the Dark Charm as originally declared, target a different hero with it, or not play it at all.

Hinni said:

I was actually imagining a situation where Tahlia has a clear field of view, then monster A comes out and stands close to her to block her view, then monster B moves through the spaces that Tahlia can no longer see because monster A is in the way.

Parathion said:

I'm not sure what you want me to elaborate on. In this case, I'm interpret "cancel" as meaning that his attempt to play the card is canceled, and the game proceeds as if he hasn't made that attempt; this means he still has the card in his hand, still has any threat used to play it, and is still allowed to play a trap card in response to that triggering condition (in this case, "at the start of your turn"). Like Mahkra said.

The only options I see are:

1. The first part of the FAQ answer ("each action should be resolved in its entirety once it’s been begun") is highly misleading, and the GLoAQ answer is flat-out wrong. Guard actions made in respoonse to the declaration of an action are resolved before that action, but the overlord is still committed to that action and cannot change his mind, even if the action doesn't make sense, or even if it would no longer be legal to declare it . So, for example, Tahlia could use a Guard to slam a door shut in a monster's face after it declares an attack, and that monster doesn't get to make any attack that turn, because it's declared attack no longer has line-of-sight.
2. The "rewind" answer for attacks is correct for attacks, but overlord cards work entirely differently. The first part of the FAQ answer is still misleading, there's a major and critical distinction between interrupting attacks and interrupting cards that has never been explicitly stated anywhere and isn't even hinted at in the actual rulebook, and we have no clue what the rules are for interrupting anything except attacks or cards (e.g. movement).
3. The first part of the FAQ answer has its apparent meaning, the GLoAQ answer is entirely correct (and generalizable), and the use of the word "cancel" at the end of the FAQ answer is misleading. The rules are simple and consistent, they just made a poor choice of words in explaining one example in a secondary document.

I think the third option is the most plausible and leads to the best gameplay.

Antistone said:

FWIW I'm inclined to agree on this point. If a discrete action is interrupted by another effect, that action should be "rewound" and the interrupt treated as happening immediately before said action began. Once the interrupt is complete, the original player may continue his turn, either with the same action or a different one as the new circumstances allow.

The alternatives Antistone lists are too horrendous for me to contemplate. I certainly don't want to have to define how interrupting actions works on a case by case basis, if I can avoid it.

Edit: Apparently my quotation caused the list number "3" to become "1." Weird, but whatever, the text is still list item #3.

Thanks for the ideas guys! I tend towards making her ability cost fatigue to use or decreasing her armor.