House Rules for Talisman.

Character Generation (gesalt/munchkin style)
This blends powers where they make sense. It allows more variation and possibly outright abuse. (eg; leprechaun-thiefs). This came about when playing 3rd ed, spellcasters become overpowering, thus giving everyone a fair shot of adding spellcasting innately to their characters. If something comes in conflict, just choose one. : eg: if you are ALWAYS evil, and you are a druid-something, then obviously the always evil has to give way to the druid power.. Always Evil+ Always Good = choose one and stick to it.

a) In a 3 player game, Make 6 piles of 3. choose 1 character from each pile. (ie; 2 piles for each player, 1 char from each pile)

b) stats combine (if you want a faster game). (str/craft). Fate = choose the worst, Life choose the worst (aka everyone has 4 life) (unless you want to ignore rule (d), then choose the best.)

Prevent infinite spellcasting
c) Spellcasters RENEW spells at the start of their turn.

Movement
d) Movement: you can always choose to stop at the city, village, temple, graveyard, tavern if your movement dice exceeds and brings you past it. (declare before rolling)

Warlock Quests
e) For now: completing quests give you a 50% chance of treasure from the dungeon rewards. once the sacred pool expansion is out, this is unnecessary.

Adventure Deck + Gold spending characters
f) The adventure deck is split into two piles, player can choose whichever pile to take from. Any character who can peek at the top of the adventurer deck can look at either deck before they draw.
g) All adventure cards that allow you to spend gold (eg: sorcerer) cannot be destroyed. instead, they are moved to the top of ONE of the adventure piles when such a spell/event happens. (since there are two piles, the next person to draw an adventure card can then "resurrect them" if they choose from the appropiate deck..and yes, the evil prophetess draw 2 ability can then put them out of play permanently into the discard pile thereafter)

Talisman Extra uses

h) You can discard a talisman (on to the gameboard) to teleport to any square in the middle or outer region (excluding dungeon/highlands/expansions) not occupied by any player. (ie: behaves like hearthrune)


~~~~Reaper suggestions, to make it an even ***** fight~~~~
1) On a 1, teleport the reaper to a square in the same region NOT occupied by another player in the outer/middle region. (the reaper cannot teleport into expansion maps: dungeon/highland, otherwise people will just place the reaper at the end of the dungeon/highlands? OR SHOULD they be allowed to.. lol), a reaper free dungeon/highlands will see more visitation there anyway.

2) If you LAND on the reaper, you MUST encounter the reaper first (yes, its a change from the rules, the reaper becomes a land mine to land on, or someone to block access to that nice pool of wisdom)

3) You can pay 1G to avoid being toaded/killed on a die roll of 1. (use for gold) (if you don't like instant kill, changed reaper to toad on a roll of 1)

4) At the end of your turn, you can Discard a talisman (discard pile OR adventure pile + reshuffle unused cards) / 3 gold to teleport the reaper ON another player. (except inner region/expansions) . (I suppose that is also the last ditch to use the reaper to stop someone from entering the inner region since they must stop at the portal of power)

~~~Point system~~~

if the game takes too long or the variant endings unsatisfactory or time runs out, then a point system is in place. the first person to reach the crown of command can end the game and everyone counts points

~Catan ending for games.~
2 points for each craft/strength above the start value (from objects/followers)
1 point for each fate/luk
1 point for each gold
2 points for each completed quest
10 points for the each person to reach the crown of command.

Modify and adapt to your own liking..

(some amendments, so that the leprechaun cannot just willy nilly abuse the reaper like a always on random spell)

4) At the end of your turn, you can Discard a talisman (discard pile OR adventure pile + reshuffle unused cards) to teleport the reaper ON another player. (except inner region/expansions) . (I suppose that is also the last ditch to use the reaper to stop someone from entering the inner region since they must stop at the portal of power)

5) At the end of your turn, you can bargain with Death. pay 3g and roll a dice. On 2,3,4,5,6 , you can move the reaper to any player. that player must encounter the reaper. On a roll of 1, you lose 1 life or 1 fate or your next turn (your choice)

~~

I just want to clarify that there is no infinite spellcasting in the rules as written. You can only cast a number of spells on your turn equal to the number of spells you start your turn with, and you can only cast one spell on each other character's turn. So the Wizard, if he was really lucky, as there's no guarantee that he'll even be able to cast the spells in the first place, would usually only be able to cast upto six spells in a single round, presuming he started it with one spell.

chrisloup said:

We have similar rules, though for the movement one (which we call "Forced March") there are some other restrictions as well. We may simplify these a bit, be we found the option to stop was being abused in a few ways.

You can only cast a number of spells on your turn equal to the number of spells you start your turn with, and you can only cast one spell on each other character's turn. So the Wizard, if he was really lucky, as there's no guarantee that he'll even be able to cast the spells in the first place, would usually only be able to cast upto six spells in a single round, presuming he started it with one spell.

Which is too many spells for any character in one round... even under special conditions. The problem therein should be obvious; the more players, suddenly the more spells he can potentially use... which is ridiculous. Same situation occurs with any spell-drawing character, or any character with the wand, and my group has seen some terribly tedious rounds where more time was spent interrupting turns with spells than taking actual turns.

Personally, I don't mind. There are plenty of characters that excell when there are more characters on the board. Should we nerf them too?

Anyway, if you don't like it, it is easy to rule that you may only cast a single spell from the end of your turn to the start of your next turn. Wouldn't that fix the problem quite nicely?

Replentishing spells at the beginning of a turn is far cleaner and easier. No accounting that 1 extra spell per a "round", and everyone is subject to the same limitation regardless... spell-drawers or otherwise. As to characters that have abilities more potent when more characters are on the board, that is apples and oranges when they are compared to Spells.

Those abilities are limited (usually) to CvC (Character vs Character); characters have to actually encounter each other inside the game environment (on the board) to use them. So most such are often used only in the player's / character's own turn.

Spells have no such (and very little other) limitations. They can often be tossed at any time, from anywhere, to anywhere, with complete disregard ofhte character's attribute's and position (in most cases) other than having enough craft for at least 1 Spell. Spells are mostly about PvP (Player vs. Player) and not placed inside the game environment (CvC) like most character abilities.