Some characters, like the Enchantress or the Dwarf, have abilities that target very specific cards . With the addition of new adventure cards, these abilties get "weakened".

Why don't we expand those abilties to include cards that were introduced in later expansions?

For example the Enchantress power could be "expanded" to include one or two follower for each expansion that are declared immune to "kidnapping", respecting the idea that such follower should be somehow "pure" or "holy". Such followers could also be made "vulnerable" to the Minstrel.

A short review of existing characters with this issue:

Elf - Powers linked to Woods. Not easily expandable to include new boards. I'd leave it as it is.

Druid - see above. I'd leave it as it is.

Troll - Hasn't to roll in the Crags. Could it be "widened" to some other space in the Highlands board?

Thief - Can steal from the Purchase Deck upon encountering two board spacse or Market Day. Other Market Day - like adventure cards in the expansions? I think it could be left as it is because even with only the base game its power is 90% used in the Village or City, so the Thief is not really weakened by dilution.

Dwarf - Doesn't have to roll on Crags or Chasm, can evade in the Hills, has a +1 in the Cave, is immune to Maze. There's space for improvement!

Merchant - see Thief.

Leprehaun - Hasn't to roll in the Forest. I'd leave him as it is because he's broken enough.

Swashbuckler - Draws an extra card in the Fields, and has +1 in the Tavern. These two powers seems more related to "flavour" than character balancing, so there's no great need to empower him.

Enchantress - The Unicorn, Princess and Maid are immune to her kidnapping. Should be expanded to include other "pure" followers.

Minstrel - Can charm Maid or Princess. Other female followers that would fit theme-wise?

I think overall, when it comes to Realms (expansion boards) it might be better not to include spaces from those. This keeps such areas and levelers for all characters. That being said...

Cynewulf said:

Perhaps the Ridgeway?

Cynewulf said:

Perhaps something to do with Ridgeway again? Or perhaps the city space in the Highlands.

It's difficult to make a call concerning followers, as there are few that would match the ones you mention except according to personal interpretation.

I just noticed that the Highland board (sorry, I don't have that expansion yet! I have the game in Italian and we don't have the Highlands yet) has plenty of Hills spacse, so the Dwarf doesn't need any help in the Highlands board. Instead there are so many ways to make the Dwarf interact with the Dungeon that I can't decide.

Back to the Enchantress: St.Josephine qualifies perfectly to the criteria I said above...

Yes, by your suggestions, St. J would certainly qualify. But I think there's still one issue at stake here... with expansions still coming, all of these additions/exceptions will just keep growing and growing. Talisman has one influence created by its mish-mosh of add-ins. The overt randomness of it all does tend to level out characters for Abilities that much interact with specific cards or specific board spaces. However, there are new characters with abilities that are independant of such or interact based on card types. An example is the Alchemist, which will always remain as potent as it is versus characters with abilities dependent on named cards and spaces. That's a character balancing issue of another kind, more serious and more difficult to address.

JCHendee said:

Of course....

JCHendee said:

Ok, that's exactly the problem I am trying to "patch" here. Thanks for the input.

Update ->

These are the ideas I came up with (for now):

Dwarf - In the Hall of Darkness, he can ignore the space restrictions and move normally. He is immune to Cave In. Can reroll 1s once when fighting with Goblins and Hobgoblins. [Goblins are found in Reaper and Frostmarch too. THe power to reroll 1s brings the average of dice roll from 3.5 to 4.05, so it shouldn't make life too easy for the dwarf, not even in the dungeon where Goblins are the most represented monster type]

Enchantress - St.Josephine is immune to her power.

Minstrel - He can also "steal" the Genie, the Herbalist, the Faithful Hound and the Magpie. [Pretty arbitrary, I admit it!]

Do you mean the dwarf gets a +1 in Battle vs Goblins, or he gets to re-roll if he rolls a 1 against goblins?

JCHendee said:

The latter.

Okay, at first I wasn't sure about the +1, as that's a straight up advantage against some rather weak opponents. But the re-roll seems somehow more balanced, less excessive.

Should get together a list of character updates and do them as a group.

I want the elf to have a one space bow.

Uvatha said:

I seek for ideas that "compensate" for the power-dilution of the characters that were clearly conceived with only the base game in mind. In turn, such ideas shouldn't break the characters if they are used in the base game alone.

I owned/played 2nd and now I ordered the entire 4th edition. I own all the 2nd edition minis (fully painted) and I think this is what I am going to do and anyone who has those models might do the same.

I want to take all the characters and one of those programs that allows me to create my own characters and simply create a full set of the characters myself. If I feel something is imbalanced I was going to tweek it. In the end I might use or play against any of the characters and thus I want it to be as balanced as possible but to retain the flavor of each character.

I also thought for example, the Ghoul actually looks like a Nosferatu more than anything and thus the Ghoul ability I was going to give to the Necromancer (ie can Raise a defeated foe as a follower instead of as a trophy) and make the Nosferatu more like the Vampiress. I know I could call it the Vampire but Nosferatu fits better. Thus I will make moves like this.

That means you'll see the 2nd edition characters in 4th edition but re-balanced. The cool thing is hopefully you can alter it if you want.

For the images I can find images I think appropriate but I was thinking of snapping pics of the minis on a neutral background thus the image will look like the mini.

At this stage that is my thinking and it might change as I won't get the game till late october/early november as I am waiting on the Sacred Pool I preordered but when I'm done I was going to post a link to the files.

If someone finds them useful, use them, as a side benefit I can update any abilities mentioned that seem to water down as new expansions are added, and I can continue to update. Also as home-brew characters since all will be printed on the same card stock you won't be able to tell which is original and which is homebrewed. They will all have the same look from the back if you randomly characters.

I'll call them Foreshadow's Characters or something like that.

In regard to my above post. I might want to post ideas and have you guys critique the character and if so I'll explain why I made any changes.

Things in my thinking so far: I saw a Farie character that was homebrewed and I think I liked that it regained full complement of spells when in the Woods. The official farie always has 2 spells. I might keep that I might play with an idea like the above.

Another idea I read and liked was the Elf can move to any Woods space. When I get the board I might look and if there is a Woods/Forest space in the middle region I might alter the phrase 'in the same region' to 'any Woods or Forest space' thus he can do it and that would be one of the cool things about that character. I never really wanted to play the Elf before and that might be something neat about it that would attract a player. Do I think it is nice, yes, but game breaking no. That is what abilities can be, nice such as 'can roll 2 dice and keep the highest' for combat, stuff like that.

I also don't have a Valkryie model (they never made one). I bought a proxy but I don't like it yet I like some of what is on here and thus abiities from all characters will go into a database and then I will build from there. Yet, she is basically a good character whose abilities seem to transplant individual well. For example her ability to add one to craft or strength, that might be a good Kung Fu Master (ie martial artist) ability.

I always thought characters like the Hobgoblin where an afterthought in 2nd and want each character to be useful. I also noticed the same ability on the philosopher and the prophetess. Yet, the other details of the characers were different to make sure they were not the same. I was going to rename the Hobgoblin into an Orc (as he looks like one, and the Orc looks more like an Ogre Chieftain) and then give the Hobgoblin the Warrior ability of using 2 weapons as that model has 2 weapons. It would be an evil warrior in some ways but of course have differences like you see from the philosopher and prophetess.

I don't like how a character like the Sprite has 2 spells constantly and then the Wizard starts with 2 and that's it. I was thinking (and this might change) that he start with 3 spells but then thought no, keep it at 2 but he should at least always have one spell. So I might make a change like that but in the end I need to look at all the characters, like the developer of these characters, and make decisions from there but that is an example of an idea I was thinking.

Why state this: Here is where you come in. Make a suggestion, especially about an existing character and I will add it tot he 'food for thought' bin and go from there in the creative process.

Basically, I bought and own this game and spent some good money on it and want to get the most fun and use out of it. I loved 2nd edition and yes I like the new characters but since I own the old minis (and they are expensive to get) and they are all basically all professional quality painted I wish to go this route.

P.S. I might post a link of pics to my minis so you can see the spiffy paint jobs and perhaps I might wait till I have the finished character cards to put by them. If so I'll post a link in another thread. I even have a mini for the Reaper (metal, a GW mini from the days when the talisman minis were created and fits/looks perfect).

Foreshadow, can you explain in one or two lines of text, how is your last post related to the topic?

Anyway....

maybe another way to solve the problem (especially the dwarf issue) is to completely rewrite the abilities, removing any card-specific powers.

For example, the minstrel could become: "Roll a dice when you encounter another character. On a 6, you can steal a follower from him". (The advantage for the minstrel is that now he can steal basically ANY follower. The disadvantage, is that this is not guaranteed. I am not even sure if the RAW Minstrel must encounter a character to steal the Maid/Princess or the 'kidnapping' is a full-turn ability)

Let's get to the Dwarf.

My (a bit fiddly) idea: instead "+1 in the Cave[rn]" , use "you may add a +1 on the roll on any Place card that has a list of outcomes based on a dice roll with no modifiers (unless it's about praying)" .

Instead of "immune to Maze", use "you never lose a turn as the result of an encounter with a Place".

I am satisfied, for now. Still a bit upset about space-related powers (Troll, and Dwarf again), but fixing that is a bit too much arbitrary.

Cynewulf said:

I reconsidered it. The random effect is not good. Better:

"You can steal a follower if you have none and the other character has at least two"

so basically you want to make the minstril even worse than the pos sorceress? or can he still charm animals

Wow someone resurrected the thread

Well, ... after a lot of afterthought, I ended up with these modifications:

1) I added a few other followers to the list of those charmable by the Minstrel. The "Animal charm" remains untouched.

2) I added a few other followers to the list of those immune to the power of the Enchantress.

3) I ignore all the card-specific powers of the Dwarf. Instead, he gains +2 to his Craft when he encounters a place.

No modifications yet for other characters.