Just finished playing a few games of talisman and the reaper expansion during the holiday weekend.I must say that the new fate rule and the rule clarification are exellent and worked well ,as did most of the characters except the knight.When I played as the knight I faced of against the assassin,monk, prophetess and the thief.Basicaly my problem was with the ability or inability too attack good characters,the monk and prophetess ran free too do as they wished around me as I could not touch them.The assassin went to the mystic and with a little fate turned good,he then started too slaugter me and I COULD NOT ATTACK HIM BACK BECAUSE HE WAS NOW GOOD.Basicaly only he could attack me when he felt like ,with his assassinate skill.The thief stole my druid staff,not that it mattered too me as I could not use as the knight is always good no matter what,which is not the worse handicap but still one.The thief then proceeded too land on me and steal the rest of my stuff AND I COULD NOT ATTACK HIM TOO GET MY STUFF BACK,because he was now good when he wanted too with the druid staff.In the end it was the monk a naturally good player who did me in as he had gotten powerful since I could not harass him early in the game too prevent him from getting too powerful but he coud attack me as normal.The new knight might as well be called the clown as all the other characters laughed and danced circles around me .....and I could do nothing except maybe cast spells at them once in a while as the knight is not a natural spell user,the one fate did not help either.The kight in 2nd edition and knight templar from 3rd where fun too use,but this clown I mean knight as cool as he looks and seems is severly broken and I hope can be fixed in the future.

Maybe the core alignment rules should be:

Good: cannot encounter Good characters, except at the Crown of Command

Neutral: may choose to encounter characters or space (normal rule)

Evil: must encounter another Character when you land on the same space

Maybe they could add to the Knight. When attacked by another character, the other character becomes evil.

Wouldn't attacking such a good knight be considered an evil act.

What you're facing here is the mechanical implementation of Alignment in the game. It has always been Talisman's weakest element serving no real purpos but to limit characters from spaces and cards. That the Knight is limited in action versus other players is a severe imbalance for that character... obviously. The Assassin becoming Good was nothing more than manipulating a hole in the rules (a giant gapping one) that is exclusive to the Knight. For that matter, being Evil shouldn't necessarily allow a character free reign to assault other Evil characters... that's an old cliche.

If you want to house rule it, consider a couple of options other than just the old G vs E bipolar swing (especially based on any one action). So, for any character assaulting (or using special abilities on) another of the same alignment (for no good reason outside of personal gain or spitefulness), some possibilities are ...

• an immediate Alignment shift to Neutral at least... OR...
• loss of 1 Fate point... OR...
• Other?

Don't make it something monumental, or you'll probably create problems in other ways. The way Alignment is built in the game, the Knight will always have an innate flaw. And penalties related to Alignment shifts expose the problem with Neutrals no matter how you handle it. Neutral isn't really an alignment in Talisman... though it could have been.

I think the when a good player attacks the knight it should become evil ,is a good idea.I was also thinking as holy as they made the knight they might as well called him the paladin instead.Thank you for the ideas.

I like your ideas also sir.right now the knight is being avoided by my play group after they saw what happened and I hate too see a cool looking character sit out games because of his flaw.

Keep in mind that Fate in some ways is linked to some sense of higher powers, gods, whatever have taken interest (or disinterest, for low Fate) in certain characters as potential champions in which side of the old G vs El should take the Crown of Command. When we look at it this way (and certainly it's not the only way), Fate is something the powers of Alignment would use to show approval or disapproval of any character working against the Alignment to which it is "aligned."

Yes, in some ways the knight is akin to a Palladin for gaining benefits by upholding the principles of Good. In that he deserves to be chastised and punished more than others when going against his Alignment. Other Good characters aren't that way... but still.

The point is, with Fate introduced to all characters, its a direct way to house rule Alignment having an equal influence upon all character actions and keeping the Knight as is. If a character tries to interfer with another champion or agent of its own Alignment... the gods/powers do look down/up upon it and frown.

My personal preferrence is obviously Fate if I were to house rule this issue. The gods/powers wouldn't simply toss away one its agents (via Alignment change) until the character proved utterly irredeemable. And there are already a fist full of ways that Alignment gets changed in the game; another one really isn't needed.

Good point sir.I will probably be having another 4 or 5 player game new years eve and will implicate the alignment house rules,as i play the knight again.I'll let everyone know how it went.

Lancer T said:

Excellent. Would love to hear how it went.

JCHendee said:

Side note, but if going by RPG standards, Lawful Good Paladins can easily be some of the most uppity, retarded ass-wipes, despite (or because of) their alignment. Many of them make Evil Necromancers look like petty crooks.

I don't have the knight yet, but can't you just wait till you see them change alliances, then go after them? if not then wow, that must suck.

Extra Ability for the Knight.

When encountering a good character, the knight may try to persuade them in giving up a magic object, to aid the Knight in his conquest of Evil. Each roll 1 dice. If the knight has rolled higher, he convinces the other character that the item indeed is better off with him. Take any one object. If not, they each go on their way.

grim_reaper_zig said:

Problem with that plan is of course that they can totally avoid the Village and thus the only thing (at least used to be) that can make them Evil (there is/was nothing that could turn a char Neutral IIRC) is Mephisto (something like that, too lazy to check). And the Village isn't even a sanctuary for you, since they can follow you there and choose to encounter you instead of square.

When we played in the olden days, we sometimes would stack an alignment card for each occasion a char (not Druid of course) got a new one during the game. I think the best we had was 6x "You're Good", mainly because we were visiting the Mystic in the Village and rolling 4.

Dam said:

In such a case, that Palladin should have "fallen" from grace, lost his standing with the higher powers... and the GM wasn't paying attention. Good and Lawful are not the same thing... even in the Talisman environment, which is why the whole Law (or more correctly Order) vs Chaos doesn't work in Talisman - it's not built for ti. A palladin in a corrupt land would break the law (or reinterpret it) for the sake of furthering Good, as evidenced in myth and legend. But tyrrany in the support of Good isn't Good at all... that's a fall from grace automatically, as the palladin in question has stepped outside of one of his two dimensions of required alignment.

I'm reminded of another old character introduced in 2nd edition... the Chaos Warrior. Something that hinted at the 3rd editions coming slant to Warhammer. I played it a few times, putting its powers to forced and full use, as did others. Eventually, the character was abandoned. In those days it wasn't about even reasoning through that it was out of balance with the game... it was that every other character ganged up on it as fast as possible and wiped it off the board. Good, evil, neutral... whatever... all others of any alignment wanted it gone.

JCHendee said:

Why should he have fallen? LG Paladin sees black and white, no grey, and if you somehow hinder him in his quest, even if what you do is for a good purpose as well, Paladin will see you as siding with evil. The classic if you're not with me, you're against me. LG Paladin in a LG realm can still see others as being harmful because they don't do things his way.

Say a Paladin has in his possession a relic, not even a religious relic, but a family heirloom, a magical one. It gets stolen and ends up in the hands of a rightful heir (not the thief), who doesn't know anything about being the heir. Paladin will demand the item's return and if it's not returned, the new possessor will be deemed evil, regardless of whether they knew the item was stolen in the first place, because the Paladin will see them opposing LG purpose, or if they would like to use it to do good.

Not sure if we can call this a big problem as there are mitigations in the game such as having said good characters have to land on your space to engage you firstly, then secondly have to get a mechanic to change their alignment (village, etc.). Lastly, the character that went to the village to roll on the Mystic.... couldn't a Knight have used a fate point to change it?

All in all, a lot of mitigations would have to be circumvented for the Knight to be in complete disadvantage with his abilities, IMO.

myomer said:

Landing in a square with another char happens (or more to the point, could happen but sometimes you just head in the opposite direction) quite a bit in games. Second, Village and becoming Good? That happens pretty much in every game at least once, Village and Mystic is a valid choice, since unlike the ***** Enchantress in the City, Mystic has no negative results. Sure, if you're Evil and have Runesword, or Good and Grail + Lance, you might see align change as a negative, but then again, you probably won't head to Village if you have to roll at Mystic then.

You can only use Fate to influence dice you roll, not what others roll (at least that's what I recall from it, I still don't care about it and won't use it). It's just seems quite ridiculous to state that players get more control over their characters and then add something that leaves you hanging, unable to do anything in return if a Good character constantly ***** your Knight.

Design flaw, outright.

The problem with second edition, more than anything else, were all these little kinds of flaws throughout. Lets hope we don't see any more of them in 4th revised!

Dam said:

D'oh my bad on that, yes you can only re-roll your rolls (gives me an idea for a character class though ).

If further mitigation is needed then I guess I would agree that losing 1 fate if a good aligned char attacks the Knight is a good idea. Added to this fact that good chars can only replenish fate in other areas like temple and adventure cards, it makes the penalty more of a penalty. It also puts the rule on the Knight itself, so it is not applied when the Knight is not in play.

Roy said:

Too late.. Most have been corected to my understanding and experience. However a few loopholes and bugs are bound to be in..Its kinda the nature of the game.

Expect more loops, and wired circumstances with each new edition.

Does anyone remember any type of CCG? the more cards they made, the more wacky things got. Where each new edition, pounced all over the previous. Lets hope Talisman keeps a level bar on that sort of stuff.

I like the simple idea that if a Good character attacks the Knight, then they turn EVIL.

It is like the equivalent of killing a Saint or even a regular Nun. Not good in the eyes of the Gods.

"But Necrozius", you might ask, "what about the Priest character? Surely HE would be considered holy as well?"

Well, my answer to THAT, my smart-ass friend, is to simply look at the Priest's illustration. He's fat and complacent. He wears the fancy, expensive robes, has the right spells, yes... But he might not TRULY believe. Hence he gets to add ONE to the prayer rolls, while the Knight gets TWO.

Yeah... That's right...

BAM. CASE CLOSED.

Oh please... interpreting a character's mechanics by the image attached to the card is ... ludicrous. But since we're playing that game... in reality, a fall from grace does not make one Evil. It just makes one outcast from the group (priesthood, order, etc). As previously stated, messing further with arbitrary alignment shifts of a radical or other nature is already built into the game (and not always sensibly). If we're going to create a house rule through reason, let's at least be reasonable.

HallowKnight said:

As you said... too late. There are considerable imbalances in 4th... which is part of why Fate was introduced (and brought a few more as well). But also, as you said, those imbalances, loophools, (black holes), etc., have never stopped any of us from (1) enjoying the game and (2) correcting collectively or separately and moving on.

Necrozius said:

You sir should be the next Talisman designer!

Let's not forget the hint of a fiendish scowl on the priest's lips and those beady little eyes. You just can't trust a fat guy with beady little eyes. Heck, he should just START the game as an evil character.

Has anyone thought about if characters turn evil by attacking other good characters then you'll just have a bunch of evil characters running around except for the one good guy?

You need to have some way for evil characters to turn good again. Maybe donate a gold or object at the chapel? Seems like that's how most people try to buy their way into heaven anyway.