The Sacred Pool is finally on sale, so what is your first impression from this expansion.

My first impression is...............not fair that other people got it first.

I'll go look tomorrow. I sure hope it's here.

Yeah!
We played it!

Main Game, 4th revised Edition, the Reaper,
the Dungeon, the Frostmarch, the Highland,
the Sacred Pool and the unofficial Timescape
and Dragonland.

Game ended after 6 hours with the Judgement Day
Ending, ... and the first was deemed unworthy;
and killed!

Characters in play: Ghoul, Druid, Swashbuckler and
Dread Knight

The Dread Knight, often loses in battle and so
also his Warhorse. Also the gain of spells was
not often because of bad luck in die roll.
In this game he was a weak character!

Best Sacred Pool cards in this game:

Object:
Compass (you may substract 1 from die roll for move)

Magic Object:
Staff of Balance (+1 Craft and +1 Strength only for
neutral character)

Follower:
Kraven (you may draw one more adventure card)

Event:
Discordant Dirge (take all enemies in the discard pile,
shuffle them, put them on Adventure deck)

Quest Reward:
Moon Charm (change one die roll into a 6 result)

Best other card:
Pickpocket (unofficial Event from Dragonland)
(pay 3 Gold an steal one Object of your
choice from an opponent)
(in our game the amulet)

I think the best impression you will get from the
Sacred Pool is to play only with a few Expansions.

so, let's play!

Some interesting cards in there... a bit of deja vu in half of them.

I like the new adventure cards, and I love the quest rewardsthey give me a reason to want to quest. I haven't checked out every card yetI like to encounter them in the game firstbut all of the ones I've drawn so far are interesting and some are pretty novel. That discordant dirge card (shuffle all of the discarded enemies and place them on the adventure deck) is neat. I like the spell that forces a character to flat-out lose a life, no encountering them or rolling a die required.

That false prophet is a real jerk.

First impression is that the set is stronger in both game effects and flavour than Frostmarch, with some great innovations on individual cards, plus some much-anticipated alignment-matters cards building on predecessors going right back to First Edition. The Spells also add some great PVP stuff. The only weak points for me are the Magus (not distinctive enough from existing characters) and the four copies of Livery Stables (would have preferred two).

I receive the Sacred Pool expansion yesterday, and i am very satisfied with it.

My first expression is very good about this expansion.

Oke, here comes my plus and minus ratings..

_______________________

+ For adding Warlock Quest and stable cards to the game

+ There are less objects/ and magic objects

+ Adding more events to the game

+ Most of the events do bad things to a character

+ Enough strong enemies (most of them has special abilities)

+ For adding Neutral cards and alignment adventure cards to the game

+ Cool spells

+ Artwork

+ More Alternative ending cards

_________________

- For the characters

- Less chances to get spells

- Less chances to transform in a toad

_____________

My rating for the Sacred Pool expansion is:

8,8 /10

Conclusion:

The Sacred Pool is the best small expansion at this moment.

You get Neutral cards, Alternative Ending cards, Warlock Quest Reward cards, Stable cards and Spells.

On top of that, FFG has decrease the objects/magic objects, to add more events, followers and places to the game.

There is enough danger in this expansion. 8 events do negative things to a character.

We also have some strangers we do nasty things if you are not of a certain alignment.

There is also the Death Stalker follower, who reminds me of a Howl of the Wendigo, and there is a False Prophet..

There are enough strong enemies game. Most have special abilties, and can be very nasty...

I only like the Dread Knight from the 4 characters. That's why i have give it a negative point.

There is also not much chances transform into a toad. Only the Dark Fey can do that, if she rolls doubles,

and there is also a warlock quest reward card to transform your opponent in a toad.

There are also no cards that can give you spells..(have not seen them) so that is also a negative point in my book

Afterall, we have finally a expansion that beats the Reaper expansion

All the endings seem very lackluster compared to the ones we already have. Warlock Quest Rewards pretty much only work if you have Reaper with its WQ deck, standard roll D6 to see which Quest never saw much use in the pre-Reaper years. Can't see SP topping Reaper, might get 2nd place given Frostmarch's übercharacters (SP's look on the surface to be more balanced).

I think that what you get in this expansion, is more important than what the reaper has to offer.

Both are very good expansions, but I like Sacred Pool better

Velhart said:

Have you seen the spell which transforms another player's roll into a one?

crimhead said:

Yes, I have seen it

It's misfortune if i am right

But i like to see more adventure cards that let you transform in a toad. Or do i ask too much..

Dam said:

I would argue the opposite. The Reaper Quest cards don't work well on their own. They're too easy, and the rule in The Reaper edition is that Quests are chosen not drawn. Warlocks cave became a trading post - you just pick one you can accomplish on the spot.

Frostmarch added more difficult Quests and the random draw rule, but now the Quests were a bit too hard and usualy not worth it for a Talisman (which aren't that hard to find). We had to use the random treasure rule to encourage Questing, but this was unsatisfactory because it depletes the treasure deck and makes the Dungeon less special.

Finally in Sacred Pool we've got cool reward cards unique to Warlock Quests, and all is right in the world. As for rolling for Quests, this would hapen a lot more with the reward cards in play. I would sooner play with rolled Quests for rewards than with just the Reaper Quests for a Talisman. So I would say the Reaper Quest don't work without Frostmarch and Sacred Pool.

crimhead said:

Well, we used the random variant right away and after Frostmarch, random draw is the rule.

crimhead said:

Rewards still won't let you advance past the Valley of Fire, which is what the goal is. Granted, with Dungeon and 1/4 chance of Arnkell, might not need a Talisman, but most of the time people still want a Talisman. Now if I have already have a Talisman and get Path of Destiny cast on my, sure, I'll take a Reward over a 2nd Talisman.

Hi

I tought I have now got my copy of the Sacred Pool finally and played maybe 5-6 games with it. So here's my impressions:

Characters: Well balanced, I tought first that the dread knight would be abit imba with warhorse but actually he can loose it pretty easy in the beginning and it's actually very risky to pick him if others get sorceress or vampiress. So dread knight is actually a buff to those chars ;-)

Adventure Cards: I like all new cards fun and giving alignment more impact is great. Also I like that almost all enemys have some kind of special ability. So all good here.

Spells: Everything got much more dangerous all of the sudden and you would not like to be a strenght char in lead haha :-) but I actually like more player interactive spells so still good, also there is a spell better than mezmerize now and that's the misfortune forcing a die roll of 1. Meaning that you are not even safe from Reaper with fate. One thing to note is that when you add more spells to the game you lower the chance of getting certain spells like counterspell and nullify which was some protective spells, imo they should add some more spell protective spells.

Warlock quest rewards: We haven't drawn to many of these but the toading one was fun, and they seem pretty balanced and give more depth to the game so that's good.

Stable deck: There is both good and bad aspects to introducing this se my point below:

The good aspects of stabledeck:

* Gold get's more important
* Balancing it a bit for the non-psyicic combat non-spell casting chars like leprechaun, monk, priest etc.

Bad aspects of stabledeck:

* Easier for spellcasting chars to get strong against their weakness "battle"
* Making it easier to get mule/warhorse will result in char's getting more powerful and don't have to make choices on what items they should keep, also making bad items like false grail and load stone less severe. Also it's a much harder blow to loose for example a +1 strenght item when you only have 4 items than loosing a +1 strenght item when u have 5 other items that also give you strenght.

Alternative Endings : We have not yet drawn the judgement day ending but it's one of those random event endings which I like because they don't prolong the game. I was very hesitant regarding the demon lord ending but we have actually drawn it 2 times and because there isn't any other effects than loosing life if you loose vs him it's been pretty balanced but needs more gameplay. So eagle king is still the worst one.

Overall impressions

* A very good expansion imo some balacing and depth where made and also new content which is always good (more adventurecards FTW!)
* I hope the creators of the game are aware of what change of power between craft and strenght chars they have made with all the new spells, If you play the standard Talisman board whitout expansions the strenght chars are much more powerful than craft chars and now maybe leaning a bit more to the craft chars.

Regards
Pers

Dam said:

Case and point, Reaper Quest cards aren't much good without also owning Frostmarch or house ruling it.

The Goal of the game is to reach the Crown of Command. This (usually) requires a Talisman, but it also requires a high strength or craft in ord3

er to get to the Valley of Fire in the first place.

Having a Talisman is essential at the endgame, but in the meantime what you need most is general power, ie a high strength or craft as well as tricks and trinkets. The more of this general power you have, the more quickly you can get even more power. A talisman on the other hand doesn't help at all until the very end. Also, two or more Talismans are mostly redundant and cumbersome. If you quest for one and then stumble upon another, you may wish you'd drawn a reward or treasure instead.

For these reasons, I would go for a reward card first unless the game is winding down, and then the Talisman later. The reward might help you in the meantime, while the Talisman will not.

That said, there have been times I've taken a random treasure and soon wished I'd taken a Talisman - usually when the endgame comes quicker than expected and/or my luck turns rotten.

so what expansion of the 3 25 dollar ones would u choose im only getting one as i just got the game and i dont have enough to get all of them

I had my first Sacred Pool game last night so I finally can give you my first impression.

I decided to exclude Dungeon and Frostmarch cards & Spells from the game, in order to have more focus on the new expansion and on the Highland, because one of the players didn't have really much chances to see the last corner expansion. We played with hidden ending, having Battle Royale, Eagle King, Demon Lord, Judgment Day and Crown & Sceptre as possible alternatives. I piloted the Character Draw at the beginning by having each player randomly choose a Character from Sacred Pool and then I had a second draw with a Character from the Highland (less played ones).

Playing Sacred Pool with Reaper & Base set makes the Adventure Deck really dangerous. People had a very difficult time surviving around and Highland was soon chosen as a sort of "safe haven", where Enemies are not so strong and Events/Strangers not that hostile. Dread Knight's game lasted 6 or 7 rounds, because he lost the Warhorse at the very first encounter (Miser Dragon), then kept on drawing nasty Enemies and events until he was dead. Replaced by the Sprite and with the Cleric having acquired the Wand, savage spell-casting soon became commonplace.

Chivalric Knight is killed by Reaper (double one), replaced by a Vampiress killed AGAIN by Reaper with the contribution of the renowned Misfortune Spell. The strange thing is that the player was so confident in his ludicrous luck to move the Reaper on himself, hoping to score a 5 or 6. He got what he deserved and was replaced by Leprechaun.

Sprite was doing really well, keeping others at bay with Spells and acquiring a lot of power easily. But Leprechaun manages to get a Talisman, then the Reliquiary is revealed with a Quest Reward that grants an almost sure Toadify. Leprechaun gets it and turns the Sprite into a Toad, then of course gets all the valuable Objects and Followers. I've never seen a Leprechaun roll so many 6 for movement.

After about 3 hours nobody was ready to go for the Crown. Strong PvP and absence of Dungeon made fast growth impossible and the abundance of negative cards made the Character improvement very slow. At 00.30 people started heading for the centre, perhaps frustrated by the constant danger of death, toading or hardship, perhaps hoping for a quick win with some lucky Ending draw. The Cleric had the Arnkell and got first to the Crown, while Magus and Sprite were crossing the Inner Region. Demon Lord was drawn and faces became pale.

Cleric was not strong enough in psychic combat to win the boss. Magus & Sprite could (should?) have turned back, but it was very late so both players decided to get on. Magus died soon and the same did the Sprite, despite having a Craft of 10 and 7 lives. Leprechaun was the sole survivor and could have been the winner, but he decided to go anyway and reach the center and his final death.

Well, the finale was a little weird because everybody played just to finish the game, because it was late in the night and we had to work on Friday. Still I'm unsure if we should have declared the Leprechaun as the winner, just because he had all the time in the world to improve himself. He could have died either, with some cards like the ones in the Sacred Pool.

I think that Sacred Pool added danger and difficulty as many people desired. If you add these cards to the Base + Reaper Set you'll get a quite difficult board to wander on. Next time I'm going to put all expansions together again, because I also liked the safer deck we had after the Frostmarch. I'm also looking forward to mix all Spell cards together again, since I've noticed that the access to the lethal Sacred Pool Spells was too easy.

I'm not sure of the Stable Cards. They're an interesting way to spend Gold, but there were too much Mules, Riding Horses and Horses & Cart in the game. Quest rewards are interesting but nobody will look for them unless they have a chance to choose (Reliquiary).

Most of all I liked the feeling of the expansion. It looked like something was stirring behind, forces of Good and Evil fighting against each other while some Heroes try to complete their magical quest for the Crown of Command. Nice, and deadly.

My first impression is that I got it a week ago, and not allowed to open it until Christmas, so will read these posts more thoroughly then... just happy it's in the house though!