First off, this is not a griping post. I love the new edition, and the Reaper makes the Priest's "spirit-tackling" far better than it used to be.

And yet, in our group, we deal all the characters out randomly and let them select, and with the 10 or so people I play with at separate times, the "Oh great, I got the Priest!" sarcastic whine emerges every single time.

I've tried playing as the Priest, but it seems to have several major problems.

1) With a 2 Strength and no access to weapons, it is far less likely that the Priest can defeat enough early encounters to take the Strength path to victory.

2) With a 4 Craft, the Priest might be able to defeat some Spirits and achieve a Craft victory, but... his best ability prevents this from happening by denying him Craft trophies (when used).

3) He's a Craft character without Psychic Combat.

4) His excellent Fate value (a major plus!) is essentially all he gets during the game. Most players would rather take an evil character whose 1-3 fate can be replenished for free in the Graveyard than a Good Character with 5 fate and no certain method of regaining it.

5) Despite being the Priest, the Knight (who should be a secondary religious figure to the Priest) gets up to +2 to rolls in the Chapel. The Priest gets a minor +1.

With that said, it's certainly possible to win as the Priest (poltergeist plus Fountain of Wisdom and adjacent Magic Stream can happen to anyone), but is there a strategy for achieving a path to victory? I suppose one could hope for spells that help, but in this capacity, how is the Priest different from the Wizard, except that the Wizard gets far more spells, experience for Spirit kills, and has psychic combat (not to mention getting his Fate replenished in the Graveyard).

Thanks for your thoughts on this, and possibly on House Rules you've used to improve the situation.

Yes, I have.

Here's how I won... I wandered around the outside realm for 3 hours trying to build up my character while the other players quickly built up great characters and beat the crap out of each other. Finally one had made it to the Crown of Command and the other two had died... so I came through and luckily landed on both of their stuff, picked up all their objects and followers and made a run at the guy in the CofC who had gone stone cold on rolling the command spell and beat him in a straight up one on one battle.

Totally bizarre and not likely to happen again.

The priest is otherwise a bummer character IMO. Most guys I play with work quickly to kill him off and get a new character card.

I think the priest does require more strategy to play since you have to use his powers for maximum effect.

1. If you draw a really low spirit, then just automatically kill with with your ability and gain a spell. Spells are much more powerful than gaining a 1 or 2 point trophy.

2. if you draw multiple spirits and they will combine into one hungry death dealer. No problem cause you can use your special ability on one of the enemies and then just fight the weakest one.

3. If you have the choice of visiting the mystic, the tavern or some other space that isn't that useful, then visit the mystic and hope you roll a one. Turning evil with five fate is really powerful. It is pretty rare, but its better then getting drunk in the tavern or losing a turn in the forest spaces.

4. if you get into the middle region early keep landing on the temple. Even a plus one on the chart gives you more selection and can save you a little from making bad rolls.

Almost forgot to add one last point....

An advantage that the weaker characters have is that other players don't consider them a threat. Nobody hits the priest with bad spells or goes out of their way to screw them because he doesn't look as aggressive as say the warrior, wizard, or sorceress.

My wife wins with the Priest, and she doesn't do it by spells. You have to focus on building Strength in any available ways, as well as knocking off low powered Spirits. She took the Crown one night before any other player could even get into the Middle Region. And though she built up a respectable Strength, she still went in based on Craft.

Even with increased Craft enemies in the revised deck, the game is still slightly tilted towards Strength. Perhaps it should be, considering that Craft allows spells and Strength doesn't have any outside options to match that. But leaning on Spells won't always work. Many times I've seen a spell user get stuck with utility or defense spells that can't be used (until who knows when). Then they have no option to try for offensive spells until they can get rid of one.

The Priest is a very potent character, but only under certain circumstances limited by Fate (or Chance, not the attribute) in the Talisman world. As it should be (but not necessarily is) with all characters. Even the Troll has its day, and I've played it when it did. It's almost the inverse of the Priest in some ways, though I still question the balance of its attributes.

As said, look for opportunities to take on some Strength for the Priest, and save your Fate points to do so where possible. Almost all characters will need to beef up on both primary attributes to stand a chance of winning.

I didn't have the chance to play with FFG revised 4th edition, which basically makes the Priest stronger than before. The earlier interpretation of Priest's crucial ability made him very weak: he automatically defeats Enemy Spirits, cannot choose to fight instead and cannot cash them for additional Craft. Despite this, I saw many players build up good Characters with high Strength and Craft, but they didn't win the game.

Without Fate Rule, the only thing you had to do with the Priest is to get inside the Middle Region before any other does and pray, pray, pray at the Temple. Praying at the Chapel is not that interesting and the Shrine may not be drawn for a long time. Anyway, with the highest Fate value, revised Spirit killing ability and +1 when Praying, the Priest seems quite balanced. He has wide options every time, he can acquire Spells, defeat strong enemies or elect to fight them if he hopes to succeed. But I want to test this before making other hypotheses.

None of our players had ever noticed that "Praying" occurs in the Temple. That does help a bit for balance, particularly with Fate. This does, however, seem to make the Knight's "better than the Priest" claim considerably stronger, since you can gain a point of Strength in the Temple on a 4,5, or 6, and craft on a 5,6, or 7 (and other good things if rolling higher).

The generic advice to "raise strength early" however seems extremely generic to the game. As I mentioned in the OP, it's more difficult for the Priest to achieve this strength enhancing than basically any other character. I like the Temple thing though. I means that if the Priest drinks in the Temple enough, he might take the Ferry to win-land across the river.

JCHendee said:

Perhaps I didn't explain my point clearly enough. If you draw a high craft spirit and feel confident that you can beat it - then by all means you should fight it for craft experience points. HOWEVER if you encounter a low craft spirit like the 1 point lemure, then it is usually better to use your ability to discard the enemy and gain a spell instead. Look at it this way: if you kill seven craft 1 spirits you can gain one craft point. Compare this to discarding the craft 1spirits to gain 7 spells instead. Any talisman player can tell you that 7 spells is more useful and powerful than gaining a single point of craft even if you draw a few "utility or defense spells" that require the right timing to play.

The real trick with the priest IMO is to take full advantage of your praying ability at the temple, shrine and altar and also know when to discard spirits for a spell instead of fighting them for craft experience.

Use your five fate to pawn the enchantress first (you'll hit and miss but keep at it!) for strength and craft, then move up and hit the Temple.

ameritrasher said:

Compare the Priest's theoretical 7 small craft enemies (1-2) exchanged for 7 spells to the ability of the Wizard and Sage (or Pixie) and how many spells those abilities provide. Basically the Priest trades 7 turns and 1-2 Craft for 7 Spells, while most spellcasters get spells for free and have better secondary abilities (compare the Wizard's being evil which replenishes 3 Fate, +1 Craft, 2 starting spells, and Psychic Combat to the Priest's +1 in Praying).

The point is, even if you got a spell AND kept the spirit as a trophy, the Priest would still be disadvantaged.

Example:

Let's say as the Priest you get six fairly ideal turns (not poltergeist and Magic Stream/Fountain of Wisdom, but still quite good). You hit six "draw one" spaces, each of which has an increasingly difficult Craft spirit. Craft 1, 2, 3, 4, 5,6. You use your ability on the first 2, and are at 2 spells (your Craft is still only a 4, but you may use one), then beat the 3 and 4 (which is dicey but more profitable), raising your Craft to 5. Then you have yet another 50/50 shot at beating another tough spirit. Then you are forced to use your ability on the fifth, because it's likely to beat you, but you can't gain a spell because you're at your maximum. You're a 2/5 with 2 spells and little prospect of gaining new spells, probably had to spend a Fate or two to beat the Spirits (putting you at 3-4 Fate and potentially less than 4 life), have no means of replenishing your fate, and to top it off, you can't use Weapons.

If you're the Wizard and you have the same 6 turns, you STARTED with 2 spells, soundly defeat all six Spirits (it's less dicey because your Fate is replenishable for free and your Craft is higher than the Priest's), increasing your Craft to 8. So the Wizard, with 6 turns that are essentially ideally manufactured for the Priest, is a 2/8 with 2 spells (with a replacement as soon as both are used), you can beat any Spirit in the game with nearly no exceptions (making the Priest's ability obsolete), you can replenish any spent Fate whenever you choose at the Graveyard, and whenever you land on the Priest, you can engage in Psychic Combat and take whatever you want, since your Craft is 3 points higher. Or just pick up a sword and beat his unarmed butt with it. With your 8 Craft and Psychic Combat, victory should now come easily.

But what happens if the two Characters didn't get Priest-ideal turns? Let's say they hit Strength monsters instead. Many of the Game's spells (summons, healing, prevention, psionic blast) can only be used in "combat." Even if defeated repeatedly, the Wizard will be fine as he's setting his Phoenixes against the enemies or healing himself with magic. But the Priest in a similar situation has to float around the Chapel hoping for healing, because he has no means of fighting physically and no reliable way of replenishing his own spells. I would argue that the Knight's +2 in the Chapel (coupled with a starting 5 strength) or Wizard's Evil nature (fate replenishing) makes either of them also better at the Temple, which is supposedly the Priest's primary focus. The problem is that statistically, the Priest will only hit the temple one in every 6 turns, even if he can make it to the Middle Realm. During the other 5 turns he is less likely to encounter anything usable, and when he does go to the temple, if he has to spend Fate, he's not likely to ever see it again (not to mention that there are 2 desert spaces and the Black Knight within spitting distance of the temple, so he'll likely die before reaching it more than twice).

Given how many more spells the Wizard/Prophetess/Sage will see, they also have a better chance of getting to the Temple in the first place (Temporal Warp, Teleport), further diminishing the Priest's best power.

Essentially the question of a Character's power is: How many adventure cards are there that you'd "like" to see as a particular character?

As the Priest, any enemy with a Strength over 3 is a bad draw, as are all weapons, any "no-good characters" cards, and all of the ordinary "bad" cards. And fighting any spirit with a craft of under 3 or 6+ is basically "draw a Spell, end your turn," which isn't particularly favorable either. That's what, 70% of the cards in the deck? The only ones you want to see are followers, gold, and the few event/places that are good for any character.

Since most of the game is drawing Adventure Cards, it simply seems that relying on one board space (which is dangerous and very hard to reach in the first 30 turns anyway) isn't enough to counterbalance the drawbacks.

My biggest worry is that FFG made every combat object into a Weapon (2 games done with Upgrade pack + Reaper, no Priest in those games). Back in the day Priest couldn't swing a Sword, but nothing prevented him from going on a crusade with Holy Lance (haven't drawn that yet either, but assuming it has Weapon keyword). Priest really should hope for a miracle and draw Warhorse early on. In the end though, every char has a shot at winning in Talisman.

ameritrasher said:

You can't have 7 spells. The rules imply a maximum of 3, if I remember right. Check the Craft table and you'll probably see that at Craft 6+ you can have 3 spells... that's all. Or have I missed something elsewhere?

LibraryCharlie also makes some good points (though the mathematics don't always represent the game accurately). Overall, this kind of thing happens whenever a game goes through revisions where the parts are altered but not the underlying mechanics to match. The characters were "patched" and some wording on the board was changed, but the underlying mechanics weren't always observed accurately.

The whole issue of getting back or gaining Fate versus Lives based on Alignment is severly skewed... along with unexplainable differences in Starting Fate between characters. This is part of the true underlying problems LC points out. Survival, and hence Lives (and now Fate as well) are essential for certain characters to have the time for opportunities to use unique abilities more strategic than purely opportunistic or tactical. And that isn't the case.

Time for more house rules concerning some of those board spaces and characters... or some of those characters won't be played except as randomly drawn and forced.

Yes, the priest is weak and needs some adjustment in order to make him a playable character. When my crew and I were playing the BI 4th edition, we house ruled it so that the priest could keep his automatic kills as trophy points and then turn them in. Sounds over-powered, but he had nothing else going for him, basically.

We decided to abide by the rules for FFG's Revised 4th edition since he now can gain spells. He has only been played a few times so far, but the majority opinion amongst us feel that it is not enough of an improvement. We have had talks about keeping the trophies again, but have not implemented it. Our other thought for priest improvement is to switch his praying to +2 and change the knight's praying to +1.

He definitely needs something.

Hi,

Saw this post, and 4 of us played a 4hr+ game of Talisman last night. The Priest won....after a very long struggle to get going! What turned the tables was landing consistently at the temple and rolling a total of 6 or 7...either option led to 1 craft (with their 1+ Praying ability). Their strength was only 4 and craft about 8 when they won, but they had good throws during the Inner Region (especially against PitFiends - 1)

But I felt it let to a rather boring game for the Priest - to constantly hang around the Temple.

As the sorceress, a character I thought was quite good, realised she had so limited abilites (start with 1 spell, w00t), that I never really got anywhere with her. Stealing objects against a good character with a role of 6 is something I never bother to try, rather take the fight. Taken the mule as a follower and forcing someone to drop their warez was the only pleasure I really got...but then a revenge attack was inevitable and she's pretty weak!

Not my best game, though I did get turned into a toad about 4 times that game...twice in succession by the blasted Witch...no love for their own kind

Stosh said:

A choir boy prehaps? It doesn't seem to well thought out they beefed up all the other characters, and left what was one of the weakest characters originally with a slight top up.

I have won with the priest - try getting a couple of cheap ones (strength or crafts) from the enchantress using fate (if you actually play it), then ponder up to keep rolling for the temple.

I think keeping the trophies is a good idea, since he can't use ANY weapons, I think its fair.

To add something to the topic, yesterday I lost a 2-player game with the Priest, against a powerful (and lucky) Wizard. But the game was fairly balanced for the most time. The strange thing was that I got plenty of Followers and objects as the Wizard grew strong thanks to the Magic Stream and many succesful killings. I believe that the ability to use a Sword made the big difference in the early game, slowing me down even if I toad-ed the Wizard with a Random Spell and he was attacked by Raiders and Cursed by a Hag. For instance, I tried 5 times to kill a Goblin (Strength:2, like the Priest) and failed every time. Impressive.

But I always come with some questions at hand. They might already have an answer, but I have to ask:

- When praying, you may add 1 to your die roll. Does it mean that you may add it BEFORE or AFTER the roll? I see everybody does it AFTER the roll, but the text is not that clear (I'm talking about 2nd and 4th Edition from Black Industries)

- When praying at the Temple, may you add 1 to EACH die roll , up to a maximum of 2 points? (if answer is yes, the Knight may add +4 )

In both games I've seen with the Priest, he's been the winner (technically one of them was 'lost', but only due to a clear misreading of the rules on one space). He's not a top-3 death machine (Wizard, Sage, Monk), but he's far from helpless.

The spirit-destruction is a nice ability -- spells are the nicest thing any character can have -- but it is not a substitute for the "always on" grimoires of the Wizard (or characters with the Wand). Use it on 1) spirits waaaay more powerful than you 2) laughably weak Cr1 or Cr2 spirits and 3) non-card spirits you can't keep as trophies anyway (e.g. the Crags spirit).

The Priest's best ability is prayer. Remember the phrasing is "*may* add one; anything in Talisman that reduces randomness by giving you conscious control over a result is what you want. The Priest should be praying constantly on any square that allows it. In the Chapel he has a %50 chance at a good result vs. no downside (and potentially a choice of whether he wants the life or the spell). But get him to the Temple and keep him there as fast as possible. He has an astonishing %83.33 chance of a good result and never has to take the two worst results (enslaved/lose 2 lives) if he doesn't want to. Pray early and often. Never miss a chance to pray unless there's something spectacularly good already on the table reachable by the same movement roll (one of the 3 Streams or the entire life savings of a dead/en-toaded character).

Yes, this means the Knight is a better character than the Priest.

Hiero5ant said:

Just out of curiosity (I'm using BI version + Upgrade), does Revised Crags say "Spirit" or is it just a Craft attack? Reaper exp. adds Tomb, where you might face a Craft 10 Demon that does NOT have the word "spirit" anywhere.

Also, regarding Knight, starting with Sword + Armour, dam(n) straight he's a better char ! (not to mention 4/3 Str/Craft rating)

1) Attacked by a Spirit with Craft 4. 2-3) Lost; lose your next turn. 4-5) Safe; no effect. 6) A barbarian leads you out; gain 1 Strength

I have to agree with a statement made earlier. Any character can win in this game. Thats what is so nice about Talisman.

The_Warlock said:

Sorry if I quote myself, but nobody answered.

First question is answered by the Character card; sorry, I was a little confused about it. But what about the second one?

You can add up to 2 to the total of the 2 dice at the Temple, but you are right to ask, it did need clarifying.

talismanisland said:

Gosh, I always played it wrong.

But the Knight gets +2 when praying... so +4 at the Temple? The rule allows him to allow "up to 2" to the result of each die roll, so he can add +1,+2,+3,+4, as he wishes? Definitely powerful.

No, just plus 2 to the total of both rolls at the Temple. He is still only praying once...

So, he goes there, rolls 2 dice. Scores 6. So he may now choose the result for either 6, 7 or 8...

talismanisland said:

But the abilites have the same wording!

I agree that the +1,+2,+3,+4 is a huge and nonsensical bonus for the Knight, but this is the Ability on the Card:

After rolling the die when praying, you may add up to 2 to the score

The Priest and Monk:

After rolling the die when praying, you may add 1 to the score