So I have been playing endless games against myself trying to find out, whether it really has an impact on the game, if you draw one character or another and the final conclusion is that it does.

I divided the character into three classes: average, good and superb. If the players should have equal chances of winning it can be only done by all having drawn the characters of the same class, one of them having a one class better character is not an instawin though, as still a stroke of bad luck may ruin his or her chances, not while having a superb character while the others have an average one, though. That is, if all he players are of equal skills. If their skills differ, then the better players shouldnt definitely play the superb characters.

Or, I made some house rules changes to the characters to raise or lower their class to a good level, making them all more or less equal. If you find a character in the following list missing, then hes already a good character with no need to change.

Troll: superb; his life value should be lowered or he should get rid of his regeneration ability, which makes almost unkillable, which combined with his high strength value makes him too powerful

Monk: average; he doesnt have all too powerful abilities, which makes his last ability, that is not being able to use weapons, redundant and makes him too weak

Chivalric Knight: average; the same as before, he has only decent special abilities to deserve a bad one to balance them, means he should be able to attacl anyone, though I get that its just part of his character, not attacking the weak

Dark Cultist: superb; too many good abilities, shouldnt be able to psychic attack, thats already too much

Ogre Chieftain: superb; should be able to use one dominated monster in battle only, otherwise too easy to pump up early

Sprite: superb; even while having strength value of only 1, the instant spell-cycling of two spells is againg too powerful, should be at the beginning of each of her turns instead

Warlock: superb; shouldnt at least start in the middle region and have only craft value of 4 in the beginning, it is too easy for him to get one craft and start getting up to 3 spells at the beginning of each of his turns

Assassin: superb; hes obvious, should be able to assassinate face-up enemies only, as he used to

Sage: superb; he shouldnt have his ability to choose a better move roll, already too powerful while being a spell-cycler and knowing the top card of the adventure deck

Vampiress: average; her abilities are not so good, should have craft value of 4 to at least make use of her ability to psychic attack

Merchant: average; instead of his last ability, he should be able to barter to receive sale of 1 g, anywhere he can buy stuff from the purchase or the stables deck

Philosopher: average; his abilities are not of much use, he can always choose which way to go, to not step on a bad card, while doing so and replacing makes it easier even for the other players, should be a spell-cycler with one spell at the beginning of each of his turn to use his replacing spell cards ability

Alchemist: superb; hes an unstoppable machine, I know it sounds weird, but he shouldnt have his ability to alchemise objects into gold, or at least get only one gold even for magic object and shouldnt be able to do it in the same turn, when he makes potions

Dread Knight: crap; I dont know why, but this guy ALWAYS dies, never makes it to the latter parts of the game, never. And the reason is simple, he should have the crat value of 4, so his warhorse is of some use, and he can withstand battle with most of the spirits, which normally break him along with his horse. Higher value also lets him have two spells, rendering his ability to get spells for killing enemies more usable, because usually when he kills an enemy he already has one spell in store

Ghoul: average, his ability to raise enemies is not of much use, while being so weak, should have strength value of three

Prophetess: superb; she shouldnt be a spell-cycler, already too many good abilities

Valkyrie: average; she should have one more ability and that is to be abel to kill one of the followers of the character she defeats in battle, to at least have some goal instead of waiting for some followers to die. That is, of course, if having for example a faithful hound fight for you, doesnt mean he is killed and you can have him back, if he is defeated, because otherwise shes good all right

Priest: average; another hopeless guys, should at least get his full complement of spells when he destroys a spirit and he should get it when he defeats a spirit as well

well, and thats it, folks.

Cruan said:

Wow, somebody uses his Regeneration??? Troll is top-tier for us even though number of times his reg has been used is under 5 (in 17 games the Troll has been in).

Cruan said:

It would keep him on par with Minstrel and Ghoul and how they use their followers. On par in how you use them, OC with his Str 5 would still be miles better than either of those two.

Cruan said:

I believe Sprite hasn't won a game yet for us.

Cruan said:

Middle Region start is bad (still the only character across versions to start there?) and he is one of the top-tier.

Cruan said:

Only houserule implemented, but from day 1.

Cruan said:

He does better than his stats + abilities should IMO. Even though his 2nd edition alter ego, the Philosopher was about as universally hated as the Sage, PvP works on him. Sage is also the weakest of the spell-cyclers, getting only 1 spell and only at the start of his turn.

Cruan said:

IMO he should have a turn penalty (like Highlander's Charge) or only be able to Object -> Gold or Gold -> stats on a given turn, not Object -> Gold -> stats. Even with that limitation he would still be OP I think.

Cruan said:

Ghoul is pretty much crap for us, bottom of the barrel along with Sprite, Leprechaun, Priest and Minstrel. If you use his ability to raise a follower, then you're not getting trophies to boost strength.

Cruan said:

People keep saying this but she is lower mid-tier at best for us, avoiding enemies means less trophies, means less stats.

Cruan said:

Priest is pure crap. He should be able to use weapons, at least Holy Lance or what not.

One character I'm personally surprised that's missing from the list is Rogue, currently undefeated for us. Spamming City for free stats sees her gain them faster than anybody else, with double roll + 4 Fate she has barely any risk involved in it either. Stick to the City-Tavern edge of the board and you can hit City several times (teleport from Tavern where she also rolls two dice).

Cruan said:

He doesn't need weapons. Perhaps he needs to use Armour or to get a +2 bonus in praying. Still not a winner in our games.

Cruan said:

This is not a very special Character, but funny to play anyway. The chance to "help" other Characters against fussy Enemies and gain a Quest Reward, which may be very useful, is great. It's not always of great use, since Quest Rewards give a wide range of bonuses (strong/weak). He starts at the Castle and this is not very good since he needs to stay close to others.

Cruan said:

This is not an overpowered Character. I thought she was but in the end she has basic stats and only abilities related to PvP and combat. She can do nothing about cards and if she don't draw what she needs, she has a hard time as everyone.

Cruan said:

Always played Assassin RAW and he won 60% of the games. Very good, but not overpowered. Spellcasting Characters, Craft Enemies and Psychic combat Characters can give him a hard time.

Cruan said:

Average? This Character is quite proficient in our games, because she's difficult to kill and very PvP oriented. Get some stat boosts (eventually stealing the Followers) and other Characters will have something to fear.

Cruan said:

I also think the Philosopher is not so good, I always had difficulties in playing with him. He should start with two Spells, but being a spellcycler with the chance to discard an unwanted Spell will be too handy. The face-up replacement is not that good IMO, exactly as you say. It has become more interesting with Sacred Pool, where he can cancel cards that benefit other Alignments, but in the commonplace situations this is rarely an advantage for the Philosopher.

Cruan said:

The greatest danger for DK is to lose the Warhorse at the very beginning of the game. If this happens he's pretty much dead. If it doesn't he will stand against other powerful Characters. After two unlucky showings, DK won the last game (with Warlock Quests AE) and beat everyone on time.

Cruan said:

In terms of "game balance" the Prophetess is and has always been a top-notch one. I agree that taking out Spell Cycling is the only reasonable thing to do, but if you do she'll to a lower category

Cruan said:

I think she's a solid Character, should be at leas "good" in your cathegorization. Above average Stats are very useful and the permanent Sword, Graveyard access are good basic abilities. They make for a comfortable start of the game. The Follower ability is still a little bit unclear to me, but it's not that

Cruan said:

Good ideas. Full Complement of Spells is a better reward, considering he should at least be equally powered as the Druid.

I add one Character to the list: the Elf. I see this guy has lots of problems, he's always out of the game and generally tends to be slower and with less choices than the others. If he leaves Woods he will eventually run into trouble and Woods may easily get clogged by dangerous or useless cards that will effectively cancel his best ability.

I think he should be granted an ability like the Swashbuckler's or Highlander's; he may draw one more card than required on Woods Spaces. Woods will not be easily filled for him and he might also get some use of his Evading skills (he moves to the Woods with a dangerous Dragon, draws the Holy Lance and can take it after evading the Dragon).

Yes, yes - what to do with that troublesome priest?

An idea I've had (but never implemented into gameplay) is that the priest could bring a weapon to the temple to have it blessed for a certain amount of gold, which would make the weapon usable for him.

So - a pilgrimage and a price would give the priest the ability to use weapons in combat. Still sucks, right? Because all other characters have this ability from the beginning.

But, what if blessed weapons had unusual powers? Perhaps the blessed sword would add 2 to combat rolls, or even give +2 strength. The early game would still be rough on the priest, but he would at least have potential to be a power in the mid- and end-game. It's always fun to make mad dashes to the middle region, totally unprepared for the swarms of enemies and boosted dragons; a priest with an unusable axe and sword would have good reason to brave the journey if the outcome was great enough. I think some interesting roleplaying aspects could be added to the game through this, and that is always the most enjoyable part of playing Talisman and other board games.

-MD

Cruan said:

The Wizard said:

???

Not sure what this last quote was supposed to be.

If all you are worried about is making the game equal, why not pick a character for everyone to play as for that game, i.e. everyone will play the game as the dwarf this game.

Obviously this would be boring, because a lot of what makes Talisman great is the variety of characters, and the style of play/strategy you have to go for depending on which character you play as, which is determined by your characters strengths and weaknesses. If all characters were equal it would take a lot of the excitement out of the game, as you wouldn't get the unusual happening as often, such as a weak character like the priest beating all odds to win or see a usually dominant character fall flat.

That being said, I could see how if you let people just pick which character they were going to play as it would be boring also, as people would always pick "super-powered" characters. In my gaming group we deal out two characters randomly to each player and then can pick from those two. At times in the past we have even gone so far as to keep record of who played as what with the intent of not being able to play the same character twice until you had played every character, which was actually a lot of fun for us as this got you playing characters like the priest when you normally wouldn't.

Anyway, sorry if this went too off topic, I have no problems with house ruling the game (not that anyone would need my permission or approval if I did, haha) so don't let me stop your quest for equality. I am just think that you would be missing out on one of the better dynamics of the game if you did make all characters equal.

MegaDestroyo said:

Just my reply to these two charcaters. My Reply is in the quote

Regards

We have house ruled a few of the weaker characters by adding abilities to some of them.

Priest:

If you are on the chapel space and roll a "6" for movement you may move directly to the temple instead of your normal move.

As long as you own a talisman you may evade evil players that land on you.

Elf:

If you are ever attacked by another player and are within 2 spaces of a forest space you may add +1 to the combat roll and you win all ties.

You start the game with either a spell or a sword (you choose)

Dwarf:

If you ever acquire an axe, you may add +1 to combat scores when you are attacked by another player and you win all ties.

Any weapon, armor, shield or helmet will not count against you as a carried item.

Malthule said:

My "houseruled" dwarf ignores the adventure - card specific powers (Cavern and Maze) and , instead, applies a +2 Craft bonus when resolving places.