I think the Elf stands out as an exceptionally weak character. The main issue I have is with the special ability to move to "any other Woods space in the same region."

Due to the wording of the ability, the Elf cannot simply move back to the same space ("any other"). So when the Elf lands on the single Woods space in the Middle region, he can move... nowhere?

Would the Elf be overpowered if he could simply move from any Woods space to any Woods space -- effectively giving him a quick route to the middle region?

Compared to the Dwarf's amazing ability to reach the Crown of Command faster than any other character, I don't think so.

Hm, I've played him only once in 4th ed and I've played it as you suggested: he can move to any woods space. Guess I need to read that more carefully...

This is one reason that the elf is the least played character in my group. Since the only thing going for him is the ability to move from one woods space to the other "in the same region" once he gets to the middle region he's effectively handicapped. I would agree with house ruling that he can move to any woods space would make him not quite as painful to play seeing as how it does balance him a bit more .

boxcornersdiety said:

Not being able to do it in the middle region is no biggie, as it's smaller and has plenty of multiple card draw spaces. My biggest concern is when all the wood spaces in the outer region become infested with crappy cards, really making your only ability a bane in reality.

No need to fix the elf, he is average to broken... depending on what gets drawn in the woods and if he is played right.

The better option in the comparison is to fix the Dwarf, which like other characters is now overpowered.

I read in many other posts, in BI and old FFG forums, that the Elf is considered a "Strong" Character. Well, I personally played two games with him, one average (cannot build up a decent Character to win) and one tragical, as my Elf died in the first 30 turns because of my casual bad luck. But I won that game with the Wizard I drew as my second Character; this should lead to the sensation that the Wizard is stronger than the Elf, although my victory was a lucky one with many unique coincidences.

The Elf is difficult to play. You ought to be patient, you may use your Woods to become stronger while Evading problems, but should never forget to use them as jumping points for other spaces. If the Woods are infested by a Dragon, a Marsh, a Cave, then you have a problem and must search for some useful Destruction spell. But what if an Evil Character draws the Holy lance there, or a Pool of Life/Fountain of Wisdom/Magic Stream? The ability to be teleported on some specific spaces at will can be very useful, even to attack other Characters that think to be safe there.The Elf has also strong starting values (must check the 4.5 revised, though, still waiting for my package) and I saw most friends build up Elf powerhouses with ease.

The Middle Region is no place to the Elf. He shall spend little time there, only to get a Warlock quest or try some of the 2-3 draw card spaces. When he gets inside, he should be almost ready to get to the centre.

The Dwarf never looked that strong to me. He has a permanent Gnome, some immunities and Evading abilities, and the +1 in the Cave (interesting, but less likely to be used). He might be strong in a one-on-one confrontation; in big games with 5-6 players he's overwhelmed by most Characters. I played only one game with the Dwarf so far (1 of 14).

The_Warlock said:

Elf comes in packing 3/4 (Str/Craft) and 3 Fate.

The_Warlock said:

Dwarf is a rush char. 5 Str and 7 Craft and you're good to go. 5 Fate doesn't hurt. Really, the Pits are the only issue, but a decent weapon in itself might be enough.

Personally I rate both as good characters. Perma-Gnome makes Portal and Mines a breeze for the Dwarf. Have noticed that with the addition of the Reaper cards, there tends to be more cards on the board then previously, so that might weaken the Elf. I wouldn't cringe upon drawing either one though, that's for sure.

I see the Dwarf as top tier material, one of the big 5 - Dwarf, Monk, Prophetess, Wizard, Sorceress. Elf is for me solidly in tier 2 along with the thief, assassin, ghoul, druid, warrior, leaving the troll, minstrel and priest bringing up the rear.

Shrine in the woods is broken for the Elf... fountain and stream aint too bad either, or mage, or healer... plus of course he is invulnerable to attack when he is frequenting one of these fine establishments... EVERY OTHER TURN!

Solid character, needed no change.

DarknessKissed said:

Yeah, right. Forgot to mention he can't be attacked by other players as long as he's in the Woods...

Elf is not broken. Fairly strong character. Use the Woods hopping correctly and you can come out on top.

You cant just count 1 or 2 games, as deciding factor for characters. I have a listing of 30+games played with all the characters.

It shows the wins, losses, total games played of each character, and their percentage of victories.

Some surprises at the top of the list and bottom, for most wins and losses.

Win Loss gms Ratio wins
Elf 4 1 5 80%
Ghul 4 1 5 80%
Drud 3 1 4 75%
Monk 3 1 4 75%
Thef 2 1 3 67%
Trol 2 2 4 50%
Dwrf 2 2 4 50%
Warr 2 3 5 40%
Srcs 2 3 5 40%
Wizd 2 3 5 40%
Prst 1 2 3 33%
Asin 1 3 4 25 %
Prop 1 3 4 25%
Mnst 1 4 5 20%

*All games are based on 2 player games. Talisman 4.0, with corrected offical errata.

HallowKnight said:

You should also take note of which characters were defeated each time. Your list is very interesting, but Talisman can be different depending on Characters in play, player numbers and playing attitude. Considering that perhaps you mostly played with the same person, you only have to track the opponent Characters to complete your statistics.

I do like the idea of letting the Elf go to the middle region Woods space as well.

I disagree in letting the Elf teleport to the Middle Region.

Allowing access to the Middle Region so early in the game would result in:

The Elf being effectively safe from the other characters encountering him, other than spells, until they manage to reach the Middle Region.

The Elf having easy access to the Hidden valley, Oasis, and Temple, allowing him to draw cards and possibly level up at a faster rate than the others, and easy healing if he's lucky enough to have the Prince or Princess.

Having easier access to cards on the Outer region by woods teleport, instead of going back down via Sentinel space and then working his way over.

On a side note, one character that does not surprise me is the druid. Being evil and with high fate he can abuse the enchantress to get some good early str + cr. The ability to gte him a full lot of spells and more impact of alignment makes him a powerful character now. His was p**weak in 2nd edition.

SubElement said:

Adding the Woods space in the Middle region to the teleport ability would also add to the number of Woods spaces accessible.

The_Warlock said:

Certainly the dwarf has the fastest route to the crown (in 4th edition revised). This makes him near-unstoppable when playing the "sudden death" version of the game (first one to the crown wins).

HallowKnight said:

It would be interesting to see similar data for 4th edition revised. Clearly one of the intentions of the fate rule was to balance out some of the weaker characters, and the Elf stands middle-strong at 3 fate.

Roy said:

Indeed, one reason I see to strengthen the Elf is to threaten the Druid. If the Elf can reach the Druid on *any* woods space it creates an interesting Catch 22: 'is it worth replenishing my spells while giving the Elf a chance to attack me?'

Allowing the Elf to move to any woods space would drastically increase this threat.

As a compromise option to simply allowing the elf to utilize the middle region woods, you could say he has to "find" it first. Thus, the elf could teleport to the middle region woods space after he had landed there once through normal movement.

Caliban said:

I think this would be the fairest way to increase the elf's power if you don;t find him effective enough. Giving him th ability to go up to the middle region early in the game just gives him too much advantage.

The elf is the most powerful character in the game.

In a 2 player game.

His power decreases with the addition of more players to the point where in a 6 player game, he is merely above average. Additionally, the Reaper expansion diminishes his power.

The fact is, once he lands on a Woods space, he's simply dull to play. Teleport, teleport, teleport. But can he be assassinated? No. Can the thief take something from him? No. Can the sorceress beguile him? No. He's completely invincible. If he draws the Demon or another card, no biggie, he's still got 2 other woods spaces to teleport to at will. At the very beginning of my very first game, I said prophetically: "The ability to control your movement is the single greatest power in this game." It's absolutely true. When you have, as a side-effect, the ability to dodge anything and anyone... well then it's just ridiculous.

Why is the elf less powerful with more players? First, let's look at a 2 player game. In Revised 4th, there are 3 cards that are "pools," a Shrine, and the Cave. If any of these 5 cards is drawn early on a Woods space with the Elf, the game is over. As there are only ~100 cards in the deck, a character has a 1 in 20 chance of drawing one each turn. Because the Elf draws a card every turn when teleporting, the odds of him finding a Magic Stream or other such thing in the Woods during the first 30 turns or so (ie "early") are exceptionally good. Why does he "win" if it's a 2 player game? If he hits magic stream, in 6 turns he will have a Strength of 7 and Craft of 4. Turn 0b: Elf draws pool/stream (gains 1 pt). Turn 1a: Opponent moves closer to it (is still out of range). Turn 1b: Elf goes to woods, gets card, wins or evades. Turn 2a: Opponent moves closer, is likely still out of range or has a 1:6 chance of getting a point. Turn 2b: Elf takes second point. Turn 3a: Repeat 2a, etc. The opponent in all likelihood will not land on that space, giving the elf a +4 advantage to Craft or Strength. In most games, this is essentially a win.

But why is it SO much likelier to happen in a 2 player game? The elf draws over 50% of all the cards in the deck. Look at the spaces on the board. Many, like Graveyard and Village, do not grant a "draw," and 3 in the outer region are woods spaces that the other character may still land on. Only 14 spaces in the Outer Region, of 22, are non-woods "Draw card" spaces. That means the other player has a 63% chance to draw a card on his turn (not to mention the places, strangers, and enemies who clutter the board) on a non-woods. There's a 13.6% chance that the other character will draw a card on a Woods space (which may be avoided strategically), and a 100% chance that the Elf will draw a card on a Woods space. So, during each full game round, there's a 113.6% chance that a card will be drawn on a Woods space and a 63% chance of a draw on a non-woods space. With a simple look at ratios, we can see that this means roughly 2 in every 3 cards in the deck will be pulled on a Woods space. There are myriad additional possibilities (the opponent avoids woods like the plague, reducing the Woods likelihood to 100%, but reducing the character's options). The three Woods can become clogged with things like the Witch and a Market, and with 2 such clogs, the Elf only draws a card 50% of the time. But as established above, an Elf + Pool on Woods is a win, and the likelihood of one of the pools (or shrine or whatever) ending up on a woods space is well over 60%, because relatively few cards are drawn on non-woods spaces. So barring all of the other luck in the game, an Elf in a 2 player game has a 60% chance of just winning outright.

In 3 player game, the odds of a Woods draw is 127.2% and a non-woods draw is 126%, meaning that Pools are only ~50% likely to end up there. Additionally, the more players in a game, the higher the likelihood that someone else will snag some points from the pool in the 2 turns it takes the Elf to return. This weakness is compensated for somewhat by the Elf's ignoring 9/10 abilities on other players' cards for the majority of the game.

How does the Reaper diminish the Elf's power? Simple, since he doesn't roll dice, he never "attacks" anyone with death. Additionally, it's the one assault that can hurt the Elf while he's in the Woods. Finally, the Pool of fate in the Reaper expansion is dreadfully inferior to the Craft/Strength pools (it's in the ballpark with the life pool) in the main deck. Since you've doubled the number of Adventure cards, you've made the likelihood of an early Elf victory via woods-pool 50% less likely.

In short, our players unanimously banned the Elf in 2 player games and grumble a lot when he's in a 3 player game. In 4+, he's no worse than the Monk, etc. He does NOT need to be empowered further by letting him bypass the Sentinel, which is essentially the only check on the Elf's ridiculous power as it is.

librarycharlie said:

Can't the Reaper be evaded like other Characters/Creatures? I've received the Reaper expansion yesterday, but I can't remember such a statement in the rulesheet.

However, you wrote a really interesting post there. A great analysis of the Elf Character, that explains why I had many bad experiences in 4-6 player games and was easily beaten once in a 2-player game, even with a strong Character like the Warrior.

Yeah I see your point in allowing him to " get away " from all you sharks... LOL... but really the Middle Region it no place for a new born to go wandering around in... Desert, Ruins, Black Knight... Oye....!!! Still you have the Castle but need money... Not to mention the Chasm... Really I am cool with whatever way the group wants to play him.

The_Warlock said:

Reaper rule sheet says: "Grim Reaper is not a character." And since Reaper doesn't attack with Strength or Craft, not a Creature either. I like to picture Reaper as a permanent Event moving around the board.