Hello, I am new on this forum and would like to salute everyone here. I am french and thus, the card names I'll be using might differ from the original ones but I hope you will get what cards I am talking about, in case there are ambiguities just ask for more details I will answer.

I have a few questions about Talisman and I am hoping someone can help me with them, here they are :

1 - We must accomplish the quest "Kill the Sentinel", the character is located in the middle Region, can we use a move dice to go down, kill the sentinel, and climb again in the same run ?

The rule says we can't change direction in the same region in one move, however, it also notices that we can do it while changing region. Nothing in it says we can't go down and up in the same turn.

2 - The character is located on the Valley of Fire, another player cast the spell "Destiny path" at the beginning of our turn, and the quest we draw is immediatly doable (as "Lose 1 Force", "Discard an object", ...), shall we accomplish it and does it prevent us to climb to the Crown of Command and teleports us to the Warlock cave ?

The rule says we can't cross the Portal of Power if we have a Quest, however in this case, it was already crossed. Let's say we kill the Lord of Darkness in the Dungeon with more than 8 points, and we have a quest but not doable immediatly (if it would have been, then it would have been done already anyway) as "Kill a dragon" and none is on the game board... We are teleported to the Crown of Command and no one forces us to go back and Draw cards to try finding a dragon ! Where's the truth in all this ? What shall we do or not ?

3 - In the base rules, it is said we can move back from the Crown of Command ... For what reason would we do this ? (If we can't kill the Ice queen maybe to improve our intellect... get some more lives ...fates... ok but what about the simple ending of the base game)

4 - The Cleric can lose a Fate instead of a Life, ...which makes it really hard the fact he loses his Warhorse if he got one ! Does he lose it after he loses a fight and the attacker asks him to lose a life or is he really unbalanced and too much advantaged compared to other chars (knowing the Warhorse is already a card that provides a huge advantage)

5 - Can the Merchant use its trading capability at any time ? For example, not at his turn, on a character that comes to his space, wether that player attacks him or not ? Or, when a character is on his space at the beginning of his turn and not only on one that he ends his move on ?

6 - Can the Merchant and the Thief trade / steal the pedlar ?

Thanks a lot.

domFR said:

1) No. as soon as you kill the sentinel, you´re teleported to the warlocks cave for completing your quest.

2) Same as above. You´re teleported to the warlocks cave. If you can complete your quest ( discard an object etc) you must do it. So no CoC

3) I believe the rules says you cannot turn back from the crown of command

4) I think her ability will prevent the warhorse from being discarded as you are not loosing a life, but 1 fate instead. Remember that when using the warhorse, you may add your craft value, not your total craft.

5) You can only use the merchants ability when you land on a space with another character

6) You can only trade/steal objects. Not followers

Best regards

domFR said:

#1: Nope, when you come down, you can't head back up again to the Middle Region on the same move. At work, so can't check for certain if the rules point this out.

#2: Yes, completing a WQ on the Inner Region does bounce you out to the Warlock's Cave. However, if you get a Quest that you can't complete, like Kill a Dragon, you can ignore it and move from VoF to the Crown of Command. But if you can complete a Quest, you must, most "discard x" Quests are almost always completable immediately.

#3: You can't move back under normal rules. You might get bounced out of CoC via completing a Quest, Transference Spell or special effect of an ending (Eagle King I think). But no moving away from CoC at the normal one space per turn Inner Region movement is possible.

#4: Is the Warhorse lost on losing a life or losing a combat, can't recall? If Life, then Cleric might be riding around on a Warhorse for a long.

#5: No, only when the Merchant lands in a space with another character and chooses to encounter that character. He then can either attack or use his ability, assuming the other character doesn't evade him.

#6: Neither I think mentions Pedlar, so I don't think so.

I'm too slow.

However, to clarify on:

domFR said:

I think what is meant is "Can the Thief and Merchant use their special ability when visiting the Pedlar, as if they are visiting the Village, Market or Market Day.

To the best of my knowledge, the answer is no. The Thief explicitely says Village, Market and Market day, so no other spaces or cards are affected. I guess the Merchant is similar, but I don't know the exact wording used on that card.

Do keep in mind that the Thief does not need to visit the Blacksmith to take a card. He can also take a card when visiting the Healer or the Mystic. He is also not limited to the cards being sold, but can take any card from the Purchase deck.

domFR said:

"Direction" means "clockwise/counterclockwise", as stated in the rules. If you cross between Regions, you can choose which direction you go, but you're not allowed to move back on a space where you've already been in the same movement. It's not clear as the sun but I think it's implicit in Talisman movement system.

domFR said:

In this case, Path of Destiny can force a Character to be teleported back to the Warlock Cave, where he receives a Talisman and must get to the Crown again.

As you say, an active Quest does prevent you from "opening the Portal of Power", not to "reach the Crown of Command". If you get to the Crown via Treasure Chamber the uncompleted quest has no impact and you even need a Talisman (this is required to enter the Valley of Fire Space).

domFR said:

Not from the Crown as the others said. There are situations when moving back from other spaces in the Inner Region may have some sense, even with the basic ending. Play and discover it by yourself!

domFR said:

The Cleric can do that, it's a strong card combination. Nothing imbalancing or broken, I think.

domFR said:

No, as per Rulebook pg.9 is the "Character whose turn it is" that decides whether to use a special ability or to attack. Moreover, any special ability is used on a Character when you choose to encounter him. This happens only when you land on the same space AND decide to encounter the Character.

domFR said:

The answer is no, because the Pedlar isn't mentioned by the Character cards and it's a card added later on, in the Frostmarch Expansion. It can be house ruled if you wish, it makes sense to apply the ability to the Pedlar as well.

Yeah, the Thief and Merchant actually become weaker and weaker the more expansions you buy, as there is less and less chance to encounter the Market or Market Day.

It would be nice if the City expansion had a space or two that said "Counts as Market for special abilities".

It's a fact that Base game Characters become weaker the more expansions that come in.

The Base game (& Reaper) Characters have abilities that are differently worded if compared to Characters from Dungeon and following expansions. Many of them have abilities related to certain cards that become useless or indifferent in a game where those cards won't easily show up. Moreover, the flavour "penalties" of the Priest and the Monk have become obsolete and ridiculous while new Characters never have penalties and display powerful Abilities instead.

Thanks all for your enlightments, here are my further thoughts and comments :

1 - I know killing the sentinel for your quest teleports you immediately so you can't really do the "down/up" move, but as someone said.. it's not clear at the sun that you can't do it in the rules, it's not written (I wanted to do it to save a turn of course) ... ok basically in Talisman moving system you can't have your char twice on the same space in the same move but for the fact you have your quest, this is also not happening since you're teleported (you're not landing back on the upper space !)

2 - I'm still unsure why making a difference between quests. The Warlock quests rules (see The Reaper expansion) says you must accomplish them as fast and as soon as you can and when you can, you are forced to do them (like when you must discard a weapon and you have a great one, you can't wait to buy a basic sword to discard it for the quest) and being teleported for your Talisman (or Reward with latest expansion) ...

Dam said above, for example, "Discarding an object" and you can do it... you do it and you're teleported... "Kill a dragon" .. you can't so ..just ignore

This is pretty unfair.. getting an easy quest puts you in an horrible situation where you're pushed away from the end that you were about to reach while having a hard quest is ok since you can't do it.. I think you can do it ...it's just longer, you have to reach "Draw 1 Card" spaces and try finding a dragon..

3 - A big confusion on my part probably... I have re-read the rules carefully and yes it's clearly mentionned you cannot move back from the Crown, maybe I had the "moving back" in the Inner region chapter in mind, and the text on the Queen of Ice as well ( 5-6 on a dice). My bad !

4- The Cleric riding a Warhorse is definitely a strong card combination ... I would like to ask The Wizard what he meant by "adding your craft value" and not your "total craft" ... the figure written on the character card ? that figure + blue bonuses ? that + magical object and followers bonuses ? Because as we play it, it's like this :

A Cleric holding a sword on a Warhorse, 3 points in blue bonuses, a Solomon crown and a Unicorn as follower has a total attack power of :

4 (base craft value) + 3 pts + 2 (crown) + 1 (unicorn) = 10

2 (base strength value) + 1 (unicorn) + 1 (sword) = 4

14 attack score before the dice !!

5 - I was pretty sure about that answer since on previous edition of the game it was explicitly written "Instead of attacking a player that you land on, you may Trade with them." but on the 4th edition revised, The Reaper expansion, the merchant card says "You can trade with a char that is on your space by exchanging one of your objects....", but the text in rules about Characters encounters actually says you must choose between attacking or using a special ability on him, clarifying this, thanks The Warlock for pointing me on this.

6 - Unfortunately, this happens quite often when newer cards could influence older ones texts, especially character cards, yes, it's obviously not written on the merchant or the thief since these are older than the pedlar, but I think we will use a house rule as The Warlock suggested since it seems all right to think their abilities can have an effect on this stranger as well as on the village, market, and so on.. and as Thels noticed, this would improve them a bit since when you play with a lot of cards, those abilities are less and less used (and the same goes with spaces... when you add boards around, it changes the probability of landing on the village unless you never go to Highlands or Dungeon... this effect is also noticed playing with pvp chars.. it's easier with only one board, since encounters occur more often)

See the Wizard example in page 11 of the rulebook.

Craft value = Character's starting Craft

So in your Cleric example, he only receives a bonus of 4 Craft while using the Warhorse!

Ell.

Thanks Elliott for the clarification

Thels said:

Thief and merchant can always visit the village to use their steal or trade abilties.

The market is not really needed.

But they can include a market in a city expansion..

Velhart said:

Yeah, but the village is only a single space. You can't automatically decide to visit the village. With the Market and the Marketplace, you have more chances.

dl.dropbox.com/u/9409455/Thief.pdf

The new improved Thief.

Ell.

dl.dropbox.com/u/9409455/Merchant.pdf

The new improved Merchant.

Ell.

Nice!

Might houserule them in. Maybe along with "Minstrel can steal any one female follower and Sorceress can steal any one male follower when encountering another character."

dl.dropbox.com/u/9409455/Minstrel.pdf

The new improved Minstrel.

Ell.

talismanamsilat said:

Hmm, that feels quite powerful. At the start of the game, everyone is running around in the outer region, and all the followers go to you.

And then someone draws Cursed by a Hag.

Yes and the Minstrel has to take the Hag and discard all of his Followers! lol

Seriously though, it doesn't make the Minstrel overpowered, as he has to hope he can encounter an Animal to use his charm ability.

Ell.

dl.dropbox.com/u/9409455/Dwarf.pdf

The new improved Dwarf.

Ell.

Thanks Elliott but what are the status of those "new" versions ? official ? soon official in a future version of the game (or I don't know.. an upgrade pack) .. or homemade versions.

They are my versions of the characters. I have updated them to balance out special abilities which rely on certain cards to work (these cards have a very low chance of being encountered with so many adventure cards in the deck). The new special abilities I have designed do not suffer from these problems!

Ell.

dl.dropbox.com/u/9409455/Assassin.pdf

The new improved Assassin. (The character was originally designed as having 2 special abilities but actually only had 1 special ability. I have now rectified this and reworded the original special ability!)

Ell.

ok thanks Elliott, as the game goes and grows, some old characters (and looking even deeper in the game, maybe even cards) need a bit of upgrade or refresh and what you've done is nice

The_Warlock said:

Yeah... this type of thing can easily be handled but updating the FAQ and just adding expansion text to base characters to keep them up to speed. But FFG hasn't deemed to update the FAQ for a while now. Hopefully, we'll see an updated one shortly after Dragon hits.

Oboewan said:

I still have hope, but we gathered tons of expansions, card combinations, rules, house rules in the meantime, that now I play too much by the memory. I like FFG production quality, it really shines and pays both eye and brain in most games. But they publish FAQs so slowly and often when they release an update it is still unclear or incomplete. I know this from Descent and other mainstream games. I should say that the Talisman FAQ was obsolete the day it was published in 2009, eons ago.

There are so many things to clarify, like the Missed Turn stack/don't stack mess, how to deal with Followers that are no actual Followers, Battle Royale and Turns, Valkyrie's ability and lots of Q&A that are gathered and lost forever in these forums. I followed them regularly and gladly spoke about rules and interpretations; now I'm tired of collecting knowledge that has never been officialized. I play as my group thinks better and I ask a question in the Rules Section only if there's no easy way out.

Every new big box is the herald of a new FAQ. Let's hope Dragons bring FAQ with them.