Okay, so today's game featured these two chars, so happened to pay more attention to their card texts then before.

Thief: " ...Village you may take one card of your choice from the Purchase deck for free."

Merchant: "...Village, you may also discard one of your own Objects to take any one Object from the Purchase deck." Word also appears in the sell part of his ability as well. (emphasis added)

Never really given a lot of thought to this, but the wordings got me thinking. Does the Thief choose from 4 options at Village (taking into account Health and Money): Mystic, Healer, Blacksmith or Steal? I think we've previously played as one of 3 choices + steal something.

Given the word "also" on the Merchant card, I would read his options as one of the 3 normal and then if he wants, also trade and/or sell Object(s).

On a hilarious side note, yesterday I was thinking about what would happen if the Merchant drew Fool's Gold on the 1st turn. Care to guess what card he drew on the first turn ! Merchant still won (vs Priest who died as Evil, reborn as Dark Cultist and Thief).

I think that both Characters may visit the Village, Market or Market Day as normal and also use the Ability. Wording is not clear and perhaps the most recent Character has the correct version for both.

It will be more appropriate, for both Characters, if they could use the ability only if they visit the Blacksmith at the village. I don't like the idea of the Thief being cured by the Healer and also stealing an Armour, or the Merchant searching enlightment by the Mystic and also trading a Helmet for an Axe. You may found an Armour to steal or an Axe to barter only at the Blacksmith's workshop.

So far I noticed many situations that will make me decide for a house rule and the hilarious side of this is that I've never played with Reaper Expansion yet.

I guess we'll have to get this one cleared up as it's a bit confusing, though certainly not game breaking however you decide to play it. I'd never noticed the word "also" on the Merchant to be honest.

I would take it that you can do both as the Thief too as it does not mention doing it instead of purchasing something. But then again the addition of the "also" twice to the Merchant looks a little odd to be honest. Perhaps I'd just never considered you would want buy something when you could steal it, but I suppose there would be times when it would be useful. However, I would think you would have to limit the encounter to the Blacksmith at the Village and not include the other personalities there. I can see a point to being able to buy something at a shop and steal something on your way out, but visiting the Mystic and the Blacksmith would be a bit of a leap. We shall have to wait and see for "official" clarification.

I overlook the word also too

But i agree that you can't visit the mystic and selling your items at the black smith. Then you are visiting 2 of the three locations

I have ask the same question into the merchant topic..

Today I played as the Merchant and got a fair second place against the Warrior, while the Dwarf got enormously powerful but lingered too long in his wealth and the Priest got killed, resurrected as the Sorceress and made a fair game.

I did many tricks at the village and Market and I hope everything was legal. Sometimes I bought a cheap Object and immediately exchanged it for another one (better), thus gaining Gold. I don't see any impediment on the Character card text. All this trading was really fun and kept me into play even after a bad moment, when the Warrior cast Transmute on me. I had Armour, Axe and Water Bottle and must leave the Middle Region too soon, but managed to recover, resist to the Command Spell and get to the Crown, where I faced the Warrior with the same Strength of 17 and died, after rolling 2 for 6 consecutive times.

The_Warlock said:

I have not play with the merchant yet, but i want to use the same trick as you It was already my idea from the beginning.

Buying a cheap sword and changing it for a armour

That's how you must play with the merchant But he has no battle abilities and can only evade or buy, sell, trade at village, market or market day..

Velhart said:

The "trade with Characters" ability is not that bad. I managed to trade a Helmet for a Ring and an Axe for the Runesword. Thief and Sorceress have better stealing abilities, but this works fine if you have Gold to buy Helmets and Swords.

By the way, I play with a modified deck where I doubled Gold quantities. I felt there was too little gold after FFG removed Bags of Gold for Craft Enemies and I used my extra deck (I purchase both game and Upgrade pack) and put Bags of gold inside, as well as an extra Raiders, an extra Market Day and two extra Dragons. It's fine now that we see Bags of Gold back in play, with 194 cards those 11 Gold cards (+3 Two bags of gold from Reaper) were difficult to find. Now there's 25 and I feel the gameplay has improved, considering that there are lots of places to spend gold, including the new Graveyard.

Yesterday, i receive plenty of gold. I think i have something about 8 a 9 gold !

There are also place cards where you can find a lot of gold, like the cave or tomb etc

But i found a lot of bags with 2 coins inside !

Even with the reduced Gold quantity, I still see excess Gold in most games (no Graveyard board mod used though). Generally at least 1 char gets gold fever with no real effort on his part and has 8+ Gold. Best have been in the 14+ Gold range and that's happened several times.

Dam said:

On the contrary, in my games people used to gain up to 6 Gold in the Entire Game, if Cave or Tomb didn't come into play. I wanted to have more Gold, or it will be really difficult for Evil Characters to heal (no healing at the Graveyard). With doubled Gold quantities, I saw people gaining a lot of Gold and always use it for healing/purchasing/Fate replenishment and all those effects on the board that usually can't be acquired because of too little Gold in play. And still, I saw many players with no Gold for a long time.

For you gaining 14+ Gold in a single game is too much? I think this should be the average of each player. Gold is useful and doesn't imbalance the game. More Gold in the deck is more Gold for everybody; I also added one Market Day because I noticed that people don't purchase Objects and try to draw the powerful Magic Objects from the Adventure Deck. More Gold makes the game less luck dependant, I believe.

The_Warlock said:

14 G is definately wasteful, since most chars only really need 2-6 (Mule + Armour). Even Armour is debatable, so 2G can easily see you through the game. Anything else is gravy, though can be useful for healing of course (ditto for Sorcerer). Also, there have been a few occasions where a char paid 6 or 9 Gold at Academy and only few turns later (that is, few turns after they got moving again) were already back to 6 Gold.

Back in the BI 4th days, getting tons of Gold was the norm, especially when there was even less to spend it on. 10+ on all 3 chars in a game wasn't really rare.

I am still wondering now if the thief can buy and steal at the same time at the village or city etc.

If i read the character card,i can't figure out if i may use the ability and visit a place in the village to buy something or doing more there...

Thief can visit village AND steal a item from purchase deck in our games, he use the ability when he visit village (no city if i remember correctly) so he must get action in village to use ability (i think), same when market (i hope it is the correct english name)is drawed then thief can steal a item and still buy items from there.

mmm oke.

I will play the same with the thief as the merchant.

He can buy and use his ability in the village etc

For people who don't know the right answer to these questions...

Here it is...

The thief can choose if he want to steal something when visiting the blacksmith or buy something. He cannot do both !

The Merchant can trade only one time per turn when visiting the blacksmith , AND he can sell and buy as many as he want !

The same rule aplies for other locations that are stated on the ability card of that character( such as market etc

Even if it is a old topic.. the answer has been given now

Can a Thief steal any of the objects in Village - incuding a mule (looks overpowered for me) or only those objects which are available in this place?

Croonos said:

Any card from the Purchase deck. Mule-hoarding with the Thief is fun, "gotta catch them all", then others are probably stuck with having only 4 Objects, forcing them to discard them, so you and your Mule Army can pick them up. If you get Mesmerism somehow, you can be even more evil, take that Mule or Horse and Cart they drew from the Adventure deck as well .

i just want to add that some of these old rules, has changed again.

Thief can steal and buy at the same time.

On top of that, Thief can also steal, if he visit the Healer or Mystic. (The merchant can use his abilties too there..)

-

PS: i will still play that you can only steal when you visit the blacksmith. Makes the most sense to me !

Velhart said:

Just to let any of you know, in case you think the Thief is too powerful, that our group add the homerule that if the Thief steal an objet in the market, healer, mystic or city, he has to roll a dice, on a 6, he get caugh stealing and has to pay one gold and return the object, if the Thieve doesn't have any gold, he give an object at random to the discard pile

We found that this have help balance thing up.

Cheers

Old Master said:

Not sure about this house rule, but i think that the thief will be just fine with the normal official rule ( except stealing when visiting healer and mystic..

That's powerful enough i think. On top of that, he can also steal from characters..

i can't say that the thief is overpowered... lol

I was just thinking about the Thief..

The only ability from the Thief to get gold, is by landing on characters.., but he can also steal a purchase card in the village, and sell all of them by the alchemist in the city, to become filty rich

Let's begin first with buying some mules...

somebody must carry all those stolen goodies..

There was a discussion about the Thief with my opponent a while ago..

I wonder what you all think about the Thief, that he can always steal in the village, no matter who he will visit.

Has someone experiences with it?

Is he overpowered, or do you all think it is unlogical? ( because there are no purchase cards by the Mystic and Healer)

Has anyone play the Thief with the rules from John Goodenough?