hey guys..

we've come up with some new questions.. mostly regarding the new dragons expansion, and 1 regular.

1. i'll start with the regular.. say i lost a battle and cast retribution (rematch). can i cast new spells / use different items / evade in the 2nd battle, or does it have to be an exact replica of the 1st battle?

2. "dragonspire" and "great portal" cards from the green and red dragon decks, which teleport you somewhere according to the scales you have+board+die / strength+craft+scales you have+die.. is it only me or are they complete game enders? so far we've encountered them 2ce in 2 games we played with the new expansion. in both cases it was in the middle/advance part of the game. in both cases the character who drew it, was teleported directly to the crown of command without much effort. in 1 case the char had 16 scales + 16 on the board, and in the others he had 9 craft, 13 strength and 8 scales.. arent those places way too overpowered?!

3. dragon rider.. is there any way for him to lose the dragon follower he has? its kinda rough..

4. has any1 else encountered a problem when the board fills up with scales? in that case, no1 wanted to get the dragon rage, so every1 ran away from the region that was filled up, and so it just remained filled up, with every1 too scared to go back there.. what's up with that?

bushaaya said:

Card says that you immediately attack again, so no cheating/evading/disappearing is allowed. It also says that all Spells and Obj/Fol used in the first attack remain in effect for the second; no changes are allowed and by extension no extra Spells should be cast. I'd say its definitely a re-roll of both dice.

bushaaya said:

In both cases, the characters were more than ready to face the Dragon Tower and reach the Crown by the regular way. I agree that these two cards could have been a little bit less easygoing, but if you compare how easy is to get a teleport from the Dungeon Chamber to the Crown, these are not unbalanced. But... were Characters with those stats comfortably able to kill the Dragon Kings? Since scales cannot be used against them, 13 Strength is not an auto-win even against Grilipus, and if you lose you suffer even the Dragon Rage. Getting to the Crown is not all that you need. Moreover, other Characters may try and reach the Crown in the same way and they can possibly strike the last blow after an unsuccesful attack and steal the victory.

bushaaya said:

If you force her to ditch all Followers (e.g. Toad, Cursed by a Hag) he has to ditch the Dragon as well, since it's a Follower to him. In this case, it was clarified that Followers without the Follower keyword on the card are discarded instead.

bushaaya said:

Never had this problem. Remember that you must encounter only the scales of the current Dragon King; other scales can be ignored if you're afraid of dragons. I could not possibly imagine that no one dares to face a dragon scale, at least the ones who play with the Characters from the Dragon expansion.

The_Warlock said:

Hey Warlock,

Dragon scales can still be used against the draconic lords, if they match their opponent.

Velhart said:

Correct, I misread the rules this time. I just don't understand why they don't recall this important thing neither in the paragraph "confronting the Dragon King" nor on the Draconic Lord cards. It's in the paragraph "Claiming Dragon Scales", exactly the place where you won't look for it. Thanks for the hint, it will avoid further mistakes.

So, probably getting to the Crown with that stats & scale collection is an auto-win. A good way to speed up the ending and to avoid the long way to the CoC, where some other Character may have a Spell ready for casting. Even though I won't be the one who benefits from these cards, they are a good addition to the game.

regarding the 4th issue, the problem is not facing the dragons from the scales, but the dragon rage. as to my understanding, if all spaces on the board have scales, and a character draws another scale that has to go on the board, that character suffers the dragon rage from the current dragon king. since all spaces were taken, no1 wanted to get out to the outer region and take a chance that they would draw the scale that has to go on the board, and get the rage..

bushaaya said:

I see no problem with it.

If the outer region is full of scales, then you can always go to the highland board

This makes the highland more useful in the game.

You can come back later to destroy the dragons to claim those scales, and then there is free room(spaces) left for new tokens.

we ran to the highlands without any other choice.

we played were 4 players, and so, even if 1 clears a scale, the other 3 have chances to put it back and even add more. not all cards are enemies, and so even if you go to a scale, there's no promise it will be an enemy, and even if it is, you're not sure you will kill it, and so there are high chances to get hit by the rage.

we had the dragon priestess in the game, which contributed to the problem, by not attacking anything from the scales.. just collecting cultists and praying to dragons, thus getting stronger..

bushaaya said:

It seems that it is more dangerous with more players, because there are more rounds in the game.

Dragon priestess can benefit indeed from those cards. that player will be very lucky. and she ignores dragon rage

Well. the situation is known in the rulebook.

Just go to highland, and come back later, but dragon rage is still dangerous then.

You can always go to the dungeon too.

The Dragon expansion adds more difficulty to the game, so you can expect dangerous outcomes.

I don´t have the expansion yet, so i must first see for myself how it plays.

The_Warlock said:

Hmm this is a tricky one, because as I understand from the rules followers are only the ones that have the word Follower on them. So hag wouldn't make you loose your followers also characters like Vampiress can only take followers which have the word follower on it. So basically you can only loose the dragon follower by becoming toad.

I think I have a thread in here somewhere where I got it confirmed that only cards with the word follower actually counts as a follower.

Persiatic said:

that's what i figured, but it makes the char a bit overpowered, isnt it?

Persiatic said:

This is the type of question that made the success of the FAQ acronym. It is a genuine Frequently Asked Question and the answer was given an infinite number of times, but still no FAQ update has been issued so far. I'll summarize again and I beg you to redirect people to this thread if you see them asking again. This is NOT in the Rulebook, you won't ever guess how it works from there.

The rule is:

Cards that become Followers thanks to a Spell, an Object or a Character's Special Ability are to be considered Followers for the Character that holds them. They are not Followers for other Characters, as they don't have the Follower keyword, and cannot be targeted by their Spells and abilities.

If an Adventure card or board space that affects Followers is encountered by the Character, "special" Followers are affected because they are Followers to that Character.

Such Followers can be ditched at any time, but they are discarded instead. If forced to ditch (e.g. Toad), you discard.

Further discussion and links to be found here: www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp

The_Warlock said:

i already know all this, but i wanted to ask this specifically for this character to see if i've missed anything.
i was asking because we figured that it makes that char rather overpowered compared to the rest.

bushaaya said:

It didn't look so because you agreed with what Persiatic has said, which is wrong according to the rules I've summarized. If you already know this, then it is not a question about how can the Dragon Rider lose the dragon, it's about she being an overpowered Character or not.

She's a privileged Character if you use the normal Dragon expansion game, where you can find your Dragon mount easily. In a normal Talisman game, she's an almost useless Character with no abilities that apply outside the Dragon Expansion. With alternative Dragon gameplays where you do not draw scales but still have a chance to draw Dragon cards, she's slightly above average.

But still, she's not a Character that will get a sure Spell supply and nowadays this is what you need to win. Otherwise someone will play Spells on you and you lose.

bushaaya said:

Yesterday Great Portal made is first appearance and it brought the game to a faster end. I really welcomed this card because it allowed to the leading Character (not me) to win the game without travelling all the way up to the Crown, which would have meant 30 extra minutes, maybe more.

I don't think these cards are overpowered, the only problem is that they allow to skip the entire Dragon Tower or Dragon Realm and they are inside relative small decks. Maybe they won't show up, but since the preparation to challenge the Dragon King usually takes a long time, they will show in most games and become the primary way to reach the Crown in a single move, which excludes interferences by other players. This is lame as it takes out the most challenging part of the expansion.