So I finally got the Dragon expansion today and looked more carefully at the Conjurer's abilities. Didn't the Conjurer from the first few Talisman editions have the ability to use a spell but discard a different spell from his hand if one was available? He could use Finger of Death, for example, but discard Summon Ekor and keep FoD to use again?

I'm pretty sure it was the Conjurer who had that ability. This Conjurer's new ability--she can move a card to her space instead of drawing a new one--makes more sense with the conjurer persona, but that old ability was awesome and I'm a little bummed to see it hasn't reappeared. I was wondering, if that old ability were to be assigned to a forthcoming character, which character would it makes sense with?

Hi Jenna,

You are right, that the Conjurer has a other ability in 2th edition.

He could indeed keep a spell card after casting it, by discarding another spell from his hand.

I think that the old ability is too powerful, and I am glad that FFG has change it.

Otherwise, she could always keep a random spell in her hand, by traveling to the waterfall in the highland, and easily gain a spell.

However, there is a special character from ffg and mephisto, who could almost do the same things.

everytime is she can choose to draw a spell, she can choose a spell card from the discard pile..

I am glad that ffg has change the conjurer. I like the new ability more than the 2th edition version.

Considering that Spells are PvP, not CvC (characters have little to do with them), and that they are the most distracting aspect of character based play, I've hesitated to publicly present one notion. Since the topic is now raised...

Spells in Talisman have always been nonsensical and not really spells at all. That even spell-cyclers and other characters heavily dependant on them get nothing better than the random draw of all characters, this is a limited leveler for spell activity throughout the game. But I know groups who've tried the following.

(Psuedo) True Spell Casting.

It makes no sense that spells (not as scrolls or out of a tome) are "forgotten" by all (even mages) once they are cast. Since Spells are based on cards to be played and discarded, there is little to done to change this (and many options have been tried) without major rework of game mechanics. There is only one clean possibility built into the game. The tweaked house rule is to apply this alternative ability as standard to all characters.

When a character... ah-hem... player has more than one Spell card and uses one, it may choose to discard any Spell card it has for that use. It need not discard the Spell just used unless that card is the last such it holds. So in this, even characters with "you always have 1 Spell" are limited. So long as a player possess at least one other Spell to discard, it may continue to re-use one chosen Spell it wishes to keep and cast again. But eventually all players hit a point where they are down to one spell.

That's it. That's all there is to it. It makes for some interesting play from some perspectives, as it can introduce additional tactics for Spell use in specific combinations. But be warned... this is about PvP, not CvC, and it will present an advantage (in a smaller way than most assume) for spell-cyclers. It will get annoying in some games for those who want CvC more than PvP... though the more expansion boards you use, the less CvC is left in the game anyway... in fact sometimes none at all.

There are other options for doing Spells as true Spells learned and retained by characters, but they are too cumbersome for the average player. Give this simple one a try some evening for the heck of it and see what you think. Don't assume you will really know what it is like until you try it... because you don't. I was very resistant at first, but in the right group and game, where the CvC wasn't diluted, it turned out to be interesting.

That sounds interesting, JC, and potentially more balanced than regular Talisman. Most casters seem to be slightly disadvantaged, probably because, like you pointed out, the spells you get are random, and there are a lot of mediocre spells. I'll have to try your method once my group has played with the Dragon expansion a few more times. We're all a bunch of purists the first couple of games after we get a new expansion.

What about the Sprite, though? Does her "always has two spells" ability make her overpowered?

Velhart,

I wish I could get those Mephisto characters. Does FFG carry them or were they available only through the magazine?

I don't know about the Conjurer being too overpowered if she could use a spell but discard an other... She could just keep landing on the waterfall, but unless she had a clockwork owl or something similar, she could waste several turns trying to do that. And then there are plenty of spells that are intended for use against other characters, so she'd eventually have to leave that area in order to use those spells. Compared to the Alchemist and Dragon Rider's abilities, that one seems kind of tame.

The only place to get the "official" characters is through Mephisto , and they now have a limited supply.

Jenna said:

Hi Jenna,

As Jon already said, they are available on the Mephisto site.

About Conjurer. You can try to make a houserule and see how the old Conjurer plays.

I agree that the Clockwork Owl makes the Conjurer more powerful than he is, but Clockwork Owl is more difficult to get, because they are 10 treasures in the dungeon.

The new ability that ffg has added to the Conjurer looks more fun to me.Landing on spaces and pick a card in your region and bring it to your own space.

* About the Magician Apprentice from Mephisto. I have change the ability that was similar to the old conjurer, and added the philosopher spell draw ability, to her card. This makes her more interesting, and not overpowered.

All the characters are translated, and you can find them by pressing the link under my post.

The text from some characters have been change, and the changes can be found on page 23 on the mephisto topic.

Velhart said:

You can choose the treasure you want, if you defeat the Lord of Darkness, unlike the relics.

Thanks, Velhart. That was really helpful.

Velhart said:

I like the Conjurer's new ability too. I haven't played her yet, but it looks fun. I want to create my own character that has the old Conjurer's ability, and I'm trying to come up with a type of caster that that ability makes sense with. Something like Spell Transmuter. Maybe I should just see how that old ability plays out before I put too much thought into it--maybe you're right and that ability would make him too overpowered.

Cruan said:

My group randomizes the dugeon and highland treasures. When we followed the rule that said you could choose your reward in the dungeon, people kept winning always by getting cloak of feathers and skipping the inner region, and it got too predictable.

Jenna said:

I was just thinking a bit about the conjurer, but maybe you can add a ability that he can discard a spell card from his hand, to draw a new spell from the spell deck.

You could add that he must miss a turn if he want to use his ability. That makes players think twice,before they want to circle spells.

It's just a idea, but on the other hand, players can skip turns to hope to get a specific spell. So that's the drawback

Cruan said:

Oh you are right.

I use the alternate rule.

It feels more talisman this way.

It's all about random draws

Jenna said:

SMART! Always try you new stuff in pure form. You never know what little changes to game might occur... and then if you want to add on some standard or new house rules, you'll be a little familiar with newly added cards in case you see some more needed tweaks for those additional rules. With a few rule exceptions (related to Fate), that's always how we try out a new commercial addition to the game.

Jenna said:

Yeah, she's an anomally that can cause some trouble on this rule. We never did come up with an adequate way to adjust for her. Maybe some others here will have some ideas. One thing we did was that at no time could she draw two spells at once. So if she uses up two at any time, she can only draw one per turn. It didn't help a lot, but a little. Overall the Sprite doesn't get used much in our games, as she gets pounded hard and fast because her ability.

Velhart said:

I actually like that better than the old conjurer... and it would mix well with the spell house rule mentioned above for all characters. As to other names for a conjuror

@Jenna:

Hmmm... the new conjuror that "summons" cards should have been called... well, a Summoner . There are a couple of other obscure terms for the art of summoning (ie. convocation) vs. conjuration... Convocator, Convenier... blah, blah... probably too obscure on second thought.

Summoner! Perfect. I'll go with that name.

Thank you!