New Characters (Home Brews)

By Shymova77, in Talisman Home Brews

I'm very surprised that nobody has posted here yet about these characters.

My friends and I love them - we've completely replaced the whole set with your version of the characters. Mostly well-balanced and lots of really good new ones. Print them out on photo paper and they look just as good as the originals.

IMO, FF could sell these characters as an expansion in their own right. And maybe they should, because the ones that were included with the dragon expansion were rubbish.

Anyway, nice work!

Thank you! =)

These were by first attempts to improve the game experience. I have been playing with them instead of the originals for a while now and my friends love it.

They are however missing the standard game text formats such as (justified with the special abilities in italic) because I have been using pixlr for a while and it preatty basic. I just installed photoshop and I having a whole lot of fun redoing them with the standard game design look and feel. I will post them once I am done.

I am also making my own complete expansion set with board, cards, and enchantments which I hope will beat everything already created by FFG for Talisman expansions. I will also post it once done.

I love these Shymova77!

My favourite still to this day is Dragon Rider :) I always become Overpowered early game with that character because of the style of play I use.

Good work :)

These are great, Shymova! Really enjoying these although I do find them more powerful than the base game. Only complaint is that you pretty much have to replace original chars with these. Regardless, they're really good.

Have you considered using Strange Eons? It has a Talisman Plug-in that makes creating heroes really easy and enjoyable. Just search for "Strange Eons Talisman" in Google and you'll find the link.

Bakufu said:

These are great, Shymova! Really enjoying these although I do find them more powerful than the base game. Only complaint is that you pretty much have to replace original chars with these. Regardless, they're really good.

Have you considered using Strange Eons? It has a Talisman Plug-in that makes creating heroes really easy and enjoyable. Just search for "Strange Eons Talisman" in Google and you'll find the link.

Hi Bakufu, I have looked into Strange Eons and I prefer Photoshop for many reasons. I eventually wish to change the entire Character sheet appearance but for now I am working on a different project.

The characters are more powerful than the base game ones. I did that on purpose so that games get a bit shorter than the 3 hours normal time it takes on a 4-5 player game. I ended up replacing all of the base games one with new revamps (88 total characters done). Trying to balance all of them is another ball game. Some mechanics are just stronger than others but after many testing hours it seems that the randomness of Talisman makes it that even slighty OP characters tend to not win more often than any other.

Once I am done doing my expansion (The Unhollow), I will get back on doing all my characters on Photoshop with new designs (hopefully better looking ones).

But for anyone not playing with Photoshop, Strange Eons is a great tool indeed.

Just go to www.talismanisland.com and look around, there are photoshop templates I believe. As well as a link to Stange Eons itself.

Shymova77 said:

Bakufu said:

These are great, Shymova! Really enjoying these although I do find them more powerful than the base game. Only complaint is that you pretty much have to replace original chars with these. Regardless, they're really good.

Have you considered using Strange Eons? It has a Talisman Plug-in that makes creating heroes really easy and enjoyable. Just search for "Strange Eons Talisman" in Google and you'll find the link.

Hi Bakufu, I have looked into Strange Eons and I prefer Photoshop for many reasons. I eventually wish to change the entire Character sheet appearance but for now I am working on a different project.

The characters are more powerful than the base game ones. I did that on purpose so that games get a bit shorter than the 3 hours normal time it takes on a 4-5 player game. I ended up replacing all of the base games one with new revamps (88 total characters done). Trying to balance all of them is another ball game. Some mechanics are just stronger than others but after many testing hours it seems that the randomness of Talisman makes it that even slighty OP characters tend to not win more often than any other.

Once I am done doing my expansion (The Unhollow), I will get back on doing all my characters on Photoshop with new designs (hopefully better looking ones).

But for anyone not playing with Photoshop, Strange Eons is a great tool indeed.

Wow, that's awesome. I actually tend to agree with you in regards to the overall power of characters, although I'm a complete noob and only have 3 games under my belt. I already had initial thoughts of increasing the power and potential of the characters, cards, and monsters---pretty much everything---to create a more "hardcore" version. It took the randomness factor and made it more deadly. You hit the nail on the head that it would decrease game length -- something I'm a fan of when a game takes around 3 hours.

You say 88 chars AND an expansion? Do you have a working list or anything that you wouldn't mind showing or PMing me on Boardgamegeek (username Bakufu)? The prospect is really exciting. Finding Strange Eons has been a dream come true and I've taken on learning GIMP so I could background-less pictures, but if I learned Photoshop it would probably suit me for all my needs. I've finished a "Lich" character already (link: http://imageshack.us/f/851/talismanlichwip.png/ ) but still need to revamp the rules on it.

Looking forward to your work, this is great stuff.

*Just saw your thread on your expansion after posting the above.

When creating characters I try to keep it as balanced as possible... for every positive effect/ability there should be some sort of draw back... but then you test and write down notes to fix your characters. my first Topic of characters are fairly different now from when I posted the images. They are more balanced and easier to play with.

I can't wait to see this expansion bro! I am excited but PLEASE don't rush it, I have seen what happens when people rush things and I really want this to be your master piece :)

I glanced at the first few new ones and stopped. They're too good! I mean that in a complimentary way; I have my own desire to create unique characters and until I feel satisfied I can't but help but personally feel I will be stealing ideas (unintentionally) and have my own artistic creations altered because of what I've seen already from you. A funny conundrum, isn't it? As a homebrew creator, and I think for anyone that creates whether it be an author, artist, designer, etc we have such high ego's that we don't want to have our own visions affected by other's works. That being said, I'll admit the temptation to try these characters is great and I may have to forgo my ego this one time :)

So, my hats off to you, Shymova. Well done on the many creations you've made. I appreciate your work!

Regards,

Bakufu

I'm afraid I don't really like them too much. They seem to mostly be too powerful, and it seems like they distract from the actual game too much. Sorry.

Thank you for your comments.

Indeed, it is obvious to see that these characters are generally a lot more powerful than their original counterparts. After playing many many many games of Talisman, my group of players decided it would be nice to cut down on the time it takes to finish the game. Our solution was to increase the overall strength of all the characters so that a 4-5 player game doesn't last more than 1.5 to 2 hours long (versus the 3 hours it took us playing the original version).

After revising the characters, we ended up seeing a slight change in how the adventure cards and randomness of the game overweights the power of the characters. So, in addition to have created those characters, we removed a **** load of cards from the Spells and Adventure decks (keeping a ration of 35% enemies instead of 25-30%). The last change we did to increase the game speed was to allow players to have the choice to always draw one extra Adventure card before drawing the cards. This last change made the game so much more fun (and it already was). Many of the cards in the game are great when matched to with other cards.

Overall, Talisman is a great game because we can adapt to how we like to play. Add, remove, or change whatever you need to make it more enjoyable. And if its not working out, just play with the original rules.