I got bored at work one day (skiving is exhausting) so I did a full Talisman aventure deck study breaking the entire deck from all expansions down into it's various types and calculated the deck composition percentage each card type took up.

Consider that the base game adventure deck theoretically has the perfect balance between enemies, objects etc and it was interesting to see how the deck changed over the years since release to it's most current makeup (Post Bloodmoon).

Note: The base deck includes the 2 bonus cards (Instructor and Doppleganger)

BASE CURRENT

EVENTS: 12.5 % 15.1 %

ENEMIES (STR) 19.2 % 16.9 %

ENEMIES (CRA) 9.6 % 12.4 %

STRANGERS 8.7% 9.3 %

MAGIC OBJECTS 12.5 % 11.5 %

OBJECTS 7.7 % 8.7 %

GOLD 10.6 % 4.1%

FOLLOWERS 12.5 % 10.7 %

PLACES 8.7 % 11.3 %

Events have increased I would say by virtue of the Bloodmoon expansion. This benefits the new day/night mechanic.

Strength enemies have decreased in favour of craft enemies but there are significantly more strength enemies overall than Craft. (82 as opposed to 60) The overall enemies compsition comparison has near enough stayed faithfull to the base game though.

Strangers have increased by 0.6 %, so quite steady.

Magic objects have decreased by 1 % in favour of Munane Objects which have increased by 1 %. The biggest change of all though is to gold. A massive drop of 6.5%. This means less chace of aquiring gold unless you get lucky with certain adventure cards. This is a concerning tend considering that the City expansion is next and will undoubtedly require characters loaded with gold to get the most out of. i can only assume that the City expansion will pump extra gold opportunity cards into the game to make it's prescence felt. Overall the Objects category as a whole has reduced.

Followers have dropped slightly in favor of places.

I am tempted to do the same to the special aventure decks to see how they measure up (Dragon Decks, Dungeon etc.)

GrimGuvna said:

Don´t forget that we have the Highlands, where we can find gems, to trade them in for gold.

This is the reason why FFG has decrease the gold in the adventure deck from the latest expansions.

The City has the wanted cards to earn some gold. Everything will be fine:)

Thats interesting to note. I havnt had the chance to really peruse the highlands deck yet.

Gives the highlands a certain allure and reason to go exploring i suppose. I can see a trend of characters going for a hike in the highlands before descending into the city to reap rewards with their trinkets and gold.

I like the idea of the wanted cards,. gives a character a sense of purpose rather than wandering randomly. Combined with the variety of warlock quests and rewards and alternative endings you can have loads to do.

The end effect though will be that if you want dosh to use then characters are gonna have to earn it somehow rather than rely on finding it lying around.

Some people just want to win the game as fast as possible, but myself, I don't play often enough, so I like it to last and build a tapestry, sorta, like its own novella or something.

I love the 'places' that pop up randomly, n different areas or spaces in each game. I think the Warlock's quests, or the upcoming 'bounties' also create a story or world around each game.

Things will be fine, right? I think so.

I think it's very nice that the amount of Craft enemies in relation to Strength enemies has increased! It's only fair, seeing as most characters have a higher Craft value than Strength value, and hopefully someday the ratio will be 50/50.

I've just done some calculations too. Currently, the total statistical average of Strength values between all characters is c.a. 2,52, while the average Craft value is exactly 3,25, which roughly means that the ratio of Strength enemies versus Craft enemies should be c.a. 0,73 in favour of Craft enemies, if one wants to keep it perfectly balanced. In other words, the perfect amount of Craft enemies, if one were to keep the current amount of Strength enemies, should be c.a. 23,2%, which we are a long way from. So, in other words, there's quite a bit to go before the Adventure deck is perfect, in my opinion.

My previous calculations were slightly incorrect. The real difference between Strength and Craft values is c.a. 0.78 , which means the actual ideal percentage of Craft enemies in relation to current percentage of Strength enemies would be 21.7 %. Alternately, and perhaps more correctly, one could reduce the amount of Strength enemies in relation to Craft to c.a. 13.1%. Still, my point obviously still stands.

Ignore the previous two posts… I suck at math…

So Grim... I've revived this post after you linked to it! I was wondering if anyone has the percentages to hand by expansion etc up to date?

I assume you mean an analysis of each expansion separate compared to the base?

I can do each one separate and post as I complete each one if you like

Sure. Information like this is always useful, especially for home-brewers.

I think there should be more Strength-based Enemies in order to balance the fact that Craft-biased Characters have access to Spells - for which there is no Strength-based equivalent. Strength-biased Characters rely more on gathering trophies to boost their chances of victory. Also, in the Inner Region, the Strength route (ie via the Crypt) is slightly tougher (compare Dice With Death* to Vampire's Tower and the Werewolf to the Pit Fiends).

*(Fate has somewhat reduced this challenge)

I would say the Craft route in the inner region is harder, as it also requires that the character have sufficient strength to beat the Pit Fiends.

I would say the Craft route in the inner region is harder, as it also requires that the character have sufficient strength to beat the Pit Fiends.

Yes, but the Craft based characters can more easily use Spells which is very helpfull so I think it is ballanced.