We recently purchased the new Talisman expansion. Is there something we are missing or is the Dark Cultist severely unbalanced? Since she gets a 33% chance to level up after killing any monster regardless of strength (and the other 66% of the results are still very good) it seems like there is no way she can't spiral out of control very quickly. The player using her was able to win the game before the rest of us were even able to tackle the middle realm just from murdering low level creatures and having some good rolls.

Has anyone else had a similar experiance and are there proposed house rules to make this more fun for other players? I don't really want to ban this character from play but really it's not fun for other people when one player has such an advantage.

Radish said:

Where did that 33% come from? Or do you mean level up as in gain Str or Craft? First off, you have to be able to kill something. My friend was playing the DC and failed to kill a Goblin 3-4 times, despite having a 2 advantage in battle (Str 3 + Sword). Second, the roll can be something other than Str/Craft. Last game DC was in, any kills she got, she got Fate boost or a Spell when already at full capacity. Third, if you see DC in a game and are worried about her, if you have better stats initially (Troll, Warrior, any of the Psychic combatters, Assassin...), jump on her and keep wailing until she drops dead. Fourth, since she only has 1 Fate, Reaper/Random her.

Lastly, DC has been in 5 games around here, with a win-loss record of 1-4. If any char should be banned from our games, it's the Sage (aka Philosopher from 2nd ed). Sage currently stands at 3-1 win-loss, even winning a game when being drawn as a mid-game replacement . We never even minded the Prophetess in 2nd ed, Philosopher was the GREAT EVIL.

The Dark Cultist is a powerful character, but if you want a bonus for strength or craft, then you must first roll a dice for it.

It's all about lady luck And as Dam said: The DC has only one fate. Fate has become important into the talisman world.

Last game, i have stab the DC from behind with the Assassin on the Crown of Command. It was a fight to the death. My assassin won with a strenght of 22 including all bonussen.

The DC is fun to play. Setting asside from specific game examples, she does have some power by over all, gaining str and craft at a faster rate with kills, versus other player characters.

The luck or bad-luck in talisman always puts any character in check.

My Wife LOVES the DC. In talisman 3rd edition, there was the Chaos Warrior, is basicly has the same kinda extra boost.

When you killed a lets say, strength 2 creature, you would roll an extra dice, and score a 5. The kill is now worth 7 points, and you can exchange it. The down side to the character was no spells. ever...none...nada...zip...zilch.

Radish said:

To be fair, a majority of the game's encounters are still Strength based and for comparative purposes, you can compare the Knight and DC, both from the expansion. In battle against a Str 4 enemy on Turn one, the Knight has around a 15% chance to tie, a 65% chance to win, and 30% chance to lose. Average it out by multiplying the Strength gained (4/7ths) by the win % and you get .37, or roughly that by starting the combat, you're likely to end up between a third and halfway to a "level up," if you will.

Same monster against the DC, the DC has a 15% chance to tie, 65% chance to lose, 30% chance to win. The same level up value comes to only .17 (much, much lower). However, you also add 1/3 (the chance of auto-level up on victory) by the victory chance .30 and get 0.1. These two values actually add to .27, roughly a quarter of the way to a level up by starting the same fight.

All percentages are estimated, badly, but you can see that the Knight has a mild advantage over the DC in this instance, has the same Craft (for use against craft critters), and that for characters like the Troll that the ratios can improve a bit more.

Yes, the DC is great if your first turn lands you a Ring and a Colossus so you can win lots of combats, but being a 3/3 starter means there are many combats initially that you cannot win. DC is a midgame powerhouse as opposed to others who are more powerful early (Troll) or later (Prophetess) or can try to run faster (Dwarf). The thing is, the midgame is usually the longest segment of the game, so it's a pretty good character (especially if you can skip to the midgame on turn 2 or 3 with a lucky item or roll).

I have no problems with it.

Today i WON for the second time against the Dark Cultist with my Assassin !

The Dark Cultist has gain some strength and craft from her bonus and has slain more enemies than me, but my Assassin has some powerful cards that boost his strength and craft up !

So.. you have still a chance to win !! Try to get to the inner region before the Dark Cultist goes..

And meeting the enchantress is not a bad idea

I just utterly stomped the Dark Cultist into submission with the Knight. Hint: run for the temple.

Radish said:

Oh my oh my, I had my first game with the Dark Cultist yesterday evening. "Severely unbalanced" is very far from the truth. This Character is ominously powerful and out of control after gaining a couple of Strength/Craft points, which are far from easy to obtain here and there. While every other is struggling to reach Str or Cft 10-12 and go for the center, the Dark Cultist manages to reach a total of 18 in no time.

I played the Ghoul and had a good game, despite my constant bad luck. The biggest error I made was to re-roll with Fate at the Enchantress, when a "lose 1 Strength" became a "toaded for 3 turns". Yes, it can happen sometimes, but you need strong exercise to get such wonderful results. Dark Cultist had Teleport, rolled at the Enchantress (+1 Str, of course) and looted my stuff: the Homunculus, a Sword and a Horse and Cart. Hard job's done!

I and the third Character, the Knight, had both a good game. I found Warhorse and gained pretty decent stats (10 Str, 9 Cft), drew Cursed by a Hag on the Portal of Power before entering (wow!), was first to the crown and stayed there for 10 turns before Dark Cultist reached me with 5 lives left (!!!! I positively cast Command Spell 5 times in 10 Turns, no way to bring her down) and kicked my putrid ass with no effort (18 str, 13 cft... gained while I was on the Crown starting from 11 Str 5 Cft!, objects and followers included). Knight was third to the Crown (16 Str, 6 Cft) and posed no threat, as you may imagine.

Kill an enemy, keep the trophy, gain something. You defeat someone on the Crown, you gain Life/Strength/Craft/Fate/Spells (and Gold, just in case you had a Mercenary at your side). What's the solution for this? Kill the Dark Cultist as soon as you can, in the early game. Is this a good way to play? Of course not, I can't accept the idea that I have to kill a Character because it will soon become too overpowered to stop. The person who played the Dark Cultist agreed with us two, because he found ridiculous both the rate and amount of bonuses. For now, I'll ban this Character, until I find a way to water down her powers. A good starting point may be: "you can't keep Trophies if you choose to roll the die for a gift from the powers of darkness". Still it's overpowered, but a little more reasonable.

And come on! 3:3 is not a miserable starting quota for a Character that gains such benefits from both battle and psychic combat, both against Characters and Enemies. If you'll ever fight on the Crown against the Dark Cultist, you might change your opinion. She grows stronger after every single combat!

She still has to first defeat something. Then, there is still a good chance (50% or 66%) that she'll get something not too good (fate, gold or Spell, last if she's maxed out). Even gain 1 Life doesn't go very far if you're stuck with 3/3 stats. So far haven't noticed any imba in her in my games, she's 2-5 after 7 games. With 1 Fate to begin with, she can have a hard time rerolling those early combats which she needs to win. One failed Fate roll and she's going purely on luck then on (unless she gains more Fate).

If anything, Sage remains the most powerful character. We banned the Philosopher in the 2nd ed days (R4th Sage is pretty much the exact same char). After 7 games, Sage is 4-3 (only char with 50+% record). He's won as a mid-game replacement (Troll's the only other char to do that). Heck, he's even won after getting Toaded (current Toad rate 3 in 35 games ) and having all his possessions taken by another char.

The_Warlock said:

The Dark Cultist doesn't keep monsters as trophies when she rolls for a gift...it's written on her character card....

thorckmard said:

"Whenever you kill an Enemy or defeat another character and force them to lost a life, roll 1 die to receive a gift from the Forces of Darkness (if you defeat a good character, you may add 1 to the score:"

(snipped the chart)

I see nothing about no trophy. Other two abilities are about being able to attack other characters via psychic combat and always being evil.

i'm pretty sure to have read this on the character card ....(maybe i was drunk when i read it )...i'm at office now so i can't verify ..i will tonight.

thorckmard said:

Only char that has a no trophy limit on their card is the Priest, when blowing Spirits with his ability, he gets a Spell, but no trophy. Ghoul also has an option of trophy or raise as Follower.

At home, game less than 4 meters away !

Lucky one!!!

For the Dark Cultist, it was so obvious for me that she cannot keep trophies when she sacrifices her victim to her gods that i must have add the text in my head when reading it

We have always played her that way without any arguying from players

So Sorry for my mistake (and for my english )!

Dam said:

It takes some time for the Dark Cultist to improve, then she goes into such a rush you can't immagine. Perhaps it depends on your fast gaming sessions, but mine was quite fast, at least for my standards (less than 2 hours with 3 players). Character arrangement was quite strange, with Knight, Dark Cultist and Ghoul. As the Ghoul I had the greatest access to Fate, spent it constantly and gained significant benefits, but dice betrayed me two times. Once I teleported from the Tavern to the Knight to take his last Life, and lost Psychic Combat Cft 5 against Cft 3, even with Fate. The second and worst was being toaded at the City with some valuable stuff (I forgot the Unicorn in the previous post), perhaps losing a Life to a Miser Dragon would have been a better choice. But I had Fate, It cannot happen to become a Toad if you have Fate. Well, I knew I would have been the first to experience toading despite of Fate.

The downfall was drawing Cursed by a Hag on the Portal of Power, just when I was about to cross it for the Crown. Lost Warhorse, Black Unicorn and 2 Goblin+Wolf corpses. Perhaps with these I would have been a better challenge for Dark Cultist, when she reached the Crown after 10 turns (hey, I cast 5 times the command Spell with success and she came to the crown with 5 lives...). By then, everything was lost. She beat me and gained Lives,Craft, Strength.

If you analyze each game, you will see that card draws and single situations decide the winner. If I wasn't toaded and Cursed by a Hag, I might have snatched the victory. In another game I played the Sage and was really uncomfortable with his ability to see cards. I knew what I was about to draw and couldn't avoid it, even with movement re-rolling. The Troll had a straight play with less or no need to attack others, because he drew the best cards and left the bad ones for the others. The Sage knew it, but could not change his destiny. An Orb of Knowledge would have helped, but was taken by the Troll.

Dark Cultist needs to gain 2 points in Strength and Craft. I remember she got Soul Biter in the early game and that gave a real boost to the Character. Then the rush started and couldn't be stopped. I can't believe that something like this never occurred in your games.

Never had a problem with her before. She doesn't have a huge chance to lv, and if she does it's only one point. sure it adds up, but its not that bad. besides, if she doesn't draw any creatures to fight or she keeps getting hit with spells or much stronger characters, she's not gonna last long. i had a DC drawing nothing but monsters and lving, and still wasn't a problem for us.

I haven't seen a problem with her yet. In two games where she appeared, she was trounced by the Sage and the Troll. As always in Talisman, luck, (or fate) determines a lot. If you always get your best bonus or the most beneficial bonus at the time, then you'll rampage across the board.

I thought I would post this as an example of how the game itself limits the powers of characters...the Dark Cultist in particular.

Today we played a two player game with the Dark Cultist and Sage. It was an uphill struggle for both since the few enimies drawn were too powerful to slay. Two opportunities were presented to the DC to cross the river early on (Boatman and Raft) but I did not think she would survive.

As it turned out the Sage took the lead, Hexed the Walock's Cave, knowing the DC needed to go there, rolled terrible in the Mines and was sent to...the Warlock's Cave! Stepped on his own Hex!

Suddenly we were upto three Talismans in play. The Sage was still in the lead and at the Pit Fiends (he rolled a 1 on Vampire tower! Total Luck!) but had such a low strength the pit fiends killed him.

The DC got a bit more into stride but never found the opportunity to utilize her main power.

Death was in play but we both avoided it an this left 1/4 of the outer region un explored. If there ahd been more players Death would have been a large factor.

Time was short so we called it after the Sage died.

We made some mistakes so it was not a perfect game, rules we forgot or did not implement correctly. The rule about being able to move, deal with the Sentinel and keep moving was forgot. The bit about haveing movement allowance to pass beyond the Portal of Power was also neglected. In past games we always played it so you had to end your move on those spaces to be able to pass through them.

Next time we will use all of the quick game rules if we have a time limit. Be careful to keep your discards seperate as well!

The problem with the Dark Cultist is that she can grow out of control. It's similar to the Assassin, now that he can assassinate drawn Enemies, with double speed.

There was a moment when the Dark Cultist would have been killed, if the player had no Healing Spell in his hand. No problem with that, 'cause the Dark Cultist has really few chances to heal, being always evil and with few Gold in the normal deck.

I'm thinking of the DC in a 5-6 players game. She can attack all 2/4 Characters with Strength and get a good chance to win. She can also harass Troll and Warrior with no problem. Her natural foes are: Knight, Elf, Thief and Dwarf. She can get some cheap Strength/Craft if the board is full of Characters. Maybe everybody will try to kill her after that, but if the rush is good enough, they might have some problems doing that. I'll try it some day, when I'll gather enough people to play Talisman.

Anyway, a Character that needs to be slayed in the early game is obviously an unbalanced one, don't you agree?