So my big question for all of you is, "What do you guys do to alter the rules of the game of the sometimes UNBALANCED game of talisman?" lol. And what I mean by this is followed by a few things. BY THE WAY we usually play with the reaper and dungeon expansion and sometimes include the dragon expansion with modified rules for the tokens that make it hella fun.

1. I feel that you can overpowered quick. Like my buddy was able to defeat the dragon king alternate ending without a dice roll. So my question i pose for you is do you guys make a lvl cap sort to speak. I do not like the idea but I thought that maybe after every point of strenght you must add one to the next lvl so to lvl your strength up its 8 points of strength trophies now. and also somehow making it where people cant just boulder through opponents and where there is always somewhat of a challenge.

2. Any ideas on how to roll for death. basically whenever we roll a 1 we then roll for die according to rules. yet the rules only say to move him like normal rules so we make it where he moves to the closet player as possible. As in he is attracted to the closer player. This has seemed to work but I am just curious about what you guys have been doing.

3. This kind of relates to question one but I jsut want a generalization on how everyone plays there game taht way not one person is overpowered except if they have been farming or trying to go through the dungeon to get stronger which I understand i mean who wouldnt want to try and get stronger to win. But the only drawback is that for that person it sometimes lacks in fun since they dont een need to try. Thoughts?

Like I said I would jsut like some ideas about this from all of you other talisman players. and if you guys should suggest which expansion I should get next then that would be awesome. Thanks!

1. We only draw dragon tokens when a character has defeated an Enemy or creature. The official rules suck so badly with regards to dragon tokens and when they are drawn (biggest ever screw up from FFG I'm afraid).

2. We play that characters cannot take an Enemy as a trophy, if a character defeats the Enemy by 7 or more points of Strength or Craft. This prevents characters from powering up too much!

Ell.

I have quite a few. From the top of my head:

- when on crags or in forest, if you roll 4-5, you draw an adventure card

- you may spend a fate point to discard alternative ending you just drew and draw next one. you can do this only once

- there are two inner realms - original one and the dragon tower. At the end of original IR you draw a random alternate ending. At the end of dragon tower you fight the dragon king. Wihchever allows you to win the game. Tower is accessible through the chasm

- to increase strenght or craft by 1, you need a number of appropriate trophy points equal to the value you will have. For example, rising craft from 4 to 5 costs 5 craft points.

- when you're a toad, you don't have access to your gold, items and followers but you don't lose them. When you're turned back, they are still with you.

- when you roll 1 for your move, roll again and move reaper toward you (you don't control it). If it has enough movement to reach you, she meets you. Also, at any point of your turn, you may move the werewolf as per normal rules

- dragon tokens you have don't do what they normally do. Instead, you may discard a dragon token (it then goes onto a dragon lord) at the beginning of your turn (and only 1 per turn) to invoke dragon's wrath upon another character in the same realm.

one more

- dragon lords have +X to their effectiveness in combat equal to the number of dragon scales on them, and they can have an unlimited number of those

Trouble is you are implementing house rules which change the actual game too much! We only cap Strength/Craft gains & have obviously changed when dragon tokens are drawn. That's it though, nothing else is changed at all!

Ell.

talismanamsilat said:

Well, to you. None of my players had any problems. We discussed and playtested every change we decided to keep (and a few we didn't like after testing them).

i got a book of rules for talisman. here are some excerpts.

1 a roll of 1 is always a 1. it can not be repeaated or modified by fate..

2.light side of fate points are blessings. you can turn a fate into a blessing instead of gaining a spell, life, strenght, craft or talisman. a blessing allows you to add or subtract 1 on a roll. ( not on a roll of 1). you still can spend only 1 fate or blessing on a single roll.

3. characters that gain a spell at game start can learn one spell. instead of discard the spell, they turn it over. instead of gaining a new spell, they can turn the spell again and use it like a new spell. a deavtivated spell can be discarded at any time.

4. black knight has a str 10, 2 llifes, does 2 damage, can be hurt by magic weapons only, sorcerer (the one in the cave who gives talisman quests) has craft 10, 2 lifes, does 2 damage, can be hurt in psychic combat only. killing one of these gives you a prestige class. draw a character card and add the special skills of it to your character. only one prestige class possible.

5. characters can marry a follower of opposing sex. they are trransported to the chapel immediately (evil to graveyard). married followers can not be taken away from other players in any means and can carry one object that can not be taken away.

6. dragon cards are shuffled in one deck. the top card shows the actual king. if a player rolls a 6 for movement, he draws a card and places it ,without looking at it, on the field he is not going to.

personally i love my rules and settings of quests, fairy beings, animals and places. quests lead through sidemap expansions. generally a questmonsterdeck and a questrewarddeck are made. tables for questt location. questseries are made so the questreward opens the next quest etc.

you can do a lot with talisman, its up to you and your fantasy.

Those are quite some rules changes. If you guys want to play it that way fine, but for me you're not playing Talisman anymore, rather some game of your own creation.

EvilEdwin said:

Agree with you on this I do padawan!

Ell.

wow, lots of funky house rules, LOL. I play with 3 main ones.

1. Dragon tokens are only pulled on a roll of 1 or 6 (for movement)

2. Trophies are exchanged at one more then your current value.

3. A 6 vs 1 in any combat is always a win regardless of other values.

2 Player game, only. All expansions.

Dragon scales: No Dragon scales are pulled until after the first encounter by either player with an enemy Dragon. Win or lose that encounter, Dragon scales are now drawn per regular rules.

No Dragon King exists at the beginning of the game. The first Lord to receive 5 scales becomes the first Dragon King. Whichever player drew that scale must draw that Dragon Lord's card to encounter.

We only played this once, the last game, but we liked it well enough to try again. On the other hand, we could go back to "the real way" scales are drawn, etc.

Other things we do, that might be different are:

a) Each player gets 7 characters to choose from.

b) We use the Dragon Realm board, only, but only 50% of the time - have not used the Dragon Tower yet.

c) We usually use an Alt ending on both the regular Inner Region or the Dragon Realm.

d) Since most of our games are at least 2.5 hours, and usually a bit longer, if a player dies before CoC, the other player wins, unless that death is relatively early in which case the player chooses from another (fully reshuffled) 7 characters.

** We probably won't play again until we have The City, and that looks to be more than a week from now, but we were considering another house rule, that The Werewolf only moves at Night. Since Death never takes a holiday, The Reaper always moves on the roll of 1.

We usually play 3 or 4 players. Our games last from 2.5 to 3.5 hours. We use all expansions and only sometimes the Dragon.

Rules we use:

1. No trophies, we use experience points. Any card that reference trophies we change to experience points. We track Strength and Craft. We also allow collecting of board enemy experience points.
2. We use 5 to level up and cap Strength and Craft at 12
3. Tough gold collector. If required to pay gold and you do not have any, lose a life instead.
4. We require a talisman to open the door into the inner region regardless of ending or using Dragons
5. We do not allow direct access to CoC closest you can get is Valley of Fire or door way if using Dragon Castle, again a talisman is required.
6. We play each player gets random 2 - 6 characters, choose 2, one to start and one to get resurrected if first gets killed. When both die player lost.

Ok so what I dod since I asked the question and never stated what I do. A few things.

- Only draw a dragon token on a move of 6. this happens more than you think lol.

- Treat all decks like adventure decks. SO if youre in the dungeon and a dungeon card says draw from the adventure deck you draw the deck you originally drew from. same for dragons. We do this since the rules say treat them like adventure cards.

- THIS IS PROBABLY GOING START HAPPENING but I think I am going to make that whenever you level up, for example gain a strength, then it takes 8 points in trophy points. It seems a lot of players in these forums do this.

I will have to admit I do not want to change a lot of rules really. I just think ITS BS that when some guy is sooooo overpowered that he can litereally not die or anything to any monster or player. Dont get me wrong thats the point is to buff up and get strong but I dont think to a point where it should not be fun while this guy and decimates everyone else. Thats my main problem.

I am also getting blood moon and possibly City tomorrow. Your guys suggestion on these two?

I resist the urge to house rule much in Talisman. It often seems house rules are seeds for future arguments when that situation you didn’t think of comes up… Assuming your playing with competent players who play the game well, any character can win the game. Most 'exploits' that characters can get away with are highly situational and subject to all the random shenanigans that happen between special abilities and spells on the way to the crown. How many times have seen the Gladiator just not find followers?

Daddlebutt said:

That isn't a house rule. Thems just the rules.

I like the idea of increasing the trophy requirement by one each time you level up; 7,8,9… etc. We will use that the next time we play.

Ok I just noticed while over looking the rules. Well look at that

talismanamsilat said:

Bludgeon said:

Uvatha said:

For example, if a player fights red dragon lord at the end of dragon tower (S14, C10), and that lord has 8 red scales, his real stats are S22, C18.

Bludgeon said:

Uvatha said: