Hi fellow Talisman fanatics,
It has been a while since I posted anything so here goes. I have done some further revisions for my Talisman game in order to improve gameplay balance and also to reduce overall game time.
The first home rule is the level up rule which consists of being able to choose between either Strength or Craft when converting 7 points Strength/Craft Trophies. This gives casters a lot more chances to build up Craft vs Strength since enemies with Strength scores are much more common in this game.
The second home rule is to enable the use of Fate to move only 1 space instead of re-rolling the movement die. This gives players some level of control to where they go, especially for those ultra random quests to go to specific places.
The third home rule is that no character in the inner region or dragon's tower can cast spells at other players or be the target of other player's spells. This is to prevent a player not yet in the Inner Region to completely screw a player by taking his talisman 1 turn away from moving to the Valley of Fire.
I also removed plenty of the cards which were either too strong (game breaking mechanics like the rod of ruins or toad-chance spells). I also trimmed down dramatically the spells in the game to prevent spell casters from dominating the game. I found that after many games, spell casters usually end up winning the game mostly because of their spells like Craft, Strength, or other devasting spells. So I removed all those spells and kept the spell deck a fun and clean source of moderate power. After I did this change, we started to see as many Strength based characters win the game as Craft based.
And last, I added a few additional components to the game such as a permanent Stable at the Village and some additional Objets like a Bow, Quiver, 2-handed Weapnos, Kite Shield, etc. I also change the Riding horse bonus to provide a up to +2 to you rmove instead of rolling 2 dice and adding them together. Made more sense to me that having a horse actually helps your move instead of just making it even more erratic. I added a Heavy Horse that gives up to +1 to your move which is a very good starting purchase for low level characters.
Finally, here are the revised characters for my home version of Talisman. Enjoy!