Now that these two are FAQ'd out of RTL, do ppl actually ditch them, or play w them anyways?

I figure the reason behind Bear Tattoo is it makes it too easy to beat Lieutenants and the Avatar... and it prevents them from retreating. Would a simple "Lieutenants and Avatars are immune to Grapple" make the card fair? Or is it the effect they have on dungeon leaders? "Lieutenants, Avatars, named level leaders, and monsters occupying 4 or more spaces are immune to Grapple"?

And then TK... it's so fun to play with, disappointing to remove it. Why not just remove the "you may use this ability multiple times" bit, thereby limiting it to 1 space per turn, instead of the full fatigue? Or again just exclude Lieutenants, Avatars, and named level leaders?

Or, simply change the "1 fatigue" to cost 2 fatigue to move a figure 1 space. That cuts its strength in half, and isnt nearly as valueable then. Or something more complex, like costs 1 fatigue, plus 1 fatigue per space the figure occupies - per space. Making a 1-space figure cost 2, but a hell hound cost 3, and ogres cost 5 fatigues to move per space. Dragons would be impossible w/o significant upgrades, and then it's surely not worth it.

At 2 fatigue per space, it's about the same as Knockback... requiring 6 fatigue to move another hero 3 spaces, which is equivalent to a fast character's movement, or 1 attack instead which could do the same thing w a staff and water pact.

I do see why they were broken before, but just nuking the cards seemed unnecessary. Thoughts? Any good suggested wordings for ways to tweak the card and keep them in play?

-mike

poobaloo said:

We are keeping them in one campaign that is now entering Gold level, but abandoned them in another campaign which had only had one session.

It seems to me that the 'consolation' for losing them is the addition of Feats. I'm not sure that is terrifically balanced, but time will tell.

If you want to keep them I'd suggest a fairly simple change. "Neither Telekinesis nor Bear Tattoo work on Named Monsters." Avatars and Lts of course, qualify as named monsters...

I agree. These skills should have been fixed instead of removed. Bear tatoo I think just needs the 'doesnt work on named monsters'. Not sure about telekenesis yet.

And adding feats is not equivalent to losing 2 skills. The feats everyone now gets for free. The skills may or may not have come up.

Even easier than changing the Skill, would be changing the wording of the Grapple ability.

Similarly, I've seen people change the abilities of Sharr the Brightwing, to allow her use in RtL, without needing to change the Skill card.

People seem to think that TK is broken full-stop. I've never seen it in play ever, so I have no idea myself.

Paul Grogan said:

Its not adding feats that is equivelent, it is removing 2 OL treachery. Poltergeist is at least as broken as telekenesis. Not only can make all of your monsters be 4 spaces closes to the heroes, but you can also play it before spawning for the turn, and use it to give yourself a perfect spawn location. For 1 green point you get a card that can easily wipe the party. Rolling boulder could also dangerous potential. Not only can it kill, but also block areas. If the heroes need to get down a hallway that has a boulder in it, they might have 3 or 4 turns of doing nothing if the bolder gets low speed rolls.

Feats are an entirely different problem.

As written, Telekinesis was completely broken, so I can see why they did what they did - as a publisher, it's just too much trouble to say 'the card does something completely different from what's written on it' unless they give us a replacement card in a future expansion, which I doubt they want to do again. I tried simply making Named monsters immune and it's nowhere near enough.

My best suggested fix to telekinesis if you really wanted to keep it would be as follows:

"Exhaust this card and spend X fatigue to move any figure in your line of sight X spaces to a target space within your line of sight. You may not move Named monsters."

This has two implications: the first is that you can only use it on ONE figure per turn, the second is that you have to do all your telekinesing while standing still, instead of running along and pulling your friend along with you and around multiple corners, and shoving any necessary monsters out of the way.

I agree that the Knockback weapons that give extra knockback for surges are probably going to be pretty problematic as well (mainly when used on other Heroes, which I imagine will be the standard way of using them), but at least with a big treasure deck, the Heroes can't even guarantee they turn up, and if they do they can be broken.

Badend said:

I disagree.
Removing 2 treachery cards is minor at best. Poltergeist is an excellent card for the OL but it happens once at best, assuming it is even drawn. As a side note it also does not affect the heroes at all (I don't mean they can't be moved), but merely allow ther OL's other resources to have a much greater affect. Same for Rolling Boulder, at least in the frequency of use.
Bear Tattoo and, particularly, Telekinesis, can be used every single turn. They also ruin many more , and much more important, events than Rolling Boulder or Poltergeist do.

Here is an example of Telekinesis in action.
Late Silver the heroes return to Tamalir to break a seige by Alric. If they fail to break it, they almost certainly lose next turn but 1, as the campaign moves to Gold, the OL purchases the Dragon Lt that automatically razes cities when rolling, and moves him to Tamalir with the previously purchased Transport Gem.
Alric starts on the furtherest rear corner of the Map. He has Gold Beasts, a hand of Danger, Dodge, Poltergeist, 2x Crushing Blow, 2x Dark Charm and a Spiked Pit. The Map is Ancient oaks, so there are limited routes through (trees are impassable) and every one of them is filled with a monster. The Spiked pit is removed by Wind Pact (Surprise? Oh crap, should have dropped the second Dark charm for more pits etc and the second crushing blow for the other Danger in order to be able to play everything from the start!)
The first Hero to go is Jaes. He has Tiger Tattoo and a fatigue boost, so 7 Fatigue and 5 Speed AT least the other upgrade is Wounds!. He starts closest to the exit from the base map. He runs. Using 10 MP and a fatigue potion giving him a total of 13 fatigue points, he is able to run through the monsters to a spot where he can see Alric, moving 2 Monsters aside (Telekinesis) on the way so he can get through. He then Telekinesises Alric all the way back to the heroes' camp (also Telekinesing himself partway back in order to keep LOS to Alric and keep moving him).
The 3 other heroes all battle Alric, with powerpots, fatigue added in, Rapid firing, the works.
After 2 misses in 10 attacks, despite Alric having Ironskin (so Pierce doesn't work, and neither does Blast), the only thing that keeps Alric alive (with 3 wounds left out of 60) is the Wizard being forced to use a Ranged Weapon due to previously having lost his non-blast magic weapons (so no Quickcasting for a start, and 0 trait dice as well), and rolling 2/4 blanks on the trait dice that came from powerpot+fatigue.
Otherwise I would not haven gotten even a single turn, despite being as protected as was possible. Note that Alric is the personally toughest of the basic Lts as well... And it was only his Unstoppable that allowed him to run away from the Grappling hero. Any other Lt would have been dead next turn, if not already.
What is really gutting is that with Leadership in the party, they can repeat the trick next turn! In fact almost every turn, as long as the potions (1/turn) last.

FWIW the monsters and one Dark Charm managed to combine to take out 2 heroes and almost a third. But enough Threat had to be held in reserve to enable Alric to escape, so not everything could be played, particularly the second dark charm - if it had of failed (11/36) then Alric could not have escaped the board, though playing it would have probably tipped the balance into fighting things out.

Telekinesis is really, really, obscene in RtL, with boosted Fatigue totals. Lt fights aside (which it basically destroys), Heroes with a good Teke-er can, by late Silver, go through levels in 2-3 turns each, entire dungeons with the OL only getting 7-8 turns, usually with almost nothing on the board. Losing it basically resets the game hugely downwards for the heroes.
If they didn't get lucky enough to start with it then it is absolutely the very first thing they should have trained (and fortunately, right next door to Tamalir too!) Pretty much every single hero party should have had it by the end of bronze. If they didn't, then more fool them.

Losing Telekineses (and Grapple, which allows you to kill the other Lts if you can even get next to them once) is a massive, massive blow for the heroes. Losing Poltergeist, Rolling Boulder and one of the Crushing blows is a minor inconvenience for the OL. The two are in no way similar in balance.
Telekinesis gave an incredible range of tactical options for the heroes, on every single turn. The lost OL cards gave a few extra tactial options, sometimes, if you were lucky.

What actually might tip the balance back to where it was is the admittance of Feats. Feats give a few more tactical options, but are not nearly as powerful as a single Hero with high fatigue and Telekinesis (especially if backed up by Leadership).
In fact I am of the untested opinion that it might actually be a better balance, with the heroes not having quite as ridiculously many options, but having their options 'hidden'. Less powerful, less frequent, but more interesting.

So what do you think of then either:

TK does not affect named leaders (which includes LTs and Avatars)

Or,

TK costs 2 fatigue to move a figure 1 space, plus 1 fatigue per space the figure occupies beyond the first.

This would allow it to still work on the LT, but it would cost twice as much. Also moving those little guys out of the way would cost twice as much, and if you block w something big, it's almost impossible to move save by 5 fatigue per space.

Also altho unstated, Unmoveable should make a monster immune to TK.

I believe you're thinking of Unstoppable . Unmovable is the name of a hero skill that gives you a free Guard order and +1 armor until your next turn when you declare a Battle action.

poobaloo said:

I would probably be harsher (and simpler) and say Telekinesis only works on friendly figures. They still get all the benefits of speed, but the OL now has tactical options to slow them down or force them to use attacks..

It would be funny to then add Unmoveable (yes unmoveable) to the "cannot be telekinesesed" list, purely on thematic grounds. But probably not reasonable (if you did that you should add immune to knockback as well).

As i pointed out in another thread, i have a teleporting, telekineting hero and he is a pain in the a$$.

I can protect the valueables (glyphs, chest, etc.) or i can hinder their advance/getting to the leader but seldom both.

I had an experience similar to Carbons having my Lt. killed in the first round. No fun for the OL.

Tweaking Telekinesis is just to much work in my eyes even if you use poobaloos suggestion.

A lot of figures are one-square so it would be all the same. And to exclude named monsters would do nothing against moving your friends to the level leader/Lt.

Out of curiosity (and with apologies for going off on a tangent)...I've read many complaints about Telekinesis, but almost exclusively in the context of Road to Legend games. Do you also feel that the skill is unbalancing in vanilla? Why or why not?

I've only had it in my (vanilla) games a couple times, and it seemed very powerful in a few special situations (e.g. hurling monsters in front of rolling boulders), but usually just a medicore utility ability.

In the next campaign, we are keeping Telekinesis, Grapple and modifying Crushing Blow. The modifications are as follows:

Telekinesis - Cannot be used on a named monster (including Lt.) or Avatar. Requires one fatigue per space that monster occupies to move it one space. A hero can only use an amount of fatigue equal to his base fatigue listed on his hero sheet plus extra fatigue granted by a skill card when using TK. TK does not work on a Shadowcloaked figure unless the hero using it is adjacent to the figure, as in an attack.

Grapple - Six space monsters cannot be grappled. A named monster (including Lts.) or an Avatar cannot be grappled.

Crushing Blow - Not legal in Lt. encounters. Costs two treachery points but otherwise not limited. It can only destroy EQUIPPED weapons/armor/items/shields. In addition, we came up with an additional house rule wherein any equipment "discarded" (such as via Crushing Blow, Frost etc.) is actually permanently destroyed and put "in the box". However Mata and Kata are able to pick up a destroyed item in the dungeon and move it to the portal. Three turns later it has been "repaired" by the Tamalir blacksmith and is shuffled back into its deck.

Antistone said:

Because in RtL heroes can, and will, get 1-3 upgrades of +2F each. Not to mention far greater ability to cherrypick skills (even though they will often have fewer).

Add the substantially higher fatigue levels (ie a hero with telekinesis will more often than not have 6-8+ fatigue) to the smaller dungeon levels and encounters and telekinesis becomes vastly magnified in utility.

The change in glyph workings (must start next to an activated glyph to exit through it) also has an influence on the utility - in vanilla you can wlak up to a monster on the glyph, kill it, then walk on to and through the glyph, all in one turn. In RtL you must activate the glyph before the start of the turn of the hero using it (who must also start beside it) which means that getting the monster off and activating it NOW becomes substantially, more important in general.

I find Telekinesis broken in RtoL simply because if you move a figure onto a water space the figure is considered dead, so unless your Lt is bigger than the water spaces on the board he can just be TK'd to a water space to be killed. That alone makes Telekinesis to powerful in RtoL.

Antistone said:

I've never actually played with it in vanilla, but my guess would be the same as your experience: mostly useless except in certain situations, where it becomes very powerful. My guess is the limited fatigue in vanilla makes it less powerful. If someone also drew Leadership it would be considerably stronger, and in that situation I'm not sure if it'd be unbalancing.

Wild-Duck said:

Where does this rule come from? It definitely doesn't work that way in vanilla, and I'm pretty sure I read the whole RtL PDF without seeing anything like this, and I would've expected the people complaining about Telekinesis to bring this up regularly if it were true.

Water happens to be what ffg decided would be the "thing that blocks movement without blocking line of sight." Since somebody asked why, they faq'd (very amusingly, I might add) that it was because of the potential for bloodsquids. It appears wild-duck has been interpreting it that a figure teke'd or (I would assume anyway) knocked back onto a water space is instantly pulled into the watery depths by said bloodsquids. This is certainly not the rule. The rule is that it blocks movement. Acrobats, flying figures (soaring in outdoor), heroes with water pact, and characters flying over via knockback (and I guess telekinesis? I suppose they are lifted over the water?) can move through water. No one can end movement ON water, except a soaring figure in an outdoor encounter (I believe)...and I suppose it's because of the bloodsquids, but really it's just that water blocks movement and you can't end in something that blocks movement unless you have special ability like basalt in quest 4 of AoD (one of my absolute faves because trolls are sweet).

Telekinesis does not allow you to get past water; each invocation of Telekinesis only moves the target one square "following normal movement rules" (or something to that effect). Since water blocks movement, it blocks Telekinesis as well, unless/until there's a rule specifically saying otherwise. One could possibly argue about whether or not a figure with Fly could be telekinesed into water, but other figures definitely cannot be.

And for the record, while Knockback allows you to move through water, the affected figure specifically cannot land in water. "The figures must be moved to spaces that do not contain other figures or obstacles that block movement." (JitD Rules p.22)

And while it probably doesn't need saying at this point, there is no general rule that a figure forced into a water square is killed. There is a specific rule for Crushing Walls that a figure with no legal space to be "pushed" into is killed and that water spaces do not count as legal (since they block movement), but in mechanical terms, the killing is happening due to the Crushing Wall, not the water. The only rule I'm aware of that involves a figure accidentally ending its movement in an illegal space (opening a door from another figure's position and getting hit by Paralyzing Gas) says that the figure is moved to the closest legal space.

Is there an echo in here? Didn't I just say that?

Thanks for clarifying telekinesis cannot move through water, though. Your logic appears sound on that point, since technically since it's only one at a time you would be ON water which you can't really do.

My friends and I have been playing vanilla, and TK has come up twice. In neither instance did it cause an overbalance, primarily being used to rescue heroes from pits or move heroes out of LOS.