Jump to content

Drake Leonclaw

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Content Count

    87

  • Joined

  • Last visited

    Never

Posts posted by Drake Leonclaw

  1. Posted

    1) We had a situation last night where the lich had one life counter on him, and one of our players walked up to him and cast Soul Shatter, which says when cast on a creature, they are killed.  Not defeated, but killed.  Does that bypass its life counter rule?

     

    2) Another player was curious because he was playing the Necromancer, how does taking it on as one of his "pets" work if it has life counters on it?  does it keep those life counters and if so can they be used somehow, as in, could the lich above fight twice if they had a life counter on them?  I'm guessing no but I've been surprised before in this game

  3. Posted

    The dread knight character from sacred pools if I remember correctly is a 2 Strength, 3 Craft.  He makes up for his crummy stats with his special abilities.  I'm speaking from an unbiased perspective, but if I weren't, I'd add in there that he has a %100 death rate in our games.  Usually quite early.

  4. Posted

    I'm extremely new to these forums (2nd post) so excuse the newb question.  The guy that normally runs our games mentioned something that seemed odd to me, and when I questioned him about it he claims it's not a house rule, but an official one buried somewhere within the rulebooks somewhere.

     

    Basically, I mentioned to him the entry from the FAQ that describes how one couldn't simply remain at and browse for an Elder Sign at the Curiositie Shoppe because you're technically supposed to shuffle the deck each time you draw from it, which includes shuffling of any cards that were discarded and slipped underneath the deck.  He said, right, but the other thing that prevents hanging out at a shop all game is because when you encounter a space with a shop, you MUST buy something if you have the money for it.  Let's say you have 3 bucks, and draw items and only one of them is $3 or cheaper.  According to him you HAVE TO BUY that item, you can't just decide not to.  When I asked him about what if the items you draw are all too expensive, he didn't have an answer.  When I asked about how Tasks and Missions would then be treated, he still didn't have one.

     

    Help anyone?

  5. Posted

    Oh I very much hope they print out the Dark Pharoah Herald card.  I was going to do it myself at where I work (a school photography company) but I was dreading getting the awkward stares from the baseball card department here when I ask them to do it for me.  Plus we don't have the right card stock...

     

    Also it'd be funny if as an easter egg/joke they printed the Penny-Arcade guardian and characters and slipped them in without telling anyone.

  6. Posted

    Well, earlier this week we got a massive 8 player game up and going (yeah i know it's 2 above the max), and we experienced a first for us: one player had their character die before they even had a chance to take a turn.  Playing as the Dread Knight (a character who has been played at least 8 times and boasts a 100% death rate in our games [each one a spectacularly quick one]), the Reaper was moved twice in a row and landed on our unfortunate evil equestrian.  He rolled a 2, didn't want to lose his warhorse, paid a fate, and rolled a 1.  Boom, gone, didn't even get to move off the graveyard.  He at least made a lasting effect in the game: since he died without actually losing a life, his warhorse sat there on his space, which another character picked up and kept for the remainder of the game.

     

    Here's a follow-up question: did we play that right?   Should the warhorse have stayed on the space like we played since the reaper "killed" the character and didn't actually cause him to "lose a life" which is the condition to make the warhorse scurry off to the stables deck again.

  8. Posted

    I posted this already in the other thread, but it applies here too.  Neutral alignment cards weren't introduced until Sacred Pools, so I don't think alignment cards follow the same rules for "limited resources."  To me a "resource" is something that can be spent, like gold or fate tokens, or something with a significant effect, like strength, craft, or life counters.  The alignment cards to me seem like placeholders more than anything for reminding yourself

  10. Posted

    So I was looking through one of the Arkham Horror expansions I had and thought of a nifty idea i'd love to see implemented somehow. In AH, one of the expansions introduces these cards that correspond to a particular playable character and contain objectives unique to them. Upon completion of these objectives, they get a permanent bonus.

    This sounds like something that could be introduced into Talisman with entertaining results! I'm thinking of two decks of cards, one where each card has a written quest that corresponds to a different character and are assigned at the beginning of play (a Mission Deck, if you will), the other with the corresponding personal quest reward card (let's call it the Paragon Deck) you get after completion. These bonuses essentially become a permanent character ability or bonus! Unlockable character abilities sound amazing and could be just the thing to spice up those characters some feel are a little sluggish in the power-department. Some examples:

    Mission Card: Sylvan Whispers
    Character: Elf
    Quest: Visit 3 Woods spaces, then visit the Forest and miss a turn. You may use your ability to teleport to other Woods spaces to accomplish this

    Paragon Card: Elven Archery
    Character: Elf
    Benefit: If you begin your turn in a space that has an Enemy or character in an adjacent space, you may use your turn to stay in your space and encounter them, even though you are not in the same space as them. If you lose, the encounter is treated as a stand-off. If an Enemy is killed, you may take it as a trophy, but you may not take any items in that space. If you defeat a character with this ability, you may only force them to lose a life. Spaces are only adjacent to each other if you could move into them with a movement roll of 1 (so you could not use this ability to attack across the Storm River unless it is on the Sentinel firing into the Hills in the Middle Region)

    ********
    Mission Card: A Tankard or Three
    Character: Dwarf
    Quest: Discard 3 gold at the Tavern and roll 3 die. Miss a turn for each dice that results in a 4, 5, or 6.

    Paragon Card: Dwarven Constitution
    Character: Dwarf
    Benefit: Any Armour worn by you has its range of protection increased by 1. For example, a helmet would protect on 1 or 2, armor would protect on a 3, 4, 5, or 6, etc.. In addition, any card or space that says you are poisoned doesn't affect you and you cannot get drunk and miss a turn when visiting the Tavern.

    ********
    Mission Card: Scholastic Pursuits
    Character: Philosopher
    Quest: Visit the Village, the City, and the Castle in that order and miss a turn in each.

    Paragon Card: Scholarly Focus
    Character: Philosopher
    Benefit: Whenever you draw a spell, instead of discarding one you do not wish to keep and drawing another one, you may draw a second one and choose which one you want to keep. In addition, once per turn you may ignore effects that rob or drain you of your spells

    ********
    Mission Card: Dark Secrets
    Character: Warlock
    Quest: Accumulate enough Spirits with a total Craft of 15 as trophies and discard them at the Warlock's Cave (without gaining any Craft counters)

    Paragon Card: Fiendish Reserves
    Character: Warlock
    Benefit: Your maximum number of spells you can possess increases to 4. This extra spell slot is not dependent on total Craft.

    ********
    Mission Card: The Reddest Wine
    Character: Vampiress
    Quest: Drain the life of 3 followers while visiting the Graveyard. You do not have to have health missing to accomplish this.

    Paragon Card: Children of the Night
    Character: Vampiress
    Benefit: You can assume a bat swarm form in combat.  Enemies and characters must beat you by at least 2 in battle or psychic combat or else it is considered a stand-off. In addition you may ignore effects that change your alignment.

    ********
    And so on and so on. Adding flavor text to the quest card may be a good way to establish a bit of immersion and understanding as to the character you're playing and their motivations for going after the crown of command. If you want to get super ritzy, you could include TWO different paragon cards per person, and they have to CHOOSE a benefit to take when completing their Mission. I realize these benefits are pretty overpowering, but I feel a hard enough mission to complete should grant a correspondingly powerful ability, especially for characters generally considered weaker than others.

    Cheers!

  12. Posted

    In your example I fail to see how another player can CHOOSE to make another character's amulet be in use.  If one character targets another character with a spell and that second character has the amulet and is on the cursed glade, it's the player with the amulet that would "use" the amulet to block it, not the other character.  Even if its the character casting the spell that's doing it, he has no power to use another character's objects, he's just taking advantage of the fact that the OTHER player can't use the amulet.

     

    To me though another question arises.  When do the effects of the glade end?  Obviously the magic item nullification only happens when you encounter that space, and not when you encounter a character on that space.  So if a character encounters the cursed glade, and he has the amulet which now is nothing more than a rock while encountering this space, spells can now freely affect him during his turn.  But what happens when his turn is over?  What happens when it goes to another player?  While they chill out in the glade, is the amulet still deactivated?  Is he still fair game for spells?  If he is, would he have been had he encountered another player on that space instead?  If he isn't, does that mean the solomon's crown example in the rulebook would apply as well, and if there were an event drawn where every character could draw a spell, would the example's wizard still be unable to?

  13. Posted

    hmm, good point.  I see what your saying.  I think that will have to stick to being a houserule.  In my opinion I think you're technically still "using" the bag of holding because it's currently DOING something for you when you land on that space: holding your objects.  The amulet, however, is tricky.  I think that you technically ARE using it when someone attempts to cast something on you.  You're USING it to block it maybe?  Again, I think it's more of an opinion of the players you play with to decide, because I doubt we'll get an official ruling on this.

  15. Posted

    You bring up some incredibly interesting, and complicated, points.

    The 4 examples you gave in your explanation about your house rules seem pretty straight forward.  These are magic objects, after all, and thus are not able to be interacted with at all by you (used or otherwise) when on the Cursed Glade.  After all, the rulebook uses Solomon's Crown in its example on page 13, an item that works PASSIVELY and is not "used" by the character necessarily in a direct sense.  It's effects are negated when landing on the cursed glade, according to the example.

    So, it would seem that yes, when landing on the Cursed Glade, your magic items are "deactivated" so your bag of holding would then vomit up all of its contents into the space (sorry, but them's the breaks).  The evidence that supports this is again in the example in the rulebook of the main game.  When Solomon's Crown was deactivated for the Wizard, he went from 7 craft to 5 craft, and 1 of his 3 spells was lost forever, even though the crown was only "suppressed" temporarily while the wizard chilled out in the cursed glade.  Even when he leaves, he doesn't gain his lost spell, just as you wouldn't get to pick up your dropped items unless you happened to land back on the space with some non-magical carrying capacity abilities (horse and cart, for instance).

     

    The short version?  Go to page 13 of the rulebook and look at the example that's in the boxed section.  happy.gif

     

  16. Posted

    Velhart said:

    interesting question

    If a monk can stack a warhorse with his ability or 2 psionic blast cards, then more warhorses could be allowed.

    It's only a bit weird if you could do that, and could be very powerful..

    This needs clarificarion..

    I think it's pretty clear that both could be used.  It seems to me that many people think it's weird because a human being can only be mounted on one horse at any given time.  While this is true, who says that the player is mounted during combat?  Sure it makes the most sense, to have the horse biting and hoofing while its rider slashes with his or her sword, but there's no reason that a well trained warhorse couldn't be flanking and opponent with its faithful companion.  When you consider this, two horses, or three or four or whatever, are irrelevant.

    But this is all superfluous, anyway.

  17. Posted

    Zozimus said:

    Every time I play a new character, I think to myself, "This guy is too powerful", and then get my ass handed to me when the rolls of the dice and the draws of the cards don't allow me to use his power to its full extent.   There's just too much random in Talisman to predict what abilities are going to be useful or net you a win.  Strategy is not really the forte of the game, which is delightful.  I've played the Gladiator several times without finding a single follower, for example; ditto the Magus.  Even the Elf could be 'overpowered' if you just teleport back and forth in the woodsy areas, powering up...but the wrong draw of cards could get you killed right quick.  Sure it sucks to consistently roll ones, or to wait the whole game for the kind of card your character shines with - but it's fun too when the cards fall right for someone's character.  There's so much luck involved, I usually find myself cheering for the player whose karma has him on a winning streak:  and if he suddenly falls from grace, that's also a good story.  It's been really rare in my experience to have a runaway winner early on whose luck doesn't eventually run out.  Even when they win, it's never a cakewalk:  it's still usually down to the wire with the Command spell fizzling and guy number two making it all the way there, after being lost in the mines twice, only to die facing the winner in the centre square.   The game seems pretty balanced overall:  in the old second ed., there were characters you'd never want to play, but I wouldn't turn down any character I drew randomly in fourth ed.  (although I've never drawn the minstrel, and so far nobody has picked him...)

    Yeah I know what you mean.  After reading the Dread Knight I thought he'd be amazing until I played him (3 times) and he' s died everytime.  I am interested in playing the Elf next game as I hear him bashed so often, I have a soft spot for the underdogs.

    Oh and don't count the Minstrel down and out.  Our table is pretty convinced he's awesome.  I won my first game with him (or almost did, we had to end early but we could see the outcome coming a mile away).  The Reaper was a great expansion for him since it introduced the Mammoth and the Giant Spider to the game, the first Animal cards whose creatures had a Strength 5 rating (before that the serpent was the highest strength animal with a 4).

  18. Posted

    Don't knock the Reaper!  some of the new cards it introduces are pretty cool.  As far as the other small expansions go:

    - Frostmarche is ok, again, nifty new cards as well as a heaping helping of Warlock Quest cards to make going to the Warlock's cave more interesting instead of just rolling a die.  New endings too are alright.

    - The latest small expansion is A LOT of fun, I think.  Not only does Sacred Pools add the standard new characters, alternate endings, and new adventure cards, it also introduces a new reason to go to the Warlock's Cave, Warlock Quest Reward cards.  I love these things.  Also Sacred Pools makes your character's alignment a bigger deal in the game, as many of the cards are alignment oriented.  Oh, and the addition of the Stables card deck isn't too shabby either.

     

    As far as Dungeon and Highlands are concerned, it's a matter of taste.  Highlands are sort of like "Dungeon-lite."  The Highlands is a little more forgiving for weaker characters attempting to go through.  It offers a place you can explore immediately at the start of the game, whereas the Dungeon you'll want to put a little meat on your bones before you attempt to get slaughtered going through.  The rewards are scaled with the difficulty though.  The Treasure deck that awaits you at the end of the Dungeon should you beat its Boss contains items of greater power than that of the Relic deck that you draw from at the end of the Highlands board (whose boss is weaker too).  It should be noted, however, that if you go by the rules verbatim for each board, the Relic deck you "draw" from whereas the Treasure deck you get to go through and pick whichever item you want.  Many people believe though that since the highlands came out last, FFG means to sort of errata their rules about how you gain treasure at the end of an expansion board (there's evidence of this behavior between how Warlock Quest cards are handled between Reaper and Frostmarche), and to make things balanced many people rule that you draw randomly from the treasure deck (an alternate rule in the Dungeon rulebook anyway).  This is probably a good idea, as each deck contains a fairly overpowered item that allows teleportation in the Inner region.

     

    BUT THAT'S A TANGENT.  Anyway, one last thing to mention is that the Highlands deck also introduces Trinkets, objects that don't take up a item slot on a character, and you can have as many of them as you like.  Many of these Trinkets entire purpose is to make you rich, so one can get very rich with the Highlands.

  19. Posted

    frogemoth said:

    Seems pretty clear to me, if Cerberus is present and you want to cross the portal of power, you have to kill him first by moving directly on him, next turn you have to move away and on the following turn if your move is sufficient you can attempt to cross the portal of power. This is the way we play it when the Cerberus is present.

     

    Oh I get that, it was just the FAQ's usage of the word "exactly" that suggested you must roll the exact number on the die to land on the portal of power and fight cerberus, and that all other rolls you had to pass over the space until you rolled the exact amount to land directly on the Portal, beat cerberus, and then attempt to enter the inner region next turn.

     

    I guess from now on, based on what TI says, I'll just treat him like the sentinels, in that your turn stops there post fight with cerberus.  It just threw me off because his card doesn't say your move ends immediately should you attempt entry into the Plain of Peril

  20. Posted

    Thought I'd share this with anyone who cares to read it.  I work at a photography studio and we have a department that makes baseball cards.  I had them use their baseball card stock to make the Danse Macabre and Crown of Command ending cards.  Unfortunately this stock is slightly thicker and heavier than the card stock the other endings come on, and slightly more glossy.  (So it's a dead giveaway when choosing a random ending to encounter).  Instead, I created a simple chart to roll a d12 on for our endings:

     

    1) Crown of Command

    2) Danse Macabre

    3) Crown and Sceptre

    4) Ice Queen

    5) Warlock Quests

    6) Hand of Doom

    7) Eagle King

    8) Battle Royale

    9) Judgement Day

    10) Sacred Pools

    11) Demon Lord

    12) Hidden Variant ending (remove Sacred Pools and Warlock Quests, shuffle, and either draw at random or roll 1d10 and count from the top of the stack to whatever number the die rolls on, rerolling on a 10 result)

     

    In related news, if I ever wanted to make another set of the Danse Macabre and Crown of Command cards, what would be a better solution?  Would a place like Kinkos have the right card stock?

  22. Posted

    As you suggest, I will first mention that I think the Paladin is overpowered but follow it my reasoning.  His abilities are interesting, I think its fine to keep his adding of 1 to both battles and psychic combats because the conditions to use it are narrow (must be a character, character must be evil).  Its his Dark-cultist-esque ability that gets a little shady.  Rolling 2 die is fine, and the fact that on a 7 he gets a measly gold is good (as 7 is the most common rolled result when rolling 2d6) but the fact that he has the potential to score a ton of armor, weapons, and horse followers from simply killing something seems a might overpowered.  Either consider rearranging them, so that the most amazing things you could score happen on a 2 or 12 (as those would be the hardest results to roll), and then maybe have 6, 7, and 8 be the areas where you're ignored.  If he's constantly getting armor and weapons he can't hold because his limits are full, he'll just end up crapping items all over the board.  Another suggestion instead would be just to have the rate at which he gets to roll on that chart lessened.  Instead of whenever he defeats something, you could limit it to whenever he trades in trophies to receive a new counter.

    An even bigger issue are his stats, though.  He has a 4 strength, 3 craft, and 4 Fate?!  That's insane, especially when paired with his abilities.  I'd say reduce them.  Keep his strength at 4 if you like, but maybe reduce his craft to 2 (paladins are the more melee oriented divine fighters anyway, and get their spells later in their careers [if we're going by D&D lore] so the moment he gains his next craft, one could argue he's ready to begin obtaining spells).  Also consider lowering his Fate to 2 or 3.  he should have equal or less fate than the Cleric.  Life seems fine, though.

     

    The Avatar of Justice is pretty **** cool.  I'd say keep him exactly as is.  The only thing I'd think to consider is to reverse the roles of what happens when good characters and neutral characters land on him.  Have him not attack Neutral characters and attack Good characters' higher attributes.  The only reason I suggest this is based on his name (and this is a personal opinion).  "Justice" to me demonstrates a lack of bias towards one alignment extreme.  "Justice is blind" as they say.  In D&D, the alignment of Lawful Neutral is the epitome of law and order.  If you're keen on keeping his rules, maybe change his name to Avatar of Righteousness, Purity, Faithfulness.  Again, this is all flavor text and is me being nit picky.  Also there aren't enough cards out that affect neutral characters only in positive ways.

  23. Posted

    Steve-O said:

     

    The way I underastand what TI said, above, Cerberus is a challenge that you run into when you try to pass through the Portal of Power.  In order to pass throught he Portal of Power you must have rolled more than enough movement to step through to the other side.  So if you rolled exactly enough movement to land on the space in front of the portal, you would not encounter Cerberus, because you aren't going through the portal.

    In other words, Cerberus is a unique challenge in that he catches you mid-move as opposed to most other challenges that you have to land on to encounter.

     

    But it seems to me you WOULD encounter him even if you land on his space with not enough movement to advance.  That space is a draw 1 card space, and Cerberus would count as the card to draw.  Not to mention the FAQ:

    Q1: If Cerberus is on the Portal of Power, does a character
    have to land exactly on the Portal of Power to be able to
    fight Cerberus or is it treated it like crossing from the Middle
    Region to the Inner Region and then fight him on the way
    through?
    A: A character must land exactly on the Portal of Power
    to be able to attack Cerberus. If Cerberus is killed, the
    character may attempt to cross the Portal of Power on his
    next turn following the normal rules, if he so chooses.

     

    Maybe I'm missing something here?

  24. Posted

    Drake Leonclaw said:

    You are correct, Dam, the warhorse still goes bye bye when losing in a psychic combat

    (didn't mean to hit publish so quickly) It's the reason I don't care for the Dread Knight.  He seemed like such an interesting character, but early in the game when he's still weak, if you draw a nasty spirit and lose to it, you're severely gimped unless you can manage to make a lucky roll and land back on the graveyard.  Last game I had him my friend was a real tool and managed to change my alignment to good, effectively punishing me if ever I wanted to get my warhorse back.  Dread Knight's been used by various players in 3 games and he's died all 3.

×
×
  • Create New...