Too Random ?

[Gallifrey - CSSC Gaming Founder]

I'm just starting a campaign here (following on from my "Comments of a Digital Noob") for the developers to give a free download allowing an option to nerf the current random spell. I've got an older physical version of Talisman and the random spell then caused the victim to lose ONE strength or craft, not all of them.

Alterations do occur over time with the rules - raiders used to deprive the character drawing it of all objects and followers as well as all gold, there used to be no limit on the number of times a wand could be used.

Random at the present time allows a single spell to wipe out an opponent's entire progress during the game. It also reverses the general balance of the game that whilst objects and followers can be fickle and unreliable the character's own progress through defeating monsters etc. was inviolate (subject to a point here and there). The loss of even a single strength or craft point can take several turns to restore so allowing a single spell the chance to remove a dozen or points of strength or craft on a single roll is unfair and unbalanced. Imagine a spell in World of Warcraft that could reduce a Level 80 character to Level 1. The players would desert in droves.

The change would be very easy to implement - it's two parameters on one spell and an alteration of two words on the card's face. In my honest opinion it would be the best single improvement that could be made to the game.

So who's with me ?

S.x.

[Asbestos Cowboy]

What edition is your copy of the board-game? I just checked with my 4e copy and random was changed to what it is in the DE.

But I digress, I'd like to see the older edition of some of the spell cards like random

[Artaterxes]

Generally speaking, if there is enough demand for a particular adjustment, it can be made into a house rule. While the standard setup of the digital edition should be strictly rules-as-written, simply for consistency among the products, house rules are always an option.

[Gallifrey - CSSC Gaming Founder]

Mine must be third edition then.

For the reasons that I set out above I STRONGLY believe that Random needs to be reduced in potency. As with any dice and card game there's a fair degree of luck in Talisman but is there any other spell/ item/ or artefact that totally changes the game balance ? Other than by the Crown of Command character deaths are relatively rare after the start of the game when characters with starting Strength 2 are particularly vulnerable. Even then a death at the start of the game is an inconvenience and a handicap rather than the end of the game for the unlucky player. Indeed a stronger replacement character may boost their chances.

Towards the back end of the game random on a one in three chance currently can wipe out the victim's entire progress in strength or craft since the start of the game. Few human players in multiplayer are going to stick with the game after seeing their strength or craft reduced from 12 to 3 on a single roll of the dice.

As I said random in the early editions only took away a single craft or strength and was 50% positive - thus the name. It was always feared however due to the 1 in 6 chance of being turned into a toad - once the most feared fate in Talisman.

Surely I can't be the only one to think this ?

S.x.

[Excommunicatus]

I agree with you on Random being a fierce spell. I call it the Infernal Random Spell. I do think the current incarnation of it is far too harsh.

My guess is that Random was changed to be so evil as one of the few methods of dealing with runaway characters. If one character just draws all the good items/followers, always gets good rolls in combats, etc. - the other players do have Random (and also the Reaper, with that expansion) as a last-ditch way to knock down the runaway.

Is there a less-harsh way to accomplish the objective of setting back an early runaway without making it a rage-quit game-ender for players in the late game? Could Random take say *half* the affected stat instead of all? Dunno - that's something for the designers to decide.

All that said, I'm not sure if the Nomad devs even have the option of making such a change. They may be bound by their licensing agreement to stick with the 4ed ruleset, and that would likely include card wordings and workings. I don't know what their licensing agreement looks like in the least, but it's what I suspect.

[Chief Druid]

We can modify rules, but we have to be very sure that it's going to be popular overall. Best way to do this is focus the thread and get support so we can at least get a feel on the weight of opinion.

[Ghostlight]

I have the same physical edition as the OP, and I think DE Random is fine. The reason is that in the DE (and presumably 4e), your character is far less reliant on your level-boosted Strength and Craft to actually win. This is because of several things:

a) The journey into the middle is much less harsh in DE than it is in 3e. In 3e you can very easily lose all of your important Followers and Objects on the way in. This is not so in the DE.

b) In DE you can quite easily take on the middle region with either one of Strength of Craft high from any sources, and the other low. This is just to get in there and then to get past that first space that can teleport you elsewhere. The rest is manageable with middling amounts.

c) To win DE you just need to make it to the middle then start casting the Command spell. To win 3e, you need to beat a final boss with Strength and Craft both 12. Given you can lose everything just getting to him, you need to be pretty sure you can kill him with your level-up Strength/Craft alone.

In short, in the 4e/DE I have attempted the middle with either Strength OR Craft around 10, and the other one middling at best....and won. You'd simply never try that in 3e unless totally desperate. The 3e final boss has Strength 12 and Craft 12 as I said, and since you could never predict which objects and followers you lose on the way in, you want either one of them around 12+ from your level-ups alone, or one of them extremely high (say 16+) from level-ups and items and followers. So in DE losing all your Strength or Craft is not as punishing as it would be in 3e.

Having said all that, more options are always good and I'd support such a download, as long as it's a house rule.

The point made above about cutting down a runaway leader - the bane of older editions - is also a very good one.

Few human players in multiplayer are going to stick with the game after seeing their strength or craft reduced from 12 to 3 on a single roll of the dice.

You should have went for the middle FAR earlier than waiting till you stats from level-ups alone hit 12. 3e has almost certainly taught the bad habit of over-levelling before attempting the middle in DE.

Just my 2 cents.

[Gallifrey - CSSC Gaming Founder]

I think that the view would be for a house rule rather than making everyone switch.

I'm also thinking though about further expansions with alternate endings - particularly if there's going to be a Dragon's Tower. Then you might want to be far tougher before going for the end game.

Also getting to the Crown of Command first is a long way from winning the game. If each of your opponents has four lives on average it will take eight turns to kill them all IF they regain no life whatsoever and IF you don't get turned into a toad or otherwise get zapped. In the last game I played the AI warrior set off to the Crown of Command via the North road, lost a turn or two, allowing my Enchantress to catch him up. I beat him "fair and square" by using psychic combat to beat him and take his strength boosting items thus meaning I started to beat him on strength fights too on his turn. If either of us had been hit by a random spell destroying accumulated strength or craft the game balance would have been totally lost. I won in the end because of higher stats and better strategy - not because of a lucky dice roll.

As for runaway characters someone who is on a roll is on a roll. One on one there's little the loser can do but with two or three human players ganging up can make the all powerful less powerful. A thief can take objects, and an Enchantress followers without winning in combat. A merchant can swap his helmet for your wand. Acquisition can steal objects. And being turned into a toad is never a good day.

And there are already several "house" rules.

I stand by my original submission - as it stands the Random spell overbalances the game because in the latter stages a single dice roll can change the enitre course of the game.

S.x.

[joshuacolyn]

This is going to come across as an attack. But it isn't I swear. I mean no disrespect to anyone. This is just a question.

What is all this who ha about certain characters or spells being too over-powered or un-balanced?

Every week you see someone posting their dislike of a spell that is "over-balanced" or a character that is too "over-powered". What is the difference if they lost all their str/cft to Random then lost or were turned into a toad, lost everything, and was killed? There isn't. They were strong and becuase they rolled crappy dice they aren't anymore and lost. That is how the game works. One minute they are on top of the world, the next they are laying in a gutter at the Tavern with a str 3 drunk farmer peeing on them. The whole game is based on chance and luck w/ little skill involved. No matter what character/spell is chosen to be used.

They might as well get rid of / change the Basilisk. It can kill a character no matter how powerful they are with a roll of doubles. Talk about over-powered and over-balanced.

Someone in the CoC, one turn away from potentially wining. Next player enters the inner region and casts Transference. Luck/Chance is on their side and they roll better dice than the first player did in CoC. Now the first person lost becuase they couldn't make it back to CoC in time to fight the other. It didn't matter how much str/cft they had or what special talent their character/ follower/ object did for them. Did it? Better get rid of / change Transference. Becuase it's too powerful? No, they are mad they lost and how dare there be such a spell to take their glory away.

Everything that is being deemed "over-powered" can be taken care of by 1). A spell, such as Vindication + Misfortune, which is far worse than Random. Better get rid of / change that too. 2). A special talent/ follower/ object of another character or 3). Simply BAD luck with card drawing and dice rolling.

No one chracter is truly more powerful then another. Each has their own strengths and weakness that can allow someone to win or be exploited. Whether it is deemed "weak" or "OP" No one spell is more powerful then another they all come in handy at some point. Ecept Preservation. that spell just sucks. Better get rid of / change it. It is too weak. Or Maybe it does its job perfectly and stops "instant casters" from going through the spell deck like it is a toy store on xmas for awhile. Sometimes for whole game, but only in DE. In the board game Preservatoin can be cast a lot easier.

How far is someone going to go with the Troll when all they draw are craft battles? What if the dice are just not in their favor today? They (the Genie) are rolling 1's for everything turning them into a toad, losing their turns, losing their battles, being ignored and gaining or finding nothing, While their buddy (the Priest) is rolling 6's. gaining str/cft left and right, always getting wishes fulfiled, and finding awesome follower/objects. Who do you think is going to win? Chances are it will be the Preist, but it could be either one.Throw Random on the Priest and he rolls his first 1, 2 , or 3 followed by drawing the Hag and now the Genie can maybe catch up and win or if their luck is still un-founded they lose. Again all about luck and chance.

"A single die roll can change the course of the game"

This can happen at any point in the game. Yeah it sucks if it is at the end, but this is Talisman and If people have been playing Talisman since 1st edition (like me and millions of others) they will know this to be true, Did it stop most of them from playing? No, or there wouldn't have been 2nd, 3rd, 4th, or digital editions. And if because losing all their str/cft leads them to quit the game, then most likely they are a poor sport, and who wants to play with them anyways. Yes! It is very frustrating, Just be a good sport, admit defeat and play another game. Then watch the tables turn on the person who won the last game.

Sorry if I offended or angered anyone, but Talisman is 95% chance/luck and 5% skill /strategy nothing else. No matter Who? What? When? Where? How? a character or spell is used.

So no I don't agree that Random is too over-balanced / over-powered. Nothing in this game is due to chance and luck (good or bad).

[Gallifrey - CSSC Gaming Founder]

No offence taken Joshua Colyn.

People post because they care.

Let me illustrate what I am saying by using Monopoly as an example. Say there was a rule that if you rolled a double six you immediately gained every unallocated property on the board but if you rolled a double one you would immediately lose every property you owned back to the bank. The game would be far worsened because the entire game would reduce to whether a player threw a double six or a double one. Almost nothing else would matter.

I'd dispute that Talisman is all luck. I'd back a highly experienced player to beat a noob somewhere between nine times out of ten and ninety nine times out of one hundred. There are definite stratagems to improve your odds of winning, especially taking advantage of some of the special powers on the characters' cards. Compare that to snakes and ladders where a noob still has approximately a 50% chance of beating the world's most experienced snakes and ladders player.

The cards you cite must be in the expansion because I haven't seen them in my game.

Why is Random so uniquely bad (in the vanilla/ unexpanded game) ?

1) It can hit any other player at any time
2) There is a one in six chance of losing all accumulated craft, one in six chance of losing all accumulated strength, and a one in six chance of becoming a toad. So the devastation rate on a single roll is 50% and gets worse the longer into the game players are
3) It's on a single roll of the dice. It doesn't take specific series of events to make the spell devastating.

As I've argued from the start - Random is TOO Random.

S.x.

[rfisha]

I know of many gamers who played the board game from 2nd to 4th and a LOT of groups house rule Random to lose 1 Strength or Craft, some groups go with two. It is one of the most common house rules applied from my experience.

[Artaterxes]

For your enjoyment, here is a partial list of things worse than Random.

1. Getting insta-killed by encountering the Grim Reaper and rolling a 1.
2. Better yet, encounter the Grim Reaper and have someone cast the Misfortune spell on you (your die roll is automatically a 1).
3. Having someone cast Vindication on you, which kills you if you roll a 1. Now that's worse than Random!
4. Getting insta-killed by the Basilisk if it rolls doubles in combat.
5. Having the Deathstalker follower which kills you if you lose a fight.
6. Getting insta-killed and removed from the game by the Horrible Black Void ending as your reward for reaching the Crown of Command.

[rfisha]

Agree with you there Art!

Yes my biggest gripe with the 4th edition is the ridiculous instant killing. That's why the Reaper figure blows. In addition to your list the assassin in the city sucks as well - for a few gold you can easily kill someone off as well. All of these bar number 6 (which took you to Timescape in 2nd edition) were introduced in 4th. We also house the instant kill to two lives - it is too cheap and drags the game on unnecessarily.

TBH though, with the amount of cards in the deck, the chances of events 3-5 happening are quite slim. These cards rarely show up in games while spell cycle chars seem to get random once every few games. The 50% chance to cripple a player of random just hurts and as it usually a powerful spell cycle character that generally picks it up makes it suck even more. Turning into a toad when rolling a 1 is fundamentally Talisman and you have a chance to get your items back or change your strategy, but losing strength or craft can take you right back to where you were at the start of the game.

It would be good if Nomad offered Random takes 1 or 2 str/craft instead as a house rule.

[Thels]

Fortunately, the Grim Reaper can already be disabled as a house rule.

[Cruor]

I'm not opposed to the 4th edition Random spell (it lives up to its name), sure it sucks when it happens to you but with fate left you've got a 1/36 chance to lose all strength/craft. Sure most spell casters sit on random til you use up your last fate. But with added expansions the chance of randoms making it into a game reduce significantly.

I think DE should try and stay as true to 4th Edition as possible in terms of rules. So the best solution is to simply make, as has been suggested the kinder Random spell a house rule. Maybe even the instant kill events -> 2 lives gone instead as another house rule.

[russian_martian]

KEEP OFFICIAL RULES AS THEY ARE IN BOARD GAME. PLS STOP TO TRY ALTERNATE GAME NOT IN "OPTIOANAL" WAY. PERIOD.