Does anyone have a list of the things the Talisman of Golot can give you? I don't have the DLC installed and I don't feel like installing it at the moment, but I am curious.

7 options (see screenshot attachment for in-game description):
1. Cost: 20%. Gives you food (never use it).
2. Cost: 20%. Gives you gold (it is something like 200 gold per level, despite what other people say - never use it, it is a waste).
3. Cost: 30%. Full Heal of HP/PP (also useless).
4. Cost: 30%. Teleport to safe place (Velegarn?). Cheaper to buy crystal.
5. Cost: 40%. 1 Stat Point to 1 character.
6. Cost: 50%: 1 Skill Point to 1 character.
7. Cost: 100%. Each character receives 1 Skill Point.

Talisman charges from 0% to 100% in proportion to average level of party and amount of exp gained. I didn't find true proportion yet, but it is probably around 40% per each 2.5 levels.

Some of the options you consider useless might be useful if you find yourself in trouble. Of course, that shouldn't happen if you are playing well, but sometimes it might be necessary if you make a mistake.

1. Suppose you are playing Hardcore (or are in the desert you've mentioned), are out of food and cereals, and forgot to take a crystal with you. This may be enough to get you out of trouble. Also, if you don't have Knowledge of Terrain and are unable to cross the desert, using this option repeatedly might allow passage.
2. I note that there doesn't appear to be an experience boost option, so getting gold and using that gold to buy items to exchange for experience might be useful. Also, in a speedrun (assuming the Talisman is allowed), this can be a way to get the money needed for potions and scrolls. (If you kill a strong monster at a low level, your talisman should charge significantally, allowing you to use the talisman more often in a speedrun than in a casual playthrough.)
3 and 4. Suppose you are about to be attacked by Cursed Hounds and your party is in no condition to fight. Furthermore, you don't have enough food to rest and don't have a crystal to escape. This could get you out safely (though since 1 is cheaper, choosing it and resting may be a better option. How much food does it give you anyway?) Also if you are stuck in the desert and option 1 isn't enough to get back to town, option 4 might make sense.

One interesting thought: Would it make any sense to hold off on leveling so that the talisman charges faster? This might be a way to ensure you get enough skill points to level up the stats you need.

Maybe some day, I may play with the Talisman and intentionally delaying level advancement if it works this way.

If you don't have Knowledge of Terrain, this option isn't viable for desert at all. you will burn through 4 days of food (which is maximum on hardcore) in moments. There are direct increases to character power in form of stat/skill boosts.

Amount of gold you will need to get significant exp or pass another training session isn't comparable to what you get from Talisman. You can run from them manually. If you had casualties, it is cheaper to use "Gold" option from Talisman to fix the situation (still waste of power). This isn't viable at all. Talisman's Power isn't free expendable (and thus it can't be wasted on stuff like food, gold, teleport) it increases very slow in time. To see real difference you need to fight monsters, which are way out of your league. For example, 31.5 EXP at level 1 gives you 0.75% of Power. 588 EXP at level 5 gives 2.54-2.55% of Power. if you wlil do math, you will see that it isn't viable tactic at all (it was viable when Power Charge depended only on Gaulen's level, but it was quickly fixed). You can install dlc and never use talisman. Or pretend that you got King Necklace and put 50 points into Gaulen's stats evenly. It adds some more depth to the game and another vector of alternate advancement, so to say. Best way is just to start from scratch on Old School Veteran mode :)

Did you look into Agarest 2 yet?:)

Just another thought about the first choice. If you are speedrunning the game, using the Talisman to refill your food might be faster than returning to town to buy more, which is in turn faster than gathering food from the wilderness. (As a side note, hunting might not be a good choice because of the pop-up that appears after every battle you get food from.)

I watched the Agarest 2 trailer, and noticed that it did not show any actual gameplay. That is *not* encouraging. Plus, I have other games to play; I still haven't finished Elminage Gothic's final bonus dungeon, and Terraria's Linux version just came out.

You can watch this video for start of game, I couldn't find better one without commentaries, which don't let you hear undubbed speech and BGM. Start of game is easy on fights, but it shows basic things on engine and fights. Weiss is also a very charming 1st gen. hero :)

About undubbed speech: that voice of Summerill, which resembles [Japanese] voice of Cid from Final Fantasy Type-0, instantly triggers several jRPG-happy triggers on its own. Even though I greatly disliked FF Type-0, some things like voice-acting for Cid were done very well.

When I come to the poitn when i need to grind a lot (like Elminage Gothic in this example), I simply farm some monsters somewhere for half an hour and play some other game after that :)

If you never played Terraria before, I need to warn you. Once when I woke up i decided to spend 10 minutes in Terraria, when those "10 minutes" passed (and they passed like 10 minutes), it was already time to sleep..... I might get back into terraria when 1.3 patch madness is done and there will be new version of TEdit (new patch = new hero -> he needs Sky Sword! and I am too lazy to search for sky houses manually).