That's all seems fun, but I kinda dislike the fact that the encounter deck indirectly boosts player cards. Don't get me wrong, things that get stronger with damage or threat are awesome, but this... it sort of doesn't feels right to me. Like some sort of design oversight.

That's all seems fun, but I kinda dislike the fact that the encounter deck indirectly boosts player cards. Don't get me wrong, things that get stronger with damage or threat are awesome, but this... it sort of doesn't feels right to me. Like some sort of design oversight.

I see what you're saying, but I'm not sure it's a design oversight, so much as one of those things you just have to accept as a designer. If you want to blank character boxes, that will hurt 90+% of character cards, but will of course help that small group of heroes/allies with negative stuff in their text boxes. You can either avoid blanking character text boxes, accept that some cards will benefit, or create a ridiculously long (and eventually outdated) set of text excepting certain cards from the effect.

"Damage from Cold from Angmar must be dealt to the character you least want it dealt to (you know the one)."

I see what you're saying, but I'm not sure it's a design oversight, so much as one of those things you just have to accept as a designer. If you want to blank character boxes, that will hurt 90+% of character cards, but will of course help that small group of heroes/allies with negative stuff in their text boxes. You can either avoid blanking character text boxes, accept that some cards will benefit, or create a ridiculously long (and eventually outdated) set of text excepting certain cards from the effect.

You see, it not that it helps bothers me, but how it helps.

About ridiculously long set of text, here is a solution from the top of my head that could have been used here:

Forced Burden: After Glorfindel exhausts to commit to a quest, raise your threat by 1.

Burden: Cannot have attachments. Immune to player card effects.

When Revealed: Each player deals 1 damage to a hero he controls. Attach Cold from Angmar to the current quest. (Counts as a Condition attachment with the text: "Treat each damaged character's printed text box as if it were blank, except for keywords, Traits and Burden effects.")

Edit: Never mind. I couldn't see the white text.

I didn't see it either.

When Revealed: Each player deals 1 damage to a hero he controls. Attach Cold from Angmar to the current quest. (Counts as a Condition attachment with the text: "Treat each damaged character's printed text box as if it were blank, except for keywords, Traits and Burden effects.")

Real world, though. No time machine available to go back and slap "Burden" on every detrimental text box effect for player cards. Gotta come up with something actually workable.

Yeah, I know. That's why I used the "design oversight" term. Designers didn't cared when they introduced stuff like Beorn hero. Not much that can be done now.

Just finished the Helms Deep quest on my LotR Saga Campaign ... seems offtopic in the first place but no

One of the horoes I had with me was Merry, I was using his tactic version from the beggining of my campaign. Since I wanted him also on the Road to Isengard, I did not change him but wanted also a Spirit hero for Rohan cards (other heroes are Gandalf who came back from the dead and Eomer, whom I will change on the next but anyway). I thought I could use Spirit Merry for the first time, never played him before.

Well his ability was the single reason I won the quest. With my threat on 49 (while everything else was going ok. my deck was very nice on the table) -never thought to use his ability up till then- , an orc with threat 3 came out ... and while i was crying my defeat cause at the end of turn I would go to 50, there came a blast on my mind, I exhausted him and reduced my threat to 46. Next turn again another 3 threat enemy, an Uruk Hai came, reduced on 44, and next turn I won the quest !!!! His ability can be a real winner and I guess he will combine nicely with spirit Frodo to keep threat low after Frodo defending ... What a great hero indeed

I think it's great encounter cards can benefit you. It opens up so many deck design strategies. Essentially every deck or set of decks of 50 you build are to tackle one puzzle. Each piece you include is in some way a counter to get an edge on the puzzle. Using Thalin in a quest with 1 HP enemies is no different than designing a strategy to control the encounter deck or making the encounter cards work for you. It's another way of negating or limiting the opposing puzzle as much as possible. Caleb and Matt talked at gen con how they want to game to keep expanding horizontally without too much vertical power creep. Mission accomplished. I think the most recent quests in this last cycle are some the best quests by far. They are challenging in the right way. Like a "play true to you strategy and hope for the best with some bad luck possible" instead of massive bombs of "game over" cards. This last Ettenmoors quest is one of my favorites ever. When I lose on that or the Eriador Wargs it's still fun. When I lost on Hobbit boxes, or to some extent Andros I just didn't want to play anymore.

Yet even if you don't want to tailor the deck build, every quest so far in the 5th cycle has been totally approachable with a classic power card deck. You can throw together 2 typical spirit questing and tactics locking decks that folks have been using since the first two cycles and approach all these new quests with hope of victory.