- all players, me includd, are new at the game. So i will allow free XP redistribution between missions to allow players to explore their upgrades and prevent permanent costly mistakes. Since the Imperial player has the same rule applied to him, i doubt it will hurt balance. It will also make things funnier while the players hoard XP to get their 4-xp upgrade.

- i allow players to keep looted equipment between missions. It gives them more of.an incentive to rush to the crates if they finish early. If they start playing the deck by never spending the sucky items, i will hit them hard.

- i allow them to return a unwanted Side Mission card to the deck after their selection.

- all players, me includd, are new at the game. So i will allow free XP redistribution between missions to allow players to explore their upgrades and prevent permanent costly mistakes. Since the Imperial player has the same rule applied to him, i doubt it will hurt balance. It will also make things funnier while the players hoard XP to get their 4-xp upgrade.

- i allow players to keep looted equipment between missions. It gives them more of.an incentive to rush to the crates if they finish early. If they start playing the deck by never spending the sucky items, i will hit them hard.

- i allow them to return a unwanted Side Mission card to the deck after their selection.

Perhaps you meant otherwise, but I can see a ton of problem in balance with these

#1 You actually punish hoarding xps. Let's say I have 3xp in total right now, I will make sure to spend it all because I know the 4xp ones will be available to me after next mission anyway (i.e. If I don't spend it all I'm losing out 3xp abilities for this mission)

#2 Let's say I'm a cutthroat Rebel player. I'll make sure to hoard everything until the finale (much like the frequently-complained "Imperial player hoarding secret one-shot agenda cards until finale)

#3 is fine, it's actually a fairly popular houserule to "always draw 2" vs. original rule "that 1 sucky mission always stays"

Perhaps you meant otherwise, but I can see a ton of problem in balance with these

#1 You actually punish hoarding xps. Let's say I have 3xp in total right now, I will make sure to spend it all because I know the 4xp ones will be available to me after next mission anyway (i.e. If I don't spend it all I'm losing out 3xp abilities for this mission)

#2 Let's say I'm a cutthroat Rebel player. I'll make sure to hoard everything until the finale (much like the frequently-complained "Imperial player hoarding secret one-shot agenda cards until finale)

#3 is fine, it's actually a fairly popular houserule to "always draw 2" vs. original rule "that 1 sucky mission always stays"

1- i dont get your point. Everyone gets to spend all their xp all the time. Nobody hoards anything. A player who bought low cost cards card, if he wants, throw them away for the high value card.

2- meh. That would hurt them in the inter missions. If i win those, i get the influence.

Though i haven't implemented it yet I plan to allow crate items to be carried over from mission to mission, just seems odd that you have to ditch it if you don't use them, and by default allow rebels to swap those crate items between themselves between missions.

This is a pretty interesting idea.

With so many expansions out now, supply cards are suffering the same fate as upgrade items: cards you really wanna pull start getting lost in the deck.

I totally forgot C1 comlink was even a thing!

I think new companions like the Pit Droid and the R5 astromech address this issue but maybe more can be done.

How about if Heroes have unused crate items at the end of the mission they have the option to:

1) Carry the item to the next mission but loose the crate token (so no 50 credit bonus)

- Limit to one carry over, AKA no hoarding until finale

2) Return the item to the supply deck and obtain the 50 credit bonus (normal rules)

That or let's start seeing some more heroes that mimic MHD's main ability to draw medical supply cards (really wish Combat overdrive wasn't an upgrade card for him, wasted opportunity I think - not a priority purchase)

Maybe a hero that pulls energy cards (Turbocharger, Flash Emitter, Power Generator) or tool supply cards (Weapons Cache, Grappling Hook, Macrobinoculars, C1 Comlink).

while the players hoard XP to get their 4-xp upgrade.

Oh I thought by "hoard XP" you meant "saving up". If your entire group feels happy about it then sure test it out.

I just feel xp purchases should be important decisions. If I'm the Imperial player faced with all-newbies I might allow one-time xp-tradein after mission #4 or when everyone got 4xps, but definitely not "after every mission". It allows (pretty much) perfection for every mission: Hey next mission is "A New Threat"! Gaarkhan you sell off that 1xp Wook Fortitude, Fenn you sell off that 1xp take over and buy adrenaline rush....

Yhea, pretty much. Why hang on the 1xp card you have if you want the 2xp card?

The imperial player can change his class skills at will

- all players, me includd, are new at the game. So i will allow free XP redistribution between missions to allow players to explore their upgrades and prevent permanent costly mistakes. Since the Imperial player has the same rule applied to him, i doubt it will hurt balance. It will also make things funnier while the players hoard XP to get their 4-xp upgrade.

- i allow players to keep looted equipment between missions. It gives them more of.an incentive to rush to the crates if they finish early. If they start playing the deck by never spending the sucky items, i will hit them hard.

- i allow them to return a unwanted Side Mission card to the deck after their selection.

Interesting thoughts, but as stated, there are some issues.

1) As pointed out, this allows players to have easily up-gradable builds. For instance, in the regular rules, players have to make decisions: do they spend the 1XP now for a cheap but easy to get skill, or do they save it up for a few missions for that 4XP game changer? In your version, they can continually just resell their XP and make the optimal builds each turn. I get that's probably the intention, so if that's what you're going for, you do you, man.

I might suggest, though, an alternative, especially if you don't want the Rebels to make any crippling mistakes. Give them the option to sell skills at 50% their original price, just like items. That way, if a skill isn't getting used, it can be partially salvaged, but Rebels can't abuse the system.

2) Like others said, letting items be hoarded can make the finale impossible for the Imp. Just have the Rebels save up a few grenades, and you're gonna be struggling to field anything with staying power. There's a reason area of effect attacks are more rare. Plus, the Rebels have grenades they can buy, but they're somewhat expensive and can only be used once each mission. Giving them the opportunity to possible get every explosive in the deck is just broken.

Once again, let me suggest an alternative. Mimic the new Imp Agenda limit rule- they can keep a maximum of 3 or 4 cards.

3) I actually really like the ability to get rid of unwanted side missions. The way the game is set up, you often get a relatively boring mission pop up at some point. Then, after some time, another boring one will come in. When the Rebels are choosing their mission based off of which one looks less boring, the game has an issue. So, I really like this, and may implement in our next campaign.

https://lookaside.fbsbx.com/file/IA%20Campaign%20House%20Rules.pdf?token=AWwNz4lFiHpNVxDAdHMHK__dSjuCqJhRFxHGP4DKlhhDs1a4acbkNf9tg0nq7zU_RzZbIFQeHu7aXU0m3KNfEiyxhElOY6M5ei3tb9x3feU4IFsU9Dr__rgRaYfutUmzsQdGA51omfLAeRjzbAke_qofQuZnSGFMwQZd6pT_m1aGQw

My house rules, please give feedback, thanks. We haven't used the ally rule as group yet, going to use it in Jabba's Realm. In my own solo testing it's been fine, obv gives a huge boost for one mission, but it requires one side to spend a whole mission and possibly 3 influence earning that boost.

https://lookaside.fbsbx.com/file/IA%20Campaign%20House%20Rules.pdf?token=AWwNz4lFiHpNVxDAdHMHK__dSjuCqJhRFxHGP4DKlhhDs1a4acbkNf9tg0nq7zU_RzZbIFQeHu7aXU0m3KNfEiyxhElOY6M5ei3tb9x3feU4IFsU9Dr__rgRaYfutUmzsQdGA51omfLAeRjzbAke_qofQuZnSGFMwQZd6pT_m1aGQw

My house rules, please give feedback, thanks. We haven't used the ally rule as group yet, going to use it in Jabba's Realm. In my own solo testing it's been fine, obv gives a huge boost for one mission, but it requires one side to spend a whole mission and possibly 3 influence earning that boost.

Those are pretty fair, and I've seen many incorporated before.

The side mission one is particularly good. Though, let me ask you this- if you Rebels have such choices, do you allow the Imperial to draw additional Threat cards during the upgrade phase? That might help balance things, too, especially since many threat cards are Imperial missions.

I understand the appeal of a 0 cost expendable earned hero, but personally I prefer them the vanilla way.

Well, rules as-is, the Imperial player gets to see 4 new agenda cards after every mission and the Rebels only get to see 1 new card after side missions only, so I don't think the Empire needs a similar rule, unless you're talking about something else.

With an unlucky shuffle you could get the same 4 agenda cards in the next draw.

With an unlucky shuffle you could get the same 4 agenda cards in the next draw.

Meh, but if they didn't buy any cards last time, then they'll have more influence to spend the next time around. I know you're probably kidding, but with the Empire getting 40 draws from the agenda deck per campaign and the Rebels only drawing 6-7 side mission cards, the Imperial player drawing a few duplicate cards in a row isn't as big a problem as Rebels getting stuck with bad side missions.

Also I alternate riffle shuffles and overhand shuffles with my cards, so this would be unlikely to happen to me.

I was waffling back and forth between once per campaign and twice per campaign limit for the side mission mulligan rule. Twice per campaign basically lets the Rebels cherry pick the side missions they play giving more control but reducing replayability, but once per campaign makes it more valuable but leaves the possibility that the Rebels don't get to play most of the red character missions, which are the most important because they provide backstory to the player's heroes. But then I thought that replayability should come from the wide variety of side missions available rather than being involuntarily locked of playing the ones that were put in the deck, so I went with twice per campaign.

Whether you end up drawing the same or different agenda cards, the agenda deck is pretty big if you are looking for a specific card, or even just an agenda mission. Getting to draw more than 4 agenda cards in an upgrade stage is valuable to the imperial player. It's not worth 100 cr per hero, but it is worth something.

With the introduction of agenda cards that enter play immediately when purchased, seeing more cards is even more advantageous.

So, I don't think you should ignore the agenda draw size as a catchup mechanism.

It is quite hard to get agenda side missions into play, so if you have the influence, getting to see more cards help come across them. It doesn't really fix the base issue of them being too expensive though. The agenda card in play limit slightly favor purchasing them, but it's not nearly enough for a complete and satisfactory solution.

The agenda missions are simply too expensive to be justifiable

Maybe if they cost 2 influence, but you still have to win them to get the reward I'd be tempted.

I'm not going to pay 3 or 4 influence for something I might just lose anyway.

The agenda missions are simply too expensive to be justifiable

Maybe if they cost 2 influence, but you still have to win them to get the reward I'd be tempted.

I'm not going to pay 3 or 4 influence for something I might just lose anyway.

They're easily justified if you think them as "denying a slot for Rebel side missions"

Also slash all wave 1's costing more than 10 by 4 (ATST = 10, Vader = 14, Han = 8, Chewie = 11...) to make it actually worthwhile, unless you're playing the new JR's Nemeses deck

So, even if I do decide to spend 3-4 Influence. (which is hard to save up for unless you want to possibly fall behind Rebel development)

Then they get a choice of taking my mission or one of theirs.

If they take theirs I get the Villain, but still have to select the Villain as one of my Open Groups AND have the threat to be able to field a single figure unique deployment.

If they take my mission sure, I've denied them a mission slot, but win or lose I still come up against the issue above.

Villain missions are a badly executed idea, for many many reasons.

If Villain missions didn't cost 3-4 influence, they might be worth it.

If Villains didn't take an Open Group slot, they might be worth it.

If Villains didn't cost a ton of threat (granted, some more than others), they might be worth it.

If Villains weren't a single figure deployment that dies very quickly, they might be worth it.

So far, the only thing I can see making them even remotely considerable is that they might take up a Rebel Mission slot.

A house rule that I'm currently running to help my rebel players is to give bonuses on crates. Heres the breakdown:

1st crate = 50 credits

2nd crate = 50 credits

3rd crate = 50 credits + 50 bonus

4th crate = 50 credits + 150 bonus

More rewards for crate hunting. Any cards that would otherwise discard the crate would only lose the 50 base credits, not the bonus.

I have found that this rule lets them be a little more flexible with the team composition. It isn't too bad for balance as my scheming skills more than make up for the extra equipment they bring.

On 1/21/2017 at 8:22 PM, Majushi said:

The agenda missions are simply too expensive to be justifiable

Maybe if they cost 2 influence, but you still have to win them to get the reward I'd be tempted.

I'm not going to pay 3 or 4 influence for something I might just lose anyway.

That's fine, but it's another discussion entirely.

Yea we have covered that in depth in other threads, this is all about house rules.

In past campaigns I have altered the cost of Allies so they are more appealing for the Rebels, like reducing Han's cost by 4 or 5. For the multi unit allies (like the Echo Base Troopers) I generally don't give them a discount as I feel the bang for your buck is pretty good. I have however in tough campaign missions let them upgrade to the elite for free from time to time.

I don't alter any ally costs for side missions though, I feel the reward from a side mission is generally so good that the difficulty is appropriate. I generally never hold back on a side mission, especially early on in the game if it is a red side mission. Those are just to powerful to hand over.

2 hours ago, subtrendy said:

That's fine, but it's another discussion entirely.

Oh, yes. You're right.

I was merely following up on the Agenda Missions House Rules above which I still don't fix the inherent issues with the Missions.

But you're still right, it's been covered many times and is a different discussion entirely...

I run the following along with the "losing side of consecutive story mission also gets their xp reward" rule (from a game designer)

1. Respec XP. The losing side of each mission can freely respec their xp. This goes for IP too. There is 1 final respec before the finale for both sides

The reason is because we play each campaign, hero, IP class deck once. It's nice to be able to try out different setups and see what works. Also some cards seem good but may not be that great or don't work for a particular party, I don't want anyone to be stuck with a bad card all campaign. My players don't min/max or read guides, so they aren't preparing much for endgame anyways. This also allows for more "fun" purchases early on instead of everyone hording for 4xp

2. Supply Drop. For each consecutive mission lost previously by the rebels, they start the next mission with 1 random consumable item (that does not give $$). Rebels choose who gets what item. No drop for finale

Reason - a way to give the rebels a small boost without negatively affecting their desire to win the map. Idea came from pandemic legacy where you would get increased funding for losing but that would go down when you started to win.

3. Small tweaks to side mission selection. I allow rebels to choose multiple of the same ally missions so they can get elite versions. I remove old gray side missions that we've played before so we can try new stuff. This is all in the name of fun

One thing I'm trying is grey mission picks. Since the grey missions vary pretty badly in quality, I take out the weaker ones that we've already played and shuffle in 4 better ones.

Additionally, since we're on Return to Hoth, we've decided that it would be cool to have more side missions on Bespin- so, I shuffled out all the "weaker" missions, then sorted the rest into two piles: Bespin and non-Bespin. I drew 2 missions from Bespin, then shuffled the Bespin and non decks back together and drew 2 more. That way, we're guaranteed at least 2 Bespin missions in the deck.

Of course, we're obviously also violating the "only 2 green and grey missions" rule, but that's more for the potential of variety's sake.

As the Imp player, I can see how some people would be against this- but we play for fun and aren't all that overly competitive, so it's fine.

I think that is a great idea for the fun of the game. We've played a number of campaigns now and seeing the same side missions come up every time gets boring, I do my best to make it a fresh variety each time. I've got a stack of side missions sitting in my box that we've never even touched, so I'd rather get through those than see Viper's Den come up for the 5th time. Bespin and Jabba's Realm were both great for adding in new Greys, so that should help keep things fresh if you just store the core greys away.

3 minutes ago, FrogTrigger said:

I think that is a great idea for the fun of the game. We've played a number of campaigns now and seeing the same side missions come up every time gets boring, I do my best to make it a fresh variety each time. I've got a stack of side missions sitting in my box that we've never even touched, so I'd rather get through those than see Viper's Den come up for the 5th time. Bespin and Jabba's Realm were both great for adding in new Greys, so that should help keep things fresh if you just store the core greys away.

Oh yeah, I don't think I'll ever want to play Viper's Den again. It's a right of passage, and every player should suffer through it once, but I wouldn't fault someone for throwing away their mission card after playing it. But yeah, I think it should be fine for players to mitigate mission replay by discarding greys previously played in other campaigns. At least with Reds and greens, you know what you're in for.

Though I wouldn't mind playing Canyon Run again. My Rebels and I had a ton of fun with that one.

I really like the rule that losing consecutive story missions results in the loser also getting the full reward. The snowballing effect is in real danger of derailing my current campaign.

I'm concerned what that might do to balance in the finale though. What if I've got a really unlucky crew, we get to the Finale, and I as the Imperial player have been cleaning up for the whole campaign? I mean, just destroying the Rebels. So now we both have +12 XP, they've got 7,500 credits worth of gear strapped to their backs, and I've got the Special Operations and Imperial Industry reward cards, plus maybe 8 points worth of Influence cards.

Is this gonna create problems? Seems like we're creating a "unstoppable force versus immovable object" situation, but in a game-breaking, not so fun type way.