2 hours ago, kypatzer said:

@Onidsen If I import these into OCTGN will it overwrite the old cards or just add the new Ancient Mathom versions giving me the option to include either version in a deck?

The Google drive links from my blog will give you a set folder and an image folder for OCTGN, which will let you have the option to include either in a deck.

The Dwarrowdelf cards are not up on the blog yet, though.

And we're back! It's only been 3 months plus or minus a quarantine in between! Buckle up everyone, because we have a wild ride ahead. Ancient Mathoms cards from Watcher in the Water and The Long Dark!

Starting off is the hero errata we all love to hate: Hama

This design is from @dalestephenson - and I think it's brilliant. Adding the event to the victory display allows us to keep the mechanic of Hama attacking to get the event back (along with discarding a card), and also opens up some interesting space for the victory display deck. It's also a nice, clean way to prevent infinite recursion of events without the clumsy 3-times-per-game restriction.

The Watcher of the Bruinen is an interesting card - not exhausting to defend can be a powerful ability, but that downside is hard to swallow. And only having 2 defense and 2 hit points makes it even worse - it takes way too much investment to make him good. We've tried to improve that by increasing the defense to 3. Now the ally can actually defend against more than just the weakest enemies, and with a little investment, can be extremely useful.

Ally Erestor is a powerful effect to have in play, but at 4 cost, he's often extremely hard to justify (not to mention that he competes with his hero version). We have 2 different proposed fixes - one reduces the cost to 3, bringing his cost and effect more in line with later unique allies. The other boosts his willpower and defense by 1, bringing his stats in line with what we'd expect from a unique 4-cost ally. I originally preferred the 4-cost version, but the new Messenger of the King contract kind of threw things for a loop. Changing his stats increases his threat cost with Messenger of the king, so we decided to see if the community preferred the version with only 3 cost instead.

The next 2 events are pretty niche - we just reduced the cost to 0 from 1. Fresh Tracks is a useful effect, but it's hard to compete with other events. Grave Cairn might still be too niche - I don't know. I've been tempted to make it able to be used for any stat - willpower, defense, or attack, to give it a little more versatility.

Sword that was Broken is not particularly a broken card. It's extremely powerful in an Aragorn deck, and totally useless outside. That's not a bad thing, per se - it is appropriately thematic, for one thing. But the 3 cost "add a leadership resource icon" bothers me. It's completely backwards from the way the rest of the Aragorn attachments work, so we turned things around a bit. Now it has an effect regardless of who you play it on, but the effect becomes extra-powerful with Aragorn, in addition to the extra resource icon.

Ever My Heart Rises is another card that - just like Dwalin - is powerful in some quests and useless in others. And I'm continuing my vendetta against those types of cards. Now the attached Dwarf character readies whenever you travel to a location. In keeping with the original effect, you still get the threat reduction if the location is Underground or Mountain, but the core focus of the card isn't locked behind that quest choice anymore. Because the effect became more powerful, we raised the cost by 1 as well.

Out of Sight got our standard secrecy treatment - reducing the non-secrecy cost while leaving the in-secrecy cost the same.

Love of Tales is a card that feels like it needs a boost, but I'm not sure how best to do it. We are toying around with the idea of adding card draw in addition to the resource gain, but the larger issue is that it's really hard to build a dedicated Song deck, and few enough decks have enough casual songs in them to make this worth a slot or two. So, suggestions are appreciated.

Short Cut got its cost reduced to 0 and expanded its use - now both hobbits and rangers can be exhausted to trigger it. But it's still not a great card. The biggest problem is that most of the time, you want locations coming off of the encounter deck - they are generally the least offensive things that can be thrown at you. So shuffling a location back into the deck to potentially get back out a game-ending treachery or difficult enemy seems...dubious. I'm most interested in suggestions here - what can be done to boost the utility of this card? If possible, I'd like to preserve the symmetry with Quick Ears as well.

Warden of Healing is a card that we debated giving a significant errata to - perhaps changing its cost or swapping its effect with something like the Daughter of the Nimrodel. But we finally ended up figuring out ways to boost the other healing cards to compete well with it instead of needing to nerf it. However, it still gets its self-readying ability limited to once per round. As a side effect of that change, we had to break the healing and readying into 2 separate actions, so you can now spend the resources to ready it even if you didn't exhaust it to heal in the first place. Unintentional, but putting a "limit once per round" on the existing ability also limits the healing to once per round, making the readying pretty pointless, and this seemed the simplest way around the problem.

Resourceful is again the target of our standard secrecy approach. At 4 resources, it's almost impossible to get good use of outside of secrecy (edge cases like cheating it into play with well-equipped, ring of Thror, or bartering aside). At 3, it's a little more palatable, although it might still not be cheap enough to see broad use outside of secrecy. I'm just not sure if I'm comfortable reducing its cost lower than that

My takes.

Hama -- there's actually one subtle difference between my proposed errata and your version, in that I gave Hama the ability to play an *event* from the victory display and not just a tactics event. This would make his interaction with victory display more interesting -- but it also takes him further afield from his original design. The ability to recur (once) each copy of Keen as Lances and Out of the Wild would be a powerful aid to VD decks, and I think VD is a bit understrength. However, you're making a lot of other cards VD-friendly in this project, and confining Hama to tactics events makes the text change true errata rather than feature creep.

A defense boost for Watcher is certainly welcome, but at 3/2 he's still a bit fragile for multiple defenses, and in the absence of defending more than once he is pretty much all downside. I think I'd be happier with him as a 3-cost 3/4 or 4/3 defender, especially if his attack could be bumped to 2 so he is more useful when defending only once. Alternately, give him a willpower, so his ability not to exhaust to defend is useful on the *first* defense. One other possibility is to stop keeping him as a high maintenance defender and convert his downside into an upside -- instead of having to discard a card to keep him around, give him a response to discard a card in order to ready.

For Erestor/MotK I'd generally rather pay 8 threat for a 3-willpower, 2/3 defender than 6 threat for a 2-willpower 1/3 defender. YMMV.

Reducing Fresh Tracks to 0 cost makes it a nifty little event. Grave Cairn is more attractive at zero, but still has the problem that the attack boost (barring Sneak Gandalf shenanigans) is likely to be minimal on characters who leave play before your turn to attack arrives (with the corner exceptions of multiple attack targets and Vassals or Riddermark Knights). The "normal" pre-attack leaving of a chump blocker generally contributes 0-1 attack, and even at zero cost that's not appealing. I think adding *both* attack and defense wouldn't be overpowered, but as you typically only use one of those, and the values are low, still is a bad fit for the chumping that fits bit thematically with the card.

One possibility would be restricting it to an ally leaving play, and then adding the *cost* of the ally to either attack or defense. This would allow a 2-cost chump to make a meaningful contribution, and give higher rewards for heftier allies. But would that be too powerful for a mere leaves play, and not discarded/destroyed?

I like switching the effect on STWB. I prefer specific-hero attachments to be useful overall and most useful on the thematic match, but this attachment might as well be Aragorn exclusive, besides not matching the other Aragorn sphere granters. +1 wp to each hero may be too weak for its 3-cost absent Aragorn, but giving the full power to non-Aragorn would make the card a staple.

I like the Ever My Heart Rises/Out of Sight/Resourceful changes.

Love of Tales is tough if you want to make it worth considering outside a Songs deck, although I think Drinking Song and Song of Healing will substantially increase the number of song-wielding decks. Any reward that makes it worth considering with limited songs will make it extremely powerful in a Songs deck (though maybe that's the point?). One way to approach it would be to have it play a card when attached, that at least makes it a cantrip in any deck that can attach it, and justify its existence in a low-song deck. But as it's limit one and only goes on lore heroes, outside monosphere lore you would never add 3x of these to your deck as a thinner.

Short Cut is indeed a problem, since trading a location for a random reveal is typically a very bad trade, and throwing a character exhaustion and a card into the bargain is even worse. I think the best way to improve the situation is to *weaken the random reveal*. That's the point of a short cut, after all, to get out of doing something. Instead of shuffling and *revealing* the top encounter card, why not shuffle and *add* the top encounter card. If it happens to be a nasty treachery, your gamble worked, and if you get a location or enemy, maybe it's better than what you had, and you might still avoid a "When Revealed" or Surge. Since the shuffle immediately precedes the card and the encounter deck will have at least one location in it, I don't think it can be gamed.

Warden of Healing is a sensible nerf if you're trying to break Gloin taking all undefended attacks...

1 hour ago, dalestephenson said:

Short Cut is indeed a problem, since trading a location for a random reveal is typically a very bad trade, and throwing a character exhaustion and a card into the bargain is even worse. I think the best way to improve the situation is to *weaken the random reveal*. That's the point of a short cut, after all, to get out of doing something. Instead of shuffling and *revealing* the top encounter card, why not shuffle and *add* the top encounter card. If it happens to be a nasty treachery, your gamble worked, and if you get a location or enemy, maybe it's better than what you had, and you might still avoid a "When Revealed" or Surge. Since the shuffle immediately precedes the card and the encounter deck will have at least one location in it, I don't think it can be gamed.

I've run short cut in my Tilbo-sniper decks (direct damage) when playing my "location or enemy" guarded cards. Since the deck quests so funkily (an acceptable adverb I believe?) Depending on the number of enemies that we can get into staging, locations, especially added locations are truly detrimental.

That all to say I like your change of "adding", one because you can essentially re-guard the card attached to the location without actually guarding it (the attachment becomes freed once short cut is played) and whiffs out on treacheries and enemy when reveals.

2 hours ago, dalestephenson said:

My takes.

Hama -- there's actually one subtle difference between my proposed errata and your version, in that I gave Hama the ability to play an *event* from the victory display and not just a tactics event. This would make his interaction with victory display more interesting -- but it also takes him further afield from his original design. The ability to recur (once) each copy of Keen as Lances and Out of the Wild would be a powerful aid to VD decks, and I think VD is a bit understrength. However, you're making a lot of other cards VD-friendly in this project, and confining Hama to tactics events makes the text change true errata rather than feature creep.

Thanks for the clarification - looks like I missed some of the angle you were taking with the card. Hama's been the card I've been agonizing over most during the long wait between Ancient Mathoms installments, and he's been the card that's gotten the most feedback already - probably an indication for just how controversial his original errata was. The feedback is surprisingly consistent - most of the commenters are noting that the victory display aspect takes away a fiddly bit (keeping track of 3 uses) and adds another fiddly bit (discarding cards to add things to the victory display). Based off of your comments here, it seems like the entire point of the victory display aspect was to enable play with the other victory display decks - restricting it to Tactics cards only shuts down that entire line and leaves the cost of the fiddly bits without (almost all of) the benefit.

In that vein, what do you think of this version?

Other than the victory display stuff (which was already almost entirely shut down by restricting it to Tactics), my sense is that the only thing lost is discarding cards, which made a useful combo with Elven Light.

2 hours ago, dalestephenson said:

A defense boost for Watcher is certainly welcome, but at 3/2 he's still a bit fragile for multiple defenses, and in the absence of defending more than once he is pretty much all downside. I think I'd be happier with him as a 3-cost 3/4 or 4/3 defender, especially if his attack could be bumped to 2 so he is more useful when defending only once. Alternately, give him a willpower, so his ability not to exhaust to defend is useful on the *first* defense. One other possibility is to stop keeping him as a high maintenance defender and convert his downside into an upside -- instead of having to discard a card to keep him around, give him a response to discard a card in order to ready.

Just curious - how does giving him a willpower make his ability to not exhaust to defend become more useful?

2 hours ago, dalestephenson said:

Grave Cairn is more attractive at zero, but still has the problem that the attack boost (barring Sneak Gandalf shenanigans) is likely to be minimal on characters who leave play before your turn to attack arrives (with the corner exceptions of multiple attack targets and Vassals or Riddermark Knights). The "normal" pre-attack leaving of a chump blocker generally contributes 0-1 attack, and even at zero cost that's not appealing. I think adding *both* attack and defense wouldn't be overpowered, but as you typically only use one of those, and the values are low, still is a bad fit for the chumping that fits bit thematically with the card.

One possibility would be restricting it to an ally leaving play, and then adding the *cost* of the ally to either attack or defense. This would allow a 2-cost chump to make a meaningful contribution, and give higher rewards for heftier allies. But would that be too powerful for a mere leaves play, and not discarded/destroyed?

That's an interesting idea - could combine it with readying a hero, like so (I forgot to change the first occurrence of character to ally):

Beorn on the discord had an idea to turn it into a Gondor card (although I might think that either Gondor or Rohan is a better fit) - it might help make cards like the Minas Tirith Lampwright or Derufin (or even Damrod?) worth it.

2 hours ago, dalestephenson said:

Love of Tales is tough if you want to make it worth considering outside a Songs deck, although I think Drinking Song and Song of Healing will substantially increase the number of song-wielding decks. Any reward that makes it worth considering with limited songs will make it extremely powerful in a Songs deck (though maybe that's the point?). One way to approach it would be to have it play a card when attached, that at least makes it a cantrip in any deck that can attach it, and justify its existence in a low-song deck. But as it's limit one and only goes on lore heroes, outside monosphere lore you would never add 3x of these to your deck as a thinner.

I've had it suggested that we could remove the "attach to a Lore hero" restriction. And the card I put out there to get feedback on is widely considered overpowered (extra card draw for songs + the resources is really just too much). So removing the restirction plus the cantrip might be enough to get it playable, especially with Drinking Song fast becoming a staple in any deck with Lore access. Another thought might be to have it search the top 5 cards of your deck for a song when it enters play, although that might be too niche.

2 hours ago, dalestephenson said:

Short Cut is indeed a problem, since trading a location for a random reveal is typically a very bad trade, and throwing a character exhaustion and a card into the bargain is even worse. I think the best way to improve the situation is to *weaken the random reveal*. That's the point of a short cut, after all, to get out of doing something. Instead of shuffling and *revealing* the top encounter card, why not shuffle and *add* the top encounter card. If it happens to be a nasty treachery, your gamble worked, and if you get a location or enemy, maybe it's better than what you had, and you might still avoid a "When Revealed" or Surge. Since the shuffle immediately precedes the card and the encounter deck will have at least one location in it, I don't think it can be gamed.

That is exactly what I was looking for. The same effect can easily be moved across to Quick Ears, preserving the symmetry and boosting both cards to more useable levels. At that point, it might actually be worth spending a resource on.

14 hours ago, Onidsen said:

The Watcher of the Bruinen is an interesting card - not exhausting to defend can be a powerful ability, but that downside is hard to swallow. And only having 2 defense and 2 hit points makes it even worse - it takes way too much investment to make him good. We've tried to improve that by increasing the defense to 3. Now the ally can actually defend against more than just the weakest enemies, and with a little investment, can be extremely useful.

How about taking the approach of the Lindon Navigator and giving the Watcher of the Bruinen a 3 Defense 3 Hit Points stat line and an ability like this:

Watcher of the Bruines does not exhaust to defend and can be declared as a defender even while exhausted.
Forced : After resolving an attack Watcher of the Bruined has defended, either discard it from play or discard 1 card from your hand.

Otherwise you could rise the cost to 3, give it a 3 Defense/2 Hit Points stat line and a

Response: When Watcher of the Bruined is declared as a defender you can discard 1 card from your hand to ready it.

1 hour ago, Onidsen said:

Thanks for the clarification - looks like I missed some of the angle you were taking with the card. Hama's been the card I've been agonizing over most during the long wait between Ancient Mathoms installments, and he's been the card that's gotten the most feedback already - probably an indication for just how controversial his original errata was. The feedback is surprisingly consistent - most of the commenters are noting that the victory display aspect takes away a fiddly bit (keeping track of 3 uses) and adds another fiddly bit (discarding cards to add things to the victory display). Based off of your comments here, it seems like the entire point of the victory display aspect was to enable play with the other victory display decks - restricting it to Tactics cards only shuts down that entire line and leaves the cost of the fiddly bits without (almost all of) the benefit.

In that vein, what do you think of this version?

Other than the victory display stuff (which was already almost entirely shut down by restricting it to Tactics), my sense is that the only thing lost is discarding cards, which made a useful combo with Elven Light.

Just curious - how does giving him a willpower make his ability to not exhaust to defend become more useful?

That's an interesting idea - could combine it with readying a hero, like so (I forgot to change the first occurrence of character to ally):

Beorn on the discord had an idea to turn it into a Gondor card (although I might think that either Gondor or Rohan is a better fit) - it might help make cards like the Minas Tirith Lampwright or Derufin (or even Damrod?) worth it.

I've had it suggested that we could remove the "attach to a Lore hero" restriction. And the card I put out there to get feedback on is widely considered overpowered (extra card draw for songs + the resources is really just too much). So removing the restirction plus the cantrip might be enough to get it playable, especially with Drinking Song fast becoming a staple in any deck with Lore access. Another thought might be to have it search the top 5 cards of your deck for a song when it enters play, although that might be too niche.

That is exactly what I was looking for. The same effect can easily be moved across to Quick Ears, preserving the symmetry and boosting both cards to more useable levels. At that point, it might actually be worth spending a resource on.

There's quoting skills that I obviously lack...

For Hama my idea to use the victory display was actually my way of trying to reduce fiddliness, and interacting with VD cards was just a side-effect. Hama's ability in my version just treats the victory display as an extension of your hand, with the caveat that played events from there get removed -- the actual card movement from Hama's ability is actually exactly the same as it is with his original form, except that it moves from discard to victory display instead of discard to hand, and move when played from victory display to removed instead of from hand to discard. So if it's fiddly, it's no more fiddly than Hama was to begin with, and absolutely nothing has to be tracked at all (unlike current Hama, which requires you to count something you don't normally count).

When the errata first hit there was a lot of brainstorming on how to limit recurrence of specific cards (which was the main problem prompting the errata), but all the potential solutions were either more fiddly than original Hama, altered the timing of retrieval and play compared to original Hama, or both. I think the Victory Display use keeps the fiddliness and timing identical to the original Hama, though your version of the wording (only tactics event) keeps the event coverage exactly the same, which mine did not.

The new proposed Hama is way less fiddly, as the card recurrence moves the card just once (discard to removal). But it's also way less costly. While Hama's discard ability might be an asset with Noldor and/or Elven Light, for most of Hama's decks it was a cost and a heavy cost -- you had to discard a card *and* attack just to get an event back in your hand to recur. Playing it directly from the discard means that Hama can play every tactics event twice without waiting for Hama to attack and without reducing yoru hand size for the repeat. Foe-Hammer now draws six cards instead of three cards. The Eagles are Coming is immediately played twice. I think this makes Hama a *much* more powerful toolkit hero than he ever was pre-errata; though obviously removing from the game makes him useless for playing the same event four consecutive times (let alone indefinitely). So I suppose it depends on how you feel about Hama's original ability and cost -- if it's too weak an effect in a world where he can recur each event exactly once, the non-fiddly Hama reduces the cost and makes him stronger. But if you like Hama's original gameplay, I think the VD-dodge comes much closer to that. I think I like the simpler, more powerful Hama better; but I think your wording of my idea would be more appropriate as an actual Hama errata, fixing the Thicket lock without rendering Hama useless as a toolkit.

For Watcher of Brunien, adding a willpower would be useful if he not only could defend without exhausting, he could also defend while exhausted (similar to Lindon Navigator). Then he could use his one willpower, and still defend if necessary. Absent the defend while exhausted clause, the extra willpower does no good.

On Grave Cairn, including discarded with destroyed would make it a more useful card and set up synergy outside of chump blocking. Any card that keys of destruction (like the badly errata-ed Horn of Gondor) will always be niche, allowing discarded allies to trigger as well opens usage much more widely.

A leave-play effect confined to Gondor is useful for discardables, but the discardables are a bit thin/weak for an archtype as yet. The main Gondor archtype is swarm and prefers to keep allies in play. What it would really do is power up Lothiriel, though it wouldn't give her any particular incentive to send discardables questing. Rohan archtype would benefit from leaves play or discard-from-play triggers, though the Grave Cairn referenced is canonically for a Gondorian. But it's also suggested by a Silvan as a time-saving measure compared to an earthen mound (also not Gondorian custom), so I don't know that this is a tribal thematic match for anybody, really.

I don't think the "add" change is powerful enough to justify 1 cost for Short Cut while still retaining the character exhaustion. There's approximately a 1/3rd chance that Short Cut would create a treachery whiff, and a 1/3 gamble isn't enough to make the 1-cost Lampwright popular, after all. Even at zero it's niche. Maybe if the character exhaustion is removed from the card and it only requires a hobbit/ranger to play I could see it at one cost.

1 hour ago, dalestephenson said:

I don't think the "add" change is powerful enough to justify 1 cost for Short Cut while still retaining the character exhaustion. There's approximately a 1/3rd chance that Short Cut would create a treachery whiff, and a 1/3 gamble isn't enough to make the 1-cost Lampwright popular, after all. Even at zero it's niche. Maybe if the character exhaustion is removed from the card and it only requires a hobbit/ranger to play I could see it at one cost.

I could be off here, but I do think it might be a little more popular in this sense than you might think. Players don't like revealing more cards but we can grumble through adding them. I can think of many cases when you would like to be rid of a location if favor of another card:

1. The aforementioned guarding cards

2. Dunedain decks

3. Location lock

4. Multiplayer (see 3)

So at 0 cost + exhaustion, we can rid a location with a 2/3 chance that the next card is not a location. The added benefit is that it essentially cancels the location's when revealed effects (right?) And replaces the card with no when revealed effects (treacheries whiff completely and enemies with nasty when revealed/surges are neutered).

Maybe the decks I play are niche but I would definitely play this card if I had access to lore and hobbits in a non-location deck, but perhaps would not build around it.

2 hours ago, player3351457 said:

I could be off here, but I do think it might be a little more popular in this sense than you might think. Players don't like revealing more cards but we can grumble through adding them. I can think of many cases when you would like to be rid of a location if favor of another card:

1. The aforementioned guarding cards

2. Dunedain decks

3. Location lock

4. Multiplayer (see 3)

So at 0 cost + exhaustion, we can rid a location with a 2/3 chance that the next card is not a location. The added benefit is that it essentially cancels the location's when revealed effects (right?) And replaces the card with no when revealed effects (treacheries whiff completely and enemies with nasty when revealed/surges are neutered).

Maybe the decks I play are niche but I would definitely play this card if I had access to lore and hobbits in a non-location deck, but perhaps would not build around it.

I think Dale was talking about my thoughts about boosting the cost back to 1. I think you end up making the same point - the card needs to stay at 0 to be easily playable; at 1, it's niche. It was pointed out to me that failing to reveal side quests or objectives might break quests accidentally - mechanics that are intended to trigger (and may be necessary to actually make the quest work) do not. So here's the new (hopefully final?) revision of the card:

On the Watcher of the Bruinen - since that's the current focus of my energies. Whatever I do, I want to maintain the parallels with the Trollshaw Scout and the Lindon Navigator. And it seems to me that both of them suffer from the same issue as the Watcher of the Bruinen - there are other cards that just do their job better, without the downside. Most decks would rather run Galadhon Archer over the Trollshaw scout, just as most decks would rather run Robin Smallburrow, Quickbeam, or Mablung over the Lindon Navigator.

I like the idea of letting the watcher defend while exhausted, and giving him a point of willpower. That makes him useful in many ways - at the very least, he's 2 cost for 1 willpower in Tactics; hardly incredible, but still better than the going average. So, something like this:

For reference, I'd probably adjust the Trollshaw Scout as follows:

And the Lindon Navigator:

The basic idea is that you get an incredible deal in terms of cost-to-stat ratio, because you're paying a different cost - discarding the cards

I wouldn't do anything to Love of Tales. I don't think there's a need for a principle that says all cards should be relevant outside niche decks, and Love of Tales performs acceptably in niche decks. The card as proposed would be a bit of a monster in an Elfhelm rainbow mounts fellowship. If I had to make a change it would be to try to make the restriction less strict, because as it stands the character depicted in the art cannot use it.

Simplest nerf for Warden would be making it unique, since the book refers to the Warden.

Short Cut at cost 0 allows you to play it in Setup against some quests' special locations such as Rhosgobel, so consider whether you want to allow that.

When it comes to principles of design, there's certainly no need that we all agree on them. But I am of the opinion that the game is better when cards used for rare archtypes or niches are at least worth *considering* outside of a narrow context, because it expands the effective card pool. Song of Tales is a little-used card currently because it is useful only inside a Songs Deck -- but it's not really an enabling card for a Songs deck, because Songs are cheap and its exhaustion limits the return.

Making Warden unique doesn't fix Gloin Jank, because you only need one warden in play to ready it indefinitely with Gloin-fuelled Lore resources. Making Warden unique *would* make it a less useful and desirable healer, but I'm all in favor of useful and desirable healers. Nerfing the common usage of a widely used and popular card *without* addressing the arguably game-breaking behavior it enables is the worst possible errata IMO.

It's a good point that Short Cut wording could be used to mess with setup at zero cost -- it could do the same thing at one cost if played in Easy mode. Perhaps rather than saying "When a location enters play" it should say "When a location is revealed from the encounter deck".

With the old version of Háma the number of cards returned from the discard pile depended on how often he attacked in a round. With the newer version he could play any number of events from the VD. And I think it is important to restrict him to tactics events. Being able to play 6 copies of Non Return, Out of the Wild and Leave no Trace would remove a total of 18 encounter cards from the deck.

I prefer Erestor as more powerful while being more expensive.

If you plan to reduce the cost of Fresh Tracks to zero, Grey Cloak also needs a change, as this card is now inferior in every way to Fresh Tracks.

Grave Cairn would be more thematic, if it triggered on characters being destroyed, but that would make the card even more useless.

My problem with Sword that was broken is that it is too powerful on Aragorn, though not as broken as the official Dáin Ironfoot. I would rather restrict the willpower buff to a limited number of characters. Just compare it to Celebrían's Stone, which costs 1 resource less but only gives 2 willpower in total. And is it intentionally no longer unique?

Ever my Heart rises might need a unique symbol, as it is pretty easy to ready the hero every round in a multiplayer game resulting in a slightly different version of Light of Valinor with threat reduction on top.

I thought a while about Short Cut searching the encounter deck for another location but I think, that is not needed. A short cut can also lead to enemies, so in the end I like your proposed change.

Adding the cost of an ally to the stats of a hero with Grave Cairn is a good idea.

I like the changes to all other cards.

Grey Cloak does have three things going for it that Fresh Tracks does not -- as a zero cost attachment it is useful in Dale decks, it can be used against an enemy that *wasn't* newly revealed, and it's spirit instead of leadership. But I would like to see Grey Cloak better, it usually doesn't even make the cut in Dale decks.

On 5/7/2020 at 8:03 AM, Onidsen said:

ver My Heart Rises is another card that - just like Dwalin - is powerful in some quests and useless in others. And I'm continuing my vendetta against those types of cards. Now the attached Dwarf character readies whenever you travel to a location. In keeping with the original effect, you still get the threat reduction if the location is Underground or Mountain, but the core focus of the card isn't locked behind that quest choice anymore. Because the effect became more powerful, we raised the cost by 1 as well.

Perhaps you can take inspiration from Leather Boots for Ever My Heart Rises, give it a price of 1 and

"Attach to a Dwarf character. Limit 1 per character.

After a location is revealed from the encounter deck, exhaust Ever My Heart Rises to ready attached character. Then if the revealed location is an Underground or Mountain location reduce your threat by 1"

On 5/7/2020 at 8:03 AM, Onidsen said:

Love of Tales is a card that feels like it needs a boost, but I'm not sure how best to do it. We are toying around with the idea of adding card draw in addition to the resource gain, but the larger issue is that it's really hard to build a dedicated Song deck, and few enough decks have enough casual songs in them to make this worth a slot or two. So, suggestions are appreciated.

Otherwise you could for an effect that when you play a Song card it gives you 1 resource or it lets you search for a Song card in your deck

26 minutes ago, Amicus Draconis said:

My problem with Sword that was broken is that it is too powerful on Aragorn, though not as broken as the official Dáin Ironfoot. I would rather restrict the willpower buff to a limited number of characters. Just compare it to Celebrían's Stone, which costs 1 resource less but only gives 2 willpower in total. And is it intentionally no longer unique?

It also creates a discontinuity with the other Aragorn sphere-granters, all of which (at least as printed) give the same benefit and only give spheres as an extra for Aragorn.

If we accept that +1 willpower for all characters is too powerful for 3-cost on any hero, it's probably too powerful on Aragorn also. But three is too expensive for +1 willpower for all heroes. Maybe 2-cost for +1 willpower to each hero you control, or 3 cost for +1 willpower to all unique characters you control?

3 minutes ago, Alonewolf87 said:

Otherwise you could for an effect that when you play a Song card it gives you 1 resource or it lets you search for a Song card in your deck

I like that idea -- if you also have the same effect when it is played itself, you could keep the cost at one (you can get your money back if you want), but you could instead search for a Song in your deck. Finding a song in a low-song deck can be *really* useful, I've used Rivendell Minstrel a lot.

5 minutes ago, dalestephenson said:

If we accept that +1 willpower for all characters is too powerful for 3-cost on any hero, it's probably too powerful on Aragorn also. But three is too expensive for +1 willpower for all heroes. Maybe 2-cost for +1 willpower to each hero you control, or 3 cost for +1 willpower to all unique characters you control?

Unless we go for (always at 3 cost)

"+1 Willpower to all heroes you control.

If attached character is Aragorn +1 to all unique characters you control and it gets Leadership icon"

3 minutes ago, dalestephenson said:

I like that idea -- if you also have the same effect when it is played itself, you could keep the cost at one (you can get your money back if you want), but you could instead search for a Song in your deck. Finding a song in a low-song deck can be *really* useful, I've used Rivendell Minstrel a lot.

Yeah, I guess we could add the Song trait to Love of Tales itself.

1 hour ago, dalestephenson said:

Grey Cloak does have three things going for it that Fresh Tracks does not -- as a zero cost attachment it is useful in Dale decks, it can be used against an enemy that *wasn't* newly revealed, and it's spirit instead of leadership. But I would like to see Grey Cloak better, it usually doesn't even make the cut in Dale decks.

If a card does not make the cut for probably the best deck it can be in, it does not have enough going for it. What is the point of drawing a card for free, if the deck performs better without it in the first place. Spirit decks tend to have lower threat than others, so in most cases the enemy will be engaged by someone else anyway. And what is the advantage of it being spirit? For a Dale deck it does not matter, because Brand is Leadership in the first place and Bard can play any attachment. In a fellowship someone else will provide the combat power including ranged and sentinel, in case the spirit deck is only used for questing.

4 hours ago, Amicus Draconis said:

With the old version of Háma the number of cards returned from the discard pile depended on how often he attacked in a round. With the newer version he could play any number of events from the VD. And I think it is important to restrict him to tactics events. Being able to play 6 copies of Non Return, Out of the Wild and Leave no Trace would remove a total of 18 encounter cards from the deck.

I prefer Erestor as more powerful while being more expensive.

If you plan to reduce the cost of Fresh Tracks to zero, Grey Cloak also needs a change, as this card is now inferior in every way to Fresh Tracks.

Grave Cairn would be more thematic, if it triggered on characters being destroyed, but that would make the card even more useless.

My problem with Sword that was broken is that it is too powerful on Aragorn, though not as broken as the official Dáin Ironfoot. I would rather restrict the willpower buff to a limited number of characters. Just compare it to Celebrían's Stone, which costs 1 resource less but only gives 2 willpower in total. And is it intentionally no longer unique?

Ever my Heart rises might need a unique symbol, as it is pretty easy to ready the hero every round in a multiplayer game resulting in a slightly different version of Light of Valinor with threat reduction on top.

I thought a while about Short Cut searching the encounter deck for another location but I think, that is not needed. A short cut can also lead to enemies, so in the end I like your proposed change.

Adding the cost of an ally to the stats of a hero with Grave Cairn is a good idea.

I like the changes to all other cards.

Re: Hama - this is true; with either proposed version, he is no longer limited in how many events can be played. Removing them from the game imposes its own limit, but you can definitely save up for a simply explosive turn or set of turns. I think that only playtesting will tell if that is too much. However, it should still be possible to impose a condition like discarding a card from your hand in order to play the event from your discard pile (although finding wording might be tricky).

Re: Grey Cloak - it was probably going to get its own fix as well. I don't know how best to do it, but it will get one. Could maybe add a conditional benefit "choose 2 enemies instead if the active location has the forest trait" or just give some other staple effect, like card draw or resource acceleration

Re: Ever My Heart Rises - unique probably wouldn't be a bad idea.

3 hours ago, Alonewolf87 said:

Perhaps you can take inspiration from Leather Boots for Ever My Heart Rises, give it a price of 1 and

"Attach to a Dwarf character. Limit 1 per character.

After a location is revealed from the encounter deck, exhaust Ever My Heart Rises to ready attached character. Then if the revealed location is an Underground or Mountain location reduce your threat by 1"

That's an interesting idea, although Leather Boots is widely considered to be a bad card. I think I prefer the travel effect because it is more under the player's control. In addition, I want to avoid carbon copies of other cards.

3 hours ago, dalestephenson said:

It also creates a discontinuity with the other Aragorn sphere-granters, all of which (at least as printed) give the same benefit and only give spheres as an extra for Aragorn.

If we accept that +1 willpower for all characters is too powerful for 3-cost on any hero, it's probably too powerful on Aragorn also. But three is too expensive for +1 willpower for all heroes. Maybe 2-cost for +1 willpower to each hero you control, or 3 cost for +1 willpower to all unique characters you control?

If Sword that Was Broken is too powerful, then we probably need to hit Faramir as well, honestly. This is probably entirely a subjective judgement call, given my position on Dain, but I think that both Faramir and Sword that Was Broken are probably ok. Extremely powerful, yes, but not game-breakingly so. Admittedly, Dain doesn't fundamentally break the game either, but he does fundamentally warp the Dwarf trait so that it can't function without him. And it turns out that I'm much more OK with an attachment or an ally like Faramir defining a trait than I am with making a hero practically required to run a good Trait deck.

The problem with Dain is that he closed off deckbuilding space, and also that without him, Dwarf allies were generally bad. I just don't see Sword that was Broken or Faramir doing the same thing. The allies getting boosted by either effect are generally worth playing anyways, so the card design isn't getting warped significantly (although an argument could be made that Leadership allies were overcosted in the early game because of the existence of such global boosts - however, the trend did not necessarily continue, and we're fixing that anyways with this project).

1 hour ago, Amicus Draconis said:

If a card does not make the cut for probably the best deck it can be in, it does not have enough going for it. What is the point of drawing a card for free, if the deck performs better without it in the first place. Spirit decks tend to have lower threat than others, so in most cases the enemy will be engaged by someone else anyway. And what is the advantage of it being spirit? For a Dale deck it does not matter, because Brand is Leadership in the first place and Bard can play any attachment. In a fellowship someone else will provide the combat power including ranged and sentinel, in case the spirit deck is only used for questing.

The three points weren't mutually exclusive. Being spirit doesn't do anything for Dale decks -- besides, as an item SpBard has access to it no matter what its sphere it is. But being spirit makes the effect available to decks that have spirit and not leadership; it's not at all uncommon to have cards *in different spheres* to be weaker at performing the same task. Discarding a Dunedain Watcher is decidely inferior to playing Hasty Stroke, but if you're playing a Leadership/Lore deck against Road to Rivendell, that hardly matters. Grey Cloak is available to decks that *can't play* Fresh Tracks, that by itself prevents it from being strictly inferior.

I'll agree that Grey Cloak doesn't have enough going for it and it should be improved. IMO, Fresh Tracks didn't have enough going for it either---.

1 hour ago, Onidsen said:

Re: Hama - this is true; with either proposed version, he is no longer limited in how many events can be played. Removing them from the game imposes its own limit, but you can definitely save up for a simply explosive turn or set of turns. I think that only playtesting will tell if that is too much. However, it should still be possible to impose a condition like discarding a card from your hand in order to play the event from your discard pile (although finding wording might be tricky).

Hama was *never* limited on how many events could be played. Pre-errata, he was limited by hand size and attacks by how *quickly* he could get events back into his hand to be played, but once back in his hand they just stay there until discarded or played. Post-errata his recurrence was limited to a total of three times, and the same constraint of hand size and attacks govern how quickly he can recur three events, but once back in his hand they can all be played in the same turn.

Hama-victory-display has the exact same hand-size/attack constraints for moving events to the victory display that Hama did originally to move to hand -- slightly worse, actually, because unlike original Hama, he can't discard a card he used his ability on last attack to get a different tactics card into his hand. And while he can play any number of events he's already moved to the victory display, this doesn't give him any power to play more events than if they were in his hand instead. Slightly worse, actually, since the cards are removed after being replayed and aren't in the discard for him to move them back to VD.

Now Hama replaying directly from the discard *isn't* constrained by attacks or hand size, so has the potential to recur a lot of events much faster -- in fact, I would expect him to recur some cards (like Foe Hammer or The Eagles Are Coming) *immediately* to get double the effect. This makes him IMO significantly more powerful than original Hama, other than losing the Hama-lock option. But Hama-as-toolkit was never remotely overpowered in the first place, so I don't see the effect as a problem to be fixed, I see it as an enhancement that makes him worth playing. Discarding when he plays the event would both weaken his power and limit (via hand size) the number of events he can recur in a given round -- it'd still be a vast improvement on post-errata Hama, but is the ability so strong that it needs the restriction?

1 hour ago, Onidsen said:

Re: Grey Cloak - it was probably going to get its own fix as well. I don't know how best to do it, but it will get one. Could maybe add a conditional benefit "choose 2 enemies instead if the active location has the forest trait" or just give some other staple effect, like card draw or resource acceleration

I think Grey Cloak would benefit from being an Action instead of an Encounter action, and should reduce the threat of the affected enemy to zero. That way it can be used to "hide" completely from an enemy in staging for a turn. This is a stronger effect than Radagast's Cunning, but Radagast's Cunning doesn't require a spirit/scout exhaustion.

2 minutes ago, dalestephenson said:

Hama was *never* limited on how many events could be played. Pre-errata, he was limited by hand size and attacks by how *quickly* he could get events back into his hand to be played, but once back in his hand they just stay there until discarded or played. Post-errata his recurrence was limited to a total of three times, and the same constraint of hand size and attacks govern how quickly he can recur three events, but once back in his hand they can all be played in the same turn.

Fair point - I was imprecise in my phrasing. You've exactly pinned down what I was (poorly) trying to get at.

3 minutes ago, dalestephenson said:

Now Hama replaying directly from the discard *isn't* constrained by attacks or hand size, so has the potential to recur a lot of events much faster -- in fact, I would expect him to recur some cards (like Foe Hammer or The Eagles Are Coming) *immediately* to get double the effect. This makes him IMO significantly more powerful than original Hama, other than losing the Hama-lock option. But Hama-as-toolkit was never remotely overpowered in the first place, so I don't see the effect as a problem to be fixed, I see it as an enhancement that makes him worth playing. Discarding when he plays the event would both weaken his power and limit (via hand size) the number of events he can recur in a given round -- it'd still be a vast improvement on post-errata Hama, but is the ability so strong that it needs the restriction?

I don't think he's too powerful now, but only playtesting will show that for sure.

2 minutes ago, dalestephenson said:

I think Grey Cloak would benefit from being an Action instead of an Encounter action, and should reduce the threat of the affected enemy to zero. That way it can be used to "hide" completely from an enemy in staging for a turn. This is a stronger effect than Radagast's Cunning, but Radagast's Cunning doesn't require a spirit/scout exhaustion.

Ooh - that's a good idea.