House rules

By alcuin18, in The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game

I was just wondering if anyone else uses any "house rules" when playing?

For instance, making hero Bilbo only cost six instead of nine or changing the cost of older allies to align with newer ones.

Or not just stuff to make it easier but things like no Steward of Gondor or other powerful cards when deckbuilding.

Nope. No house rules for me, unless you consider playing "progression style" a house rule. I like to take challenges on as designed by the developers, on standard or Nightmare difficulty, with the rules as written. I get more personal satisfaction that way.

I recently finished playing through the Grey Havens/Dream-Chaser cycle solo 1-handed, and then played it again 2-handed (progression all the way), and I did not use Steward of Gondor once. I'm three scenarios into Sands of Harad, and so far, I still haven't seen a need to have Steward of Gondor in my deck(s). With the current card pool, it's pretty easy to find alternative ways of beating quests that don't depend on the inclusion of Steward of Gondor. But I wouldn't call my non-use of it a "house rule"... I just haven't felt a need to include it.

To each their own, of course...

The only house rules I'm using so far is when I mulligan, I choose which cards to mulligan individually (like in Arkham Horror LCG), instead of dumping the entire hand.

I also made a hourserule for player doomed cards to not increase thread of players who are not directly affected by them to make things like Grima bearable in multiplayer, but haven't had a chance to play multiplayer yet.

Due to the terrible jumble the Setup rules are after some of the latest rulings from Caleb we are playing the Setup in a more straightforward way.

We oftentimes not care about following the players' order in the planning phase (in a 4 players fellowship) when everyone is simply playing stuff on their own character, we simply usually play all at once to speed up the play time. Of course if there are cross table plays we strive to respect the proper order.

When I play solo I often make decks with some restrictions (thematic or mechanic) to better enjoy different games, but I would not consider it an "house rule".

We use (or not) the sneak errata seen in some of the latest reprintings based on common (dis)approval of the errata. For example we play A Burning Brand as restricted and having to exhaust it, Legacy of Durin has needing to exhaust it, but still play Thror's Map as after the 1st official errata.

My house rule is that I play strictly by the rules and errata. If I make a mistake that can't be undone before the next action makes it unreversable or I notice I've done something wrong a few turns ago I scoop and start again.

I don't play progression but I adhere to everything else.

I only consider a quest beat if it was a flawless victory.. ie no house rule shennenigans and no mistakes.

Edited by asgardianphil
5 minutes ago, asgardianphil said:

My house rule is that I play strictly by the rules and errata. If I make a mistake that can't be undone before the next action makes it unreversable or I notice I've done something wrong a few turns ago I scoop and start again.

I don't play progression but I adhere to everything else.

I only consider a quest beat if it was a flawless victory.. ie no house rule shennenigans and no mistakes.

Is it hard to keep all the errata in the head at all times? Or you have erratad versions of them cards/use inserts?

Some of them I have the errata versions. I started collecting the game mid Lost Realms. My first deluxe was Grey Havens and then I collected forwards and backwards from there. Heirs of Numenor saw me buying my 2nd and 3rd core. So, For example, I have both the original and new versions of horn of Gondor.

I have the rules and faq printed off by me as a reference.

As I use Rings DB alot errata notes are put on card descriptions.

Yes you are correct though it's hard to keep track and if I win a game and find that I used a card wrong due to errata then I don't class that game as a win.

I recently played escape from Dol Guldur with a friend and won. We both put Strider in our decks. And he saved the day when the hero lite player used it. A few games later on another quest the issue of control of player cards came up and so I looked up rules. Curiosity made me check to see if the 'prisoner' is in fact under the players control and it is So Strider would not be playable. So we classed that game as null and void and have to replay it. (We're recording wins as we're playing all quests together in order.)

Edited by asgardianphil

Owning several different copies of the same card must be annoying.

Yeah, like asgardianphil, I'm pretty anal where victories are concerned. If I have even the slightest doubt, I'll play the quest again until I feel I played it 100% correctly (which can be a dangerous and maddening obsession). I have the FAQ and rules reference at hand, and if those don't answer my questions, I'll search for answers online (ideally official replies from Caleb).

That said, I have not incorporated the "sneak errata" made to A Burning Brand, etc., since they are not on my printed cards and are not referenced in an official FAQ document.

Someday I will lift my self-imposed "progression" restriction--after I have beaten every quest in the game one- and two-handed.

House rules:

-play the text of the card, not the errata. (I.e. older cards are better!) The reason is more or less laziness AND the fact that I got into the game later in the life so I never got to experience the thrill of some of the game breaking combos. Took/Earendil comes to mind.

-if we make a mistake, we rewind if possible, or remedy the best we see fit (no scoops-- if anything we give it an *)

-except in the rarest of circumstances (when the victory conditions are known) a hero lost results in a scoop.

-setup conditions, as stated above

-pretty lax on the table talk rules

-pretty lax on the action windows in resource/planning phase (except for ordering of attachments -- gotta know who is first player for Steward)

Other than that, we play pretty strictly to the rules, as it generally helps us more than it hurts... i.e. knowing when action windows occur and the order of operations gives us MORE control of the game instead of less.

5 hours ago, player3351457 said:

House rules:

-play the text of the card, not the errata. (I.e. older cards are better!) The reason is more or less laziness AND the fact that I got into the game later in the life so I never got to experience the thrill of some of the game breaking combos. Took/Earendil comes to mind.

-if we make a mistake, we rewind if possible, or remedy the best we see fit (no scoops-- if anything we give it an *)

-except in the rarest of circumstances (when the victory conditions are known) a hero lost results in a scoop.

-setup conditions, as stated above

-pretty lax on the table talk rules

-pretty lax on the action windows in resource/planning phase (except for ordering of attachments -- gotta know who is first player for Steward)

Other than that, we play pretty strictly to the rules, as it generally helps us more than it hurts... i.e. knowing when action windows occur and the order of operations gives us MORE control of the game instead of less.

We use all of these too! Play the cards what’s Written on the cards and have fun! Except we also play on thematic mode (extra resource on each hero at the start) and if we are getting absolutely rocked by a quest, 3-5 or more losses in a row, then we choose our starting hands. Since technically it’s possible eventually get the perfect hand, this just saves us the many scoops and losses to get to what is technically possible. And if we can’t beat a quest with our perfect chosen hand, then we need a new deck. We also build pretty thematic decks instead of power ones (I pretty much exclusively play contracts these days)

I play the errata as-is for the most part, but there are a couple of house rules I use to reverse rulings that were, IMHO, mistaken and/or to fix cards where the card text failed to capture the card's obvious intent.

One such card is Hands Upon the Bow. It requires a character with ranged, and is very similar to the effect of Great Yew Bow. But where Great Yew Bow expliticly states that the attack it enables is a ranged attack, Hands Upon the Bow does not, and Caleb has ruled that based on the card text, Hands Upon the Bow does not count as a ranged attack. So it won't trigger Bard the Bowman's effect, or the effect of Rivendell Bow. I find that to be an odd decision on Caleb's part, when clearly the right decision would have been to errata Hands Upon the Bow to say "This attack counts as a ranged attack".

I also don't like that the original printed rules contain the sentence "Any player can take actions generally, or between the game steps stated in the rules" for steps listed in green, but the more detailed action sequence printed in the online rules reference does not contain those action windows that the original printed rules granted. Yet no errata ever mentions this fact, so it's unclear whether this was intentional. This came up in the "Westfold Outrider in Solo" topic (linked below), where someone asked whether Westfold Outrider could be discarded between the enemy attacks step of the Combat phase and the player attacks step. Going by the online rules reference, the answer would seem to be no, because they stealth-erratad the action window that used to exist between those two steps. But that leads to an unintuitive conclusion, where you can use Westfold Outrider to lure enemies into an ambush if you have an enemy already engaged with you (because then you have an action window while you're resolving your attack against the first enemy), but you can't do so if you have nobody already engaged with you (because the Player Attack Resolution sequence is the only place action windows are found in the online rules reference, and that doesn't open for you until after you have declared at least one attack, which means you must have an eligible attacker & enemy to declare against). This is counterintuitive and weird, so I house rule that there are action windows in between the game steps stated in the online rules reference, just as the original printed rules stated. This smooths out a lot of card interactions and makes them make sense.

Oh and I also follow the Setup phase house rules that other people have mentioned. They basically boil down to "Just do what actually makes sense when the card's intent is clear, rather than following RAW when that would lead to a result that makes no sense." E.g., when using Messenger of the King, you can put your ally-turned-hero into play before drawing your initial hand of 6 cards. (RAW says draw first, then follow setup rules). Otherwise it might happen that you draw your intended ally in your first six cards, he/she is unavailable for the contract's purposes, and the entire design of your deck (especially resource balance between your spheres) is broken. That's no fun, and is not the way the contract was intended to work. So I agree with the house rules that other people mentioned, where you follow the way the Setup phase clearly should work instead of the confusing and unintuitive mess that we have now with current rulings.

1 hour ago, General_Grievous said:

We use all of these too! Play the cards what’s Written on the cards and have fun! Except we also play on thematic mode (extra resource on each hero at the start) and if we are getting absolutely rocked by a quest, 3-5 or more losses in a row, then we choose our starting hands. Since technically it’s possible eventually get the perfect hand, this just saves us the many scoops and losses to get to what is technically possible. And if we can’t beat a quest with our perfect chosen hand, then we need a new deck. We also build pretty thematic decks instead of power ones (I pretty much exclusively play contracts these days)

Have you tried selective mulligan instead of full mulligan? Try it, it might smooth out your experience.

Sometimes I play with the updated cards from the Ancient Mathoms project, which are basically community positive errata to old/underpowered cards (except for a few nerfs), but I don't do that exclusively.

Other than that, the only house rules I play with are the Setup ones - which are basically do what makes sense with the player setup card. I use all erratas - even the most recent ones; from the most recent interview with Caleb, they are official erratas, he has just been way too busy to actually write the FAQ. So they are official, they will be on a rules sheet. So I use them, even the annoying ones.

My one house rule is of a different sort: after I finish shuffling my decks, I turn them face up and swiftly fan through them. When I find cards clumped together--several same-type cards in a row (enemies, allies, whatever) or identical cards within 3 or 4 cards of each other--I chunk some of them elsewhere into the deck. Then I do a triple cut and reassemble the decks. I do it quickly, without paying too close attention (and with my glasses off), and I find that I don't have any recollection of where anything is.

Yes, this makes things a bit easier--you don't draw three "Sacked" cards in a row, or three Hill Trolls, or a run of seven Location cards--but it also makes the game less frustrating. I probably won't be playing all of the 120 Quests of LotR:TCG enough times to ensure that I see all of the Encounter cards, but this deck seeding gives me a better chance at doing so. (I do this with other games, too, like with Through the Ages, although never with Mage Knight Board Game--it depends on the game.)

I'm sure some players will consider this sacrilege, but I think Randomness sometimes can do with a bit of help.

Edited by BillK62