As a game creator and lifelong player, I am pleased beyond expectations with FFG's new LotR: The Card Game. I have enjoyed engaging its challenges with friends and alone and want to up the ante. As they only primed the pump for those of us interested in an "expert game", I thought I'd share what I have come up with. There have been a couple of threads glancing along the surface, but I've given this a lot of thought. (I'll be exhaustive up front, with a summary at the end.)

My key considerations were deck states, board state and player threat. I'll show the logic behind my thoughts.

Deck States

I like reshuffling the discard pile back into the deck. The passage of time and the reduction of dangers along the way (Ungoliant's Spawn being slain) eases the arrival more allies and supplies. I do not, however, shuffle player hands or cards in play back into the deck. Why would your allies head back just to be recruited again? Why would Gimli drop those awesome axes he found? I also, therefore, do not draw a new hand of six or allow mulligans.

I then set up the encounter deck, by taking all unused sets out of the discard pile and deck and adding the new sets. I then shuffle the discard pile back into the new scenario's deck the same way as with player decks.

Board State

We've handled the player side of the table state, but there are cards from the encounter deck about. To err on the side of simplicity I simply remove cards not built into the next scenario (ie. the Orc set sticks around the whole game; all others phase out as you leave their region). How can you "Journey Down the Anduin" if one or more of your heroes is "Caught in a Web" back in Mirkwood? Certainly your party will secure each other's safety rather than leave someone behind. As a benefit to beating a scenario, your characters are freed from the penalties and perils unique to it.

Player Threat

Three scenarios without hitting 50 threat? Yeah right. Using the same logic as with "Cards in Play" I assume some player threat will drop as the foes of the previous scenario are no longer chasing you. It's hard to pick a number, since player threat can vary so much from game to game and deck to deck. In trying to find a consistent and reasonable rule of thumb I decided to use an equation similar to questing. I take the combined will power of all characters in play minus the total threat in play from the encounter deck (both engaged and staged).

Each character's "will" to be rid of the threats around and get back to their main objective is only counteracted by the current threats acting as a beacon to enemies yet to come.

Good players may be able to come out of Mirkwood with a lower threat score than they started with. But, since threat is really just a hard cap to losing the game (ie. not the only way) it doesn't seem terrible to mitigate its effect over the long, "Expert" road. Indeed, this possibility allows for truly expert players to gain an advantage where newcomers would not. And anyways, insurmountable enemies or a lack of a deck will still lead to a slow, but sure demise. A game lost due to player threat is just quicker and more exacting.

In the end, I just can't justify the seemingly unbeatable Nightmare suggestion of leaving player threat intact from scenario to scenario while maintaining a loss cap of 50.

Scenario Transition Setup

0) Clean Up Current Scenario

After beating a scenario, players finish the turn sequence by skipping to the "Refresh Phase".
(Note: Cards like "Caught In a Web" are not removed until the next step. An affected hero will, therefore, not refresh .)

1) Remove Unused Encounter Cards

Remove all encounter cards from play that are not part of the next scenario. All other encounter cards in play remain.
(At present the "Dol Guldur Orcs" set is the only one that remains from scenario to scenario.)

2) Setup New Encounter Deck

Shuffle the new encounter deck, including cards that had been discarded in the previous scenario.

3) Setup New Player Deck

Each player shuffles their discard pile back into their deck

4) Adjust Player Threat Levels

Find the total willpower of all readied characters from all players. Subtract from that total the combined threat strength of all encounter cards still in play. Each player must reduce his/her threat by the result.
(Note: Reducing player threat by a negative number results in raising player threat.)

5) Start the Next Scenario

Proceed with the next scenario using step 7 from page 10 of the rule book.
(Pg. 10 Playing the Game - Setup: 7. Follow Scenario Setup Instruction)

I like this a lot. Well done. I've been doing similar things when combining scenarios.

Thanks a bunch, Narsil! FFG really put together a great game. My only dissapointment was the single paragraph for "Expert Game" instructions. But hey, that's what communities are for!

Wait, so "expert" mode is just an easier form of "Nightmare" mode?

Yes. And a little no. The rulebook version of Expert is just the basic game, but you can't pick new heroes and build decks geared to each scenario. Hardly a challenge. And the rulebook version of Nightmare requires a lot of good draws just to overcome the surmounting Player Threat over the course of a 3 scenario campaign. Not to mention sustained damage and a quickly thinning player deck. ( Don't get me wrong, Nightmare should be near impossible or named otherwise. )

1. The Expert mechanics I employ allow for some of the "Nightmare" challenge (eg. don't wipe damage).
2. My "Expert" offers some challenges greater than "Nightmare" (eg. encounter cards in play from the Orc set remain).
3. Playing Expert this way allows for another angle to strategize (eg. ensure the best Willpower surplus between scenarios).

So, not simply "easier", but it should be somewhat easier. Again I wanted something between the uninspiring challenge of the rulebook "Expert" and the craziness of Nightmare's threat cap of 50 for three scenarios.

If you've beaten LotR: LCG in Nightmare, awesome. That's really impressive in my estimation. With a threat cap of 50 and a minimum starting threat of 23 (eg. Elenor, Dunhere, Theodred...don't tell me you start with less than three heroes) each player can only suffer a net threat gain of 26 over the course of the campaign. The Refresh Phase alone will likely push them over that threshold. For this reason, I felt there needed to be a step below Nightmare, but not so far down the difficulty scale as "Expert".

I personally find it valuable to have a way to play a game at a higher difficulty without relying on chance to draw well and for the game (encounter deck) not to. Using the Setup I've offered (and will likely refine) you can have a challenge that lends itself more to skill.

I'm going to leave out Step 3 of my Transition (can't edit it now).

I've decided that shuffling player discards back into the deck is a bad idea. It makes things too expendable and with Theodred and Steward of Gondor, players could end up having enough resources not to care about "wasting" them.

I'm also only using Hero Willpower for Step 4 as there are just so many allies available that players could take the threat of threat off the table.

Beating a Nightmare game isn't that hard, but using Spirit is almost a requirement.

This is great set of ideas. I would just like to add a couple of ideas I thought of to see what players think.

1. With regards reducing threat at the end of one mission and before the next - I would suggest holding with the idea of using the total of all a player's characters will. It is - in effect a 'Rally' step. I.e. a bonus for completing the stage of the journey. You could either add up all the will and divide by the number of players or each player could just have their own characters will. I would make the caveat that the threat cannot be reduced below that of the cumulative threat level of the heroes (ie the threat level you start the game with). Should your threat level actually be lower than you started the game with (unlikely) then you would stay at your current threat level. Sound any good?

2. Also Hit Points - I also play that 1 hit point per character can be healed between stages. In effect the heroes get to briefly draw breath and stick on a couple of band-aids.

Both these things do make the transition a little easier but to me the game's got to be fun. I agree the nightmare game just looks like luck of the draw. I haven't been playing that long though so maybe I'm wrong.

Any thoughts would be appreciated

Personally, I find that leaving allies and attachments in play trivializes the game. Expert mode wouldn't just be easier than nightmare mode, if you have a balanced set of hero abilities it will be easier than normal mode. Starting escape fro Dol Goldor with a bevy of allies removes the major challenges of the scenario.

If you're wanting to get rid of allies, do you need to allow some kind of shuffling? - i.e. allies already in the discard pile remain there, but allies in play get shuffled back into your deck.

I feel like attachments should stay- as someone said earlier, why would Gimli throw away the cool axe he'd found?

Bohemond said:

I agree that it makes it a bit easier but am not sure about trivializing it. You are still more than likely going to be worse off for threat level and also there are likely to be a number of characters starting with less hit points and also possibly a number of extra cards in the staging area at the beginning of the stage that otherwise wouldn't be there.