problem:
with larger player numbers you draw more locations than you can possibly explore each round, due to the limit of 1 exploration per round. to make the game still playable, ffg added northern tracker who take care of the problem, because they can discard any number of locations from the staging area.

it's a bad fix in my oppinion because it causes the following problems:
1. northern trackers are absolutely required to win scenarios with certain player numbers. for the gollum expansion scenario it seems you even need them in 2 player games.
2. with northern trackers, the abilities of locations become obsolete, because you are just discarding them from staging area anyways. i often caught myself not even reading the effect on locations anymore, because i knew i won't travel to them anyways.

both points are a major issue for me. 1. because no single card should be absolutley required (it's not the case with any other card). and 2. because travel and persistent effects on locations are really cool, thematically as well as mechanically.

so here's my suggested fix:
A. The players may travel to multiple locations during travel phase.
B. There may be one active location for each player. If there are multiple active locations with less progress markers than quest points, the start player decides on which location progress markers are placed.
C. Only active locations may be discarded as explored, and this is only possible between the quest and the travel phase.

this means you cannot discard any location without triggering its "travel" effect, and you have the persistent effect active for at least one round. northern trackers can still scout the locations for you in advance, but you have to actually travel there in order to fully explore them.

i created a rules card, to be used with my custom scenarios, that shows this. but it can as well be used with any other scenario:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/1054832/the-lord-of-the-rings-the-card-game

yeah but then questing gets easier...way easier with 4 people

It also just shifts the necessary card from Northern Tracker to Lorien Guide. But I like where you're going with it.

questing becomes easier - yes a bit. but if you look at the whole picture, i think the game becomes harder in most scenarios.

i don't see why this forces a need for lorien guides. besides the fact that lorien guide only gives 1 progress marker no matter how many active locations you have, you can as well get those progress markers by questing. the problem with large games under original rules is, that you MUST discard locations from the staging area, because you have NO other choice.

It makes more sense for sure. I'd even go further and make the rule that players needs to be in the same location to serve to each other with ranged and sentinel keyword.

Lorien Guides become necessary because you are allowing 4 active locations and Northern Trackers to place tokens but not "explore". Therefore, 3 Lorien Guides becomes far more useful than 2 Trackers at only one more resource point. You Lorien Guide 3 progress tokens possibly exploring 2 locations per turn with the questing, then make the fully tokened Tracker locations active and get rid of those as well, and the game is still just as hard or easy as it was before.

I agree (I think we all do, even the ones that argue against you) that Northern Tracker is a VERY good Ally. So much so in fact that I have a feeling they will be restricted from Tournaments. No argument there.

BUT, it is not impossible to win a game without them. We've had 2, 3 and 4 player games in the Anduin Quest ending in success, without any Trackers coming into Play.

We've also had a Dol Goldur Quest ending in Success without any Trackers ever coming into in play. (3 Players)

So it can be done. They are NOT "Absolutely Required".

But you are right, I cursed every round I didn't draw one.... and had I got it we would probably have got a better score than we did.

Another Card that should be mentioned here is "Strider's Path" because clever use of this card will let you Explore 2 Current Locations Each round. Combined with Legolas and some daggers you could potentially Explore even 3 or more Locations... (Using "Quick Strike", and Readying Legolas in between using some of that cards that allow for that.) "Strength of Will" can also accommodate this.

So, yes Northern Tracker is Awesome, but there are other ways.

/wolf

to mestrahd: i still don't understand your reasoning. northern trackers are by far better than lorien guides. look at the stats besides their ability. they might change their function from discarding locations to fighting, which is a good change in my oppinion. but one northern tracker can still place more than 1 progress token, if there are multiple locations in the staging area, whereas lorien scouts cannot.

@ghostwolf: with 4 players in some scenarios you draw an average of 2 locations per round, but can only discard 1. sure, you can be lucky, but usually this leads to locations stacking up in the staging area. this kills your questing, so you can't even discard the active location every round and the problem accelerates itself. you'd have to be very quick ending such a scenario. legolas cannot discard locations from staging area (maybe you played that wrong?) so i don't see how this fits here or how he can possibly help you to discard locations. i also don't see how striders path helps you to discard more than one location per round. you can only play it when the location is revealed (not when you choose). and you put the old location back in the staging area, so the total count stays the same.

Forgive me if I wrongly assume that you could see the way this could work just by mentioning a bunch of card-names. My bad.

Legolas can only place Progress Tokens on Current Quest. I know. So he will guarantee that you more or less Always Successfully remove the current Location. (I know he doesn't place anything in the staging area and we do not play him that way either.)

Let me give you an example:

You start Planning phase with a Current Location already in place.

You play a Quick Strike to have Legolas Kill off some Orc somewhere.... Current Location is removed. 1 Location done.

You go into You go into Questing Phase, commit and start to reveal Encounter cards.

One of them Comes up a Location, so you play Strider's Path to immediately move it up as Current Location.

As a Response to this Travelling you play Strength of Will and immediately resolve that location as well (assuming it only takes 2 progress token to resolve... at lot locations do, but not all.) So that is 2 Locations. (If you are extremely Lucky this procedure could even be repeated if more locations come up and you have the cards to deal with it... or maybe you can simply get a new location up.... but that is a real long-shot.)

So now you Quest... potentially removing a third Location if you have one up there... 3 Locations done.

After Questing you Travel to a fourth Location...

In Combat you ready (using one of the many cards that allow you to: Unexpected Courage etc.) Legolas and have him kill another Monster... 4 Locations done.

And I know, I know... what are the odds? I'm just saying it is POSSIBLE theoretically to resolve more than one location each round without a) using Northern Trackers or b) cheating / misunderstanding the rules. (As you suggested I was doing.)

/wolf

Quite frankly we frequently resolve TWO Locations per round. One through Questing then, after travelling, during combat, one with Legolas.

That happens every other game-turn.

And now, every time we have a Strider's Path on hand, we quite frequently resolve three.

1st one when committing to Quest or in Planning phase, using Lorien Guide's and/or Snowbourne Scouts Response.

2nd during questing through Strider's Path, and actual Quest Result.

3rd after Travel during Combat... through Legolas.

/wolf

Did some more thinking on how to explain this....

The limit is not how much you can Resolve but rather how many you can Travel to! I guess that is what you are trying to say? And you are right.

Therefore I thought mentioning Strider's Path was very much relevant. It gives you the possibility to Travel to more than one Location each round.

/wolf

i still wonder if you play this correctly. besides that you now added about 3-4 more cards necessary to remove additional locations than you did before (with them it is indeed possible, rarely), there is still some errors in your reasoning.

1. not so few locations need more than 2 progress markers, some even need 6. this kills all your ideas of discarding them so easily.

2. then there is this:
GhostWolf69 said:

you can't travel to a new location before resolving your quest, which means that in this scenario you cannot explore a location with questing.

3. unless you're playing with trimmed decks of 30 cards with 3 copies of all powerful cards in them, i don't see how you explore 2 locations every 2nd round without using northern trackers. of course, if you have such powerdecks i am sure there are northern trackers in them. anyways, you just add new fiction with every of your posts.

if you don't see how locations without northern trackers are broken in 4ers, i guess this discussion with you is pointless.

And if you don't see how Strider's Path allow you to travel before Resolving the Quest, then you haven't really looked at the card.

Thank you for playing. I bow out.

/wolf

I do not think Northern Tracker is so abusive as needing to redo the game rules to reduce its effectiveness.

It's a strong card, for sure, and everyone who plays spirit should play it. But all spheres have their staples. Who would play leadership without including Steward of Gondor or Sneak Attack?

I tend to agree with Ghostwolf in that Northern Tracker are not absolutely necessary. You can build your deck around other solutions to get rid of locations. Snowbourn Scout is one that can help. I think the main point is that you simply find other ways to circumvent this intrinsic difficulty of locations (the fact that, normally, you only clear 1 / turn, even if you may add more than 1 to the staging area).

Still, you put up your optional rules and it's nice to see people trying to contribute to the game. I don't intend to try them as a default rule, but I will apply them if I play your scenarios.

GhostWolf69 said:

Legolas adds to the quest. Not the location.

Latest version of the faq confirmed he adds to the location:

(1.00) The Golden Rule
The Golden Rule reads: "If the game text of a card
contradicts the text of the rulebook, the text on the card
takes precedence."
The Golden Rule applies when there is a direct
contradiction between card text and rules text. If it is
possible to observe both card text and the text of the
rulebook, both are observed.
Example: The rulebook (p. 15) reads: "Any progress
tokens that would be placed on a quest card are instead
placed on the active location." Legolas (CORE 5) has
an effect that reads, "...place 2 progress tokens on the
current quest." Legolas' effect would place 2 progress
tokens on the quest; the core rule from page 15 instead
places those tokens on the active location. Thus, the
Legolas ability can successfully resolve, and the core
rule can be observed, without creating a golden rule
situation.
(If a card effect read, "place a progress token on the
current quest, bypassing any active location," a direct
contradiction between card text and rulebook would be
created, and the golden rule would then take effect.)

All progress tokens gained go to the location first, if possible. All progress tokens removed are removed from the quest.

Hmmm. Fair enough. Not sure I'm convinced that it should work like that given the wording on the card but I'll take it

Yeah, I thought it was odd too, but the rulebook states on p.15, (parentheses mine)

"Any progress tokens that would be placed on a quest card (by any means) are instead placed on the active location."

And then we have from the FAQ (emphasis mine):

"(1.05) When a card effect removes progress tokens from a quest or quest card, the effect applies specifically to the quest card, and never to the active location.

It's rough out there for the heroes, I suppose!

SiCK_Boy said:

letsdance said:

You could look at that as a form of balancing. Combat gets easier with more players, so traveling gets more difficult.

For what it is worth, I completely agree with SiCK Boy. Northern Tracker is a good, strong ally; A staple of the spirit deck; It is certainly not mandatory to win. No reason to change rules for it. I've won many scenarios, including HfG solo and duo, without him coming into play.

I've found that as long as you keeping a good flow of locations and creatures, you can stay ahead of threat levels most of the time if you have the right cards in play.

Woz said:

I understand your beef about the 1 location/turn.

The easyess way, would be to change: ''When more than two players you can travel to a second location.''

But the accumulation of location can appen with a 2 player game too. Last night Me and my bud lost when we got served 27 treath.

with the gollum scenario we also had the problem with 2 players.

FFG seems to agree, that "active location effects" are redundant with northern trackers. i just played conflict at carrock and all positive location effects trigger only when you travel there, while all negative location effects trigger when it's in the staging area. assuming that this will also be done on future cards, it at least fixes that issue. it just sucks that "old" and "new" locations now follow different guidelines and it's not really thematic. the problem of accumulating locations without the use of northern trackers is also still unsolved.