While playing a couple solo games I found myself not wanting to commit charicters to the quest to save them for combat then a thought creeped into my head.

If I or all the players decide not to commit to the quest do you still need to draw cards from the encounter deck and then raise your threat by the difference, or are you able to skip the phase and nothing happens to the staging area?

No, you cannot skip the quest phase. If you do not commit any characters you still go through the rest of the phase, but your willpower is 0. This is a quick way to raise your threat way up...

This is in the official FAQ (or was it the original rulebook?).

actually it's both: FAQ AND Rulebook - if you read it by the letter... you ALWAYS compare willpower and threat! and you MAY commit characters...

I played the first 4 games solo like that, because I misunderstood - oh boy did my gameplay change when I started playing the right way also, when the Nazgul couldn't be snared any longer :S (which makes perfect sense :DD)

Thanks guys I wasn't sure but now I know. And knowing is half the battle.