Just had the idea pop into my head that I'd love to see a system by which we could customize the encounter deck. Kind of adding a deck building aspect to the bad guys even if you don't play them. If there was a point value on the cards to act as a guideline for what could be included (sort of like in minis games where you have a 100 point army) you could construct different versions of the encounter deck to play against without just being able to include only the most powerful cards.

Darksbane said:

There are plenty custom quests for Lord of the Rings already.  I don't see how they could create an official system though, as there is no easy way to systematize writing mission card text, and if you just used existing missions while changing the deck make-up, it might not make sense with the story.  But who knows, FFG may have ideas they are waiting to introduce in a deluxe expansion for either game.

Using existing missions while customizing the encounter deck is exactly what I'm talking about. They would still have an indicator on which cards would go with which missions by default but in addition you could then use point values to customize the deck when that mission got boring. This isn't an RPG so I'm not sure why the story would matter that much. And the LotR custom stuff is exactly the stuff I'm trying to avoid to a point. In LotR custom stuff it is mostly just whole encounter sets shoved together with some custom mission cards of varying quality.

It really is just a wish though because I realize that more than likely the game is too far into development to add something like this, but I think it would solve alot of the problems which people complain about once the encounter deck gets stale. It would also make multiple core set purchases have less waste.

This is the one thing that concerns me about the co-op LCG's is the set format of the encounter decks. One possible solution would be to bring out neutral encounter cards that can be put into any encounter deck regardless of the mission. A sort of wildcard set that can go anywhere. Boba Fett for example would work well for this sort of thing and bounty hunters in general who would just show up randomly regardless of what else was going on. After all, all they care about is getting the bounty. They wouldn't give a monkeys that the imperials are hot on your tail. They'd dive right in and try to take it. Or space pirates wouldn't care that you're going to Corellia or to Endor. They'd hijack your ships no matter what... Or try anyway   

I don't see any reason why you should not be able to customise encounter deck. It can be done in LOTR lcg, so It should be possible allso in Star Wars lcg.

I have been tinkering custom LOTR lcg encounter decks for a while. The biggest problem has been the balancing. For example, if I think that it would be cool to have Nazgul (or two) and some big trolls together in the same encounter deck, It is guite easy to make the encounter deck guite challenging... But that is not the point.

As I said there is not any reason why you should not be able to custom encounter decks as much as you like! Fot me the theme and story are very important, so I allways try to proof to my self why I put some cards to encounter deck or why I am takin them of in story wice. One warning: The more custom encounter deck differs from original encounter deck, the longer it takes to set up the game, because you have to hand pick, more anre more cards instead of looking spesific set icons.

But, yeah, it is fun :-) This is why customise able games are so great!

Hannibal_pjv said:

I'm not saying I can't customize it, obviously I can. You touched on the reason for my suggestion, Balance. Without any guidelines or point/cost values for the encounter cards it is basically just you throwing whatever cards you want into an encounter deck. If the cards had a point value though you could decide to build a 50 point encounter deck or something similar and you would have to balance the easier and harder encounter cards so to get the most bang for your buck out of the 50 points.

If you wanted to go on a point value it's not that difficult. For LOTR for example you could go on the total amount of threat in the event deck. You want a threat of 50? So all the event cards you put in total 50... so on and so forth. 

spirit said:

Sure, except for Treachery and location cards and in LotR, Star Wars encounter cards don't have values like that.

I'm not saying they will. I simply used LOTR as an example as it's something that's already out.