Ask Pineleaf: Do Pages Drop in Skirmishes?

Lilikate asks

Do book pages drop in skirmishes?

By “book pages,” I presume she means the ones associated with the legendary class deeds you unlock at level 39.

The short answer is “Yes.”

Naturally, it’s not quite that simple.

First, skirmish mobs follow the same rule concerning page drops as landscape mobs: the mobs must be within specific zones. These zones are Angmar, Eregion, Misty Mountains, Forochel, and Moria. As of this writing, there are only five skirmishes within these zones: The Icy Crevasse, Battle of the Deep-way, Battle of the Way of Smiths, Battle of the Twenty-first Hall, and Rescue at Nûrz Ghâshu.

Usually when I take a character through Moria, I manage to complete all of the page deeds before I unlocked any of the Moria skirmishes (and I unlock Rescue even later). Therefore,the vast majority of may skirmish page drops were from The Icy Crevasse (I have only one page drop from a Moria skirmish). Remember that only the pages that normally drop in Forochel will drop while running The Icy Crevasse.

The other point to note is that the pages drop off the trash mobs. While trash mobs generally don’t drop anything in skirmishes, they will drop quest and deed items for which they are eligible. I only know of a few of these cases. First, orcs and goblins in the Moria skirmishes will drop orc plans for the Lothlórien Preparation I daily quest. Second, just about any mob in Protectors on Thangúlhad will drop black badges for Badges of Dishonour. Finally, the wargs in Attack at Dawn will drop the collars for a Fornost quest (a trait that is quite annoying, in my opinion). I cannot think of any other cases at the moment.

While I suspect that pages also drop off the Gauradan encounter and the final boss in Icy Crevasse, I have not yet seen this happen (let’s face it, you will face many more trash mobs than bosses in a skirmish).

Therefore, I see hundreds of players running Icy just to get those pages. Or perhaps not.

May your shield protect you and your spear never break,

Pineleaf Needles