My thoughts on four is that i need burdens to remove to cause the heal - both versions of the deck do alot of exerting - so i will need to heal. Without a way to add burdens, i will rely on removing these to heal. The frodo card that adds burdens is an option, but it adds more bulk to the deck without adding tales.
Perhaps 3 is enough, but i have played a few people that have bid 3, but never 4. Those that bid 3 rely heavily on downloading aragorn at site one so perhaps i have hit them with a major deck hurdle right at the beginning.
Another option is to play an elf + sam in starting fellowship and the promise to beef up frodo and sam. Not sure on the overall theme using this combination though.
At this stage I am starting to think that Gloin with an elf in the starting fellowship is the way to go. Dwarven tales a cheap, sometimes useless (other than to increase gloins strength) and to discard with bilbo. The elf allow me to download tales, and red book allows me to draw extra cards. Problem is - there is not really a good elf uless i plan to do archery. Dwarves also have so many possessions which are always a temptation to put in the deck and throw out the balance of tales.
Thanks for all the help - i will put something together and try it out on GCCG soon.