Good Sense Revolts

Too often in the world of Middle-earth, someone goes with a hot head rather than with good sense. Maybe Turin could have learned something from Samwise.

Good Sense Revolts - Hazard - Short-event
Playable on an untapped agent. Tap the agent who may then make an influence attempt against an ally, faction, or character. +4 to influence attempt. +8 if ally, faction, or character is playable at agent's home site. Alternatively, modify an influence attempt by an agent by +4. This card cannot serve both functions.

This time an agent helper, one that can be used by any agent. While this card is not as powerful as, say, Twisted Tales, it is usable by any agent, rather than just Diplomat Agents. It is also more versatile than others as it can also be used to help another check.

This card will let you make an influence attempt on anything but an item (which agents can't currently do). The +4 is nice, it's about equivelant to many of the Diplomat only cards from Wizards, but it may not be enough. The average agent influence is almost 2, and four added to that makes 6. If you add your roll and subtract your opponent's roll, you can expect about a 6. Subtract from that your opponent's GI (I like to leave about 4 free) or the DI of the controller in the cases of allies and followers. That's cutting it pretty close unless your agent has some bonuses against the target card.

One such bonus is the home site bonus. This can be very useful against those pesky dwarves if you use Dror or Fori the Beardless. Or you can use any of several agents from around Gondor to knock out characters from there. The average 2 plus an additional 8 makes the influence attmept a reasonable possibility, especially if the character gets additional influence bonuses.

This card is perhaps most useful for its other ability, +4 to an influence check already in progress. I would suggest using this card in multiples, except that's what the last sentence forbids you from doing. It can be useful with cards like Twisted Tales (I love that card, especially the art), or Your Welcome is Doubtful to give a fairly good chance of making the attempt.

There aren't really any drawbacks to this card, except that it can only be used in a deck with agents and the influence boost might not be enough, but all in all this is a fairly good and versatile card.

More back issues

Card names and text copyright 1996 by Iron Crown Enterprises, all rights reserved. This document copyright 1996 by Trevor Stone. Permission given to duplicate so long as no profit is made and the copyright notice is kept in tact, blah, blah, blah.

Ratings for Good Sense Revolts:
Isildur: 7.5
Farmer Maggot: 7.5
Gandalf: 8.5
Frodo: 7.0
Strider: 6.0
Legolas: 7.0
Eonwe: 8.0
Average: 7.4