There are several advantages to traveling in small companies. Today's card, however, shows why "...I get by with a little help from my friends..."
A Friend or Three - Resource - Short-event
For every character in the influencing character's company, A Friend or Three
gives a +1 modification to an influence check or to a corruption check made by
a character in the same company.
In a large company, this is THE best card for both corruption checks and influence checks. It does not require a diplomat, but can give up to +10 to either a CC or IC (well, 10 is the absolute max, but not too practical). With just 4 characters in your company you can get +4 to a corruption check (the same as Old Friendship without requiring a diplomat) or +4 to ANY influence attempt, better than New Friendship and not restricted like Lordly Presence or Old Friendship (all of which require diplomats). +4 is nothing to just throw about, either. Bilbo and Frodo's main purpose is +4 to their corruption checks. +4 can totally negate two average-corruption items or neutralize the corruption penalty of Morgul-knife. +4 (I'm using 4 because it's a fairly average company size) is also quite a bit with factions. The average required result on factions is about 9, so if you use this card and a character with 2 free influence, you get at least an 8.
This card is also very useful if you use a large company to ferry a hobbit to Mount Doom to toss the ring (7 characters makes it impossible to fail Cracks of Doom) or if you are running a dwarven ring deck. The influence can also be useful if you have a largely item deck and don't have many diplomats or other high-influence guys or if you are planning on influencing an opponent's character. This card can be used in conjunction with Fellowship to have a large company which is virtually impervious to corruption.
This card can be effective in small companies to a lesser degree. In a company of two or so, the afore-mentioned diplomat cards are often better, assuming you have a diplomat. Even so, +2 to a corruption check can be useful, so you might want to include this card anyway (especially if you don't plan on having diplomats in your small companies).
Over all, this card is probably the best corruption and influence short-event
helper of all.
| Ratings for A Friend or Three: | |
|---|---|
| Isildur: | 9.5 |
| Frodo: | 9.5 |
| Farmer Maggot: | 9.5 |
| Gandalf: | 7.0 |
| Legolas: | 8.0 |
| Strider: | 6.5 |
| Wormtoungue: | 6.7 |
| Samwise: | 7.5 |
| Average: | 8.0 |
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.