SpPippin would be more interesting if we had a Hobbit hero that did something to enemies in the staging area. For instance:

Response: When a non-unique enemy enters the staging area, deal 1 damage to it. Deal 2 damage instead if its engagement cost is higher than your threat.

or

Action: Exhaust this hero to choose a non-unique enemy in the staging area. Deal 1 damage to that enemy.

I still say it's a pity you can't use Spirit Pippin in conjunction with Lore Pippin--they'd make a great team, trading threat for card draw.

Rosie Cotton. (Spirit?)

Rosie Cotton. (Spirit?)

Please have all my likes.

Lobelia Sackville Baggins.

Lore Hero.

Thief trait.

Action: Look at the top 10 cards of another Hobbit hero's deck, and chose one attachment card. Attach that card to Lobelia Sackville Baggins.

Rose Gardner (Spirit)

Starting Threat: 3

Willpower: 1

Attack: 0

Defense: 0

HP: 2

While Rose is in play, Samwise Gamgee gets +1 willpower

I'd like to see a hero with super low threat just to give us some secrey options.

Hamfast Gamgee (Lore)

Starting Threat: 4

Willpower: 2

Attack: 0

Defense: 0

HP:2

Hamfast can't quest, attack or defend.

Draw one extra card every turn

Interesting options. Practically a 2 hero deck when you include someone with such low Threat, but you still start with the extra resource generation.

With low threat, it's not likely you'll be engaging very often at all. Ambushers and low-threat heroes, basically.

With that said, if you *never* want an engaged enemy, SpPippin is better than A Light in the Dark, since he doesn't cost resources and is always available, which isn't true even of a 3x event card. He only costs threat, which you have plenty of.

Now, it's true that A Light in the Dark would work better for controlling the timing, which benefits Haldir/Dunhere/LoFaramir who wants enemies in stagings. However it's not better for a companion deck that doesn't mind engaging enemies, such as Dunedain or a tactics deck with Mablung. Because there's no good way to have a SpPippin solo deck, he needs to be paired with fighters, not staging attackers.

So if SpPippin's ability is only an emergency hatch for a total non-combat deck, what does SpPippin offer? 2 wp for 6 threat, which by itself isn't bad at all. You could pair him and SpMerry with any hobbit but Bilbo, and SpMerry could drive them into secrecy easily with Bilbo. The trouble is that only Bilbo would really have a useful ability to pair with SpPippin and SpMerry. If Fatty weren't such a poor quester, he wouldn't make a bad third.

Now what could you do with a deck that doesn't worry about combat at all? Fill 50 spots with interesting cards that don't have to do with combat. Enough to "feel like you were really contributing"? Maybe not for you, and I'm not advocating that you bring a SpMerry/SpPippin/Fatty deck to a meetup event. But I think that it might be an interesting deck to play two-handed solo combined with a nice Dunedain deck. Maybe it'd never be better than a deck that replaces SpPippin with SpGlorfindel and 3x Light of Valinor, but that's not the point. The point is that SpPippin allows you to do something that ordinarily isn't done -- never be in combat. If there aren't enough cards to make a total-non-combat deck interesting to play, then we clearly need more cards.

This sounds like a fine idea... but there are now many quests where enemies that are immune to player card effects forcibly engage you, or you have to take an attack from an enemy in the staging area. You could compensate for this using chump blockers, maybe... including ranged characters is also probably a good idea (so you can help out with combat even if nothing engaged you).

Still, it would be best to pair with a deck that is strong on defense, and one that hopefully has sentinel.

I don't know how you would include Ranged allies in a mono spirit deck, since there are no spirit allies with Ranged and only 1 neutral ally with Ranged and he requires a leadership card to be played just to shuffle him into the encounter deck.

Bring on Tom Cotton for Leadership or Tactics, too.

Here's an event I'd like to see and would work well in a Hobbit deck:

Cost: either 1 or 0

Sphere: Spirit

Response: After you lower your threat by X, choose a hero you control. That hero gets +X willpower until the end of the phase.

Put together a couple of ideas based on my own wishlist and some ideas in this thread...

Farmer Maggot is broken haha, the ability is awesome. Why is it a response though? Shouldn't it be a once-per-round action?

Oops, that should be an action. Just an error.

edit: there, fixed it.

I wondered if people would think it's too powerful. I could make X the number of players in the game, then it's really quite limited. But I wanted him to help you fish for Tom Bombadil somehow... In his current form you're only ever getting scry on the top card, and you *have* to pick one of the cards that you see, even if they are all terrible. But yeah, definitely a powerful effect.

Also considered having him pull a card out of the discard pile at some cost, or maybe limit once per game.

Back in the day before the mirror of Galadriel came out that was the ability (on Farmer Maggot) I predicted for the mirror. I think it is a great ability. I'm just not sure how it fits thematically on that character.

Also, I just remembered it while reading the comments, but I have always wanted a tactics Bilbo with some kind of combat bonus connected to spiders. I personally love the Dwalin hero, for those who don't know, and Bilbo could be like the Dwalin of spiders. I realize this would be a garbage hero only used in like 2 scenarios, but something like that would appeal to me because of strong theme.

I'm just not sure how it fits thematically on that character.

As for that, I've been re-reading Fellowship lately and that is what got me thinking about Farmer Maggot in the first place. He is described by Tom Bombadil as having "both eyes open" and "wisdom in his bones," and Merry says he has a "reputation for knowing a good many strange things." He very nearly guesses why Frodo has fled Hobbiton (he does guess that Frodo is being pursued for something to do with Bilbo's treasure). After all that, he seemed to belong in Lore and a scrying ability followed reasonably.