So I was just thinking about stuff another day and came up with sort of idea about the new enemy keyword.

Long story short, let us say keyword's name is Persuasion X.

During the combat phase, a player engaged with an enemy with Persuasion X keyword may declare attackers against this enemy, but instead of their Attack Value they will use their Willpower Value, and enemy will use his Threat Strength instead of Defense Value. During such attack, progress is placed on an enemy instead of a damage. If there is progress on this enemy equal to or more than his Persuasion X value, then this enemy is added to the vicotory display.

Note: Enemies with this keyword can still be attacked in normal way and go to discard pile if defeated.

Why I even bothered thinking about it? Well, the main reason was Crazed Captive. It didn't appealed to me that the only thing heroes can do about him is either kill him or let him scratch you turn by turn, and sometimes you even must kill him. He would thematically benefit from this keyword(threat raising won't trigger if "persuaded").

Many things can be done with this keyword. As an axeample, Spirit Event card:

"Calm"

Cost: 1

Text: Choose an enemy. Until the end of the phase, this enemy gains Persuasion X, where X is his remaining hit points.

I like this idea. It reminds me of the way the Druadan Forest changes from a battle into a game of "persuasion" on the last quest stage. I also like it because it gives heroes like Eowyn something else to do.

The Spectral keyword in Stone of Erech also requires attacking with Willpower. So it's been done on at least two quests.

Spectral keyword is just swapping Willpower and Attack values, then it has absolutely nothing common with what I've just listed.

On a side note, who else could use this keyword? Lesser human enemies in Heirs of Numenor cycle. Some creatures like Bear, presented along the game. Or even some lesser orcs or goblins, intimidating is some sort of persuading. Imagine. if some goblins had Persuasion X, where X is, let's say, 3 + 1 for each other Orc enemy in play.

Persuasion is also may be a trigger for some rare positive effects from encounter cards, rather than just being a prevention of bad ones.

Imagine an enemy with response:

After this enemy leaves game as a result of Persuasion keyword, player it was engaged with draws a card.

I love Druadan Forest and one reason is the last stage in which you have to persuade the chieftain. I hope they use this more often. A keyword would allow to insert one or two enemies with that special keyword into a scenario.

Great idea!

By the way, as Lord Alcaron appears to be a traitor in the last Morgul Vale scenario, it would be cool if one of the two ways to resolve the stage involving him was to persuade him to give up/surrender/join you back. He is gondorian, after all. He had his reasons, we're all have our dark side.

I love the idea! I too enjoyed the last stage of Druadan Forest, and I think you gave your keyword a nice touch by actually comparing the willpower against the enemy's threat strength rather than their defense. It could create some interesting dilemmas if certain actions on the part of the players removed the persuasion keyword from enemies.

SPOILER for Morgul Vale..

Alcaron wasn't Gondorian at all. He was one of the Black Numenoreans, and took the place of a young Gondorian noble long ago. The card itself brands him a Traitor, but a more apt description might be spy or infiltrator since he never had Gondorian allegiance to begin with.

Well, how much time he spent under this cover? Maybe it became part of him in some way. He even helped da heroes in many previous quests. He may be reasoned with.

-Nevermind me, just being a helpless people-believer.

Cool idea!

I would have liked Radagast to have some type of creature persuasion - (though his will power is probably too low without some sort of boost vs creatures). Perhaps successful persuasion would stop the a creature attacking or making engagement checks that round. (and moving to the discard pile when the creature has it has x persuasion counters on it).

Another idea I had for enemies which might be quite cool, is combining the siege and archery keywords.

Imagine if you drew a location with a new keyword "defended X". That would mean you would attach X enemies to it with the archery keyword. before you could attack them you would have to clear the location away first by attacking it, as if it had the siege keyword. And in the meantime the enemies would be taking potshots at you, defended behind the location's walls.

Maybe they would only begin taking potshots once you've travelled to the location though, which would make more thematic sense. you could even include the idea of reinforcements...maybe a treachery card could add some new archery reinforcements to every "defended" location still on the table