Frodo seems like an extremely powerful and versatile hero. Low threat, decent stats that compliment his ability well (except maybe his which you likely won't be using much) and access to two of the game's most useful abilities: action advantage and threat reduction. In many ways he's comparable to Aragorn (an old classic and one of my favorite heroes), yet arguably better. Suddenly heroes with bloated statlines that have trouble taking full advantage of them (like Glorfindel for instance) can now perform to their full potential from the start of the game and without dedicating deckspace to action advantage cards that you or may not draw. Also the fact that his ability isn't limited to heroes means you can even target allies like Gandalf and Elrond, which can make him act like a pseudo Galadriel. With this ability alone Frodo would already be a very good hero, but the threat reduction is icing on the cake. Seeing as you will more likely than not be questing successfully each round, especially with Frodo's ability to supply action advantage, this essentially means your threat will stay static—barring Doomed cards and other encounter cards that raise threat, of course. This has so many applications, from the obvious Hobbit decks to secrecy decks, you name it. Plus being in Leadership means he shouldn't have much difficulty paying for that one resource each round. All in all I think Frodo has so much to offer to just about any type of deck.

idk why paying a resource to ready someone was such a common effect in leadership (elrohir, gimli, and now frodo) but there are enough ways to ready heroes that this kind of ability often ends up being more expensive than it's worth. a simple cram can do it for free, and unexpected courage can do it forever for 1 extra resource. there's also the fact that frodo can only ready them for questing, which severely limits his potential

he is able to ready allies as well, but there are very few of them with more than 1 important stat anyway, and many of those already have other ways to ready or quest without exhausting. the threat reduction is neat, but very inefficient for its cost.

so IMO the main reason to use frodo is as a substitute for sam in a hobbit secrecy deck, since he makes it easier to stay under 20 threat and he also lets you play the spirit sam ally, which has a very efficient statline and useful ability

There are many facets to Frodo Baggins. Let's start with the (many) positives: There are very, very few heroes that can continuously lower threat. He is one of them (and the only one outside of spirit), making him already prevalent. His readying is of course also really useful, not being limited to heroes (or allies) but to characters makes him even more unique and powerful. His low threat cost and starting willpower are also great, however probably not good enough to warrant an inclusion by itself (at least not in a world where Messenger of the King in combination with allies like Rosie Cotton or Halfast Gamgee exists). Lastly, the Hobbit trait is one of the most useful ones in the game, opening the door to synergies like Drinking Song, Merry or Rosie Cotton.

For the (far fewer) negatives: Not being able to be played in all Lord of the Rings saga-quests will always be a bit of a letdown for any version of Frodo. One continuous resource to pay for his ability (without which you probably don't want to play him, as outlined above) is quite the steep cost, however he is at least in the right sphere to mitigate for that loss.

Overall, the upside of Frodo Baggins clearly outweighs his drawbacks, at least in the right deck. His drawbacks however lead to him not quite reaching the heights of more flexible heroes like Sam Gamgee or Gildor Inglorion, at least for me.

Rating: 7.5/10

Decks of mine using Frodo Baggins

All my card ratings