Council of Elrond

When I am reading rules and reading forum posts, everything seems to make sense...until I start playing. I am in Korea and there is no one here, that I know of, so I have my Korean girlfriend learning/playing. Sometimes she asks me questions that make me confused...before she asks, I think I know the correct way, but then she starts me questioning myself (all women have this skill, hahahaha) So while I thought I understood INFLUENCE, I am not so sure anymore...DIRECT INFLUENCE mainly.

I think general influence is pretty simple, that is MY personal influence (20) and I can NOT use that to influence factions, etc...ONLY to control characters and my UNUSED general influence makes a difference sometimes with cards like "Call of Home", etc.
I can ONLY use DIRECT influence of one of my characters to influence factions and when my wizard CARD is in play, say Gandalf, with a 10 DIRECT influence, I can use that 10 to influence factions but not the 20 general influence I have.

if any of that is incorrect, please let me know...

BUT, what I was unsure about is:
If my card, Thranduil, Says "3 Direct Influence (in the black hand)" and in the text "+2 direct influence against the wood-elves faction"...I can use both together, the 3 and the +2 to influence the wood-elves faction, RIGHT? I think so because it says "+2"...not just "2". So against the wood-elves faction I would have a "5" and only a "3" against all other factions.

Also, the same would apply for the faction "Hobbits". If I have Lobelia in play trying to influence the "Hobbits", she would get a total of +8...right? She has a direct influence of 1 (black hand), +3 in her text against hobbits and the "hobbits" faction and then the hobbits faction gives a standard +4 modification for all hobbits.

Morgul_Rat wrote: BUT, what I was unsure about is:
If my card, Thranduil, Says "3 Direct Influence (in the black hand)" and in the text "+2 direct influence against the wood-elves faction"...I can use both together, the 3 and the +2 to influence the wood-elves faction, RIGHT? I think so because it says "+2"...not just "2". So against the wood-elves faction I would have a "5" and only a "3" against all other factions.

This is right. You apply all direct influence modifications to the influence check.

Morgul_Rat wrote:Also, the same would apply for the faction "Hobbits". If I have Lobelia in play trying to influence the "Hobbits", she would get a total of +8...right? She has a direct influence of 1 (black hand), +3 in her text against hobbits and the "hobbits" faction and then the hobbits faction gives a standard +4 modification for all hobbits.

The Lobelia card you're refering is not a character but an agent hazard. You can't have her in a company neither you can use her to play a faction. Agents, though, can influence factions away through the use of certain cards:

Influencing With an Agent
During your opponent's movement/hazard phase, certain cards and special abilities allow your agents to attempt to influence allies, factions, followers, and characters. After an influence attempt, the agent remains face-up and in play.

To influence an ally, follower, or character, the agent must be at the new site for the target or at the target's current site if the company did not move. To influence a faction, the agent must be at the site at which the faction is playable.

To attempt to influence in this manner, your agent must make an influence check as outlined in section 9 of the Standard Rules. However, the following exceptions apply:

Your agent's unused direct influence and any other modifications are used (i.e., the agent is doing the influencing, not a character).
If your agent is at his home site his direct influence is modified by +2.
You can't use resources cards to help the attempt (e.g., you may not reveal an identical resource card, you may not use a Muster, etc.).
If the target character (or follower) has the same home site as the agent, treat the character's (or follower's) mind attribute as zero and your agent's roll is modified by +2.
If the target ally is playable at the agent's home site, treat the ally's mind attribute as zero and your agent's roll is modified by +2.
If the target faction is playable at the agent's home site, treat the number required to bring the faction into play as zero and your agent's roll is modified by +2.

By the bolded rule you'd get +8 (+1 DI +3 against hobbits factions +4 by hobbit faction text), but you'd get another +2 (lobelia is at her home site) and yet another +2 (the faction is at lobelia's home site). On top of that then number required to influence the faction is zero (same reason). So the total bonus for lobelia is +12 and the target roll would be more than opponent's free GI plus opponent's roll.