Council of Elrond

Can The One Ring cancel strikes against other characters in the bearer’s company?

Short answer:

No.

Explanation:

Due to how both the hero and minion versions of The One Ring were originally templated, many players have wondered whether The One Ring is able to cancel strikes against any character in the bearer’s company or just against the bearer himself, as thematically it would make sense for only the bearer to be able to slip on the ring to vanish into the wraith-world and avoid detection from enemies other than Undead and Nazgul.

Here is the original text of the two cards:

THE ONE RING (HERO)
Unique. The One Ring. Playable only with a Gold Ring and after a test indicates The One Ring. +5 prowess (to a maximum of double the bearer’s starting prowess). +5 body (to a maximum of 10). +5 to direct influence.
Bearer may make a corruption check modified by ‐2 to cancel a strike; this does not work against Undead and Nazgûl strikes.
+1 corruption point to every character in the bearer’s company.

THE ONE RING (MINION)
Unique. The One Ring. Playable only with a Gold Ring and after a test indicates The One Ring. +5 prowess (to a maximum of double the bearer’s normal prowess). +5 to body (to a maximum of 10). +5 to direct influence.
Bearer may make a corruption check modified by ‐2 to cancel a non‐Undead, non‐Nazgûl strike. +1 corruption point to every
character in the bearer’s company.

Although Annotation 18 from the Wizard’s Companion’s description of the strike sequence subtly implies that characters can’t take actions against strikes unless they themselves are facing the strike, the other rulebooks don’t make such a distinction. So in 2018, the CoE community proposed and ratified the following clarified text for the hero version of The One Ring:

Replace "Bearer may make a corruption check modified by -2 to cancel a strike" with "Bearer may make a corruption check modified by -2 to cancel a strike against himself".

Unfortunately, this erratum was only issued for the hero version, and the Council at the time never went back to update the minion version in the same way. And although there is a slight distinction between canceling a strike “against himself” versus canceling a strike “that he is facing” (e.g. because in theory the bearer could be facing multiple strikes and cancel a future strike before he actually faces it, even if that’s usually not an optimal strategy), this committee believes it prudent to adhere to the community-endorsed text at this time.

As such, we will be extending this community erratum to the minion version of The One Ring as follows:

Replace "Bearer may make a corruption check modified by ‐2 to cancel a non‐Undead, non‐Nazgûl strike" with "Bearer may make a corruption check modified by ‐2 to cancel a non‐Undead, non‐Nazgûl strike against himself".