Pretty much summarised my thoughts on this. First and foremost the penalty should only be -2 vs Sauron/LE and -1 to a squatting RW.Fate of the Ithil Stone
--Jamie commented: Making the roll harder could be coupled with the card being played on a specific character instead of globally, with a successful roll also lowering the corruption points associated with the Palantir and making it immune to the effects of Bane... That would simulate the Palantir being wrested away from Sauron's grip, but it would also allow a Sauron player to do something about the hand-size reduction by killing the affected character... I suggest 1) Only effects a RW in a Darkhaven. 2) A successful roll would award a +2 to cc's for that character using that Palantir (the inverted card would be placed with the character). The upshot of this is that killing this character would result in the inverted card being discarded thereby restoring their opponent's hand size/HL to normal.
--Miguel: (1) Give only -2 to handsize for Sauron/LE player. This combined with the HL addition is still very strong.
(2) Perhaps a corruption check for the character is in order, regardless of the success of the initial roll.
--Yeah, it seems to me that a huge threat from Bane exists even after you pull this card off. And that doesn’t seem very thematic at all, considering you have successfully “challenged” Sauron. How about adding, at the very least, “and discards and prevents the play of Bane of the Ithil Stone.” ?
Secondly, I'd like to see some corruption benefit for the successful character using the Palantir, so that using the Palantir is no longer certain doom. Something along the lines of the Palantir giving 0 cps to the character, so that the doubling effect of The Balance of Things and Bane is nullified. It's been wrested from Sauron's grip after all. I don't think involving any permanent effects on Bane is a good idea, since the secondary effect of Bane is still important and other Palantiri are not immune from Sauron's gaze. However, maybe a successful roll could result in the discard of Bane if Bane is in play at the time?