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Northern Isles Roles (Game 9)


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This is the list of possible roles for Game 9. Only 16 of these will be used. The roles will be chosen as follows:

 

Roles 1-10: Anama Priest, Bound Servant, Darkside Blademaster, Darkside Mage, Dionicio, Domont, Gladwell, Machrone, Micklebur, Shanker.

Role 11: Adventurer or Empire Spy (50% each)

Role 12: Alchemist (25%), Craftmaster Strine (25%), or Oliver (50%)

Roles 13-16: Randomly chosen to be any role not currently used.

 

The magic users are: Aimee, Craftmaster Strine, Darkside Mage, Gladwell, Sacred Item Cultist, Shanker, Trickster, Vahkos.

 

People who may join the Anama are: Adventurer, Alchemist, Anama Hunter, Dionicio, Empire Spy, Fae, Infiltrator, Nephil Activist, Oliver, Pure Spirit, Ronaldo, Skribbane Addict.

 

People who may join Gladwell are: Adventurer, Anama Hunter, Craftmaster Strine, Dionicio, Empire Spy, Fae, Infiltrator, Nephil Activist, Ronaldo, Sacred Item Cultist, Skribbane Addict, Trickster.

 

The roles, in alphabetical order, are:

 

Adventurer

Nationality: Avernum

Skill: Stealth

Attack: Physical

Immune: None

 

Ability: Once per game, may steal one item (not an artifact) from the moderator shop. If you kill one of your victory condition targets, you receive a reward of 40 coins.

 

Victory Condition: You must do two of these: Have the Ring of Magery at the end of the game, kill Dionicio, kill Gladwell, kill Darkside Blademaster, kill Machrone, kill Oliver, kill Craftmaster Strine, kill Skribbane Addict.

 

Aimee

Nationality: Avernum

Skill: Standard

Attack: None

Immune: None

 

Abilities: Your target may not perform any actions for 24 hours. You may not directly attack anyone or hold and use items. You have a permanent protected status except when attacked by the Anama Priest or a spirit of Vahkos. You learn the role of anyone who tries to attack you.

 

Victory: No Imperials win.

 

Alchemist

Nationality: Empire

Skill: Standard

Attack: Physical

Immune: None

 

Abilities: If you attack, your opponent will always receive the first strike. You know the identify of Shanker at the beginning of the game. You may convert coins into up to two potions per day without duplicates for your shop at half cost. You may only create a knowledge brew once.

 

Victory: Have at least 150 coins or item or artifact equivalent in your inventory or shop. Each player that wins gives you a 10 coin bonus. If Shanker wins, you get a 30 coin bonus.

 

Anama Hunter

Nationality: Avernum

Skill: Standard

Attack: Physical

Immune: None

 

Ability: May target one person per day. Reveals if that person is in the Anama. While attacking someone in the Anama, your skill level is treated as Power. If you kill an Anama member, you will receive a bonus of 20 coins.

 

Victory Condition: Total elimination of the Anama sect. The Anama Priest and all followers must be dead by any means necessary.

 

You may join the Anama to go undercover. You will gain the magic immunity, but your victory condition will be unmodified. Also, you do not count as an Anama member when evaluating anyone's victory conditions.

 

Anama Priest

Nationality: Avernum

Skill: Standard

Attack: Physical

Immune: Magic

 

Ability: If you are attacked, your skill is power for the duration of the battle. May use one of two abilities: (1) Once per game, may resurrect one person, or (2) remove all status effects from a target.

 

You cannot be harmed by Vahkos' spirits.

 

Victory Condition: Gladwell dead AND recruit at least one Anama member by the end of day 2, two by the end of day 4, and three by the end of day 5. Failure to meet a recruiting requirement will cause a random non-Anama member to learn the identity of the Anama Priest. If all potential Anama recruits are dead so that the recruiting goals cannot be done the penalty is not enforced, but you must hold the Holy Symbol at the end of the game instead.

 

Anama Priest can recruit Anama members who are not mages, servants of Gladwell, or Darkside Loyalists. Anyone who joins the Anama gains immunity to magic. See the rules for specifics. An exact list of roles that can join is given at the top of this thread.

 

Bound Servant

Nationality: Avernum

Skill: Standard

Attack: Physical

Immune: Physical

 

Ability: If you attack someone while not under Gladwell's influence, your opponent will always receive the first strike. (1) Investigate a role. You will learn the last action that role did. (2) You may do odd jobs and earn coins: 10 the first time, 15 the second, and 20 every time thereafter.

 

Victory Condition: Gladwell wins or his geas is broken.

 

You are a servant of Gladwell.

 

Craftmaster Strine

Nationality: Avernum

Skill: Standard

Attack: Magic

Immune: None

 

Abilities: You will begin with an artifact. When holding an artifact, may take some of its energy to craft up to two items from the list below without duplicates. Each artifact only has enough energy to be used for this purpose once and you can only drain one artifact with each ability use. May only make the Wand of Death once per game.

 

Item List: Box of Traps, Disruption Crystal, Infiltrator Cloak, Ironskin Balm, Killer Poison, Razordisk, Vulnerability Scroll, Wand of Death.

 

Victory: Trade away at least one item you crafted each day AND have traded these items for at least 80 coins or item equivalent (excluding artifacts) by the end of the game. Failure to do so on a given day will raise the total required items you must trade away at the end of the game by one and the total value you need to trade by 10 coins. You get a 15 coin bonus toward your victory condition for each other magic user that wins at the end of the game.

 

Darkside Blademaster

Nationality: Empire

Skill: Power

Attack: Physical

Immune: Physical

 

Ability: None.

 

Victory Condition: All five of the following must be dead, by any means necessary: Anama Priest, Dionicio, and three other random targets.

 

Darkside Mage

Nationality: Empire

Skill: Stealth

Attack: Magic

Immune: None

 

Ability: May target one person per day. The target is cursed for the next 24 hours. If the target decides to attack anyone, his or her attacks will be unable to harm the opponent. Note the curse only affects when the target attacks, not when the target is being attacked.

 

Victory Condition: All five of the following must be dead, by any means necessary: Anama Priest, Dionicio, and three other random targets.

 

Dionicio

Nationality: Avernum

Skill: Power

Attack: Physical

Immune: None

 

Ability: Once per game, may place traps around a target. Anyone who tries to attack that target in the next 24 hours will be killed. If you kill a Darkside Loyalist by your own hand, you receive a reward of 40 coins.

 

Victory Condition: All Darkside Loyalists (Blademaster, Mage, Domont) dead by any means AND correctly identify, to the moderator, the name and role of every player, living and dead, by the end of the game.

 

Domont

Nationality: Empire

Skill: Standard

Attack: Physical

Immune: None

 

Ability: At the start of the game, you receive a list of five other players. Two of the five will be your fellow Darkside Loyalists. Once per day (even on the first one) may hire bandits to attack another player. You must correctly identify the role of the player to be attacked. The cost is 30 coins the first time and increases by 15 each time thereafter. The bandits have standard skill, physical attack, no immunity and normally receive the first strike.

 

Victory Condition: All five of the following must be dead, by any means necessary: Anama Priest, Dionicio, and three other random targets.

 

Empire Spy

Nationality: Empire

Skill: Stealth

Attack: Physical

Immune: None

 

Ability: Once per game, may identify a target's role. If you are attacked and your opponent would have received the first strike, you have a 25% chance of getting the first strike instead. When you kill someone, you will learn their role. If you kill one of your targets, you will receive a reward of 40 coins.

 

Victory Condition: You must do two of these: Have the Flaming Sword at the end of the game, kill Machrone, kill Darkside Blademaster, kill Gladwell, kill Oliver, kill Alchemist, kill Skribbane Addict.

 

Fae

Nationality: Avernum

Skill: Standard

Attack: Physical

Immune: None

 

Ability: You begin with 40 coins. You never receive the first strike if attacked. You may only attack people with whom you have traded (merely giving them coins does not count). You may not use any items or artifacts offensively unless they have traded with you. When you attack, your attack is poison and your skill is stealth. When you kill someone you attacked, you get any coins they may have minus the amount you gave that person as a gift. May assume the identity of any other role (e.g. Fae). You will appear as this role to all information gatherers. Your identity is retained even after death.

 

Victory Condition: Hold at least 80 coins worth of loot (coins, items, or artifacts) at the end of the game. Loot is defined as wealth you have gained from kills or from trades with people you subsequently kill.

 

Gladwell

Nationality: Avernum

Skill: Power

Attack: Magic

Immune: Magic

 

Ability: You may not attack anyone directly. You may not give away or trade any artifacts that are in your victory condition and these may not be stolen by anyone else. If any of your servants attack you, you will always get the first strike. If one of your servants dies, you will learn about it immediately. You may do one of the following once per day: (1) Compel one of your servants to do any action they could do, or (2) Switch your immunity form magic to physical, or vice versa.

 

You cannot be harmed by Vahkos' spirits.

 

Victory Condition: Five randomly generated victory conditions that contain holding two artifacts at the end of the game and three people dead by any means or under your geas.

 

Gladwell can bind other players who are not Anama members or Darkside Loyalists. An exact list of roles that can join is given at the top of this thread.

 

People who join have power skill if Gladwell is alive. However, they have the following penalties: (1) Gladwell can override any ability request with his ability and (2) person gains an additional victory condition outlined in the rules. Note that if Gladwell compels someone to attack, they will normally get the first strike.

 

Infiltrator

Nationality: Empire

Skill: Stealth

Attack: Physical

Immune: None

 

Ability: Once per game, may get a free action that does not count towards the 24 hour period. You must specify this in a PM with your action.

 

Victory: Kill three Avernites by your own hand. Dionicio counts as two.

 

Machrone

Nationality: Empire

Skill: Standard

Attack: Physical

Immune: None.

 

Ability: You never get the first strike; however, if you are attacked by a non-enemy, you have a 50% chance of escaping. Every day, may ask one yes or no question to the moderator. Once per day, if you answer a question (see victory condition) on the day it is given, you get a 5 coin bonus.

 

Victory Condition: Every day, two questions about the game are given to you (three on the first). You must answer, by PM to the moderator, at least one question every day. Your response is posted publicly by the moderator. You must answer five questions correctly to win. Each incorrect response or failure to submit a question during a day will raise the number of questions you need to answer correctly by one each time never to exceed the total number of questions available. You may answer a question as many times as you like, but only your last answer will count toward your victory.

 

Micklebur

Nationality: Empire

Skill: Power

Attack: Physical

Immune: Magic

 

Ability: (1) Can detect if a target is a magic user or is a servant of Gladwell. (2) Can solicit a donation of 10-30 (random amount) coins.

 

Victory Condition: Anama Priest wins OR Gladwell and all his servants dead.

 

You are an Anama Member.

 

Nephil Activist

Nationality: Avernum

Skill: Standard

Attack: Physical

Immune: None

 

Ability: If you attack, your opponent will always receive the first strike. (1) Acquire one item (not artifact) per day from the moderator shop for face value. (2) For 40 coins, hire a Fang Clan assassin to attack a target. The assassin has a skill of stealth, attack of poison, no immunity, and normally gets the first strike.

 

Victory: The Darkside Loyalists and Dionicio do not win.

 

Oliver

Nationality: Avernum

Skill: Standard

Attack: Physical

Immune: None.

 

Ability: You never get the first strike; however, if you are attacked by a non-enemy, you have a 50% chance of escaping. You may do an unlimited number of trades (involving items from your shop) per day. Each day, you may submit a list of up to three targets. You will see their inventories.

 

Victory Condition: Each day, you must grow your total wealth by 10% (rounded up) of the starting value of your shop. Failure to achieve the goal on a given day will cause the following days to require an additional 10%. You also get a 5 coin bonus for each unique person you have traded with.

 

Oliver will have a shop that will be discussed in the rules. The shop begins with five items. Items in your shop may not be used by you except when defending from attacks. You may move items from your inventory to your shop, but not vice versa.

 

Pure Spirit

Nationality: Avernum

Skill: Standard

Attack: Physical

Immune: Magic

 

Ability: If you attack, your opponent will always receive the first strike if you are not in the Anama. If you are in the Anama, when defending your skill is power for the duration of the battle and you normally get the first strike. At the beginning of the game, you know the identity of Dionicio. If someone targets you with the Wand of Death, the person who used it will die instead. Can target one person per day. You will learn that person's faction, if any.

 

Victory: The Darkside Loyalists do not win.

 

Ronaldo

Nationality: Avernum

Skill: Stealth

Attack: Physical

Immune: None

 

Ability: Can target one person. This target is poisoned and will die within 24 hours if they do not use an antidote.

 

Victory: Kill three Empire citizens by your own hand. The Darkside Blademaster counts as two.

 

Sacred Item Cultist

Nationality: Avernum

Skill: Stealth

Attack: Magic

Immune: Poison

 

Ability: If someone targets you with the Wand of Death, the person who used it will die instead. May target an item or artifact. It reveals which role (e.g. Sacred Item Cultist) has the item or artifact. If multiple people have items, will reveal all of them.

 

Victory Condition: At the end of the game, have three randomly chosen artifacts in your possession.

 

Shanker

Nationality: Empire

Skill: Standard

Attack: Magic

Immune: Physical

 

Ability: If you are attacked, your skill will be power for the duration of the battle. (1) May target you or another person with one of the following statuses: Antimagic, Blessed, Protected, or Resistant, or Shielded. (2) Once per game may permanently change a target's default immunity from none to either Magical or Physical. Note: Can only be used on someone whose default immunity is none.

 

Victory Condition: You will receive a list of five randomly generated characters. All of them must be alive at the end of the game. For each one that is dead, you must hold an artifact at the end of the game.

 

Skribbane Addict

Nationality: Empire

Skill: Standard

Attack: Physical

Immune: None

 

Ability: While not under the influence of skribbane, you never receive the first strike. May target up to two people and if either or both have skribbane, you will steal it. You are immune to skribbane withdrawl, but you must consume Skribbane at least once by day 3 or you will die.

 

Victory: Kill at least two people.

 

Trickster

Nationality: Avernum

Skill: Standard

Attack: Magic

Immune: None

 

Ability: May redirect the action of one player onto another. You must specify the player whose action you want to redirect as well as the new target. The Anama Priest and Gladwell are immune to this.

 

Victory: No more than four other players win

 

Vahkos

Nationality: Empire

Skill: Power

Attack: Magic

Immune: Poison

 

Ability: When anyone dies, you capture their spirit at the start of the following day. You may attack one person per day (you normally receive the first strike) in addition to sending out one of your spirits to attack. On the final day, you may send out as many spirits as you desire. If you have any spirits captured, when targeted with any ability that counts as an action (attack, ability use, offensive item use) the action fails and a random spirit attacks the offender. Spirits normally get the first strike and inherit all properties they had in life. After a spirit attacks (or attempts to), it is gone. You are immune to the antimagic status.

 

You are allowed to create a priority list of which spirits you want to attack and which ones you want to defend. You may not tailor your defense to specific character attacks.

 

Victory: You are the only survivor at the end of the game.

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So here are a couple ideas to replace the Necromancer.

 

Avenger

Nationality: Empire

Skill: Stealth

Attack: Physical

Immune: None

 

Ability: Target a dead person. You will learn the dead person's role and the attack type that killed the person. This ability does not count as an action.

 

Victory: On each day starting with day 2 up through day 4, target a dead person who died within the last 24 hours (if no one dies on a given day, no target is necessary). You are then bound to correctly identify that person's killer to the moderator and ensure that person dies by any means. Failure to pick someone on a given day will cause the moderator to randomly assign a target to avenge. No information about the person's role or cause of death will be given in this case, however.

 

 

Trickster

Nationality: Avernum

Skill: Standard

Attack: Magic

Immune: None

 

Ability: May redirect the action of one player onto another. You must specify the player whose action you want to redirect as well as the new target.

 

Victory: No more than four other players win.

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I think the Trickster might be a little too powerful. Redirecting actions is a scary thing for all the other players and to have someone that can do that and still attack is very powerful. If the Trickster can use his ability but cannot attack anyone that would seem more balanced to me.

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Originally Posted By: Rowen
I think the Trickster might be a little too powerful. Redirecting actions is a scary thing for all the other players and to have someone that can do that and still attack is very powerful. If the Trickster can use his ability but cannot attack anyone that would seem more balanced to me.


With standard skill, a magical attack and (usually) no enemies, attacking is not usually going to be his best option anyway.
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I like the Trickster, personally. However, if at all possible, may I suggest another couple roles?

 

(Stream-of-consciousness, might definitely needs tweaking)

 

Hero

Nationality: Avernum

Skill: Power

Attack: Physical

Immunity: None

 

Ability: Once per game, can call on Divine Intervention when attacking. If the target is an enemy, your attack will kill regardless of statuses and immunity.

 

Victory: All faction members (Anama, Gladwell, Darksiders) and Vahkos dead by any means necessary, plus hold the Fury Crossbow.

 

 

Thaumaturge

Nationality: Empire

Skill: Stealth

Attack: Magic

Immunity: None

 

Ability: Has three spells. Each spell can only be cast once per game. They are:

* Summon Item - Gives the player an item of their choice. If an artifact is chosen, it will be stolen from its original owner.

* Kill - Hits a target with a magic attack. The target will not know who attacked him (similar to a WoD), but a successful kill will be announced immediately. Can not be used on Day 1.

* Aura of Fire - Surrounds a person with magical fire. Anyone attacking that person will get hit with a magic attack.

 

Victory: At least three mages win, not counting yourself.

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As regards the Avenger and Trickster: both seem fairly balanced. As regards the game as a whole both of them will find it hard to find allies and make creating alliances more difficult: is that a good thing? Do we want more solitary roles?

 

Hero: The victory condition is too powerful, and also largely out of his control; it relies too heavily on the three factions hurting each other quite a lot. How would this be for a victory condition:

 

Two of the three factions (Anama, Darkside, Gladwell) eliminated; all members of the third faction must win. You must PM the moderator before the end of the second day to inform them which faction you have chosen to win; you may change your choice, but doing so will count as an action.

 

Thaumaturge: Again this is a powerful character with a hard victory condition. Seems good, maybe a bit too powerful; the only minor issue is that some games will have many more mages than others, and thus the difficulty of the role would vary quite a lot. Maybe change it to 'at least half of the mages in the game (rounding up) win'?

 

-E-

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Hey, guys, when you suggest roles, make sure to say what happens when they use the Holy Symbol.

 

Gremlin King

Nationality: Avernum

Skill: Stealth

Attack: Magic

Immunity: None

 

Ability: You will not receive the first strike if attacking; however, if attacked, you will always receive the first strike. Once per day, you can swap your attack type between Magic and Physical.

 

Victory: Kill at least three people by your own hand.

 

Holy Symbol: Identifies the immunity of all living players at the time of use.

 

Basically, this role is intended as a combat-based version of the Fae: just as the Fae makes people a bit more cautious about trading, the Gremlin King makes people a bit more cautious about attacking people they think are probably enemies. At the same time, he has to be a little cautious about who he provokes, because quite a few roles can kill him.

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The Trickster is pretty powerful, but balanced out by his victory condition in the number of people he can help. He really is not solitary since he is quite useful to any smaller alliance -- better motivation to help the little guy. His downfall is that the alliance cannot be large. For him to win, the big tent must necessarily fall.

 

Trickster will also be a magic user so I guess he is a potential Anama target.

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Okay, how about this: The Hero has to take out all the faction-based roles. So, basically, he has to take out the Anama Priest, Bound Servant, Darkside Blademaster, Darkside Mage, Domont, Gladwell, and Micklebur. However, people that get recruited into the Anama or Gladwell are not targets, and don't have to be killed. It's a lot, but he's meant to be a role independent from factional alliances.

 

As for the Thaumaturge's goal: Yeah, that makes sense. At worst, there's only three mages, and he has to protect two. At best, there's six mages, and he has to protect three. It wouldn't be too much of a difficulty variance since, as more mages appeared on the field, there's a greater chance of a kill involving a mage.

 

Hero Holy Symbol: Grants an extra use of Divine Intervention.

 

Thaumaturge Holy Symbol: Allows you to recharge one of your spells.

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The Avenger looks like he's given an excessively hard role. The biggest problem is that his victory conditions aren't known in the beginning. He gets a new task on day four.

 

The Gremlin King looks interesting. I'm not sure that factions need another enemy to balance for those ideas, though.

 

—Alorael, who wonders how all these oddballs are ending up in the Northern Isles now. They're bustling for a backwater.

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Hero: He's now very similar to Vahkohs: he has to achieve a large number of kills (more than he has time for, thus relying on infighting to win), he doesn't ever really want to let on his true identity, and he's frighteningly powerful. I don't think the differences are enough to justify a second all-out-death character, and imagine if Vahkos and the Hero appeared in the same game...

 

Thaumaturge: I like the idea of this guy, he raises the possibility of having a fourth faction made up of all the mages who aren't Gladwell. The only problem is that all the mages at the moment work as support characters, but he has the potential to make things very interesting.

 

Avenger: I agree with Alorael that being given a new goal on day 4 is quite harsh, especially considering that by that stage everyone knows who everyone is: any faction which has killing left to do will take you out too just to avoid trouble.

 

Trickster sounds more and more interesting the more I think about him. However from your description it's not entirely clear how he's supposed to work: does he have to make his redirect request before the action is submitted, or just before it's processed? Or can he redirect an action which has already been processed, within a specific time limit?

 

Holy Symbol for Trickster could either add one to the number of players who can win, or reveal all actions which have been submitted but not processed (but that would rely on the Trickster being online at the time of revealing, or it's a bit of a waste...)

 

Gremlin King: Again, looks fun, and encourages more double agent style of play which has to be a good thing.

 

-E-

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Originally Posted By: Omlette
Hero: He's now very similar to Vahkohs: he has to achieve a large number of kills (more than he has time for, thus relying on infighting to win), he doesn't ever really want to let on his true identity, and he's frighteningly powerful. I don't think the differences are enough to justify a second all-out-death character, and imagine if Vahkos and the Hero appeared in the same game...

There's one big difference, though. Vahkos is meant to, well, kill everybody. The Hero is meant to be a wild card, capable of forming his own alliance against the other factions. Also, the hero isn't frighteningly powerful; He's pretty much on par with Dionicio, and weaker than the Darkside Blademaster. His ability is pretty powerful, but it's only effective against enemies, and he only gets it once.

Also, the Hero only needs to take out 7 players. That's less than half of the number of players in a game. That said, here's an idea of a modified hero so he can't just gat everyone who gets in his way.

Hero
Nationality: Avernum
Skill: Power
Attack: Physical
Immunity: None

Ability: If you attack a non-enemy, your skill becomes Standard for that battle. Once per game, can call on Divine Intervention when attacking. If the target is an enemy, your attack will kill regardless of statuses and immunity. If not, the attack will fail.

If you kill one of your targets by your own hand, you receive a reward of 20 coins.

Victory: All faction roles (Anama Priest, Micklebur, Gladwell, Bound Servant, Darksiders) and Vahkos dead by any means necessary, plus hold the Fury Crossbow.

Holy Symbol: Afflicts enemies with Vulnerable status.
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Originally Posted By: Omlette
Avenger: I agree with Alorael that being given a new goal on day 4 is quite harsh, especially considering that by that stage everyone knows who everyone is: any faction which has killing left to do will take you out too just to avoid trouble.


The only way the Avenger can get backed into a corner like you describe is if everybody planning to kill anybody else is in the same alliance (unlikely), that alliance knows about the Avenger (pretty likely), and nobody outside their alliance has killed in the past 24 hours (moderately likely). Even then, there are other way to work around the Avenger problem without killing him- for instance, they could postpone that last kill until day 5.

Originally Posted By: Omlette
Trickster sounds more and more interesting the more I think about him. However from your description it's not entirely clear how he's supposed to work: does he have to make his redirect request before the action is submitted, or just before it's processed? Or can he redirect an action which has already been processed, within a specific time limit?


As I understand it, the Trickster redirects the next action of the target, i.e. it has to be validated after the Trickster's redirection. To play the role effectively, he has to predict what people will do.
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Originally Posted By: Omlette
Hero: He's now very similar to Vahkohs: he has to achieve a large number of kills (more than he has time for, thus relying on infighting to win), he doesn't ever really want to let on his true identity, and he's frighteningly powerful. I don't think the differences are enough to justify a second all-out-death character, and imagine if Vahkos and the Hero appeared in the same game...


Alternate suggestion for the Hero win condition: All faction leaders (Gladwell, Anama Priest, Darkside Blademaster) dead, AND personally kill either one faction leader or one member of each faction. This tones him down a bit while keeping the spirit of the idea.
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Still tough. Players tend to gravitate towards factions. Being factionless can mean being friendless. It's not as bad as Vahkos for the Hero, but it seems like another borderline sociopathic role in a social game.

 

—Alorael, who doesn't understand the Hero. Not quite, anyway. He sees the "kill them," but where's "take their stuff"?

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A number of roles have rules about first strike. When they interact, which takes precedence?

 

Let's take an extreme example. Suppose Gladwell has the Skribbane Addict as a target, recruits him, and then decides he wants him dead after all. Gladwell forgets to switch his immunity to physical and then compels the Addict to attack Gladwell himself. The addict has not taken Skribbane. What happens?

 

- Gladwell gets first strike against servants

- Compelled servants get first strike

- Addict has not taken skribbane and hence Gladwell gets first strike

- But they're enemies, so the Addict (the attacker) gets first strike

 

Which of these wins?

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"Always" gets first strike takes precendence over "normally" gets first strike, which in turn takes precedence over "never." If two characters with the same first-strike status fight, the two cancel each other out.

 

In your example, the fact that the Addict is being compelled to attack by Gladwell and thus normally gets first strike trumps the fact that the Addict normally can't have first strike. However, when Gladwell is attacked by a servant, he "always" gets first strike, which trumps "normally." Thus, Gladwell wins.

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Vahkos does not learn the roles. What I have there right now is literal. If anyone dies for any reason, he gets that person's spirit.

 

The first strike rules have the following precedence:

 

Always

Normally

Unspecified

Never

 

When two players have the same first strike precedence, the two cancel and normal battle rules apply.

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Vahkos no longer gets first strike? And what's the purpose of calling his attack magic if it goes through antimagic? Why not just call it something else? Say, unblockable?

 

—Alorael, who thinks Vahkos with spirits may have a problem. As soon as someone dies, and Vahkos can take care of that, Vahkos has a spirit. If anyone acts upon Vahkos, a spirit is used up and the actor probably becomes another spirit for a net change of zero. Vahkos has to be targeted by someone with the right immunity and then someone who can kill him, and it has to happen before he has an unbeatable spirit buffer. Given the usual pace of deaths, that seems impossible.

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Antimagic is a status effect. It is not the same as Magic immunity, which will still stop Vahkos. With that in mind, you can see he's much more balanced.

 

The way I see it, there are two ways to beat Vahkos: catch and kill him early, which requires good luck, or widespread cooperation from a lot of players to fight through his spirit buffer, including some who would normally be enemies. With pooled resources, abilities, and knowledge, it would not be very difficult to work out a strategy that would take down Vahkos with few or no losses.

 

The two big problems are, first, coordinating the movements of this large temporary alliance, and second, striking a balance between contributing so little that it fails and contributing so much that everyone learns your role. Stopping the new Vahkos is pretty much the only plausible scenario in which it makes sense for roles who need each other dead to knowingly cooperate with each other, which is why I like him.

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I can see what Sarachim is saying about Vahkos, and I certainly agree that he could potentially add a neat, cooperative, everyone vs Vahkos feel to the game. However, any death giving him a spirit does seem a little bit overpowered. I think any decent vahkos player is going to get 3-4 spirits before anyone has any idea who he is, and I really don't see it being possible, remotely, to defeat him at that point. Unless everyone sets out playing the game like vahkos is a huge priority (when he isn't a guaranteed role, this doesn't seem very possible), I just see him not communicating with anyone on day 1, and just getting 3-5 spirits by day 2 and being impossible to kill.

 

I'd love to see the role work though.

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The Anama Priest, Gladwell, and the current holder of the Holy Spirit cannot be harmed by Vahkos' spirits.

 

It now should be easier to coordinate an attack that can kill Vahkos. However, it will require cooperation.

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More than that, it still requires either eliminating Vahkohs' entire stock of spirits (unlikely given that any mistakes give him an extra one) or getting the Holy Symbol. If Vahkohs gets the Holy Symbol, he pretty much can't be killed without a great deal of luck.

 

Could you at least change it so either

 

a) If you attack Vahkohs and the spirit doesn't kill you, you get a swing at him as well. (This makes sense thematically, at least)

B) Vahkohs only gets to absorb spirits from players he's killed. I see why you don't want this, but otherwise he gets a massive advantage from just going undercover for a day and hardly saying anything.

 

Also, when Vahkohs sends a spirit to attack someone, is that a random spirit, or would he say for example 'Attack Excalibur with *i's spirit'?

 

-E-

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I could change it so spirits are only added at the start of the day. This makes being killed far less punitive and forces people to coordinate better.

 

When Vahkos sends a spirit out, he picks. When someone uses an action, the attacking spirit is random.

 

Also, since the spirit is always the attacker, things like the protected will deflect the spirit and cause it to be used up. There are defensive maneuvers one can do to help deplete his supply. Shanker can protect someone who then strikes Vahkos. Gladwell can use items on Vahkos. Anama Priest can use his nullify ability.

 

EDIT: I also made the last day of the game the day of death. Vahkos may send out an unlimited number of spirits on that final day.

 

To clarify, anyone who acts against Vahkos on day 1, will be attacked at the end of day 1 by a spirit. All deaths resulting from that will become Vahkos' spirit army. Of course, if Domont bags a kill with his ability, that will add as well.

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Complex, but it could work: as he is now, Vahkohs really does require everyone else alive to gang up on him, which I guess is the point. It'll be interesting to see what happens next time he appears.

 

One last query: the rules as stated seem to indicate that Vahkohs isn't told the roles of spirits he's collected. Is that right?

 

-E-

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What happens if Vahkos sends out a spirit he doesn't have (i.e. one that was used up by someone targeting him)? If his attack just fails without any notification, that would make it pretty hard for him. It seems like he would just have to wait until day 5 and hope they weren't all gone.

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I like Vahkos better now. He seems to have a decent chance of winning, but not a great one. At any rate, he makes things interesting.

 

It seems reasonable that Vahkos should be able to specify a list of spirit attacks like this:

 

Attack Omlette with Sarachim's spirit. If Sarachim has been used already, use Thuryl's spirit. If Thuryl is unavailable, use Marlenny.

 

—Alorael, who also likes the fact that Vahkos doesn't know what his spirits are. His incentive to stay quiet and go overlooked is balanced by his need to communicate and know just what roles he's been collecting. And the spirits mean there's a good reason not to take out powerful enemies sometimes. You can maybe work out some kind of temporary truce with, say, the DL Blademaster. Doing so with Vahkos is harder.

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Since the spirit you attack is random, I'm not going to give you a free swing at Vahkos. This makes his death purely on luck. I may make it so Vahkos can specify a list of living characters and the spirits to attack with otherwise it is random.

 

Nonetheless, I do like people having to gang up on him. With Omlette's proposal (a) a lone wolf could still take him out. This is not what I want.

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I like it a lot better than the 'Instant Impending Death You Just Can't Dodge And Only Have A One-In-Four Chance To Survive If You're Lucky Enough Have Access Clover Boots And That Assumes You Get Hit On Day One To React To It' method (IIDYJCDAOHAOIFCTSIYLEHACBATAYGHODOTRTI, for short). This at least gives the player a chance to survive. And prevents a possible scenario where an alliance gets ahold of the Fae and winds up Fae-Bombing everything into submission.

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You've always had a chance of surviving when trading Fae. It's just entirely up to her. I passed on killing RCCCL back when I was playing her. I really enjoyed the last Fae, I feel like anything that makes people think before acting is a good incentive. However, this new Fae solves all those weird "What happens when Fae kills someone on day 1?" situations and makes more sense story-wise. So I like it smile

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