Minor Merc Rewerc

Class/Lore/Fanfic
#1

Mercenary

Passive: Looking for Work ~ If your original target dies, you will randomly gain a new contract the next day/night.

Passive: Failure ~ If both your original target and new target die, you will commit suicide since you can no longer find work.

Night Ability: Stand Guard ~ Prevent others from visiting your target. You will be immune to death.

Night Ability: Rebound ~ Kill a player that accused your target of treason during the day.

I think this change is helpful for 2 reasons.
A) Disincentives having your target killed.
~ Pretty self explanatory, instead of contracting the Prince after your Ritualist contract dies, you’re given an entirely new and random contract that could be just as bad, better, or worse ~ not to mention there’s a dead period forced upon you where you’ll have no contract at all.

B) Makes Merc a more reliable claim for scum, less reliable for BD.
While it’s up for debate whether this is a good thing or not, I do think Merc is a little BD biased right now. If the Merc’s contract is random rather than requestable, it’s a lot harder to verify (not too hard) and much more available as a scum claim.
“You wanted my contract Prince? Oh sorry, just happened to go to 7 >.>”

Thoughts would be appreciated!

2 Likes
#2

Sorry to break this for you, but merc should be able to pick their target.

Otherwise if you RNG and roll a unseen member that is going to died, it is just not fun at all.

4 Likes
#3

Honestly I’m a bit torn on it, but I actually like it. The big problem with neutrals like alc merc and neut king, is they have huge incentive to purely focus on the side that’s already winning. There is currently a total lack of incentive for the merc to care about his first target at all, and this also would allow the prevention of a fool being his target, beyond the fool rejecting the contract.

#4

This ‘RNG’ is true of literally any Neutral in the game at the moment ~ most applicable being Scorned, which gives you two RANDOM targets to get lynched. As Merc is currently, your 2nd contract is always better than your first because you have the ability to CHOOSE who to officially align yourself with. This RNG you’re speaking of is critical to the game.

Also ~
You’re breaking this to me, not for me.

#5

RNG is required at the game’s start. Scorned needs target, Merc needs target.

However, adding RNG to the second contract will just have times when the Merc is screwed over because of what random chance decides. That just sucks.

1 Like
#6

I mean if that were the case, why can’t Merc choose their first contract as well?

Essentially, the reason I think this change is beneficial is that Merc has essentially no reason to stay with their first contract at all right now. While yes, getting a poor contract is TOUGH, getting a hard to lynch target as Scorned is tough ~ and I think overall the pros outweigh the cons on this change. The job of a Merc doesn’t need to be as easy as it is right now.

~
And of course, any changes you think would have similar effects to what I list in this post would be cool too.

#7

I’d argue it would be better if the first contract was chosen.

The Merc should lose uses of Stand Guard if they get a new contract, I think.

But you can get away with a random first target, since things are undecided.

However, if you get randomly assigned the outed Assassin in the last night when there are 4 Blue Dragon, there was nothing you could do.

#8

Is this a preferable alternative to fact that, in this situation as current Merc, you literally win although you failed to guard your last target and did nothing to help your new one?

#9

You could have done more to prevent your first target from dying maybe? This makes the backup goal riskier than the primary. Thus adding incentive to do everything in your power to save the first contract.

A second idea along the lines but maybe with more control on the merc’s end… the merc gets 2 targets at the start of the game, and can chose to protect either one, he wins if either target survives. That way he can weigh between his targets which one he feels has the best odds of winning, and focus on protecting that one. Similar to the scorned, which also makes more or less the same decision.