[New Class] The Crone - Neutral Special

Class/Lore/Fanfic
#1

The Crone (Version 3.3)

The old one looked at the table and pondered, It’s fitting that in this room, the table that will seal their doom, is shaped like the eve’s full moon. What brought her to this point? Was it hatred in her heart or was it the lack of hatred in theirs? She took a moment and looked out the window to the streets, she saw people standing in perfect attention, lined up. She saw the honour and this twisted idea of loyalty and she spat. All these rules and posturing is a bore, we shall fix them all with this forbidden lore. None of them loyalty know, they have not a true passion to show. She had heard stories of the Kingdom, its politicking, its secret underground cults and conspiracies, and knew it would be a ripe nest to sow her seeds of hate. With enough hate and enough lies, I will be able to ascend to my patron’s eyes. She laughed to herself and circled around the table once more, Within the week the harvest will be grand, then it will be my sisters who will walk the land. With a hearty cackle she retreated to the shadow to plot for the first day.

The Crone is a Neutral class who is dedicated to sowing seeds of hatred in the living to create enough power for her patron.

Class Name : The Crone
Class Faction : Neutral
Class Type : Special

Win Condition: Survive to have all living targets be infected with a Seed of Malice. The Crone is considered infected with a Seed of Malice by default.

Passives:

Influence of Malice: The Crone cannot be negatively affected by abilities and Kills from those who are infected with a Seed of Malice. Their abilities show up as blocked, redirected or prevented by other effects.

Ominous Bargain: The Crone is immune to death at night once. If she wins and still has her Ominous Bargain, executions are prevented for a day.

Day Abilities
Sow Seeds (Day, Unlimited)
Infect a target with a Seed of Malice. They will not be informed. Can be used Day 1.
The Crone sees who is Seeded on the character list (much like a Scorned).

Harvest Deeds (Day, 2/Game)
Target a player who has a Seed of Malice. Anyone they visit tonight will be Killed instead of the normal effect.

Night Abilities
Familiar’s Eye (Night, Unlimited)
Target a player who has a Seed of Malice. You occupy the target tonight and learn one of three classes they can be.

Poppet of Mine (Night, Unlimited)
Target a player who has a Seed of Malice and a second target. You force them to target the second target tonight. You see the results of the visit. Has no effect on Conversion abilities.
For abilities like 2 for 1, Eradicate, Tornado, this only affects the first selection

The Crone’s objective is to cause enough chaos in the court that they aren’t even on the chopping block during the day where she is very vulnerable. Her main ability is Sow Seeds which allows her to put Seeds of Malice on the target so that she can utilize her abilities and gain her win condition. This was selected to be a Day ability so that at Night she can always act on the Seeded person. She can falsify claims by moving people’s actions around at night with Poppet of Mine and get information on key targets to avoid and Seed with Familiar’s Eye. She has the power to whittle down who can hurt her with her Influence of Malice passive. Unfortunately the more people who have Seeds on them who target her, the more her suspicious stature starts to show in logs, and she will have to remove threats with her day ability Harvest Deeds. In combination with Poppet of Mine this allows her to forcibly kill players off, at a heavy cost of spreading another Seed during the day with Sow Seeds.

Ultimately playing The Crone is a fine balance of guessing who will survive until the end while trying to keep yourself under the radar. Its a game of Seeding folks while also removing troublesome ones.

Change Log:

Summary

3.3 Ominous Bargain only stops executions for one whole day if she wins and still has her Bargain available.

3.2 Familiar’s Eye reveals to you one of three classes they can be

3.1 Familiar’s Eye now occupies the target and reveals to you their class
3.1 Poppet of Mine now shows the results of the action.
3.1 Thanks to RawkHawk for all your help in this thread!

3.0 - Shamelessly changed from Neutral Killer to Neutral Offensive for the Boslof Thread
3.0 - Win Condition no longer makes all other factions lose
3.0 - Removed Unassuming
3.0 - Added Ominous Bargain to make her a little more of a threat, slowing down Blue Dragon and providing once per game death immunity
3.0 - Removed Suicide on Harvest Deeds
3.0 - Seeds of Malice are no longer removed off Pardons on Trial
3.0 - Poppet of Mine no longer copies, reverted back to redirecting Night Actions

2.1 - Only 1st Pardon of the day removes a Seed.

2.0 - Seeds of Malice can be removed if the Seeded is Pardoned on Trial.
2.0 - Removed visitation immunity from Unassuming.
2.0 - Limited Harvest Deeds to 2/Game. Now kills the visited target. Harvested kills them self if they killed someone of the same faction.
2.0 - Changed Poppet of Mine so that it no longer redirects. Instead it just copies the Night ability to another target.

1.0 - Removed Dark Bargain (1 per game death prevention).
1.0 - Removed Influence of Malice removing Seeds when a negative effect is prevented.

8 Likes
#2

Woah!
This is a super cool class ~ all the abilities are unique without being too outlandish, everything seems balanced, and overall it seems really fun to play!

If I had to suggest one thing, I’d replace “Unassuming” with occupy and death immunity. While yes, not having it can slightly balance this class, I think NK having immunity is pretty important.
EDIT: Nor does this class really seem overpowered, even with it.

#3

This is interesting, but the NK falls apart when you realize it can’t win the 1v1 ever. Unless you can redirect them to themselves, but this still has the issue of being unending with any occupy immune target.

I would recommend combining the two night abilities together, then give her a new night abilities that lets her kill a seeded target, but it goes on cool down if a day ability was used.

2 Likes
#4

It doesn’t need to kill to win 1v1. If its her and the final target, she Day seeds and she fulfills her condition.
Unless you mean without assistance from someone else to kill, in which case the classic Possessor + Mastermind standoff already exists (and sucks).

I’ll clarify that she counts herself as Seeded for her win condition.

#5

I’m hesitant as Influence of Malice pretty much grants her immunity from the targets afflicted. Though as a first pass, I’ll keep it in mind if it starts to seem weaker on further readings. Thanks for the feedback!

#6

I don’t think it’s weak per se, I think it’s unnecessarily swingy. If Assassin stab or Eradicate hits you early game, NK is just wiped and don’t really have any counterplay to that.

#7

I could re-add Dark Bargain, giving her Inquisitor style immunity once per game.

Dark Bargain (Passive)
Once per game if you would be killed at Night, instead your aren’t. Your attacker gets false information back (such as “they were occupied”). The Crone knows she was attacked but not who did it.

Should be enough to get a foot hold in the game hopefully.

#8

I must have just glanced over the win condition, so never mind. Not sure how I feel. I’ll have to sit down and brain storm how thus could play out better. It’s intriguing, at the very least.

#9

Seems interesting, however if your day abiltiy is the only way to infest people, then i feel like it might be a bit too slow. You only have immunity to seeded people so that’s only the current assassin/CL or any alch/knights so it is a bit weak. Perhaps also infect people who visit(could help prevent the protectives on prince meta) or allow her to infect 2 people every day? Also can you infect the king?

#10

I’m going to say Yes to being able to afflict the King (purely for the win condition) but no to redirecting things like Guards and Order Execute with Poppet of Mine and using Harvest Deeds to have them auto kill themself. While the Reaper can Empower kill a King, there is counterplay with Princess and Observer whereas there is none here. Additionally I feel that having 3 days of Guards would make things laughably easy.

I’m going to crunch some hypothetical scenarios and see how slow / fast it really is.

#11

Hi Rawk. I reply first. But yeah, cool class, but overpowered.

#12

So I thought long and hard about this class, and I believe her to be overpowered, and I think that is due to her win condition.

Neutral killers are all balanced one the sense that they can, for the most part, only kill one person per night. This nk has the significant advantage in that she is +1 to her goal, daily, with no counter play. Even then, she can have a seeded target attack someone, and if it goes through, she is at a +2. Not to mention she basically is a combined version of sorc and possessor, but even better. Hidden visits. Uncounterable day ability. Use others to kill for you. Circle of death. Plus an investigative ability? I think she’s far too strong as is, and needs to be toned down.

#13

I agree. I propose that, if the crone kill the alchemist somehow, they automatically lose. And they only spawn with alchemist. That way, they will have to be more careful in who they kill. My ideas usually suck, though, so I don’t know if this will be balanced.

#14

Auto lose as a NK?

#15

Or a limit to Harvest Deeds.

#16

Btw only 2 abilites allowed XD night ones i mean

1 Like
#17

NI think everything isn’t fine, but the win con seems weird for a NK. NK’s win condition has always been “Kill all who stand against you”. The win condition leans more towards Neutral Offensive, as they consist of any win condition possible. But it wouldn’t fit in there since it can kill infinitely. The wincondition that you have thought of is very unique too.

#18

2.0 Changes

2.0 - Seeds of Malice can be removed if the Seeded is Pardoned on Trial.
2.0 - Removed visitation immunity from Unassuming.
2.0 - Limited Harvest Deeds to 2/Game. Now kills the visited target. Harvested kills them self if they killed someone of the same faction.
2.0 - Changed Poppet of Mine so that it no longer redirects. Instead it just copies the Night ability to another target.

Reasoning. I decided to add some counter-play to being Seeded. The Crone is an insidious game winner and because of the lack of counter-play on Day Abilities, it was only fair that acting during the Day and forgiving someone would remove the malicious intent. It would also make it imperative for her to select targets who won’t be tried often and keep her activity in the game to a minimum.

The Changes to Harvest Deeds was because it was too swingy before. Now it does have a large power spike, but it also is limited and allows her to disguise the Night Actions a little better at the risk of a stray Observer finding that things didn’t make much sense. Hurts the Voltron Whisper-Cop-Prince meta too, which is one of its intents. Considering removing the Suicide at Night, we will ponder this some more.

Removing Visitation immunity makes her Night Actions a little riskier and keeps the unique aspect of other killers in their court.

Poppet of Mine changes were due to the fact that combined with Harvest, it allowed you to dictate the game, while blocking people. It was far too powerful for what it did. The current version is powerful as well if you manage to get a hold of an Assassin, Physician or another synergistic class. The downside is that with the lack of Visitation Immunity you can be dinged when you Poppet and when you copy the ability to another target. This makes the game ultimately higher risk for the NK.

I’m still looking for ways to balance Poppet, though I am a lot happier with the current iteration of Harvest Deeds.
Thanks for all the feedback so far.

1 Like
#19

Can’t she NEVER WIN. IF PEOPLE KEEP PUTTING PEOPLE ON TRIAL?
And besides nice class, but neutral killer is meant to be able to kill to upset the factions balance.

#20

I have been thinking about it, and she is far too clunky as a Neutral Killer, so I have decided to turn her into a more insidious Neutral Offensive class. Same high concept, though the rework makes her more of a different type of survivor with a betting element to her. Ultimately she is still a threat to Blue Dragon (with Ominous Bargain slowing executions) and to Unseen/Cult (with her potential to move kills to them with Poppet of Mine).

Due to her not filling a Neutral Killer slot, she also has to compete with a Neutral Killer, which is why I wanted to provide her some form of death immunity until she can Seed the proper target and keep herself alive; though she can win with Neutral Killers and would make for an excellent ally if she can find them.

3.0 - Shamelessly changed from Neutral Killer to Neutral Offensive for the Boslof Thread
3.0 - Win Condition no longer makes all other factions lose
3.0 - Removed Unassuming
3.0 - Added Ominous Bargain to make her a little more of a threat, slowing down Blue Dragon and providing once per game death immunity
3.0 - Removed Suicide on Harvest Deeds
3.0 - Seeds of Malice are no longer removed off Pardons on Trial
3.0 - Poppet of Mine no longer copies, reverted back to redirecting Night Actions