The Problem with the Paladin's win Condition

Feedback/Suggestions
#1

The Paladin faces a very different challenge to win than Sheriff, its Unseen counterpart. The Sheriff is interested in finding the Unseen and outing them. After all, the Unseen convert slowly and kill fast, which makes Unseen games fast. If the Sheriff finds the Mastermind, he can be sure his work will not come back to bite him as he will stay BD forever. Converting a Sheriff is also risky, because an outed Sheriff can be scouted by another.

The same is not true for the Paladin. As long as there is 1 Cult left, the Cult can always spread. Games are much slower. So finding a Cult member has a much lower value than an Unseen. More often than not, I find that if a Paladin does really well and finds a lot of cult members, he just gets converted on the long run and his plays end up being his demise.

This completely changes the win condition for the Paladin. If you want to win, you don’t want to out yourself by exposing the Cult (nor whispering the results to the king, which is too obvious). Instead, your best shot at winning is to keep quiet about your results. In that manner, you can win in 1 of 4 ways:

  1. Get jailed by prince, and pass the intel
  2. Get killed, and pass the intel by having it in your will
  3. Get randomly converted. Delete your intel and move on
  4. Get linked by psy, and risk passing the intel (not as good as the others)

My problem with this is that this gives Cult has an enormous advantage over Unseen, whenever there is a Paladin that understands this concept. Even worse, I don’t think this is how Paladin was envisioned to be played, but it provides a much higher chance of winning than being aggressive with your results.

#2

Actually you can always whisper your info to the King and make him act on that? As long as several people whisper the King you will not be outed and can continue your search.

#3

Well I agree with OG yes you can pass info to king but it’s really hard to pass it super sneakily and also you become super high priority convert opposed to unseen game where the sheriff is not a MUST convert you can easily either directly kill him after like a day or 2 ( to dodge obs / knight ) or poison him after like 1 or 2 healers are dead.

I think Paladin needs a really big love tap as tbh smite is practically never used and when the situation comes for him to use it (late game) he’s either dead (out’d) or converted.

#4

I really like the current state of Smite tho. The correct timing & target of using Smite differentiate between normal players and good players.

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#5

I disagree with this, if you happen to get converted as an outed paladin who has found at least one cult, then you have that credibility to build on. Since someone has been converted, there are now 2 surviving cult members. If suspicion turns on you, you can use your former paladin status to accuse someone else of cult, buying you more time to convert further. Real lategame, conversions into a loss happen and that’s not an unique paladin problem, but just an innate trait of having conversions in a social deduction game. I think there doesn’t need to be a fix to this “problem”

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#6

This definitely I agree with. If I somehow become a Seeker from Paladin, I will always try and use my ex-paladin status and pray to god there’s no psychic where people will say that I likely have been converted. As well as this, this enables you a position to actually bus a member if you have express permission form them. Say you had two Invokers that used their ability and no longer has the power to do anything, they are basically screwed. Chains of Corax essentially buys you a day or twos time of a Butler claim. If out and you have four members, then they will likely to consent as you can perhaps get another Invoker, refreshing the Chains of Corax abiltiy, but you would have to provide another claim if possible if there have already been two dead Butler’s.

I think with the Cult, the Paladin claim is really powerful, and if you have been converted, it turns out that actually, you tend to make it to the end and by the time people realise that you were likely converted, the Cult has a majority.

There have been games where I as Paladin speak out as soon as I find a Cult member. I also always tend to get the CW (if available) to barrier me to prevent conversion (cab’t remember if that’s a thing now since I’m a bit behind in terms of playing the game). I sometimes even make it to the end as an unconverted Paladin somehow we have enough BD member’s left due to the NK such as Reaper and Possessor killing them off for us, so it is easier for me to catch the last Cult.

Paladin in other words provides a fun challenge. Use it at all times to your advantage!

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#7

CW anti-conversion barrier is a thing right now btw.

#8

What about just making paladin immune to conversion? It fits the theme of the paladin. A holy warrior specifically sent to fight the cult should not be tempted or be able to be brainwashed into joining them. Whoever heard of a Knight Templar who worshiped Satan? (Oh yeah, nvm)

#9

Funny thing. Used to be convert immune, same as Sherrif. As well as that, used to be unique.

However, with a unique convert immune class was making conditions for the Cult and Unseen to win as the real one would instantly counter, and then would have a healer at them at all costs, making it difficult to kill the real one and always resulted in a loss.

With the new Paladin and Sherrif, no longer unique for starters, so there is enough claim space for another Sherrif or Paladin (privided a second one did not spawn and was killed already). As well as that, if converted, the Cult and Unseen have a better chance of winning with a “confirmed” class claim. Nower days, the percentage of the Unseen and Cut wins have grown up to about half as much as the BD winning.

In honest belief, I believe that this is fine, the win conditions are still ok, and I think that there is no need for change again.

#10

What credibility? Everyone expects paladins to be converted. If you dont out your own cult after a couple of days, they lynch you.

Now, that can still be on average good if you find 1 cult. But, if you are really good at paladin, you probably can find 2 or 3 cult. If you get converted at that point, its just you VS the world.

#11

This refers to only this particular situation. The thing is that BD typically doesn’t have a couple of days after you have been converted as an outed paladin. Note the keyword: outed. That typically only happens midgame. Regardless you may be executed/killed eventually even, but that doesn’t matter as long as your faction wins. It’s contrary to the topic discussed here that you have as good as lost after you get converted as outed paladin and there is a problem with the win condition of paladins. I argue it is the same for all classes and this is not a problem specific to paladins. It is a necessary “evil” of having conversion in the game as a mechanic, outweighed heavily by the increased amount of social deduction necessary.

#12

For Unseen, the easy fix would be to add an abil to one of their classes to kill thru immunity/heal. Cult already has that so the healer things doesnt really affect them. The unique parts already taken care of.

#13

My thoughts on paladin are this - ANY time a paladin gets outed, BD expects them to be converted. And honestly, Cult is dumb if they dont either kill or convert them within a few days. Making them immune to conversion, but not death - And for Unseen - giving them an abil to kill thru immunities/heals - This solves both problems and still gives a bit more leeway for claims.

#14

There is a simple solution: Make them unique, unconvertable, and immune against any form of protection. Make visits to them hidden.
Problem solved.
Zealous(Passive): Immune against Conversion and any form of protection
Middle of attention(Passive): Visits to the Paladin are hidden.

#15

That sounds like a terrible idea. At the end of the day, balancing the entire game (and keeping the entire game fun) is vastly more important than how the Paladin plays as an individual. It feels like this suggestion is from the perspective of “I don’t like playing Paladin” without really thinking of the larger game.

(I feel this is a common problem with suggestions - people fixate on a class from its own perspective, when that’s really the least important part of it. The impact a class has on the meta is much more significant.)

Uniqueness is a terrible idea because it would make it harder for evils to claim Paladin (due to the increased risk of counterclaims), lowering claimspace and making the game less interesting.

Immunity to conversions is a terrible idea because it would decrease the strategic depth of dealing with a confirmed Paladin. Besides which, the CW is supposed to be preventing conversions; relying on that is much more interesting because it isn’t certain.

But my vote is a hard no to uniqueness, unconvertability, or anything of that nature. Those are awful ideas. The only unconvertable BD roles should be the Prince and the King, fullstop.

My problem with this is that this gives Cult has an enormous advantage over Unseen, whenever there is a Paladin that understands this concept.

Paladins who decline to out Cult because they’re afraid of being turned (and therefore losing even though they know speaking up would help the BD win) are gamethrowing and should be banned, fullstop. I have not even the slightest sliver of sympathy for them, and I find your suggestion that the game should be changed because a Paladin might choose to gamethrow like that to be completely awful.

It’s a conversion-based game. The risk that you might be converted and end up having to undo your own work is part of the game. The fact that Paladins are frequent targets for conversion (and are frequently lynched because of this) is a function of how threatening they are to the Cult (and therefore their power); there is absolutely nothing special about them beyond that that makes them particularly weak to conversion. In other words, you just don’t like the concept of conversion. This is fine, but means that ToL isn’t for you, since it’s entirely based around that.

The answer to your question is that moderators should aggressively hunt for BD who don’t seem to be working towards BD goals out of fear of being converted, and ban them.

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#16

Actually, the Paladin, from the BD perspective, should try to get caught Cult lynched.
And hope there is a second Paladin/a CW who can stop conversions.
The Sheriff, on the other hand, has good reasons not to out Unseen immediately:
MM is immune, so everyone who turns up Unseen is definitely no MM.
Night 1 caught people have a good chance to be not Unseen(Fool and/or Scorned target versus 1 Assassin).
The death of an Unseen might help the Unseen.

#17

Hmm…

This does not really sound like a gamethroowing offence to me. There have been times when Paladin actually instantly outs a Cult ember, and often they actually just tell it to the King first, so really, not really gamethrowing in my opinion, as they have relayed their concerns to the King. The only problem is what King did you say it to, and are they a threat to you after they find Cult members themeselves