Mafiascum.net

It is pretty universally decided that a SK is the hardest role to win with, so I was wondering, how strong could you make an SK and have the game still be balanced? Would you give the SK an additional one-shot day-kill along with his night-kills, or give him immunity from night kills, or looks innocent to investigations? Or perhaps two out of the three?

Of course if you made a super-SK, you would have to carefully balance both the town and the mafia to make it work, but I was just wondering what everyone thinks one would have to do in order for to make a modified SK that would actually have a chance of winning without completly breaking the game.

SK in my last game had a bullet proof vest

I think you can give SK substantial extra powers and still not overbalance the game. My Trifia game had a mechanism by which players giving incorrect trivia answers were denied their night choices. My SK was immune to this. The SK was also immune to investigation by a variety of non-cop investigative roles; only the standard cop would get a guilty result. The SK's kills were also doc-proof; a doctor protection of a SK target would not save their life.

Despite this, the SK was cop-investigated several days in and lynched. Had that not happened, I think the player probably would have been night-killed shortly thereafter.

My general stance is that any role that survive until the end of the game to win (SK and certain types of neutrals, generally) deserves all the help you can give them. There are too many ways that sheer chance can result in their death, even given the very best possible play on their part.

I've done several things with SKs but they have the advantage of not having some of the mafia tells so it's not quite such a big thing.
Serial Killer almost won the second game I modded. In games I've modded there have been 3 serial killers and 1 of them won so I'd say in my experience it's not that bad.

I tend to give serial killers night kill immunity though, I think that makes it pretty balanced.

Anything you can give an SK to eliminate them dying by sheer chance shouldn't be a problem. I actually won one game as a serial killer by sheer chance, because the mafia scum though killing me would hand the game to the town.

I have written a game where there is a two person mason group.

One is a body guard.

The other is (secretly) the Serial Killer.

That should offer the SK a little protection.

Mgm wrote:Anything you can give an SK to eliminate them dying by sheer chance shouldn't be a problem. I actually won one game as a serial killer by sheer chance, because the mafia scum though killing me would hand the game to the town.

This

I tend to not combine SK's with Cops and give them at least one extra life (from NK not lynch), sometimes two or just immunity.

The Vision wrote:I have written a game where there is a two person mason group.

One is a body guard.

The other is (secretly) the Serial Killer.

That should offer the SK a little protection.

SK won't win that game, guaranteed. As soon as the DocMason claims, the SK id dead.

I won a game on another site as a fairly powerful SK... I was not only bulletproof, I was also paranoid.

SensFan wrote:

The Vision wrote:I have written a game where there is a two person mason group.

One is a body guard.

The other is (secretly) the Serial Killer.

That should offer the SK a little protection.

SK won't win that game, guaranteed. As soon as the DocMason claims, the SK id dead.

Why?

Because being a Mason is usually almost guaranteed to have you killed by Scum when you claim. And now, on top of that, the partner is a fucking Doc!

Whahuh? Do Masons usually claim their partner outright in your world?

Mr. Flay wrote:Whahuh? Do Masons usually claim their partner outright in your world?

If they are being lynched, yes. Otherwise, the claim is useless...

Hmm. How strong can you make an SK, you ask?

-XylBot- Evil Mastermind (sk; rare; 6+ players): You can recruit another player to be your minion. You and your minion form a team, and your minion can kill at night. You can't have more than one minion at a time. Actions: recruit
-XylBot- Evil Minion (unknown): You assist your evil mastermind by killing another player each night. Be careful, though: if your mastermind dies, you will die as well. Actions: kill

Stretching the definition of SK on that one, I think, since he gets a team. Let's try again...

-XylBot- Doublekiller (town; super-rare; 7+ players): You can kill two players at once. If you use your ability, you must choose two different targets. Actions: kill2

That might make the game a bit short. How about giving him some immunity...

-XylBot- Jackie Chan (town, sk; super-rare; 4+ players): You can kill another player each night. You are immune to all actions. Actions: kill

Oh! But there's a problem, he can still be lynched! So maybe this instead:

-XylBot- Blackguard (sk; super-rare; 7+ players): You kill other players. If you are lynched, you will return to life. Actions: kill

Balanced? You decide.

Edit: Oops! I almost forgot the most overpowered SK role in the bot. Believe it or not, I have actually seen this role lose a game once, but it took some effort.

-XylBot- Lich (sk; super-rare; 7+ players): You can kill a player each night. If you are killed, your soul will transfer to BUDDY1, and they will become a lich in your place. However, if they are already dead, your soul will be lost. Actions: kill

There's a more balanced version which is still a complete PITA to play against, and wins frequently:

-XylBot- Possesser (sk; super-rare; 4+ players): At night, you can possess another player. You will die, but your target will join your team and gain this ability. Actions: possess

It obviously depends on the setup- an SK in a 7 man AIM game has a lot better chance than an SK in a big 20+ theme game, so the latter needs more stuff. I usually make them scan innocent for starters, and if it's a particularly big game I'll often give them more. I hosted a theme game once where, if the SK was targeted at night, his target would automatically switch to whoever targeted them, and pre-empt their action by killing them. It only worked once per night, and replaced his normal kill, but that was a really fun role I thought. I had an anti-SK scanner of some sort, but I fiddled with his ability so much that I forgot exactly what he did.

I'd think the most overpowered SK has every single ability available.

SensFan wrote:

Mr. Flay wrote:Whahuh? Do Masons usually claim their partner outright in your world?

If they are being lynched, yes. Otherwise, the claim is useless...

protip: masons should breadcrumb their partners if they are confirmed.

shaft.ed wrote:

SensFan wrote:

Mr. Flay wrote:Whahuh? Do Masons usually claim their partner outright in your world?

If they are being lynched, yes. Otherwise, the claim is useless...

protip: masons should breadcrumb their partners if they are confirmed.

And if they are being lynched, a claim of 'Mason' means nothing at all unless your partner speaks up.

You forgot one XYL. Your bot made me this once.

Assassin Jester

(sk): You win if you are lynched. You are immune to kills. You kill other players at night. You also win when you are in the final two and there are no other killers.
Abilities: kill

The only way I could have lost was via SUPER KILL which does not count as a regular kill but as a kill that even destroys those nk imune. The mafia endgaming or voting me down would have resulted in me still wining. Having a role that is harmful to the town and can kill keeps the game going even when its just you and the mafia. The role is also called or sometimes.

Not straight up. There should be more bargaining in mafia. Claim mason, say you don't want to reveal your partner(s), but tell exactly how many are left. If you're believable, and a couple people bail off the wagon, keep it to yourself. If they're not buying it, ask your buddy to speak up. Granted if your buddy does stay in hiding and you end up NK'd then it leaves them in a pickle for later, but there are ways around that.

PokerFace wrote:You forgot one XYL. Your bot made me this once.

Assassin Jester

(sk): You win if you are lynched. You are immune to kills. You kill other players at night. You also win when you are in the final two and there are no other killers.
Abilities: kill

The only way I could have lost was via SUPER KILL which does not count as a regular kill but as a kill that even destroys those nk imune. The mafia endgaming or voting me down would have resulted in me still wining. Having a role that is harmful to the town and can kill keeps the game going even when its just you and the mafia. The role is also called

Rogue Commando

or

Rogue Commando Jester

sometimes.

Stop making up roles. I'm quite certain the bot can't generate that.

I assume that is sarcasm since you know I seriously got it on your bot. Me and you had a talk about it when I got it and when you changed its name from Assassin Jester to Rogue Commando Jester. Would you like me to paste our conversation here? I believe I still have those pms somewhere

You didn't take it off the bot, did you?

I went on a crazed power trip when I got that role until a tracker saw me kill somebody and then I still won via lynching

That role would be evidence of a bug in the bot. The bot doesn't have bugs.

Your bot had a bug with the Arsen role too until I exposed it to you once. I put a bomb on 2 guys. The next day had 4 people left. I chose to explode all my bombs but only one guy died so I had to fight to avoid a lynch instead of auto win at that moment. You had previously died and asked me WTF when the game was over. I said I have no clue. You checked the bot and the way names were scanned and matched with who had bombs was off in a way that it only matched one guys name. I still won by staying alive but I definatly shouldn't have needed to get passed that lynch since 2 should have died instead of one. You told me that you fixed this arsen bug once I had found it so it shouldn't happen again.

Aside from one super almost unbeatable Rogue Comando and this Arsen bug though I haven't seen any others and I would still rank you bot as the best mafia irc bot I have ever played with. I have seen some super buggery ones. That easily make yours the obv best bot

I've seen NK-Immune SKs.

I've been "Adaptive SK" activated later in the game (offsite), meaning I could take the role of whoever I killed in a game with no vanilla roles. (My fakeclaim was awesome. "Gravedigger"- digs the grave of anyone NK'd to take their role. The Mod told us before the game started that he made up a few of the roles in the game, so it was a believable claim.)

Also, haven't read thread.