Just heard a Magistrate who seize the item of power of another cabal (except for Outlander and Entropy) lose his Tribunal powers for a extended time. Is this true? If so:

1) How long (in real time) will the Magistrate be without powers?

2) What is the purpose behind this game mechanic? It seems to me it puts Tribunals at disadvantage in Cabal Wars.

What would be a neat idea is giving the vindicator a power that allows a temporary prevention of losing cabal powers in the instance they deem it necessary to raid a cabal that has enough criminals or active criminals.

Sadly, this would require coding, which to beat a dead horse, is not available at the current time.

This is the penalty for raiding non-enemies as a tribunal, you lose your powers for a few days which isn't too bad for the expensive of raiding non-enemies. The only one who is void of this punishment is the vindicators, but if they are using their powers haphazardly, then sadly you'll probably get removed from that position.

Trib can be aggressive IMHO.

The big thing is you have to have solid reasons that fit. I can think of some real simple angles that could give a great end result to this.

1) A while.
2) Tribunal is a cabal that lacks the ability to "truly" go to war like other cabals may.

>2) Tribunal is a cabal that lacks the ability to "truly" go to
>war like other cabals may.

Your response explain a consequence of this game mechanic, not the purpose.

Since it clearly put Tribunals at disadvantage in cabal wars and at fighting criminals, I'm wondering why it has been implemented that way and how it is suppose to enhance the cabal game experience?

Ilyana's post is pretty spot on. It's not something that gets balanced for, since Trib has very 'unbalanced' abilities (being able to warrant and murder someone 40 levels below you is pretty unique).

Tribunal isn't meant to be "balanced" in cabalwars with random cabals. Trib has great abilities in cities, and warrants are pretty gutting to most characters.

My response answered the questions, since I didn't feel like there was anything to argue or justify.

-Ish

I get the point and I'm ok with the fact that Tribunals should not be at war with other cabal besides Entropy and Outlanders.

My question is: why keep using a game mechanic (wich has been exploited few times before) that puts Tribunal players at disadvantage when other players decide to use it for PK reasons? A Spire Immortal leader policy (severely punished if not observed) that forbidden war on other cabals could be used instead, no?

There's a big difference between the very 'unbalanced' abilities you mentioned and the situation i'm talking about: players can choose to become criminal -and suffer the unbalanced consequence - while Tribunal players have no say in the choice of being put at disadvantage.

>players can choose to become criminal -and suffer the
>unbalanced consequence - while Tribunal players have no say
>in the choice of being put at disadvantage.

Firstly, if you're an existing Tribunal player, I appreciate your passion - I truly do! I LOVE Tribunal, and as a serial Tribunal player, I cannot help but feel personally outraged whenever our favourite cabal is exploited by 'chicken' Ragers like this (I call them chicken with a mischievous smile and no real rancour, and really it's also just their present leaders I'm talking about).

But, to your points above, (1) many players have no (credible, non-immersion breaking) choice when it comes to whether to become a criminal, there is real RP pressure on a diverse variety of roles to consistently break Laws and 'suffer' the disadvantages of being marked Wanted, and (2) losing the Scales does put Tribunal players at a disadvantage against criminals, but what are these disadvantages really (for the average non-Provost, non-Justi, non-Vindi character)?

If memory serves, (a) cannot invoke transportation pillar to get from the Spire to your jurisdiction and back, so have to walk instead, (b) cannot use manacles on criminals. Not sure about Informant and not sure about Judge (but these are both investigation rather than PK-oriented), pretty sure we can still call Vigilance, call Guards, and marked WANTED, so yay!

>Firstly, if you're an existing Tribunal player, I appreciate
>your passion - I truly do! I LOVE Tribunal, and as a serial
>Tribunal player, I cannot help but feel personally outraged
>whenever our favourite cabal is exploited by 'chicken' Ragers
>like this (I call them chicken with a mischievous smile and no
>real rancour, and really it's also just their present leaders
>I'm talking about).
>
The more I interact with a certain Village leader, the more I think he's a power gamer who cares more about how many pk he can pull than the consequences of his behaviour on the playerbase.


>losing the Scales does put Tribunal players at a disadvantage >against criminals, but what are these disadvantages really
>for the average non-Provost, non-Justi, non-Vindi character?
>If memory serves, (a) cannot invoke transportation pillar to
>get from the Spire to your jurisdiction and back, so have to
>walk instead, (b) cannot use manacles on criminals. Not sure
>about Informant and not sure about Judge (but these are both
>investigation rather than PK-oriented), pretty sure we can
>still call Vigilance, call Guards, and marked WANTED, so yay!

What's really bothering is to loose Manacles since: a) it makes a good difference in PK fights, b) players using this mechanic for PK advantage are criminals 99,9% of the time. This loophole looks like a gift for power gamers and that is the reason I asked why this game mechanic was implemented. Since Ishuli said it was to limit cabal wars for Tribunals, I think there's another simple way (I might be totally wrong here since I know nothing of computer coding) to achieve this purpose: use a Spire immortal leader policy instead and bingo! you cut the grass under the feet of power gamers.


Now if you think power gamers are good for CF playerbase numbers, well... I suppose there's no point in having this conversation.

Basically nobody but the Vindicator is allowed to hit another cabal without consequences. You are allowed to retrieve your item with no consequences (48 ticks off duty).

Otherwise Trib shouldn't really be at war with anyone else.

where is the balance when Battleragers decide to be at war with Tribunals?

>where is the balance when Battleragers decide to be at war
>with Tribunals?

Fortunately this is rare, but occasionally you get bored/ bloodthirsty players leading particular cabals (in this case the Battle Ragers), and exploiting imbalance is usually exactly their reason for declaring War in the first place (because they have deathblow, resist, spellbane etc everywhere, whereas Tribunal has nothing outside the cities). So there's no balance, but it's not something that should be/ needs to be balanced for anyway. I imagine IC-ly the relevant cabal imms would deal with it eventually, and in the meantime the Tribunal players are not helpless either, can get creative with solutions.

>So there's no balance, but it's not something that should be/
>needs to be balanced for anyway. I imagine IC-ly the relevant
>cabal imms would deal with it eventually, and in the meantime
>the Tribunal players are not helpless either, can get creative
>with solutions.


Not sure about that... when players can exploit unbalanced game mechanics in a PK environment, I think it should be fixed.

At the same time, I'm curious to see what creative solutions (besides accusing these villagers of cowardice via bard missive and/or giving the Head to Tremblefist via an orc) you have witnessed?

>Not sure about that... when players can exploit unbalanced
>game mechanics in a PK environment, I think it should be
>fixed.

Well, I think the jury's still out on whether it's the Ziviriz and Nossos players 'exploiting' OOC-ly, or if it's just part of some perfectly legitimate IC RP machinations (devious drow Drillmaster poisoning drunk dwarf Commander's mind against honest lawkeepers??).

>At the same time, I'm curious to see what creative solutions
>(besides accusing these villagers of cowardice via bard
>missive and/or giving the Head to Tremblefist via an orc) you
>have witnessed?

For one thing, I've always immensely enjoyed the book 'Gates of Stone' in the Tribunal Library. No cabal is truly monolithic (including Battle) and there will always be cracks that can be leveraged IC-ly (disgruntled members, rivals for leadership, Villagers who are actually honourable and believe in parity, etc).

Also this analogy, think of the Blood Tribunal as a nuclear superpower, think of its Laws and Wanted flags as its nuclear arsenal (ICBMs ftw!), think of our Lady Ishuli as the nuclear briefcase (@atomic football), and lastly, think of IC legal reasoning and pushing through legally correct interpretations as the nuclear launch codes, muahaha! ;-)

But hey, in the end the important thing in-game is to stay alive and have fun! Heck for all we know - if you end up dying a ton as a heroic martyr in the vanguard - you might even reap sweet imm rewards for it! ;-) Who knows?? This 'War' is OOC-ly uncomfortable but IC-ly great potential for RP and PK fun! I hope you get to enjoy and not be disheartened/ suffer from it -highfive, fistbump-

The person who inducted you sucks...

There are things to read in the cabals rooms that speak about some of this stuff. You are suppose to read that stuff before going on duty for the first time.

Then again you might not be a Tribunal, so here it is...

Each cabal is built with a specific enemy in mind more or less. The Tribunal is about enforcing laws, order and city type stuff's for everyone regardless of race, ethos and alignment. Its conflict is with and only with cabals who are out to disrupt those type of things. Specifically Outlander and Entropy. Outlanders don't like civilization/cities and entry doesn't like laws...

Think of the fortress VS the village, you don't really see those two cabals taking each others items. Though often they specifically go after certain races/classes within each others cabals. Rager chasing the fortress mages.

If you want to run around taking everyones item, play an orc..

It's a simple way to help enforce that aspect of the roleplay for each cabal.

Timeframe isn't very long though... Might want to go read the books and scrolls etc inside the cabal:P

I already knew what you said about the specific enemies of the Spire.

The situation I had in mind for question 2. was when ANOTHER cabal declares war (like I've seen Battleragers do a few times in the past years) to the Bloody Tribunal.