I know during Santa Zulg, it was asked for a Tribunal Revamp, which was placed on Long Term. I thought something was going on with that at the time with certain quests and all, but that has all seemed to have died down. I'd like to discuss a few changes I'd like to see to Tribunal to make it more attractable.

Inner Guardian:
Executioner: Many times, the Executioner has been considered one of the easier cabal guardians to raid and defeat. He calls Special guards, which is about it. I'd like to see the Executioner either given Axes (He is an Executioner after all, with the warrior related skills) or a set of permenant special guards, each with a variety of warrior weapons/skills. I'd also like to see the Executioner warrant anyone who attacks it. This would alleviate the players who raid the Spire when no one is around to avoid warrants.

Provincial Magistrates:
I think all Provincial Magistrates should be given the ability to assign magistrates to new towns. Not everyone is able to play at the same times. With four people able to assign towns, no one would be left out, and would give a chance for some players who play in different timezones to be given chances for promotion.

Magistrates:

First, I think a new level of Magistrate is needed. We have Magistrates of XXXX City, but I'd like to see a level where its just Magistrate that can cover all cities. A level below Provincial Magistrate. With the lower playerbase numbers, there just isn't enough people playing anymore. This would give the single and double magistrates a chance to cover all the cities.

Special Guards: I'm not sure if this is possible at all, but I'd like to see a 6 hour timer on special guards so that they can actually leave cities. IE: You see criminal at the south gate, you go to chase criminal. As is stands now, once outside the south gate, no more special guards. With the way this would work, you'd leave the south gate, and a 6 hour timer is applied to your special guards. This will leave you time to track down the criminal and slay him. After the six hour timer, if you are not within the city again, the guards will walk away and your guardcall timer begins.

Manacles: Allow Magistrates to apply Manacles outside of the cities. Just remove the Sequester. Would also like to see Manacles act better against melee opponents. Maybe something similiar to adhesive web where you are unable to swing your weapon.

Vigiliance: You are now able to call Vigiliance at all times. Even when outside of cities. IE: Arbiter days. Give Magistrates a bonus for being magistrates.

I'd also like to suggest two new powers. Please pardon for the sucky names.

Protection of Order: Give magistrates a "Protection" power. How this works. If on duty, confers a 25% dam reduction within city. No matter who attacks you. Outside of cities, confers 25% dam reduction against criminals only. Reasonings: Magistrates are one of the easiest victims to hunt down and kill. You know they are in one of five places when on duty. If you aren't a criminal, there is nothing they can do to stop you from attacking them whenever you are fully preped and they are not. This would give them something to give them a little bit of a chance against people who come into towns seeking them out.

Execution: A attack power that is similiar to the paladin prayer that does damage based upon how many times a person has been a criminal. I'd only give this power if the special guards prove to be too much to code. One use, then a cool down period. This is just to give magistrates a fighting chance against those who are criminals.

Overall, I think Magistrates need to be expanded upon so that they are able to actively pursue criminals outside of the cities. Currently, if you try to follow a criminal outside of the city, you are fighting with your class skills, often against people who have vanguard, deathblow, zeal/mantle, or outlander powers. And this is for a group of people who are when in the cabal expected to spend at least one hundred hours on duty in the same four cities. Lets give those who choose this route a chance.

Or bring back Arbiter which had a lot of these features!

Confession: I love playing Tribunals, one of my favorite cabals of all times. I have played them for over few years now. And I love that this cabal is very newbie friendly, but most frustrating when it comes to retrieval.


Tribunals have always been weak. There is not really any charm to be a Magistrate except you get free Detect Hidden/Detect Invis and Money when you are on duty.
<>I wouldn’t change anything here except a slight ability to know who are the Outlanders around, making it easier to retrieve.


The cabal IMMs do not seem to get involved as much (no offense to Marcatis). Involvement of IMMs may actually boost the cabal. The Provincial Magistrates can induct, but other than that they cannot do anything. Vindicators have one of the best ability (Blood Shackles or whatever the name it is), but rest of the powers are pretty crappy. (There was a Felar warrior who was a Vindicator. I remember him dying left and right.) And promotion to Vindicator/Justiciar is almost impossible. I tried for Justiciar couple of time, but getting to Provost seemed easier than that.
<>Maybe a little more involvement from the IMMs. Frequent promotions may help. Maybe something like a Mageslayer. I have seen more Mageslayers than Vindicator/Justiciar.


All Magistrates get to hide in their guilds. When standing outside the guild can be slept (bard songs and in my case, opium pipes).
<>Maybe a different version of fervor of the Fortress so it is harder to sleep the Magistrates on-duty. Also allow using the Warrant command and Call Guard when slept in their Jurisdiction, and right after the Magistrate have died (You cannot warrant when you are a ghost).


When I played Outlander, we always tried for Scales before the Codex. Once we had the Scales, then and only then we went for Codex except for handful of time. There is a problem in the cabal wars. That needs to be fixed.
<>Boosting the Executioner may actually help. When I am thinking of raiding the Outlanders; Insect Swarm, Thornheart and Spike Growth (excluding the cameo Outlanders) always makes me cringe.


When the Non-Warranted Outlanders are retrieving, people in their PK range can fight them only at the Captain and no guard help. I remember a level 30 warrior retrieved the fetish alone just by killing the Captain, resting at the High Road and taking his sweet time. And I couldn’t do anything. When I was retrieving without any opposition, Bioempathy alone kicked my butt.
<> I have no idea what can help here.



P.S. The ####ing grammar check is on, making me change my thoughts. I hate the ####ing thing.

1. Many tribes can't tell what's out there so they can't judge risk of retrieval.
2. Outlanders are happy to camp the tree, provided that it doesn't interfere with camping the fort.
3. The executioner is weak against Druids. A level 38 Druid can pretty much takes scales at will unless there is significant opposition.
4. Tribs don't have enough incentive to retrieve.

My solution?

Give Tribs acute vision in cities, so they can tell who is logged on but not see them when they go out of city.
Take away everything else. So they have no powers but this.

Make special guards unwilling to enter prosimy.

Give Tribs who have killed 10 crims a permanent ability to see that camo people are logged on. Give outlanders who have killed 10 thieves or assassins a similar ability for hidden chars.

make manacles also do some sort of faerie fire effect. allow it to work on non-wanted outlanders but to a reduced effect stat wise. keep it the same within cities. make ancient instinct pathways not work if manacled

nt

nt

The problem would come up how do you get wanted with no Tribbies on? Assaulting the executioner should almost do it automatically.

.

nt

On Incognitos suggestions:
I think adding acute vision in cities would be awesome for trib. Just so you know if you are totally screwed for retrieving.

I also agree that Outlanders should have detect hidden in their home base (the forest of prosimy and the Tree itself). It would take a lot of coding, but I think it would be more interesting for the game in general.

Not sure how I feel about Tribs getting permanent ability to see camo, same with outlanders and getting detect hidden after 10 kills.

My own Suggestions:
Tribunals should be able to manacle criminals everywhere. Outlanders powers should not be only limited to their home terrain. I think it would be totally cooler for them to do more useful things in the cities.

Homebase bonuses: Like Incognito suggested, acute vision in cities for tribunal. Detect hidden in Prosimy and the Tree.

Bioempathy: Great for defending, but not that useful otherwise.
Feral rage: Very situational, making this more useful would be awesome.
Ignite: Great power needs no change.
Making windwalk work inside of cities after a certain level (like 45 or so).
Make it so manacles work outside of the cities on criminals.

Both beastcall and special guards should work outside of cities but only if "on duty" for tribunals (they both might need to be rebalanced for this). If offduty (a new command) they lose their extra powers but can do what they want. Maybe have a timer on how long they can be outside of the cities and have the guards stay with them. Same thing with beast call. A timer on how long the beasts will venture into civilized areas before they walk off.

I think these changes would make them go after eachother other than defending more. Make it so all the outside the city bonuses do not work when Trib doesn't have the scales.

Bioempathy is very good. No changes needed. Have you ever called it upon yourself or another outlander?

Feral rage is great. I actually wish this was a universal power.

Windwalk should always drop in the city without the edge. It is a tactic thing and extremely useful power in most situations. The penalty is if you are not careful in your running it might drop and I might capitalize on that brief moment of you being vulnerable to trip.


The only change I think needed is that Vigilance does not work without scales. And that AI does not work unless you are wanted. These are the two cabals I have put the most hours into on each end.

The way the cabal war is set up promotes people not retrieving. Not just because tribunal keeps vigilance. But because usually outlanders are happy to just camp at the tree. And walking into an unknown uber-gank is not something most players are ready to handle. Even if you change it so Vigilance doesn't work without the scales it doesn't fix that they will be reluctant to retrieve unless they have a steamrolling caravan of gankers to retrieve with.

I still don't think I'm wrong about windwalk, but that is kind of cool about bioempathy. Never played a good outlander, only seen it being used.

You are correct about that the AI shouldn't work unless you are wanted (except Provost/Vindicator/Justicar) expanding it beyond the borders of the protected cities would be perfectly fine then.

The whole point of Incognito's point was to promote more fighting, rather than less. The whole seeing camo/cham would be great for tribunal to fight enemies more. Same with Outlanders seeing hidden inside their home base. Promoting more cabalwars means more fun (for me).

Edit: Added more description as to why people are reluctant to retrieve.

"The whole seeing camo/cham would be great for tribunal to fight enemies more."

This isn't really a factor the vast majority of the time. Usually new/unskilled players
bring it up and use it as an excuse. Good tribunal players have sharp situational
awareness via a myriad of ways. The obvious solution is for bad players to become
better, not to change things that work perfectly fine to accomodate them.

I know, because I've been in the gank.

Not everyone has locate object or an ally that does, and ganks will sit still for over an hour to catch a tough trib.

...raided the Tree, we didn't see anyone on (and he was Provincial Magistrate), yet by the time we started on the Spirit, Aeria and like 3 other Outlanders just ####ing "showed" up.

Since then, unless I have an over-whelming force, it's just not worth it.

So while they are not retrieving and choosing to remain on duty they have a higher risk payout when crimes do happen. They have to investigate further/etc.

Which is optimal for other people who like to get away with crimes.

The penalty and burden of not getting your item.

This creates more conflict and more battle opportunities if people know they are scale-less and lazy.

nt

I'm not saying any tribe should get acute vision, nor outlanders detect hidden.

I'm saying that those who have proven themselves should be able to see camo or hidden on the who list. Not be able to spot them in a room, area etc.

nt

Bioempathy on yourself is good. The purification ability is good. It can heal and do stuff like remove an invokers blizzard.

Windwalk can be used in cities. It just drops when you move from the room.

As long as a conjurer is unopposed, the Primeval Spirit can be taken down by any conjurer solo at or above level 40 provided they spend enough mana prior and tack aura or stoneskin on top of their sanc/barrier and shield as well as bring refresh preps in order to still walk with all the movement draining penalties.

The conjurer takes less effort to build than the druid but does take more effort to get into Tribunal given how spectacularly they can break the laws of protected cities if the conjurer in question doesn't have a firm grasp on the class. The conjurer can potentially get himself punished or booted for factors outside of his control due to his own incompetence. (excluding factors where other players specifically Outlanders and Villagers intentionally try to cause this situation, Immortals often overlook this when it's obviously the case)

As spores could put you at serious risk if you are evil and I can't see good servitors liking you pounding on the huntrdss and spirit for long.

Spike growth was always more of a problem than thorns, you don't really need the mana once the servitors are bound, particularly on an undefended Refuge which isn't difficult to verify either with the right familiar or simply setting the forest on fire and keeping an eye on who comes vis to put it out.

Conjurer on Primeval Spirit may not be as *easy* as druid on Executioner but it has the resources to be more or less comparable. That being said, it requires 12-48 ticks or more of preparation, gathering and scouting for the Conjurer to solo raid Refuge while a druid can pretty much just waltz in once he has his favorite herb sets in under 24 ticks.

Additionally, Primeval Spirit and Huntress are both neutral, provided you've done your requisite slaughter in the Twilight Mansion doing that raid or pillar packs of zombies southeast of Arkham, it shouldn't bug angels and archons too terribly much. This gets even easier with access to haste at level 45.

I was too noob to do it at the time but if you bring a sufficiently tough mercenary you have 3 other targets to soak up spells besides you, that's an excellent chance NOT to get spored.

> That being said, it requires 12-48 ticks or more of preparation, gathering and scouting for the Conjurer to solo raid Refuge

I have no idea what this statement is based on.

That is the time it takes with around 600-700 HP, and having gathered no preps prior other than the a/s rods you may or may not have beforehand. (I'm assuming in this case that the conjurer wasn't both exceedingly lucky and able to find their barrier before Detect Artifact, if so, this could be done as early as 35 with 200-300 extra mana in gear. I sure as #### can do neither of those.)

It's also the time it takes to scout the Refuge and be reasonably certain you aren't walking into a snare beforehand or that there's no lag stacking ganks lurking who actually can tank the servitors, since you'll have to prep as early as the Crossroads if not Arkham itself to ensure you're not sticking your neck on a guillotine. That being said, if you are sticking your neck on the guillotine you're better equipped than most classes to handle doing so. Chances are good that either the defenders will arrive late, be underprepared, or both, and a conjurer can either kill 1-2 defenders, heal up and raid again if they are interrupted the first time.

That at least was my experience raiding Outlander as an evil conjurer in Tribunal a couple years back, being the only individual capable and reckless enough to actually be able to take the fetish with a mostly empty Tribunal cabal. It's difficult to gauge the popularity of conjurers vs. druids but the only real differences are a conjurer can finish the job faster than the druid but the druid is less likely to have something go wrong that they can't fix or escape.

Of course bully kept the guards off.

Special guards can become insanely rough on outlanders if you get enough of them. I remember two rounded a hero druid with two hero sets of guards and about 3 lowbie sets of guards.

I've got a single #### to give...and it's just for you.

I like some of these ideas. But they do sound OP.

Protection of Order:I think it would be cool to add protection from chaos that varries from 10-25% depending on how powerful chaos is (why not use the nexus balance thing). Could be a strait 25% thing in the cities or something. Its not really the % that matters, even if it is 5% it is better than nothing.

Execution: I think this is OP, maybe a leader or provincial power if at all.

Manacles: I think they should work better if called in the cities but still work outside the cities. They still have to be wanted to call them.

Vigilance: Perhaps just seeing Assassin/Thieves in civilized terrain would be fine outside of cities. Only if they have the scales.

I would also like a command called offduty. Which would mark a magistrate as offduty (to other tribunals). Removes the sight of Vigilance outside of cities and disables any bonuses but gives the character free reign to do what they want (run around killing what not). But this would require policing. Which I dont think it will happen.

I like some of the ideas you listed but some are OP. Powers aside, I wish tribunal was not as boring of a cabal.

.. and know what they're doing.

Instead, most of the time, we see of a bunch of chars who are scared ####less
of even the possibility of having to retrieve without nexus/empire backup, let alone
seizing the initiative and actively going after Outlander. The whole cabal feels like
a punching bag, because that's exactly how its members treat it.

There have been very good tribunal players but they are usually few an far between.

I played mainly outlanders when I started again in 2010, and most of my memories are of dieing to Lamaiyan (spelling) and Arkellin, both of which were evil. (Well paralouit also)

.

Tribunal is fine the way it is power wise. If you had 2-3 decent players with the same play times Tribunal would function exactly how the original vision saw it functioning. Tribunal isn't very popular right now, and leadership is sparse and mostly inactive, so the people needed to bring the cabal to the point where it doesn't look weak as hell aren't really in there. Changing cabal powers is a short term solution that would fix something that isn't really broken.

In that case, what is it that you see is the original vision of Tribunal? To place wanted flags on people who break the "laws" in the cities? If that were the case, Zulg said long ago, he could code up where if XX did something to break the law, they would be flagged. Hell, with the Justiciar Network, it is almost set up already.

My view of the "BLOOD" tribunal was to be enforcers of order. Mark criminals and take them out. If a low level pk's and runs out of town, there is no chance of getting caught. Just has to deal with no shopkeepers and guards attacking. Perhaps its time for Tribunal to just pack up and go?

Already, we've had difficulties finding immortals who are willing to participate and actively run Tribunal. The concept of the Justiciar/Vindicator was a great idea, but its seldom given out. And only after spending a good portion of the time onduty.

As for leadership being sparse and inactive, the longest I've seen an applicant wait recently is two days. Not what I'd call inactive.

Researching and asking what Arbiter and Justice were like, researching both their powers and purpose (which Tribunal evolved from but is different from the latter two) before trying to suggest powers and changes for Tribunal given this will theoretically be their fourth revamp.

It is pretty abundantly clear that Tribunal is supposed to exist not only as an IC cabal as one interpretation on Order but also as a semi-OOC balance mechanism on PK with it's thumb firmly on the scales but only in protected cities, what with the ability to call guards and set wanted flags and give XP holes all while partially ignoring the loss of their cabal item. This is, coincidentally, while they are also not equipped to fight Outlander from a cabal powers perspective, if they got the latter they'd have to give up the former and Tribunal's purpose in that regard is vastly more important than any of the other cabals affecting PK on the MUD overall, even Nexus' management of the Veil pales in comparison to how important Tribunal is to keep people from getting roadpasted in total anarchy in the larger cities.

Anything you tweak there needs to respect that.

Usually when Lhydia or I are in tribunal it seems to be a powerhouse. Though we are not in it together. Its all dependant upon the player time. He is inspirational in getting people to join. I am more of a coordinator and aggressive.

Both styles do really well at rallying and creating morale which is the heart of strength and makes people want to gang with you.

Ive never been in tribunal and not felt like it was buff for what it is.

All for some revamp to make it more balanced, but it pretty much feels like this request is to take it from under powered to overpowered.

My goal is not trying to make things overpowered, just balanced game power wise, and more enjoyable rewardable for the people who decide to play Tribunal, and getting ideas flowing. Honestly there really is never much talk about Tribunal cause there is always a love/Hate relationship with them.

between Tribunal and Empire.

By getting rid of one cabal you would have more people in the rest of them. This merge could be easy as you could keep, more or less, the same powers by having two paths in the new cabal:

a) "citizenship" who would have, more or less, the powers of the 4 sects of Empire.
b) "military" who would have the same powers has Tribunal.

Give Provincial Magistrate and Sect leaders to vote for the Emperor.

Could be interesting to see the swing of cabalwars as the morality of the Emperor changes...