Board Thread:Role Ideas (Town)/@comment-28047203-20180219062059/@comment-28112409-20180224124832

The people calling this a Town's PM need to reread the role idea. This is not a PM rehash, it's like the PM.

This role idea tries to be a "jack of all trades but master of none" in it's method of support but the concept just won't work. The way the Town is designed as a faction is to have roles in every field. In your usual game of Town of Salem, you'd have a portion of the Town dedicated to information, another to protection, another to killing and the last for support. With that in mind, the Bartender's value is really questionable.

Let's start off with the first potion: the ATK one. This is an absolute disaster in terms of game balance. There's already an adequate selection of Town roles that can kill in their own ways, no other role should gain the power to kill. Investigatives should remain investigatives, same with protectors and supports.

Most investigatives visit to find info and leave the killing to other roles or for a lynch. Investigatives have no risk of causing any damage because they just get in, grab what info they can get, get out. Giving them killing abilities now places a barrier and a problem in their way. They can't investigate anyone without the risk of killing an innocent townie. The investigative that is most damaged from this is the Lookout.

Giving any sort of killing power to a protective is either useless or devastating. Either they end up killing the target they want to protect, or the buff means nothing since the protection negates it. Town Killers have 0 use for the buff, since they all have at least a Basic attack. The potion fails if the target has anything higher than None in their attack power, so what's the point?

Other supports should not turn into killers. They should use their abilities to provide support, not resort into being night killers. Escorts and Transporter's jobs are jeopardized, Mayors and Rets should not be buffed at all and Medium's purpose is to relay information from the dead, not send more of them up there.

Overall, what the ATK potion does is completely shift a role's job into killing. It can't do it's original job along with the killing power because it completely ruins that. Either that or it's completely useless if we're talking about certain protectives (Doctor). This is terribly chaotic and does not work in a faction like the Town's.

You didn't mention when the notification is provided to the target that they received a drink so I'll explain why the potion is terrible in both cases.

Presuming they receive the notification at the end of the night, I think it's pretty self explanatory why that's terrible. Buffing them without them knowing leads to utter chaos and collateral damage even. This means you'd have to plan with them beforehand through day whispers. That means you'd need to rely on confirmed townies, make people believe/trust you are a townie, actually have a non-immune evil for said townie to kill and convince them that this kill has more worth/value than whatever they initially wanted to do the next night. Too much work to pull off one kill, ONE KILL.

The 2nd case, being the more generous one, is that you choose who to give the ATK potion to during the day and the target receives a notification at the beginning of the night to confirm that they've truly received said potion. This solves the problem of not knowing whether the potion will make it or whether it failed. It still has the issue of planning it out in the day, however.

Both cases share one major flaw with the other 2 potions that completely ruins the chances of this role being accepted, which I will address later.

2nd potion, the DEF one. Why this even exists, I don't know. All I need to do is to just place any TP (except Crusader) next to this just to show how useless it can be. Take Doctor for example. He already faces a difficulty trying to predict the correct targets for the enemy killers so he can get value out his healing despite him being able to heal every night, providing powerful defense AND having a self-heal. In some games, a Doctor contributes absolutely nothing no matter how skilled he is.

If a dedicated protection role like a Doc faces difficulty in protection during some games, what makes you think a potion giving Basic defense that protects once every 2 nights AT BEST would do any better?

SKs, Mafia, Vamps, some of the Coven. The only enemies you do anything against with that potion, presuming you even get to get the timing AND target right. Everything else obliterates right through. The Bartender's protection abilities aren't even up to the level of "jack of all trades", it's straight up garbage. A doc is all I need.

Finally, the immunity potion. Arguably worse in terms of value when compared to the DEF potion. Killers are always present, there are protectors always anticipating their moves. Roleblockers and Witches however, aren't always present. This is the same problem the Framer has. Sheriffs and Investigators aren't always present for him. You know what else can be a problem? The chances of landing your potion on the right target at the right time.

Even when you do succeed, the value of the contribution can be so miniscule unless it's an important role that you've protected from said effect, such as a Jailor executing a confirmed evil. Why is this even an option? You waste 2 nights to stop 1 roleblock/control? Even with a 100% success rate, this is just not worth the trade. Why bother stop an RB/control when I can go for saving a townie and preserving a unit of votepower for my faction?

If I want to be optimistic about this role, there are only a few real uses for it. There's delaying a vig and another townie's death by Witch for just a day, a small window for a townie to do something after constant Consort harrassment, maybe trying to flip the tables against evils when numbers are decreasing and the Town is close to or has already lost the power of lynching. Can't think of any other uses, role's a waste of space honestly. The situations where this role has any actual use are way too specific and rare.

The major problem with this role, which has already been mentioned, is the self-confirmability. Ret already has this as an issue, where he would revive someone and whisper to them as soon as the day starts, essentially confirming himself. If the notification is given at the beginning of the night and the potion's target is chosen at day, I can simply whisper someone that I'll use a potion on them before the day ends to confirm myself. If the notification comes at the end of the night, I just whisper them as soon as the next day starts and I confirm myself.

It should already be known by now that townies that can easily self-confirm are terrible. Spy's whisper reading ability was removed entirely for that reason. Confirming townies so easily just makes it so much more easy for Town to win. We don't need easily confirmed roles for a faction that is still at the top of the winrate chain.

Final advice to you, is to never try making a "jack of all trades" role for Town, ever. It just won't work the way Town's job allocation works. Townies should be given abilities that let them contribute to the Town through one type of method. Just because the Support alignment exists, doesn't mean it'd be a good idea to make it a mix of nerfed things and call it "Support". The Bartender not just as a role, but as a concept too, won't fit in the faction.

P.S No, Jailor is not a "mix of everything" role. Even if he was, we don't need more of them.