Shattered Kingdoms

Finney's looking at it from the perspective of one specific player, and only on the offensive. I'm looking at it from the perspective of the groups of players involved in both offense and defense. It's much more difficult to wage war against a Harlequin in a tribunal versus a Harlequin not in a tribunal, because in order to kill the Harlequin trib member you have to go through all of his guard NPCs, but he gets to ignore all of yours.

Although I'd like to hear your thoughts on this statement, as to whether it's true or not, and if true, if that's a good state of balance.

When war is declared between two tribunals, the tribunal with Harlequins in it is at a significant advantage.

You agree that an individual harlequin is not stronger by being in a tribunal, but you're trying to argue that a group of harlequins in a tribunal is actually stronger. The piece that you missed in your description is that while your opponents might get to ignore all your law NPCs, you, by not being in the harlequins, actually have other advantages given to you by the other cabals you joined. Their advantage is law immunity. Your advantage is a better cabal skillset.

I don't really have the experience to weigh in on if harlequin+cabal is too strong, but law immunity doesn't seem like that great of an advantage compared to other cabal powers.

Honestly, what does an individual gain/lose by joining in a tribunal?

The mechanical benefits of joining a trib are as follows:
They're better at defending the city they join, in that they can add a law NPC to their group and are always law immune in their own city.
They're able to bring a law NPC to opposing cities, meaning that from a pure manpower perspective, they can bring more to the table in the case of warring against another city.

The mechanical drawback to being in a tribunal is as follows:
You're attacked on sight by certain NPCs in capital cities you're at war with, meaning that it's impossible to travel to them without getting attacked and/or outlawed unless you gate in.

Finney's statement that it's always a bad idea for a Harlequin to join a tribunal isn't that cut and dry if you look at all the moving parts. If a Harlequin joins a tribunal, then he will be more fit to defend the city he's joined up with, and if he has access to gate he will be able to bring a guard NPC to opposing cities at the cost of having to bypass or avoid the specific guards that will aggro him. For cities he isn't at war with, nothing changes.

Finney's primary statement is that there's no circumstance in which a Harlequin is better served by joining a tribunal. I disagree: For one, it obviously gives the Harlequin extra tools to defend whatever trib he joins, and secondly, any class which can gate is most -certainly- going to benefit from being able to bring a guard NPC into enemy territory bypassing the aggroing guards. Given the fact that taunting is now one of the few semi-reliable ways to secure kills, and that the only way to gain access to reliable taunts without being a swashbuckler is by using a guard NPC, this should not be underestimated.


What he completely avoids is the following, however, which is the crux of my argument: Tribunal warfare builds up large outlaw lists on both sides except in one circumstance: Harlequins. Harlequins are able to fully participate in tribunal warfare with zero consequences from the law code, a benefit that no other cabal gets to gain. It is a constant uphill battle to engage in a prolonged tribunal war against a tribunal with Harlequin in it, because a Harlequin's outlaw lists will never matter, even if they ever get created at all, whereas eventually the other members in the conflict will be choked out of any possibility for city PvP on account of the sheer number of bounty NPCs they'll start spawning.

Tribunals with Harlequins should not be as overpowered as they currently are. My suggestion is that it should not be possible to bring your tribunal guards into enemy territory while also being law immune.

For what it is worth this is actually what probably had the greatest effect in driving me to inactivity. The game is simply not fun, not entertaining when you know you're dealing with a player to which you have a severe disadvantage to in terms of the inherent coding of the game. So long as tribunal members can manipulate this system, Taslamar, The Empire, and even Zhenshi's tribunal members will be at a debilitating disadvantage.

except that player would have been able to do the exact same things you claim drove you into inactivity, but even more effectively w/o being in a tribunal

It is rather typical that if a single harlequin has it out for you, you can retaliate against them and not bring down the entire cabal against you.
When they are also in a tribunal this tends to change.
I often saw this with the harlequin being the aggressor who started wars between tribunals.
This could be contributed to the leadership of either group, but it would be unusual to see a strict leader who swiftly punishes any misbehavior.


While the harlequin might operate better alone, the harlequin tribunal member is dragging a lot of extra baggage that the opponent now has to deal with.

That's my entire point. Going to war with the Harlequins is hard, yet oftentimes isn't necessary if it's just one Harlequin acting alone. As a general rule, not every Harlequin is going to try and kill you if you respond in kind to a single Harlequin who is "at war" with your tribunal.

On the other hand, if that Harlequin is also in a tribunal, then all they have to do is sit in their city with a guard NPC after attacking you, where in order to retaliate you're going to have to attack the tribunal of the city and inevitably get outlawed and potentially go to war with the entire tribunal: Where the Harlequin, again, has an inherently favored advantage. Despite what Finney says, the ability to bring a guard NPC to an attack in trade of having a select few NPCs avoidable automatically aggro on you in warring kingdoms is not always a negative trade: In many situations it's a huge bonus, especially considering that every tribunal has a taunting NPC now.

the benefit of being in a tribunal as a harlequin is not worth the drawback, since it directly nerfs ur best cabal ability. it's the only cabal where joining a tribunal actually makes ur character weaker and less effective in pk. joining a tribunal with every other cabal makes ur character more powerful w/ no drawbacks.

u can keep beating ur dead horse tho.

Uhhh, no. All cabals, including Harlequins, draw aggro from specific warring capital cityguards even if they aren't outlawed, and claiming otherwise is horribly wrong. Your entire argument has revolved around the idea that the "Invaders are attacking" script is such a heavy nerf to Harlequins that it isn't worth the benefits of joining a tribunal. You don't get to claim that such a drawback for one cabal simply doesn't exist for others, and the fact that you attempt to take that line of reasoning is very interesting.

It's just as valid to say that that the very drawback of drawing aggro from capital cityguards is actually best avoided by being a Harlequin, because unlike all other cabals, Harlequins get to be aggro'd by capital cityguards yet still fight/kill those guards while being unreportable.

not sure why ur trying to strawman - u have a bad habit of that. i'll let it slide this time, but i'll have to report u for trolling if u do it again

never said tribunal characters in a cabal other than harlequin don't get attacked by tribunal guards.

try again

what i have said is that if ur smart and don't join a tribunal as a harlequin, u can walk right by those tribunal guards with ur cabal abilities. it's only when u self nerf ur character by joining a tribunal that u can't do that. it's the only cabal where joining a tribunal actually nerfs ur best cabal ability and makes ur character weaker.