I'm willing to try making Assassin Bots into Morningkilling Assassin Droids. I dunno, it might be better, it might be the same.
Spore-spreaders have it tough. Chances are if they get nightkilled it's over. Personally I'd think it would be ok to start with 2 or even 3 of them in larger games because a lone Spore Spreader will almost assuredly get ganked. This might be less of an issue than I'm making it out to be since getting lynched is much easier than you'd think. Just look at my victory in Third Party 1. (Check out my horn! *toot toot*). I don't think a tech slot is the answer. You know what, try them out and we'll see how it goes, but I'm placing my bet that the Spore Spreader gets ganked. This is like the one role who actually wants to hit a War Vet, by the way, so consider giving them a useless night action.
I thought players could already share techs. Maybe that was an old idea or something, but sharing techs sounds great. At worst nothing changes, but at best somebody comes up with a new strategy. It'd probably be more relevant if it mattered who actually used a tech, though. In a scenario where the pairing can't trust each other, I could imagine big fights breaking out over who uses what tech and when. There definitely needs to be a limit as to how much tech can be shared. I'd make it that each player can give exactly one other player exactly one tech per night. The player also can't use the tech the night they receive it. I'd make tech gifting not use up the Alien's night action, although one could argue for making it take the action so that in the future players have to choose between telling a potentially untrustworthy Operative to give away their techs or actually using said techs while risking that the Operative either doesn't use it how you want or doesn't even have the tech you wanted in the first place.
Minor issue: There's no reason to have both the Snooper Bot and the Tracking Devices. Only scum would take the Tracking Devices since town Intelligence Scientists don't have a night action to conserve. Sure, you can track two players at the same time, but as soon as one of them dies you're back to being worse off than if you took the Snooper Bot. I'd buff the Tracking Devices since the Snooper Bot is fine power-wise. The only thing I can come up with is building additional Tracking Devices, two nights to make a new one sounds alright to me.
Goals of new roles/actions/techs:
Spore Spreader: Kill. Gives Exterminators a really solid fakeclaim, plus it makes sense from a flavor standpoint, plus it'd even help them to get lynched
Hivemind: Protect if the conversion was successful, Kill if it wasn't or wasn't used to begin with, for instance if the Hivemind was roleblocked. You could do this the other way around (Kill if successful, Protect otherwise) to give the Hivemind a bit of protection if the conversion failed for whatever reason, but I'm more inclined to double penalize failed conversion so players will really avoid them.
Intelligence Scientist w/ Tracking Devices: Find if at least one of the Tracking Devices is still active. Base side goal (Survive for town, Kill for dopps) if all of the Tracking Devices are either unused or used up. Gives the Dopps a bit of a shielding as long as they keep a Tracking Device active.
Scientist w/ EMP Pulse Bomb or Psychic Pulser: Protect the night they're used. Not a lot of roles use Protect.
Replicator: No change when carried or used.
EMP Pulse Emitter/Psychic Pulse Emitter: Protect. Operatives gotta have something to claim.
Advanced Targetting System: No change when carried or when in use.
Oh man, I just read the starting role list. Please, please, PLEASE give the Mad Scientist invention list and Alien tech list headers and proper sorting. They're getting kind long and hard to follow. The obvious headers are by Scientist subrole and tech size. For instance, instead of
- Mad Scientist
Race: Human/Doppelganger
Goal: Based on Tech or Actions
Rules: The Mad Scientist has been secretly working on his amazing project in the town. He was going to sell it to the government, but due to the current disaster, he's going to have to give it an early field test. At the beginning of the game the Mad Scientist picks one of three technologies to start the game with, depending on which Varient they are. All Mad Scientists have access to the Mind Shield.
Varients:
- Military Scientist: Can create Sentry Guns or Assassin Bot
- Cutting Edge Scientist: Can create Body Double or Mind Control Ray
- Intelligence Scientist: Can create Snooper Bot or Security System.
- Body Double: A perfect body double. It could be organic, robotic, even a hologram. Regardless, it takes his place in dangerous situations while he stays safe. If the Mad Scientist is killed or abducted, the body double takes his place. This also applies to lynches during the day phase. It's a one-use item, though, so he's vulnerable after it's been destroyed.
- Surveillance System: A highly advanced security system watches over the Mad Scientist's house. He knows the identity of anyone who visits his house during the night. He does not, however, know their purpose. Unless it's to kill him, and he finds that out the hard way.
- Sentry Guns: Functions like the War Vet, attacking and killing anyone who comes snooping around the Mad Scientist's house. However, it has limited ammo (it is just a prototype version), and only works for one night. Should the Mad Scientist be attacked, it is the Sentry Gun that is destroyed not the Scientist. Once destroyed, the Sentry gun cannot protect against any further attacks that night. Like the War Vet's ability, the gun can be turned off for a night. This makes the house safe for friendly visitors but leaves the Mad Scientist vulnerable to attack.
- Snooper bot: This little bug-bot can trail another player at night and see where they go (if anywhere).
- Assassin bot: Once per game the MS can use the assassin bot to day-kill another player. This attack cannot be traced back to the Mad Scientist.
- Mind Control Ray: Once per game the MS can use the Mind Control Ray to choose another player's target for the night. The targeted player cannot target themself, and if the player does not have a night action (and is not the dopp/cultist chosen for the night kill), or if the player has a limited-use night ability and chose not to use it, then no action occurs. The Ray also allows the Scientist to control that player's vote during the next day and may change it as often as he wishes.
- Mind Shield: The Mind Shield gives the user a Mind Shield. Should the user already possess a Natural Mind Shield, it will be upgraded to an Advanced Mind Shield. An advanced mind shield provides the same protection as a normal mind shield, but has the added benefit of always appearing to work to the one using psychic powers against the user. Telepaths will always receive a 'Survive' result, Psychic Wardens will not know their power is blocked, and so on.
Due to their mechanical nature, the Inventions cannot be stopped by a Psychic Warden
Victory: Town/Doppelgangers win
It should be like this:
- Mad Scientist
Race: Human/Doppelganger
Goal: Based on Tech or Actions
Rules: The Mad Scientist has been secretly working on his amazing project in the town. He was going to sell it to the government, but due to the current disaster, he's going to have to give it an early field test. At the beginning of the game the Mad Scientist picks one of three technologies to start the game with, depending on which Varient they are. All Mad Scientists have access to the Mind Shield.
- Mind Shield: The Mind Shield gives the user a Mind Shield. Should the user already possess a Natural Mind Shield, it will be upgraded to an Advanced Mind Shield. An advanced mind shield provides the same protection as a normal mind shield, but has the added benefit of always appearing to work to the one using psychic powers against the user. Telepaths will always receive a 'Survive' result, Psychic Wardens will not know their power is blocked, and so on.
Due to their mechanical nature, the Inventions cannot be stopped by a Psychic Warden
Victory: Town/Doppelgangers win
Varients:
Military Scientist: Can create Sentry Guns or Assassin Bot
- Sentry Guns: Functions like the War Vet, attacking and killing anyone who comes snooping around the Mad Scientist's house. However, it has limited ammo (it is just a prototype version), and only works for one night. Should the Mad Scientist be attacked, it is the Sentry Gun that is destroyed not the Scientist. Once destroyed, the Sentry gun cannot protect against any further attacks that night. Like the War Vet's ability, the gun can be turned off for a night. This makes the house safe for friendly visitors but leaves the Mad Scientist vulnerable to attack.
- Assassin bot: Once per game the MS can use the assassin bot to day-kill another player. This attack cannot be traced back to the Mad Scientist.
Cutting Edge Scientist: Can create Body Double or Mind Control Ray
- Body Double: A perfect body double. It could be organic, robotic, even a hologram. Regardless, it takes his place in dangerous situations while he stays safe. If the Mad Scientist is killed or abducted, the body double takes his place. This also applies to lynches during the day phase. It's a one-use item, though, so he's vulnerable after it's been destroyed.
- Mind Control Ray: Once per game the MS can use the Mind Control Ray to choose another player's target for the night. The targeted player cannot target themself, and if the player does not have a night action (and is not the dopp/cultist chosen for the night kill), or if the player has a limited-use night ability and chose not to use it, then no action occurs. The Ray also allows the Scientist to control that player's vote during the next day and may change it as often as he wishes.
Intelligence Scientist: Can create Snooper Bot or Security System. - Snooper bot: This little bug-bot can trail another player at night and see where they go (if anywhere).
- Surveillance System: A highly advanced security system watches over the Mad Scientist's house. He knows the identity of anyone who visits his house during the night. He does not, however, know their purpose. Unless it's to kill him, and he finds that out the hard way.