Just some ability ideas.

[Barius]

Yes, Mercs getting paid more would go a long way. Currently, even Tse Gaiyan members get more riln per task on average than mercenaries of the Coalition do. For less work.

[Dorn]

Okay. I had a ponder. I think one route that could be taken to emphasis the fact that the Mercenaries of the Coalition are there not just to make money, but to protect the interests of the Coalition would be to involve them in a bit more... gray activities beyond they do. Currently, Mercenaries pretty much just do the "do-gooder" work. Dealing with infested and so forth, for no other reason I imagine than the fact that those are the monsters out there. Here are some task ideas, that might help reinforce they're not some organized military outfit but a proper collection of Mercenaries who do what needs to be done.

Strongarm
-An opportunity has come up, a local Merchant has refused to buy Coalition goods and is instead using a freelance crafter and is undercutting Coalition prices. They're currently getting a shipment coming in from "Destination" and your job is to make sure it never arrives so that we can force them into a deal.

A guarded wagon gets spawned at a location on the roads. You could get complicated, and have it travel from A to B with the Mercenary's job to intercept it before it gets to B, or just have it making camp along the route so the Mercenary knows it will be along there and just has to find it. Once there, the Mercenary has to either kill/subdue the guards/get past them, and set fire to the wagon full of items. By get past, it would probably have to be a stealth test to get past them, then a stealth test to creep up to the wagon to set it on fire.

Irritated Rival
-One of the Merchants who do business with us in "Destination" seems to have managed to annoy the "Thieves Guild/local thugs/etc" and expects them to make a strike at this store. The local authority has said they'll keep an eye out, but we want to put you in place just in case.

Simple enough, go to location of a store, and either have an immediate spawn or make the player stay there a short while and pay attention. Could even have NPC shoppers spawn, wander in and after a while one of them will reveal themselves as the person out to cause harm. If the player has to flee the fight, the contract is failed and the rival group succeeds in vandalizing the store. Contract failed, possibly even a fee removal but if successful have better than normal pay.

Gaia Fanatics
-We've started mining/logging at "Destination", and we've been bringing in a lot of good quality lumber/ore. Only problem is, we seem to have disturbed some of the locals who keep on banging on about Gaia. We're sending extra help, just in case they decide to force our boys and girls out.

As it says, either a spawn somewhere in a woodland or hills. Have a wagon, NPCs there, and a head of the group. Players job is to protect as many of them as they can while spawns of tree-hugging fanatics charge in and try and kill them. If the group head dies, they fail. If they succeed with no one dying, they get amazing pay. For every person who dies, the pay goes down. To make it really interesting, have it send out a Gaia distress call as if a player was causing the disturbance.

Hunt a Thief
-Some little maggot broke into one of our stores, and made away with *bla*. We almost caught him on the way out but at this point, it isn't even so much recovering the item but sending a message to any other thieves who try to mess around with Coalition property. We want you to find him, and break him. We manage to procure a warrant for his arrest, so if any of the local law enforcement give you trouble just show them the warrant and let them drag the filth off. Otherwise, make them rot in the gutter.

NPC gets spawned in a town, have them wander around. If you want it to be hard, have them sneak but considering the nightmare of perception... I'm not sure I like this. Either way, pretty much the description. Could even give them an option of knocking them out and leaving them to bleed, knocking them out and handing them to the local law, or killing them and making a gruesome example.

I'll try and think of more.

[Lysse]

Gaia Fanatics
-We've started mining/logging at "Destination", and we've been bringing in a lot of good quality lumber/ore. Only problem is, we seem to have disturbed some of the locals who keep on banging on about Gaia. We're sending extra help, just in case they decide to force our boys and girls out.

As it says, either a spawn somewhere in a woodland or hills. Have a wagon, NPCs there, and a head of the group. Players job is to protect as many of them as they can while spawns of tree-hugging fanatics charge in and try and kill them. If the group head dies, they fail. If they succeed with no one dying, they get amazing pay. For every person who dies, the pay goes down. To make it really interesting, have it send out a Gaia distress call as if a player was causing the disturbance.

This could be particular interesting if the fanatics had at least a chance to spawn with a variety of different ways to fight, including magic.

[Dorn]

Gaia Fanatics
-We've started mining/logging at "Destination", and we've been bringing in a lot of good quality lumber/ore. Only problem is, we seem to have disturbed some of the locals who keep on banging on about Gaia. We're sending extra help, just in case they decide to force our boys and girls out.

As it says, either a spawn somewhere in a woodland or hills. Have a wagon, NPCs there, and a head of the group. Players job is to protect as many of them as they can while spawns of tree-hugging fanatics charge in and try and kill them. If the group head dies, they fail. If they succeed with no one dying, they get amazing pay. For every person who dies, the pay goes down. To make it really interesting, have it send out a Gaia distress call as if a player was causing the disturbance.

This could be particular interesting if the fanatics had at least a chance to spawn with a variety of different ways to fight, including magic.

...I was wondering if you'd comment on that one considering Lysse was the inspiration for it.

[Kunren]

Love it all! Being the coalitions bruisers would be fun fun(and the more pay for tasks thing. That'd be nice.)

[Lysse]

Gaia Fanatics
-We've started mining/logging at "Destination", and we've been bringing in a lot of good quality lumber/ore. Only problem is, we seem to have disturbed some of the locals who keep on banging on about Gaia. We're sending extra help, just in case they decide to force our boys and girls out.

As it says, either a spawn somewhere in a woodland or hills. Have a wagon, NPCs there, and a head of the group. Players job is to protect as many of them as they can while spawns of tree-hugging fanatics charge in and try and kill them. If the group head dies, they fail. If they succeed with no one dying, they get amazing pay. For every person who dies, the pay goes down. To make it really interesting, have it send out a Gaia distress call as if a player was causing the disturbance.

This could be particular interesting if the fanatics had at least a chance to spawn with a variety of different ways to fight, including magic.

...I was wondering if you'd comment on that one considering Lysse was the inspiration for it.

I actually really like all of these ideas. Especially the varying "win" conditions. I'm all for mercenaries getting paid more, as long as their tasks reflect an increased difficulty, not just in terms of raw power, but in terms of tactical difficulties.

[Dorn]

Some more ideas!

Abilities
-Every Style under the Sun
In the training halls of the Coalition, you see all sorts. From the large Giganti, the smaller Grummer to the more noble Viali and they all bring in their own fighting styles. More experienced Mercenaries have not just witnessed one way of fighting with a weapon, but many. This proves incredibly advantageous when engaged with an opponent using one of the myriad of weapons they know a lot about.

Prerequisite: High Melee, though it will actually scale with the different weapon skills...
When an opponent attacks the Mercenary, a hidden roll is made between the Mercenary's weapon skill, and the opponent's weapon skill based on the weapon the opponent is swinging. If the check succeeds, the Mercenary suffers less damage than normal if the attack would have hit. This is to simulate the Mercenary having learned the typical forms and styles of attack the opponent is using having encountered them while training himself and knowing best how to try and mitigate as much damage as possible.

This is my Weapon
-A Mercenary's equipment might not be made out of the most expensive metals, shine like the sun, or have enough jewels to be worth a king's ransom but they know how to take care of them to make sure when they really need them, they won't fail.

A Mercenary's equipment suffers damage at a much reduced rate. This along would go a really long way to help with Mercenary pay problems. Passive ability.

Not Worth My Life
-Mercenaries take care of their gear, knowing a sharp sword could be the difference between life and death. They also know, that sometimes just because they've used one blade for the last ten years doesn't mean that one day they might have to say goodbye to it.

A duration based ability, that when active nullifies "This is my Weapon". While active, equipment damage drastically increases. In return, weapon damage is increased by a large percentage that scales based on the users melee (or weapon quality?) while armor protection is increased by a large percentage that is based on armor use (or armor quality?).

The basic idea here, is the Mercenary is abusing his equipment. I'm not sure how much I like it, though I think the general concept in terms of mechanics might work with a rewrite of the idea.#

Guild Points
The Coalition knows that its Mercenaries can be a handful. They hire them, specifically to be a handful. They rather expect them to be even worse, when it isn't unusual for some of them to sink their pay on drinks and proceed to smash up a tavern in what they consider fun. Heck, some of the tasks they send them on, the Coalition knows might cause a little trouble with the local authorities. What do you expect from bruisers? When an individual is important enough and useful enough to the Coalition however, it isn't unknown for them to pull a few strings to help reduce a sentence here or there.

Basically, for certain crimes allow Mercenaries above a certain rank to pay off fines/time, or part of the fines/time with guild points.

[Zoiya]

Tasks are certainly on my list, and I am looking for ways to make it so that the Coalition is different from any other run of the mill "soldier-of-fortune". It's not going to be immediate changes, but as I come up with things I will be keeping you guys in the loop, and asking for feedback and ideas. Try to keep it positive, I understand that this is a long standing frustration for some of you, but change does not happen overnight.

[Barius]

I actually really like all of these ideas. Especially the varying "win" conditions. I'm all for mercenaries getting paid more, as long as their tasks reflect an increased difficulty, not just in terms of raw power, but in terms of tactical difficulties.

There are tasks that do not NEED their difficulty raised in order to make the higher pay reflect it. As I said in a different post, there are other guilds who get paid the same or more to do what amounts to picking things off the ground and handing them over to their guild taskmaster. I don't expect mercenaries to be rolling in riln after a day of tasking, and I would actually be just as happy if the pay of other guilds was reviewed and maybe lowered a bit to reflect its difficulty, instead. But as it stands now, task payouts sometimes make very little sense to me.

[Kunren]

I actually really like all of these ideas. Especially the varying "win" conditions. I'm all for mercenaries getting paid more, as long as their tasks reflect an increased difficulty, not just in terms of raw power, but in terms of tactical difficulties.

There are tasks that do not NEED their difficulty raised in order to make the higher pay reflect it. As I said in a different post, there are other guilds who get paid the same or more to do what amounts to picking things off the ground and handing them over to their guild taskmaster. I don't expect mercenaries to be rolling in riln after a day of tasking, and I would actually be just as happy if the pay of other guilds was reviewed and maybe lowered a bit to reflect its difficulty, instead. But as it stands now, task payouts sometimes make very little sense to me.

Indeed. I played a rook for a very short time, and the pay was great for extremely easy tasks. I made riln VERY quickly compared to my mercenary based on guild tasks only

[Bryce]

Mercenary's Clout/Fame
One benefit of being a member of a unified coalition of mercenaries rather than independent is that you can draw on the support of your peers. Coalition Mercenaries of significant reputation and standing often have the admiration of others aspiring to be like them or rise to their level of accomplishment and fame, and can occasionally call on these admirers for assistance.

This would be a guild perk, not ability (no ability slot required), reserved for mercenaries who have earned a significant positive reputation through RP, not through auto-accumulated points. They can go to a Coalition headquarter area like their barracks or, sometimes, a tavern or inn or barracks etc. in places outside Haiban that Coalition mercenaries might frequent, and ask for some of their fellows to join them for an upcoming fight (for a cut of the glory and, perhaps more importantly, the loot).
- The fanboy mercs joining up would be of lesser skill than the mercenary recruiting them (otherwise they wouldn't be admirers, they'd be competitors).
- Being mercenaries, they would have a strong sense of self-preservation and wouldn't think twice about fleeing when tired, moderately wounded, severely outmatched, or after a fairly short amount of time (say, an hour?). They're not fighting for you till the bitter end.
- They would automatically take a cut of any riln looted from creatures or gained from tasks.

This could only be done once every so often, so it would be on a cooldown timer of some sort.

If one of the fanboy mercs dies while on the job, the merc who recuited them would take a serious hit to their reputation and might not be able to utilize this again for a while, or ever again, depending on history and circumstances.

TL;DR Summary: Gather a little group of mecenary fanboy NPC combat minions for a shortish amount of time for special circumstances. Outnumber and overwhelm your foes! However, you need to actually care for these NPCs, because if they die, your reputation suffers significantly for it. They're not to be treated as cannon fodder or suicide agents.

[Dorn]

With a Heavy Hand
-Requires high Melee and a Weapon Specialization
Using weapons for any weapon group the Mercenary has specialized in, allows them to when attacking to boost the chance of a specific damage type occurring.

For example, while holding a greatsword the mercenary uses heavy hand to increase the chance of hack damage compared to the others. The percentage chance for the damage type is removed from the lowest (or in the case of the chosen being the lowest, the second lowest) damage type and added to the chosen one.

With enough skill, it may be possible to remove the lowest type to a 0% chance of happening, in which case the chance also comes from the second lowest and so on.

[Rias]

I didn't put a lot of thought into balance. Just throwing noodles at the wall.

Tactics: Ruthless
Mercenaries are famous (or infamous) for being ruthless in combat. If they weren't, they'd join the sissy Templar or Wyrvardn. Tactics: Ruthless allows some passive combat perks:
- Kicking while they're down: When you stun or knock down a target, x% chance to automatically take another swing at them with your weapon. Or kick them. That'd be hilarious.
- Ruthless persistence: When you land X amount of blows on the same target without being dodged/blocked/parried, Y% chance take another swing.
- Increases offense a bit, decreases defense a tad.
Chances for these occurring should be based on weapon type, so it's not necessarily more useful for big slow weapons and weaksauce for lighter weapons.
This might work as a General Ability, but considering mercenaries would likely have a specialized technique they train each other with, I thought it might work as exclusive to give mercenaries something nice.

Self-Preservation (Awful name, let's think of something better)
Mercenaries aren't in it to be the self-sacrificing heroes. At the end of the day, they just want to come out alive. When they get below a certain energy threshold, have any of their wounds progress to major, or take a significantly powerful blow (~40 damage?), they get a short "heck no I'm not gonna die here" desperation buff: Increased dodge/block/parry, increased chance to break melee engagement, maybe -1 attack roundtime?

Tactics: Irwin
Irwin has developed a fighting style that is just overall effective in just about any situation. It's something of a signature fighting style amongst Coalition mercenaries.
Boring, but a tactic that weights combat rolls up, both offensive (more) and defensive (less). Maybe add a chance for interspersed minor attacks after normal attacks, like punches (if a hand is free or they're using a twohander), kicks, and hilt/haft smacks. Just so they have something to actually show for the tactic that they and others can see even if that aspect isn't noticeably powerful, along with the (boring) invisible number weighting bonuses. Because looks and style really do matter!

[Dorn]

I like the Ruthless one. Merc dirty fighting style.

[Rias]

Tactical Plan
Mercenaries are more than just brainless brutes (like those Dwaedn Wyr). While not large-scale military commanders, they do employ ruthless and cunning tactics in the small groups the tend to operate in.
This is a pre-combat buff. Take, say, 30 seconds of roundtime to go over some tactics to everyone in your group. You and everyone in the group receive a buff, perks depending on the type of tactic shared. Like Templar Chants, only one can be in effect at a time. It WILL stack with Chants, though, so you could have a Chant and a Tactical buff up at the same time. Like the new Sacred Chants thing, this will only be one ability, and the different types of buffs will require certain skill levels in order to be able to use.
Offense: Buff to Melee and weight attack rolls up.
Defense: Buff to Dodge/Shield and weight defense rolls up.
Guerrilla: Increased chances to stay at range and avoid being pulled into melee.
Protection: Increased chance for guards to intercept blows on the people they're guarding, increased Shield skill.
Pacing: Less energy loss from normal attacks.
Footwork: Less energy loss from dodging, increased Dodge skill.
Armor: Increased chance to armor chink foes, increased Armor skill.

[Kunren]

*faints in pure joy*