Scents should allow delivery of justice

[Granger]

While thinking about a trade window (that would allow stealing from) it came to my mind that scents are in need of an upgrade to allow for justice.

With the current system a ranger that intends to deliver justice will either marked a bigger criminal (unless he pursues a murderer) than the original culprit (at least for theft) or likely to be barred (through visitor) from taking action when reaching the criminal unless tearing down the whole place, which is somewhat unlikely to do (when avenging anything except maybe genocide).

Thus I suggest the following:

• Carrying a summonable Scent allows circumventing Visitor debuff for initiating combat on the target character, generating a Olfaction of Vengeance instead of Smell of Assault
• KO'ing a character for which one carries a summonable scent generates Residues of Reprisal instead of Stink of Battery
• While having a Reek of Theft in possession the 'Steal' (from the downed target character) generates Redolence of Repossession instead of Reek of Theft - consuming one Reek of Theft with each item that is taken from the inventory/equipment of the target, blocking that particular scent from being used again until the target has recovered from KO (removing that theft crime and any scents collected from it could also do the trick)
• Possessing Stench of Murder disables the KO mechanic of the target character, killing that character generates a Perspiration of Retaliation instead of another Stench of Murder
• The actions above don't need criminal acts being turned on, as they're the opposit of them
• The 'justice' scents are not summonable, while they should give Redhanded debuff (to make it not that easy to get away) they don't impose Outlaw

In before the naysayers:
Yes, being a criminal should IMHO suck more than it currently does and it should be impossible to hide behind visitor. And yes, there could well be good arguments to tweak scent rules to cater faction warefare - but as I'm not involved in that I don't feel the need to come up with something, so feel free to suggest reasonable mechanics that could remove the shortcomings (eg. mass-spamming nidbanes from the scents collected on a battlefield) of the current system for that application.

[Onep]

Is Granger more Punisher or Judge Dredd?

[LadyGoo]

Yes, being a criminal should IMHO suck more than it currently does

What's the purpose of making it even worse? Would it affect the faction gaps and make new ones appear? Nah. Would it affect the factions? Nah. Would it affect the nabs that scavenge some palisades? Definitely. You have not been playing during W3, when bigger factions would use the scents as an excuse to slaughter whole settlements? Guess, what? Now they'll kill them in community markets.
You still can hide behind the visitor buff. Just afk inside of a house and close your gates - every bad guy does that.

[Onep]

Yes, being a criminal should IMHO suck more than it currently does

What's the purpose of making it even worse? Would it affect the faction gaps and make new ones appear? Nah. Would it affect the factions? Nah. Would it affect the nabs that scavenge some palisades? Definitely. You have not been playing during W3, when bigger factions would use the scents as an excuse to slaughter whole settlements? Guess, what? Now they'll kill them in community markets.
You still can hide behind the visitor buff. Just afk inside of a house and close your gates - every bad guy does that.

Honestly Ladygoo is like neutral evil, so it's hard to take any of her suggestions seriously.
And yes, w3 is totally relevant. I assume it wasn't dis murdering the nabs then? Did you really have to go back that far to avoid mentioning your own faction? I mean, I haven't played that long. So I just sort of assumed you defaulted to the safest argument possible.

[Granger]

You have not been playing during W3, when bigger factions would use the scents as an excuse to slaughter whole settlements?

I acutally did play the whole world 3 (running one of the top-5 villages, trade wise) and have seen 'bigger factions' slaughter whole settlements just because they could, without the need to resort to any excuses. But that's completely irrelevant to the topic.

[Onep]

I acutally did play the whole world 3 (running one of the top-5 villages, trade wise) and have seen 'bigger factions' slaughter whole settlements just because they could, without the need to resort to any excuses. But that's completely irrelevant to the topic.

Hmmm... is Granger a... Punisher?

[Amanda44]

I've always wanted there to be some kind of system that would make a ranger profession more palatable. I think these suggestions are a start, I don't think someone seeking some form of justice should then encounter the same level of criminality as the perpetrator.

[DDDsDD999]

[*]Carrying a summonable Scent allows circumventing Visitor debuff for initiating combat on the target character, generating a Olfaction of Vengeance instead of Smell of Assault

So people just have to close their gate, for one specific exception to the visitor debuff, and the mechanic as a whole accomplishes nothing? Really pointless change that would only fuck up people that don't know any better.

Rest I don't care about. Not having to leave scents for tracking someone is nice, but people that actually pvp would just carry their enemy's scents all the time, so they can loot them in a fight without getting outlaw.

[Granger]

So people just have to close their gate, for one specific exception to the visitor debuff, and the mechanic as a whole accomplishes nothing? Really pointless change that would only fuck up people that don't know any better.

Interesting that people and criminals seem to be the same thing for you.

And yes, I think criminals shouldn't have the benefit of being able to live in open cities.
On further thought: one could also argue that it should also be impossible for the culprit to evict a ranger that comes after him with scents.

Rest I don't care about. Not having to leave scents for tracking someone is nice, but people that actually pvp would just carry their enemy's scents all the time, so they can loot them in a fight without getting outlaw.

As PvP characters usually are outlawed anyway (either from attacking others, knocking them out or even killing them) and since they'll loot anything not nailed down anyway... it shouldn't really matter. Also this suggestion is intended to ease the lives of people who have to deal with criminals, how the latter interact with each other might be a different problem (see last paragraph of the OP) that I honestly don't care that much about their interaction with 'normal' players.

[Aceb]

I can only say that this would lead to more people dying inside factions during PvP. If I correctly understand this.