Lawyer

Lawyer Alias: none Alignment: Anti-Town Role type: Deceptive Choice: Night

A Lawyer may choose to protect a player from investigations during the night, causing that target to investigate as Innocent (or whichever result is most favorable) to Cops. This role typically hurts town regardless of who uses it (except in rare cases involving multiple anti-town factions), and thus is basically never seen in Town hands.

This role is not considered Normal on mafiascum.net, due to producing misleading investigation results in a way that town cannot reasonably anticipate.

Variations

Related roles are the Framer, who makes a player appear guilty rather than innocent, and Tailor, who has both Framer and Lawyer abilities. A player who has a permanent self-targeting Lawyer effect is a Godfather (or Investigation-Immune if a third party).

In terms of variants, it is possible to imagine a Lawyer variant who protects against tracking, Rolecop investigations, or some combination, but such roles are rarely used and do not have a name.

Use and Power

A Lawyer effect is best aimed at the player on your team who is most likely to be investigated. Many Cops use the strategy of investigating their null reads; thus, you should use it on a player who is hard to read, perhaps on a lurker (who is on your team, obviously).

The role is a little stronger than that of Godfather because its target can be moved around, but a little weaker in that (unless it can self-target, which is rare) it becomes useless when the team is reduced to one member.