Mercenary Layman

[Laurel]

you can boost few of the layman guilds with mercs really well imo
examples: AA get club skill for smashing - only AA and Neidar ( ) usually get it high enough to work well (as you can spot in Freya's imbuements offers)

some layman guilds you can boost a little:
blademasters for better battack or knife+sneak/hide skills for thieves or militia (polearm skill for jabbing)

some laymans boost might turn out to be impossible to notice without numbers and tests (*nudge Petros*):
EW, minstrels, necros, Heralds ... pirates? KoT? monks (*nudge Booger*)?

on the other hand you can't boost SOME of the layman guilds with mercs AT ALL
examples: SB

too much wizinfo/testing included to verify which guilds' specials/spells depend on which skills most ... and mercpay for them

btw. I voted Hell yeah! Please twice! - would finally allow for pure ME-Ranger-life without complete blowing

[Chanele]

Alright what I ment was you cant boost magical laymans, skills dont scale damagewise aka capped.
Blademasters gets a boost but Militia? Doubt it.
Merc-AA is just plain sick:)

[Alorrana]

what if, insted of Merc layman.. you take the blademasters and change them in to combatmasters(unarmed) and weaponmasters (weapons) but keept the same system with the skills and xp and those lings? links ? klinks? I donno..

then give people a chance to form their own guilds, lairs, groups.. so you could be Vicious patroller of Sparke guard... ect ect.. what ever is okay, as long as its within the game, then you could make various of factions.. have a wizard to check the guild names.. and ok them.. so we wount get Uber Dart vader guards of the Imperial munk squad.. and all that nonsens..

then no "new" guild will be opened. and it will provide people with a great great freedom of choises. Perhaps make it a bit more interesting.. If your tired of your titles, go incognito, and make a new one.. if people want to play Vamp kinda thingies... then they could, in title ofc.. no teeth yet.. but still.. (even tho if you use some of the elements from gladiators with the charge message ability, You could change your special in to you bite the x in x location) Just a thought.. but anyways.. Wouldnt that be better off, than a new guild..? I mean G said No go for merc layman, But he hasnt grumbled anything about changing guilds with in the game.. I think it could be a cool idea.. But again, I have the Mad cow...

Jay or nay `?

[Laurel]

as long it's not connected with some strange lore (Khalakhor ...) ... pretty please with sugar on top!

[Draugor]

Alorrana has a very good suggestion there imo, we need more guilds that are for everyone, RDA only have one layman thats worth anything, and all that does really is give a tanking boost. And that boost is only good against unarmed foes really, doesent block to many weapons.

[Uther]

Now ideas started to spin in my head .. Alorrana you are evil Now I gotta write something.. damn

[Alorrana]

hehe well I was due with a good idea... just had to get all the other nonsens out

glad you like it..

[Booger]

monks (*nudge Booger*)?

If I wanted to become an efficient monk, I'd go for occ monk rather than Merc+laymonk, since I won't get the plex without being occupational member.

About the problem of finding suitable lay-guilds, how about a different approach (similar to the initial suggestion, but still not):
As long as you're not member of a layman guild, you are considered to be putting more time/effort into your occ-guild, thereby being granted a small bonus (+10 on a skill of your choice).
You'll miss out on the extra special attack you'd get from your lay-guild, and any other bonuses, but this would make you slightly sharper in an occ-area.
I don't think +10 would be more efficient than the bonuses from joining a lay-guild, but it'd give a chance to concentrate on RP:ing only one guild, similar to having a merc-lay option. The bonus could, of course, be different (+1 on all skills taught by the occ-guild, bonus to the special attack, etc), but +10 feels like the least amount of work needed to code, and I don't think it'd cause any unbalance.

[Uther]

There are always 2 sides of the coin.
I will elaborate later, haven't got the time now.. busy RL!