I would agree. I'm always somewhat perplexed at how SR can be so overly simplistic in some areas and overly complex in others and remain so through 4 editions.

Well, the number of different skills needed to be an effective Face is pretty high. If you just want to kill people, you don need the whole Firearms+Heavy Weapons skill pack; just one or two will suffice. But a Face needs all five of those skills.

The loadout of the Influence group is rather arbitrary; it might have just as well been Intimidation in there. Having an obvious, common social skill not in there just looks messy.

Personally, I'd take leadership out if I was going to make any changes to the influence group. Using the A-Team as an example, I see it as

Hannibal - Leadership
Face - Negotiate, Con
BA - Intimidate

Whilst Ettiqette is certainly part of the SR Face skillset, Leadership and Intimidate can easily be handled by other characters, most obviously team leader and team big imposing guy.

I don't think a face really needs intimidation, which is why it isn't included in the group.

How does that saying go? "violence is the last resort of the foolish"? Which would make intimidation a close second to last.

The last resort of the incompetent, but if you believe that, why'd you become a shadowrunner?

Intimidation is so much more than physically threatening people; the listed specializations are Physical, Mental, Interrogation and Torture. It's used by the Face when he's telling about his Troll buddy. It's used when showcasing The Stick, when Etiquette and Con are used to present The Carrot. It deserves to be in the Influence group; it was arbitrarily excluded to keep the group small enough. But its exclusion is ugly.

Arbitary exclusion, yes, but also perhaps the most likely social skill after ettiqutte to be taken by non-Faces.

You could say that any of the 4 skill groups are overpowered compared to the 3 skill groups. A 5 skill group more so.

If you houseruled that buying a skill group let you pick 3 of the skills in a group for a BP/Karma discount then it wouldn't matter how many skills were in any given group.

So why should the skill non-Faces are interested in be harder to get? If you think about which socioal skills a typical runner uses, Intimidation seems more logical than Leadership. Only some runners need to lead; all runners need to be able to stand up to enemy Intimidation, or to hold up people with a gun, or show the local gangs not to mess with them.

As for overpowered: I don't think Influence is overpowered compared to Conjuring, Sorcery or Firearms. Those allow you to take very drastic actions indeed; the most directly dangerous skills are in there. Most of the 4-groups contain several rarely-used skills anyway, so the point difference doesn't matter so much.

Leadership = persuasion. Persuasion is very important.

A loaded gun can be equally persuasive.

Not really.

The stick stops working as soon as it's not feared anymore. The idea of more carrots though... I think this is the major reason for the choice.

Basically, intimidation is perfectly viable but shouldn't ever be a long term solution. As my group just learned after they intimidated a rent a cop at an expensive hotel (Ghost Cartels, Baltimore Towers, he was on their side somewhat), the moment they left and didn't have a gun to him anymore he went and gave his contact lens's vid capture to the press and made their lives miserable. Had the face used a Leadership skill things would have gone much differently, well, at least with that guy and his very damaging video of them with a gun in his face.

The four skills in the skill group are all more long term forms of influence, Intimidation is far more temporary. Should this have been the justification for the choice? I don't know, but I'm fine with it.

Intimidation is used socially in many, many long term situations. Its used to shut people up with a glance, to get them to not question your authority (real or fake), to keep the riff-raff at bay, to get people to ask "how high" when you say "jump". Its a natural compliment with both Con and Leadership. Can you imagine Lofwyr being such an effective leader (and keeper of secrets) without using intimidation?
I'd actually say that if anything, the Influence group should have just Con, Intimidate, and Leadership. There could be a separate group (Diplomacy?) with Etiquette and Negotiate. Influence would represent the "pushy" social skills, and Diplomacy the "co-operative" social skills.

Well, there would have to be at least one more skill in that group, otherwise nobody would ever buy it; They'd just buy Etiquette and Negotiate individually and save themselves 2BP per rating.




~R~

Shut people up with a Glance = Leadership
Not Question Authority = Leadership
Ask "How High" = Leadership

All three of your examples could be accomplished with Leadership alone, and no hint of Intimidation what so ever.

There are 2 styles of Leadership...
Coercion...
Persuasion...

But they are both styles of Leadership... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smokin.gif)

Or maybe they're all styles of Intimidation. Or maybe they're all styles of Negotiation. Etc. Social interaction is a mess, so the skills involved are necessarily arbitrary. Your group should decide and stick with it.

Those all work when you are already the accepted leader. Intimidation can be used to do those things when the target is a stranger to you. In some cases, you would use intimidation to establish that you are the leader, and then use leadership. But in the short term its just intimidation.

Intimidation isn't always about stating (or even implying) consequences. Sometimes its just an attitude of social dominance that says "things will go better for you if you just do it my way". That's not leadership...

Which is why the Intimidation skill would work as it is... But it does not have to be in the Influence Group to do so... the Influence group has a pretty good theme going without mucking it all up by trying to shoehorn Intimidation into the mix...

Thanks for everyone’s comments!

Not sure about anyone else, but when playing Shadowrun (or even other RPG games) social skills generally have less value simply because it is much more difficult to protect your character from harm/death by fast talking or bullying, as oppose to casting a spell, throwing a grenade, or just running away and hiding.
Thus, due to their inherent weakness relative to other skills, is it really too unbalancing to have 5 skills in the Influence Skill Group?

On the contrary, social skills can be way too strong, because there aren't rigorous conflict-resolution systems for them (opposed to combat, magic, etc.). I hate to even reference the 'Pornomancer' builds, but there you have it.

The fact that a face archetype exists and is commonly considered something that every group should have to at least some extent suggests to me that social skills aren't actually that low in value.

I mean, if you want a low value skill group, look at outdoors. It is good if you happen to be playing a wilderness sort of game, but otherwise it is exceedingly worthless.

Yeah, I suppose it’s really specific to the campaign and the GM’s ability to resolve the “Pornomancy” encounters (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Shadowrun being the setting that it is has enormous potential for the face to shine.

People can be bought, coerced, seduced. Talk your way past board lonely security guards, convince your captors you're more useful to them alive then dead, get the go-gangs to help you in a pinch... the List goes on and on. Be the person who can get what people want, or at least seem like you can, and you can go far in SR.

The one long-term social interaction in SR that I can think of for which Intimidation would be key is extortion. The type of extortion that organized crime often actively participates in where they shake down local shop owners in certain neighborhoods on a regular basis for "protection" money. There may be others, but that was the first thing that came to mind.

Con is also persuasion. You're persuading the opposing party to do something on the basis of the lies you are telling.
Negotiation is also persuasion. You're persuading the opposing party to do something on the basis of compromise.

The kind of persuasion evidenced in leadership is just persuading people to defer to your judgment and authority. It's basically only useful when herding crowds of NPCs... or with commanding voice.

I really feel like we could get away with three social skills, all the overlap they have.
Like, intimidate, mediate and con.
Oh, and, I guess Etiquette. Which is a knowledge skill if I've ever seen one...


As an example of how twisted up and muddled these skills are, leadership has a suggested specialization of "tactics"
Seems like tactics would be a knowledge skill, not a physical active skill.

You've uh... missed the point of the Leadership skill. It has zero application within the runner team.

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It's ugly, but necessary to avoid making the skill group too cost effective and overpowered. If you removed the Leadership skill entirely, I still think the skill group would lack either Intimidation (more likely) or Negotiation (less likely). I feel that the leadership skill isn't played entirely straight and definitely undervalued. A face disguised as someone in the hierarchy of the target site could potentially order away mooks that wander near where the rest of the team is operating.

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My PC has Etiquette and Leadership. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

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That isn't necessary an act that is limited to Intimidation. It's also an act of Leadership.



This also can be utilized via both Leadership and Intimidation.



Can be used by both Leadership and Intimidation.



This is more Leadership than Intimidation.

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Arguably, Tracking and Navigation are still useful while it's the Survival skill itself that is useless outside of an Outdoors environment. At this point your character is left with, well do I spend half value for a skill that might not be useful on the off chance I find myself out in the wilderness? However it is precise the fact that social skills are valuable that I cannot see Leadership being supplanted with Intimidation. That skill group would be way too potent for its cost.