Social Adept?, Have you done it? Options

[Velocity]

I've heard mention of an archetype referred to as a "Social Adept," i.e. an Awakened Adept who focuses on improving her or his social skills, charisma, persuasiveness, etc. After a quick search on Dumpshock and the 'net at large, I haven't really found any concrete information so I thought I'd ask: has anyone made one of these characters? I glanced through the BBB and Magic in the Shadows and came up with a preliminary list of powers:

Empathic Sense
Enhanced Perception
Iron Will
Magic Resistance
Magic Sense
True Sight

Throw in the following Edges and you have a very charming character indeed:

Exceptional Attribute (Charisma)
Friendly Face
Good Looking And Knows It

Thoughts? Suggestions?

This post has been edited by Velocity: Oct 6 2003, 04:51 PM

[Siege]

Some social adept suggestions have also included such powers as:

Improved Pheremones
Improved ability: social skills (negotiations, Etiquette, etc.)
Improved mental stats (Charisma, Intelligence, Willpower)


Depending on how creative you are and what your GM rules:

Enhanced smell (smell fear, nervousness, etc. -- Perrin is a good example)
Astral perception

You might even try to make a case for "Image Enhancement" -- the cyberware is a hybrid of microscopic/teleoptic enhancement that allows the user to focus on particular aspects or details. A cybernetic version of "Select Sound Filter". Which means the adept could do it too -- which in turn would allow the adept to pick up cues like "keeps glancing in the corner, sweating a lot..."

-Siege

[Velocity]

[Ancient History]

The first few powers Siege mentioned aren't "official," if that's what you mean.

Enhanced Centering (etiquette) might be in order.

[Siege]

Sorry, I just have been clearer.

The "enhanced pheremones" do not exist as an adept power. Arguments tend to run both ways as to the validity -- but so far there is not a canon ruling one way or the other. ("Garsh, you sweat pretty!")

The same is true for the other powers -- suggested extensions of powers that a "social adept" might have.

The description of "physical" tends to get blurry at this point -- if magic manifests into an adept's "physical" abilities, Charisma (Attractiveness) could certainly get a boost.

Social skills have physical components that could be augmented by the magic -- voice pitch, eye contact, physical appearance and so on.

However, as I've said -- these aren't canon powers and there arguments on both sides of the fence.

-Siege

[Fortune]

[Herald of Verjig...]

[Buzzed]

A spin on this would be a Social Adept that focuses on intimidation.

Temperature tolerance and pain resistance. Burn a flame on your own hand and smile to add a fearful flavor to the person you are interrogating.

[Shanshu Freeman]

If eyesight was amped enough, magically or otherwise, could our soc/ad see the skin changes consistant with galvanic skin response?

[Siege]

[Shanshu Freeman]

[Kanada Ten]

[Glyph]

Improved ability, according to the FAQ, is rather limited in what skills it can, and cannot, improve. The same thing goes for using the Improved Attribute power to improve mental Attributes. Adepts can get a lot of powers that boost their effectiveness in social situations.

A social adept could have: Empathic Sense; Improved Senses: hearing amplification, hearing dampening, select sound filter, low-light vision, flare compensation, eye magnification, microscopic vision, improved scent; Improved Ability/Stealth: 6; Flexibility: 2; Sixth Sense: 2; and Traceless Walk. That gives you the smooth thief/socialite type. There are many other kinds of "social adepts".

Spellcasters also make good "social specialists", with spells such as Influence, Control Emotions, and Alter Memory. You have to be very careful with such spells, though.

[The White Dwarf]

Velocity, that kind of character can work very well. You asked for advice and ideas, so here they are.

First Id drop the good-looking-and-knows-it as its an example edge. Go for Good Reputation at 2 points instead. That gives you a -2 tn mod to tests with people that know your rep (like fixers, runners, contacts etc) and then lets friendly face work on anyone youre trying to smooth talk (random bouncer, some guard, etc). Photographic memory can be a boon as well, for remembering faces, names, and other things you might catch a fast glimpse of while snooping around.

Then, rather than look to house rule powers, Id focus on some of the more pertinent canon ones. Astral Perception, Empathic Sense, Enchanced Senses are all good ones. Depending on how you want to carry yourself Delay Damage 2 and Killing Hands can work wonders ... getting to see the local mafia head and then threatening him if he wont give in to your demands works a lot better when you already did deadly damage to his body gaurd when he frisks you. No? Allow me to demonstrate my powah .. *bodyguard keels over*. Not that you wont get repercussions but just as a thought.

Also, a mix of some light end cyber and bio can help. A retinal duplication mod, image links for datajack linked data like passcodes and eventually trying to get the Tailored Pheremones bioware are all good ideas. Theres some more cyber like a voice modulator that can help when impersonating someone, but again that depends on where you want to take your guy.

[Velocity]

[TheDude]

I have found you have to work pretty hard at creating your own material for a social adept. The canon material isn't sufficient to support this at the moment.

The handful of canon crafted social adepts I have taken a crack at end up sort-of washed out in a group dynamic - they don't really have the same specialization advantages as other character archtypes.

[Velocity]

[DV8]

Because one of my players is now playing a Social/Mental Adept, I thought I'd hack together some sort of guideline as to which powers she could pick and choose from. I wrote it up here.

[simonw2000]

Which book has Pheromone Control in? I think an Elf would be good for a Face Adept. I'm trying to make one who used to be in a gang. Imagine their surprise when the elf who's chatting a guard up to distract him jumps the poor chummer with Killing Hands Serious! :D

[Siege]

Pheremone control is not a canon power.

-Siege

[Lilt]

Combining Enhanced Perception with Astral Perception is a nasty one, I think that DV8's social adept rules are OK in general but the encanced social ability is perhaps too cheap. Physads get most of their useful skills at .5/level with only Athletics and Stealth at .25/level. I'd put Ettiquette, in some senses, as the social equivalent of Athletics and Stealth combined. and due to its dual usefulness it'd be boosted at .5/level. I'd also put put all of the others at .5/level as otherwise those social dice are just coming too easily (that's just IMHO on that last bit). Empathic sense is also fairly powerful for 0.5 power points as it gives you the social functionality of astral perception without making you an obvious anomily to astral security, I'd suggest .75pts for that although that does give it a non-standard power cost.[/bitching]

Social adepts can be powerful, especially with centering. If you allow things like centering for successes and rolling 14 dice on low-end ettiquette tests (availability 2/12 hours) then, god forbid, it could take you less than an hour to walk down to the shops and buy something!

Another thing you might want to consider is that some social powers might require face-to-face (LOS?) contact to work. Just an idea.

[Moonstone Spider]

But isn't that the whole point of an adept? That they can throw a godawful number of dice but only in a narrow range? After all your average adept can easily throw 18 die at any single combat test at chargen, after gaining centering for it they can probably do it without even touching their combat pool! Etiquette's useful but since you can't use pool 14 die isn't too extreme in my mind considering how few power points an adept starts wtih.