Social Skills., In game. Options

[Vantive]

Hey there.

I have been working on a face build. I can't really see any reason to get anything other than Con(fast talk) and Negotiation (Diplomacy)

Can somebody give me an ingame example of when they have needed to use

Intruction,
Leadership,
Etitquate,
and Intimidation. (If so, What specialisation would have been better?)

Thank you.

[Dragnar]

Etiquette is used whenever you talk to people outside of your regular social circle to avoid inadvertedly insulting someone, as well as convincingly pass for a member of a group you aren't actually a part of as a disguise, so it comes up quite regularly.

Leadership you get for free if you take the influence skill group, which is about what the skill is worth most of the time.

Instruction is useless, even for teachers, sadly enough. It's effects are so low, you're better off not bothering.

Intimidation is in most cases an alternative to negotiation, ie: a skill to get stuff or information you want. Which one of those works better depends heavily on the circumstances, so I'd advise every face to have both.

[Blade]

Dragnar already covered Intimidation and Instruction.

If you restrict yourself to strict RAW, Etiquette it's not that useful: it's only there to avoid problems after glitching a social test. But if your GM doesn't strictly applies RAW, it can be fairly useful in a lot of situations where you have to blend in.

Most of the time, Leadership comes up less than Con or Negotiation, but it can still be useful in some cases. A good face's tactics is to impersonate a figure of authority (since people will be more likely to obey him without question). In that case, Leadership will let you give orders in such a way that the target won't think twice and will obey right away. It can also be useful to become the de-facto leader in the group... But that'll only work if the other players accept the fact that their PC can be influenced by the social skills of another PC (which some players have trouble with). The "tactics" specialization of the Leadership skill is also useful to counter the GM when he says "You can't come up and apply such elaborate plans in the middle of combat!".

[DireRadiant]

Etiquette - You want to hang out with the gangers|Corp Elite|Truck Drivers|Mercenary Soldiers and listen to their conversations to pick up any useful information, use this skill to hang out without being suspicious.

Intimidation - Border guards notice your SIN check fails, stand there looking at them like you are ready to kill them all, do they really want to fallow up asking the 3 meter scarred pile of psychotic troll muscle if he's really here for a vacation? Not if they want to have one of their own.

Intimidation - Jimmy the Fixer was thinking about ripping the team off until Fred reminded him of what happened to the last Fixer who ripped off the team.... Jimmy the Fixer gave them a cut rate.

[Draco18s]

I wish I could find the pseudo-motivational someone did, but I think it was a picture from like Order of the Stick with the caption:

Intimidation: Just as good as Diplomacy for 1d6 x 10 minutes.

[Kingboy]

If you restrict yourself to strict RAW, Etiquette it's not that useful: it's only there to avoid problems after glitching a social test.

Not true. In fact, I would call that only the secondary RAW usage of Ettiquette. It's much more useful for the following:

When using Etiquette to ease someone’s suspicions, make an Opposed Test between the character’s Etiquette + Charisma vs. the target’s Perception + Charisma. If the character wins, each net hit reduces the level of hostility/suspicion by one step (from Enemy to Hostile, Hostile to Prejudiced, and so on). If the target wins, no reduction takes place.

Depending on your luck and skill, this can remove up to a -4 dice penalty for other Social skill rolls, or possibly even give a +2 dice bonus. Buttering up Mr. Johnson before asking for more cash is always a good idea...

This may be a house rule at our table, or something cribbed from Missions (I'm not sure off the top of my head), but Ettiquette is also useful for enhancing Contacts. At the end of a session in our game, the GM will let us know if there are Contacts we have dealt with that could potentially increase in Loyalty. A successful Ettiquette roll will increase the contacts Loyalty when dealing with them in the future.

[Zen Shooter01]

Intimidation was huge for the Face in the last campaign I ran. I allow tactical use of the skill. Three rounds ago, there were six enemies and six PCs. Now there are three enemies and six PCs. The Face rolls Intimidation 11, plus modifiers for the tactical situation, and the remaining enemies either surrender or flee.

[Draco18s]

Intimidation was huge for the Face in the last campaign I ran. I allow tactical use of the skill. Three rounds ago, there were six enemies and six PCs. Now there are three enemies and six PCs. The Face rolls Intimidation 11, plus modifiers for the tactical situation, and the remaining enemies either surrender or flee.

Shouldn't they be fleeing/surrendering anyway? They stared with even odds and are down half their guys having done little to the opposition.

Not to mention that Real People flee before being dealt a lethal amount of damage (that is, 1 to 3 boxes* of health remaining on either track).

*Depending on personality, situation, etc. If "we" outnumber "them" 5 to 1, I can stand to stay in combat until unconsciousness (full stun), someone will be there to get me. If they equal our numbers, then tactical retreat (on the individual level) is probably in order: survive to fight again another day: the possibility of us losing exists, I don't want to be out cold when it happens.

[Naysayer]

Security guards stand in tight groups in ten by ten rooms, guarding a mainframe, waiting for PCs to rush in and take them out. Always.

[ShadowPavement]

I actually allow the use of Leadership in tactical combat. The face can make a Leadership test on his action to aid another PC by giving them extra dice to their action equal to the number of hits they scored on the leadership roll. This helps the Face be helpful in combat even though his pistols skill is only 2.