[X] My Assistant

[cutter07]

Just curious, I got a taste of a face last session, would like to see a good one.

[Kagetenshi]

Finally got kissed, eh? ;)

Really, though, most Face munchiness involves Cultured Tailored Pheremones, and thus is not available at chargen.

~J

[A Rodent of Unus...]

Bonus Attribute: Charisma, maxed Charisma, and the Aptitude (Etiquette and/or Negotiation), Good Looking & Knows It, Good Reputation 2, Friendly Face, and Connected edges as well as judicial selection of a wide spectrum of contacts can be devestatingly powerful in a good player's hands.

Design one as an adept and initiate twice as soon as you can (taking Centering and Centering: Social), then follow that up with Cultured Pheromones 2, and... there's quite a bit of suspension of disbelief required to understand why someone who can do what this guy can do is still working the shadows. :) If you go the extra step and make him a physical mage and focus on Elemental Earth or a totem like Lover or Seductress, you can even snag some hefty benefits with spells like Influence and Control Thoughts when your natural charm somehow manages to fail you.

[Kagetenshi]

When you can command millions of nuyen to intimidate a second-rate gang, running the Shadows sounds a lot more attractive ;)

~J

[TinkerGnome]

Contacts. Have a huge pile of contacts for virtually every situation. The run is against an Ares facility? You call up the janitor and get him to leave a back door open. You're facing a rare biotech weapon? You just happen to know a leading biotech weaponry research scientist.

Etc, etc.

Intelligence 6 is also important since negotiations is done against it (check the errata if you have an old copy of the big black book... most of them say it's Willpower. It's not).

And a tip for the wise... until you're really, really good at negotiation, don't try to bargain with the Johnson for better pay. You'll probably loose money.

[A Rodent of Unus...]

I've also found Acting (Improvisational) and Psychology to be really useful, and they come up as complimentary skills quite a bit, too. Fake IDs, lifestyles, and clothes are important as well.

[TinkerGnome]

Don't forget skills like Disguise (from SOTA63) and Interview. Faces need quite a lot of skills... I'd be tempted to design around Skills A, Resources B (for contacts and cyber).

Speaking of cyber, recording ware (camera, ear recorder, etc) are popular since you can get the Johnson's identity down more easily. Add in voice modulation with a secondary patern and you're in business for infiltration work, as well. There are all sorts of toys in SOTA63 for fooling security, as well.

[GunnerJ]

[TinkerGnome]

Well, the Mr. Johnson in the BBB has Int 6, Negotiation 6. If you can reliably beat that, then you're good to go. If you can't... well, then you'd better be certain of how your GM handles negotiations before you even try.

[hobgoblin]

nothing beats haveing an elf and atleast one dragon on the call list :)

oh and if your after cyberware, grab some retractable cyberskates. you never know when you need to get out of there in a hurry (oops a rool when trying to get a gang to do something is not a good idea if you dont have a escape plan)...

[snowRaven]

Most of the keys to a good face have been mentioned, so I'll just put dow an example character from those:

Human Adept(Elves do get the charisma bonus, but you'll more often deal with ppl who hate elves than ppl who hate humans - and the extra karma pool may be very useful later on)

Attributes
B 3
Q 4
S 3
C 7
I 6
W 6

Active Skills
Disguise 4(Cosmetic 6)
Etiquette 6
Interrogation 6
Negotiation 6
Pistols 4
Stealth 5

Knowledge Skills

[ Spoiler ]

English 6(R/W 4)
Japanese 4(R/W 2)
Magic Background 4
Megacorp Politics 4
Modern Art 4
Organized Crime Politics 4
Psychology 6
Seattle High Society 4

Edges & Flaws

[ Spoiler ]

Bonus Charisma (2)
Exceptional Charisma (2)
Friendly Face (1)
Good Reputation 2 (2)
Goodlooking & Knows It (1)
Allergy(Gold; Severe) (-4)
Cursed Karma (-6) (lots of points, and good roleplaying opportunities when the drek hits the fan)
Dark Secret (-2) (used to be a gruesome interrogator for a nasty corp or crime family...)
Pacifist (-2)

Powers

[ Spoiler ]

Empathy (0.5)
Enhanced Perception 2 (1.0)
Improved Scent (0.25)
Iron Will 2 (1.0)
Magic Resistance 2 (2.0)
Magic Sense (0.5)
True Sight 2 (0.5)
Thermographic Vision (0.25)

Resources

[ Spoiler ]

Middle Lifestyle (2 months) (15,000¥)
4 Level 2 Contacts (40,000¥)
8 Level 1 Contacts (40,000¥)
White Noise Generator 5 (7,500¥)
Bug Scanner 6 (3,000¥)
Actioneer Line set (2,650¥)
Armor Jacket (900¥)
Real Leathers (750¥)
Formfitting Shirt (500¥)
Morrisey Elite w/2 clips EX Explosive (655¥)
Ares Viper Slivergun w/2 clips flechette (1,205¥)
WW Infiltrator w/1 clips Hi-C Plastic (1,430¥)
2 Conc Quick Draw Holsters (300¥)
Pocket Secretary (2,000¥)
Pager (10¥)
Fine Clothing (500¥)
Tres Chic Clothing (1,000¥)
2 Rating 6 Credsticks (60,000¥)
Geneware DNA-masking Level 3

First three initiations should be spent as follows:
Masking - magic point lost to bioware (Cultured Tailored Pheromones Level 2, Clean Metabolism, Dietware, Mnemonic Enhancer 3, Nephritic Screen)
Centering - increase Magic Resistance by 1.
Centering (Social skills) - magic point lost to bioware (Cerebral Booster 2, Synaptic Accelerator 1 - which leaves approx. 0.9 BI to use as approperiate)

Other priorities include:
- Getting the Improved Looks surgical option.
- Eventually learning a defensive martial art and getting the Improved Ability Power for it.
- Possibly spending an essence point on a radio or telephone w/transducer, commlink and subdermal speakers.

[Abstruse]

At least one contact for every AAA company and try to get two -- one service-level (security, janitor, decker, etc.) and one exec-level (Johnson, exec, secretary) as the info they provide will be different. Mafia/Yakuza/Triad contacts are good as well, same with various policlubs (TerraFirst, Ork Rights Committee, etc.) and non-profit corps (Draco Foundation, Atlantis). Government contacts are important too and at varying levels (pencil pusher and decision maker) for every government in the area you're playing and one in ones you're likely to deal with (In Denver? Two from every sector and an additional from at least 3 mainlain gov'ts. In Seattle? Two each Salish, Tir, Seattle/UCAS gov't).

Elf with maxed Chr, Int, and Wil, Bonus Att. Point (Chr), no obvious cyber other than a datajack and chipjack if you can help it. Good Looking and Knows It, Connected, Human Looking (if meta), Good Reputation, and other various +x to Social Tests feats. Tres Chic clothes and the armored clothes from CC that count as Tres Chic, High lifestyle at minimum (or use the SSG custome lifestyle rules to create a lifestyle that at least appears High/Luxury if you can't afford it). Max Etiquette (don't bother specializing) and Negotiations at minimum, Interrogation and Intimidation are good ones to have high. Try to make sure you can do something productive for the team other than just sweet-talking people, and that you can shoot well enough to at least find yourself cover (HIGH CONCEAL ON YOUR WEAPONS! Concealable holsters and long coats are your friends!) Rating 6 fake IDs are a must as well. Make sure to save enough essence/bio index to get Tailored Pheremones as soon as you have the cash. Knowlege and language skills are important as well, try not to chip them if you can help it. Get a couple of sets of regular and fine clothing and some cheapo armor for when you have to slum it (going into the Barrens wearing a 4000¥ armored long coat and 4000¥ and a 1000¥ outfit is a good way to attract unwanted attention). I know a lot of guys feel weird about playing female characters, but women are much more likely to be trusted by men and it's much easier to manipulate men if you're an attractive woman.

Finally, if your GM doesn't know about the contact upkeep rules, DON'T TELL HIM!!! If he does know, BEG HIM NOT TO USE THEM!!!!

The Abstruse One

[TinkerGnome]

Contact upkeep rules can really ruin a face's day. I personally don't like them that much. They don't add much to the game except serve to make sure the PCs have as few contacts as possible. And really, why penalize your PCs for giving you adventure hooks?

You should have to spend a little time maintaining contacts. You should also have to return favors for contacts. Upkeep for the sake of upkeep isn't fun, though. Though if the GM is doing SOTA and vehicle upkeep, it's fair.

[toturi]

Contact upkeep rules keep Faces honest. They have only so much time on their hands, the time alone for upkeeping 20+ just isn't feasible (game balance) or realistic (IRL).

Just like Riggers don't really have time to upkeep their whole fleet of 100 drones.

[TinkerGnome]

It depends on your downtime/cash ratios. If you pull two runs a month with about a week of downtime, then cash is probably the way to go. If you manage one run a month (or less) and have vast amounts of downtime, on average, I don't see why cash should be the determining factor.

[A Rodent of Unus...]

A Charisma over 7 is generally wasted. Social encounters are skill based or rely on Intelligence or Willpower for "resistance" rolls. Charisma is pretty much only used to determine a target number modifier, and "7 or higher" is the highest such modifier that I know of. A human with Charisma 6 and the Bonus Attribute: Charisma edge is just as effective as a Face as any elf. The only thing a higher Charisma is useful for is if you're going to advance your Social Skills to extreme levels, but that's generally unnecessary once you get them to 6 or so and snag Cultured Pheromones 2 (+4 dice).

You also want to be fairly tall, and having some kind of flashy magical or supernatural trick up your sleeves can come in handy when it comes time to intimidate or interrogate someone.

[Number 6]

[Nikoli]

Or better yet, your Face has a very sensitive nose and recognizes the pheremones by scent and can consciously over come them (of course the Johnson can do the same. And before anyone tells me you can't smell them consciously, you can)

[Kagetenshi]

I'd let that work about as well as I'd let someone who just took a few doses of Kamikaze to consciously overcome them.

~J

[Large Mike]

Yeah. I've used it and had it used on me. Even when you know it's there, it still affects you.

[Siege]

Willpower rolls might be permitted, in both pheremone and kamikaze rolls but you're still going to be affected to a certain degree.

All the Willpower in the world won't keep you sober with X amount of alochol in your system, but you might be able to influence your actions.

-Siege

[cutter07]

Wheres "Good Looking and Knows It"? Cant find it

[Zeel De Mort]

It's in the Companion too, but it's an example of how to make up a new edge. Most people take it as being canon.

Top of p17.

[Siege]

It's the Edge discussed in the opening paragraph of "Edges/Flaws" section of the SR Companion.

Read the "how to build an edge/flaw" text.

-Siege

[tisoz]

It's also in the Edges table on page 32, making it pretty canon IMO.