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Tomothy
I had an idea for a social adept with facial sculpt, disguise and con. He could just kidnap people and borrow their identity. Make a run using their identity, commlink and everything and then after the run, give them their stuff back (after a thorough wipe down) and then shoot them in the head. Instant dead end. He would also come in handy if you needed to infiltrate a corporate facility. Get your hacker to rifle through employee files and find a suitable mark inside.

Obviously the plan isn't flawless and someone will eventually work out what's going on, but that's bound to happen with every runner team at some point. Any thoughts?
nathanross
Great concept. Though it really isnt a face adept. I was making a face and originally thought of voice control, facial sculpt, and melanin control for the perfect id stealer. Unfortunatly, in life, nothing is perfect and there is the huge limitation of size. While you can imitate the skin, face and voice of your dupe, you are stuck with your own stature. People can be made to look shorter or taller than they really are just through posture and body language, but only within a few inches. If you are unfortunate enough to run into a friend of the character, your disguise just wont hold up.

What I assume you are making is not a face who wastes 30bp on contacts (Even after your GM gives you Cha x 2 free), but the logical progression of the Invisible way. A truely covert adept doesnt go sneaking around in second skin line, he walks right in the front door without raising an eye brow. Unfortunately like I mentioned already, You cant change, stature or sex. So go mystic and get yourself a good physical mask spell (and others, just dont know what) and you're golden. Happy con!
Farceseer Siranaul
I've know a few characters that have done something similar to this. One character roleplayed a cold and slumped allot to help hide his true height, and to help with cover his voice.
ShadowDragon
You'd probably want to initiate ASAP to hide your magic aura. That'd be the main flaw with this build out of chargen.

I disagree that a social adept wouldn't be able to pull this off with the victim's friends. Maxed out con, charisma, and kinesics can be very powerful when combined with good role playing. A friend who suspects something is wrong would be more likely to think the adept is having a bad day than think he's a double.
nathanross
You are right to say that a face and a con man are very similar, they are almost the same thing and if you want to develope your face that way, go ahead. My difference is merely that of designation. A man who cons his way into a corporate facility can also have tons of contacts and great negotiations skill, but that is secondary I think.

Of course, some will say that someone who can talk themselves around and out of firefights is what it means to be a face, but I see it differently.
ShadowDragon
I consider anyone a face who's focus is on the social side of shadowrunning. This includes extensive use of contacts, handling negotiations with Mr J, and any social requirements of a mission (such as infiltrating a building by talking your way in).

A social adept can be a face, but doesn't have to be to be a social adept. I don't think Tomothy wants a face necessarily. Sounds more like an infiltration specialist who uses impersonation as his primary skill. That's the great thing about Shadowrun's skill based system rather than a class system.
nathanross
Too bad stealth and athletics are both groups though, nearly triples the cost for skills. Though I usually just take a high gymnastics, no dodge, and some running. However, infiltration just doesn't do everything a shadowrunner needs it to do.
Kyoto Kid
...ahh, social adepts.

In the last two sessions I ran, several of the oppos were social adepts. One of them was a master at mimicking one of the other NPCs (actually had intimate background knowledge of the character) and led one PC into firmly believing she was the real McCoy. Then of course there was Lady Grande, as one response here on DS put it, "That woman could talk bullets out of the air". Needed her due to a very opportunistic mage PC who liked to exploit several "broken" sections of the rules to always get the upper hand at negotiations (a long and somewhat messy story).

As PC I have designed a Social adept around the Reporter concept. She has Charisma 7 (elf), Influence Skill Group 4, Improved Ability (Con) 2, Kinesics 4, First Impression Quality, Human Looking quality, and Tailored Pheromones 2. (Base 5 Magic Attribute, 4 after implants) giving her a starting Con DP of 21 Negotiate DP of 19 (in face to face meetings). she also has a number of sensory mod implants and video recording, an audio recording, and implanted commlink (all alphaware).

To stay alive she also has Perception, Pistols skill, and Athletics group. Her primary stealth based skill is Shadowing (good for a reporter).
Butterblume
I've built an Infiltrator Adept who was to have the mentionend powers facial sculpt, voice control, melanin control, plus multitasking anf nimble fingers.

Changed him to mystic because of the nifty spells like makeup or the one that changes the appearance of clothes (and levitate, there is always levitate).

In the end he turned out to be a recently awakened mystic adept with a magic of 1. (400BP isn't enough to cover all bases, thats what I like about that limit wink.gif).
Kyoto Kid
QUOTE (Butterblume)
I've built an Infiltrator Adept who was to have the mentionend powers facial sculpt, voice control, melanin control, plus multitasking anf nimble fingers.

Changed him to mystic because of the nifty spells like makeup or the one that changes the appearance of clothes (and levitate, there is always levitate).

In the end he turned out to be a recently awakened mystic adept with a magic of 1. (400BP isn't enough to cover all bases, thats what I like about that limit wink.gif).

...actually started Media Blitz's concept as a Mystic Adept & decided to go the other way and make her a full adept. Something about that "Broken Kinesics" and a 19 Negotiation DP (without having to sustain a spell or bond a focus) that I find more attractive. biggrin.gif
nathanross
Yup, face can never have enough Kinesics
PBTHHHHT
Here's a social adept, though he did get caught.
Kyoto Kid
...reminds me of a story I read years ago about a fellow in San Francisco who wanted to be a bus driver so badly that he made a full uniform and a driver ident card. Every morning he would go to the yard and check out a bus, then bring it back in at day's end and turn in his farebox.

He was caught only because of the complements passengers were sending into Muni of this really nice and courteous driver on a their route. When a supervisor checked the dispatch logs to send him a letter of commendation, something wasn't quite right, & eventually 2 and 2 added up to 4.

The interesting epilogue to this is instead of prosecuting him, they put him to work in the maintenance facility. Don't know if he finally managed to drive again, but a nice story nonetheless.
fool
to go back to the original post, one problem that I would have (adside from the need to have a good knowledge of the person being impersonated, things like codes and what you did last thursday with the buds) is the fact that you'd be leaving a trail of bodies you killed in cold blood. It's one thing to kill a guard because they're shooting at you, it's another to kill them because you impersonated them. Furthermore, when someone does eventually figure out that what's been going on, they are most likely not going to be too talkative when they come knocking. (actually, they probably won't knock at all but just off you from a distance.)
Ravor
And plus remember that no matter how many dice you can throw, you can't make the Lone Star grunt yelling "freeze" put down his weapon and enguage in gay sex with you and your pet goat, he just isn't going to listen.
PBTHHHHT
unless you're the pornomancer... shame on me to bring up that thread.
Tomothy
The trick with this character is not to get into the situation whereby a Lone Star grunt is trying to shoot you. But assuming he did yell "Freeze" I would just do as he says. Then talk my way out of the situation...
fool
to go back to the original post again, the way I get around the problem of people recognising me or needing to look just like someone is to use the physical mask spell cast by a spirit of ma. In fact, SOP for my social adept is that on every run, she uses a different face/body. Now physical mask from the name doesn't seem to change body size, but the descri[ption of the spell makes it seem as though yo could go from dwarf to troll. Also, the description says you take on the odor, what about the retinal scan? (personally as a gm I wouldn't allow that)
and as to the lonestar slag, using commanding voice "drop the gun" would certainly effect him as normal. And orgy would be a great spell for him. In fact if you have a decent dp, then orgy with commanding voice is a very effective combo.
Kyoto Kid
QUOTE (Tomothy)
The trick with this character is not to get into the situation whereby a Lone Star grunt is trying to shoot you. But assuming he did yell "Freeze" I would just do as he says. Then talk my way out of the situation...

...with a high Con DP, hell yes I would do the same.

Actually seen a gal in RL talk her way out of a sure court appearance, hefty fine, vehicle impound, and possible jail time after she ran a stop sign in her SUV, broadsided (and totaled) a small Nissan all while not carrying her insurance card on her person (which is Mandatory in my state). Worked the officer real good and he actually bought it. Didn't even so much as write her a warning citation.

It is very fortunate the other driver wasn't injured. Don't know if she pursued a civil lawsuit afterwards or not.

Fast Talk, when you got it, use it.
Tomothy
I dunno about retinal scan (or even fingerprint) it's weird eh? On one hand it's a physical mask so you should have no problem fooling a technological device. But do you need to have specific knowledge of their retina for it to work? I'm inclined to think not considering you manage to replicate the rest of their body in minute detail. After all it's magic right?

A more tricky thing would be security measures requiring dna, skin, blood, hair, saliva etc.

I'm still considering the Mystic Adept option.

My question is this...

If I take magic 5, should I take a 3 points of adept and get Increased Reflexes 1, Kinesics 2? Or should I get 2 points of adept and just get Kinesics 4 and have more power spellcasting?
Kyoto Kid
...I'd still go full adept, Magic 5 , burn out one point for Synaptic boost 1 and 2 levels of Tailored Pheromones. Then take the remaining 4 PPs in Kinesics along with disguise powers and/or improved social abilities. Once you initiate, be sure to take Masking.
pestulens
remember that the rating of adept powers caps at you're magic (I believe mystic adepts cap at total magic not just magic spent on adept powers but I may be wrong on that.)
so an adept cant just take full kinetics.
I am working with a similar concept for an upcoming game and I am bringing in face sculpt and Maline control from street magic. calling him my Face Dancer.
fool
what I did was start as a mystic adept split 4/1 for 2 levels of kinescics and spell casting at 4 use the spell increase reflexes and a sustaining focus. On first raising M to 6 I added commanding voice, voice contrlol and linguistics
Spells were maxed out at 10 with a spell casting of 5. they included the aforementioned physical mask and inc ref. But since I didn't want to take "the standard starting package of spells" I only took stunbolt from the usual spells and went more with detection spells (alright mindprobe is a fairly standard spell) since she had a snake mentor.
Bunduing is particularly imp=ortant to keep those spells up that you can't keep going with a sustaining focus.
Ravor
Although I'm not 100% sure, I'd be really suprised if a Mystic Adept got to use her full Magic against Adept power caps, since she doesn't get to use it for anything else, such as Spell Force, Counterspelling, ect...
Kyoto Kid
...unfortunately full Magic Attribute is used for the powers cap as stated in the BBB on Pg 187.

I am considering houseruling that only MA applied to Adept powers is the cap for maximum power rating.
Ravor
That makes two of us then...
Mistwalker
Unless I am mistaken, the official rule is that, for Mystic Adepts, is that points spent on they adept powers (power points) is the cap for adept powers, and points spent on their casting ability are two seperate things.

Ex Mystic Adept with 6 Magic
4 power points spent on adept powers - cap on powers at level 4
2 points spent on casting - equivalent to Magic 2 for spellcasting, hence spell levels 3-4 is physical drain.
Kyoto Kid
..I have a first printing of the BBB so maybe this was an errata. Below is the ruling as it appears:

For all other purposes, including the determination of
the maximum level for adept powers, the character’s full Magic
attribute is used.

--Shadowrun 4 p. 187
Glyph
As of the latest erratta, v. 1.5, that has not changed.
Kyoto Kid
...with my new houserule it has.
Mistwalker
FAQ 1.1
QUOTE
Though mystic adepts must split their Magic between Magic-based skills and adept powers, it says that for all other purposes, including the limits of adept powers, the mystic adept uses his full Magic attribute. Does this mean that a mystic adept with Magic 6 who has allocated 2 points to Magic skills and 4 points to adept powers can cast Force 6 spells without flinching?

The Magic points allocated towards Magic-based skills counts for all aspects of those skills. This includes: Magic-linked skill tests (Summoning, Spellcasting, Enchanting, etc.), overcasting, and maximum spell Force, for example.

For power points and Magic when used by adept powers, only the points allocated towards adept powers apply. This includes Attribute Boost Tests and the like.

For all other purposes -- i.e., non-Magic-linked skills -- the mystic adept's full Magic attribute is used: pressing through astral barriers, initiation grade limit, Masking metamagic, and so on.

So in the example above, the maximum Force he can cast at is 4, and anything over Force 2 is Physical Drain.


I read that to mean that they did change it from the BBB, that magic points spent toward adept powers determine the power level cap for adepts.
Glyph
Not at all. They are talking about using the Magic Attribute for things such as Attribute Boost - you would only roll the Magic points from the adept side, not the entire Magic rating. But even if your interpretation were correct, the FAQ is hardly canon (unlike erratta), and has often outright contradicted the RAW in the past.

The BBB is explicit in stating that the character's full Magic Attribute is used for determining the maximum level of adept powers.

Of course, there's nothing stopping you from house-ruling it like KK and Ravor have.
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