i have no idea where this one comes from...

but beyond that, do a search on the pornomancer

No, they wouldn't. Read the rules for Commanding Voice again. The best he an do is confuse people and make them hesitate, causing them to lose a Turn.

Hardly overpowered. Using the same action, a mage or a sammy could have killed a guy. Not that it's a lame power, either. In the right situation, making everyone lose a turn can win you some precious time.

I know, it's crazy shit.

I've deliberately not min/maxed him, as the campaign is meant to start of as low key gangbanging. But I still think it's rather hardcore.

...and it's going to sooo much fun talking my way past security....

A.

That's the thing. Making a character ''really good at social stuff' is just ok in a fair amount of people's minds. People who make a character who can beat/cut someone up or shoot them really well, and they're powergamers.

In SR, it's the _non_ combat people you have to watch out for. Trolls with PAC's are easy to ID and catch. Faces tend to get away with murder and then blend in and escape, foiling plans left and right.

EDIT: Sorry for the little rant; i love all types of characters, and aren't accusing anyone of anything. But too many times the gun adept gets shot down(rimshot) but the other crazy non-combat builds end up running rampant. (I think it's because the 'combat powergamers' are easier to catch, so to speak, than the non-combat ones.)

Except that it was worse in SR3.

Didn't the powers cost more in SR3? I don't have my MiTS book here, but i could swear alot of powers from then to now lessened quite a bit.

Commanding Voice doesn't have levels. It is just a single Power costing .25 PP.

Well I agree that trying to order people around doesen't fit with First Impression, but other than that it seems to me there are few situations where the face does not try to fit into a new environment, making new contacts etc.

Sure, when dealing with his contacts it doesen't help, or the second time he's talking to someone, but in most adventures there are 2-3 times where he gets to use it.

Still, 5 BPs for 2 bonus dice at some situations isn't that bad when a specialization only costs 2 BPs, and which use is often just as common or even more so.

I'm also inclined to agree Kinetics should not apply - only the voice is used in a "Bene Gesserit" way.

Backgammon, I just read up on the power and it says the target(s) is more likely to obey the more net hits the adept has. So If the adept got say, 10 net hits, I think making people drop their weapons is valid. The question is, is that enough for "shoot yourself"? Just like Control Thoughts, the power does not specify which commands will always be ignored, if any. But it does leave it up to the GM.

Which is just poor GMing, in my opinion. If what you're saying makes absolutely no sense at all and has nothing to do with crossing the border, I don't give a fuck what the dice say -- it won't work.

In the same way, if a street sammie is in the middle of a fight and decides "for amusement" to go on a shooting spree with his thumb and forefinger shouting "bang!" like a comedian, it won't get him any kills no matter how many Pistols dice he has.

It's resisted by the highest will+leadership pool in the guards ( 8-9 seems high unless they are elites with a serious officer in the lead) +1 per extra person.

Social adepts are only problematic if the GM allows then to do things that are stupid, ie turning sec guards gay in one conversation.

Amen.

...they did, plus Kinesics (at 1 PP X rating) had a rating cap of 3 so you didn't have a character with Kinesics 4 or 5 or the Great Mother forbid, 6.

Generally speaking, yes. Then there are powers like Commanding Voice and Mystic Armor that are obviously magic.

Well, yes and no. A good GM knows that the point of the game is for everyone to have fun. If a player says that with good dice roll and everyone laughs, I don't see the problem. If you go "ok, ok, but seriously bob, the guard opens fire on you", I think that makes you a much worse GM than letting a funny but unrealistic line go through.

Yeah, the current write up of Kinesics is affordable and scales up as high as you want and it stacks with Improved Ability, which is pretty powerful stuff. On the other hand, old school Kinesics used to lower the TN by 1 per point (to a minimum of 2), so it wasn't exactly a slouch either.

See, I don't agree with that. I think if you roll a stupid number of hits or a victim glitches then Commanding Voice should occasionally be alowed to accomplish some amazing things (Note that I consider any command that'd take longer than 3 seconds to accomplish, aka, a combat turn, as grounds for automatic confusion rather than performance). I believe this for a number of reasons. First of all, I've seen a guy lose a finger because a boss pointed out that a pepperoni slicing machine needed to be cleaned. The operator unthinkingly tried to wipe it while the blade was still spinning. And this guy isn't even (usually) stupid or anything (hell, he's the same guy who wears kevlar gloves and is trained to replace the blades), he was merely tired and wasn't thinking; the time span between boss's offhand comment to the loss of a digit was like a second or two. My father's seen similar phenomena at construction sites; combine fatigue, commands and the opportunity to immediately perform without thinking and you have a recipe for the odd horrifically stupid event, and that's not even with magic involved. Mind you, I'm not advocating turning it into a really inexpensive save or die ability, I just think rendering it useless the second a gun hits the scene is weak sauce.

I left the cost alone, but basically let it replace Improved Attribute: Charisma, so instead of being bonus dice it falls within the Modified Attribute Cap.
It's still stupid-cheap, but it's not so out-of-control and IMG I don't want improved attribute: charisma to be as expensive as IA: Agility.
I say let you face be awesome (within reason), and be glad you actually have someone who wants to play a face.

Im also for the fun aspect. If a face player(and i really dont mind any character in the end if the player really likes them, has a good personality for them, and has fun), comes up with a rather outlandish, but creative plan, ill tell them to roll. I might give them a high threshold, i might axe some dice, but ill let them try if they took the time to do it.

And i really don't mind the costs of everything; im also in the boat of ''if someone wants to play an uber specialist, let them. If someone wants a generalist, thats cool too.'' I even axed hard skill caps(with ratings 7-8 costing new rating x3, 9-10 new rating x4, etc), because i feel that people should be able to grow up OR out, OR both....depending, again, on what they want. A little off topic; but i guess just to show that being a little flexible can help everyone in the end.

If you're talking about applications of the leadership, con or negotation skill, then I agree totally to all your points.

But, if this is about the Commanding Voice power then you've misunderstood something. Commanding Voice is a magical/mystic power that allows an adept to give a short command to anyone that understands and hears him, that they either obey right away or stands confused. It doesen't only works when the target wants to do the action, and the whole thing works on a subliminal level so they target may not even think in response to the command.

Have you read/seen Dune? There is the perfect example of how I envision Commanding voice: The Bene Gesserit Voice. For skilled Bene Gesserit you can command a person to almost anything, as long as it can be immedeately accomplished and the command can be said in a few words. It can be "Untie me" said to your captors (who surely would never do so if only asked), "jump off the cliff" (provided the target can reach one in one turn), or similar.

As for your examples, this is how I would have done it if commanding voice is used:

#1: The ambushers could lower their weapons, not because they thought it over, but as am almost instinctive reaction to the adept's magical words. I probably wouldn't require more than 4 net hits here, perhaps as few as 2.

#2: In this case there need to be a brief pause in the gunfire for the targets to hear the adept, or the power will fail automatically. I might allow it with the use of the throw voice power (or whatever it's called) to speak directly into someone's ear, but then it would only work against 1 person. Since the targets are full of adrenaline and in "fight or flee" mode, their instincts would be less vulnerable to "wait wait" command and more towards "shoot them!" or "flee!." However, according to RAW if the adept scores a single net hit the power works and at least makes them stand confused for a pass. I might be incline to give the targets 2 bonus dice on the opposed test though. Had the command been "surrender" I would require 4 net hits or perhaps more.

#3: He normally can't expect a result, but with the aid of magic he can. Again the main obstacle is audial: The targets can't hear him. Other than that the command is fine, just as "walk into the blast furnace." You need Control Actions/Thoughts or similar power, which Commanding Voice is.

Mr. Talky yells: "Drop your weapons!" They drop their weapons. They lose a turn picking them back up again. Same difference.

This isn't D&D, with attacks of opportunity. If someone drops their gun, they can pick it up at only a cost in actions. If the lose a turn to confusion, or lose a turn to dropping their guns, it amounts to the same thing... and I'd let a player do it, for that very reason.

In a second of confusion, haven't you ever dropped something you were holding? Now, in a second of confusion, have you ever killed yourself?

You can command people to kill themselves, but since it conflicts directly with perhaps the greatest of all biological imperatives it's a hell of a lot more likely that the victim will ignore it or just stand there like a slack jawed idiot until their brain works through the sudden bout of cognitive dissonance rather than put a bullet through their own head. Commanding Voice is essentially handled like any other social skill; you make your intentions clear to the gm, you roll your dice and then he takes the net hits into account when deciding the outcome of the exchange. There's no real cut and dried threshold that turns it into a save or die scenario unless the GM wills it. This similarity to other social skills is also exactly why I believe Commanding Voice is actually intended for use in the occasional raging firefight. It doesn't actually do anything that other social skills couldn't theoretically do in a more round about fashion and it has a far more limited duration; Commanding Voice nets you one knee jerk reaction while great Con rolls can get you a new BFF. This leaves the ability to quickly force a limited social encounter upon an unwilling victim as about the only decent reason to bother picking up the skill in the first place.

Yeah, it's magic, but so what? We know what the magic does, exactly and precisely, because this is a role playing game and the magic functions within the rules of that game. In this case, the magic adds dice to social tests. Period. Improved Ability: Negotiation or what-the-fuck-ever makes you better at Negotiating. Period. Kinesics does what it does through body language and subtle social cues, not zany Jedi mind control (and even with zany Jedi mind control, you have to say something that makes sense at the time, for someone to believe what you're saying).

So here's the scene.

Shadowrunner Driver (whispered on the way to the checkpoint): Holy crap, dude, what are we gonna do? We finally lost that Mafia hit squad, and we know they won't follow us into another country where our contacts can protect us, but how are we going to get past the border? This is a stolen car and my fake SIN rating blows goats.

Shadowrunner Face Dude (whispered): Don't worry, I'll scam our way past him.

Border Guard At Checkpoint (bored gov't employee voice): Hello Sir or Ma'am, welcome to the Sioux Nation. I need your SIN and vehicle registration. What's the reason for your visit?

Shadowrun Face Dude (leaning over from passenger seat, waving two fingers in front of his face: THESE ARE NOT THE DROIDS YOU'RE LOOKING FOR!

Border Guard: lol whut?! cum on in fellas welcome to the sue nashun!!!

And...cut.

See what I'm saying? Sp what if someone can very convincingly babble nonsense about droids and wavie his hands in front of his face? Does it matter how smooth a negotiator you are if you're not even having anything remotely like the same conversation as anyone else? Why does the clatter of dice sound louder than the voices in your head telling you this is ridiculous? How does it matter how sincerely the character says "these aren't the droids you're looking for" if the person you're talking to isn't fucking looking for droids? You're moving very, very, far out of the realm of what social skills can do (and the Adept powers in question do nothing but add to the effectiveness of social skills) and into outright mind control magic.

Which is -- to me -- sloppy GMing. In the above scenario, let's say the team had decided to blast their way through the border instead of try to talk past the guard. Okay? Violence has become their tool of choice. The driver floors it, and everyone goes for guns (Border Guard included). If the team's gunslinger Adept (using MAGIC) had decided to use his awesomely augmented Pistols skill to shoot some guy in another car sitting at the checkpoint, instead of shooting at a Border Guard, would that automatically get the Border Guard out of their way and remove him as an obstacle? He was using magic, after all -- why does it matter if he was addressing the actual problem (responding to the Border Guard raising assault rifles at them) or just shooting someone in another car the way Mad Max did, that one time, in a popular film? If a social Adept can quote a movie and sling some dice and still achieve an objective whether his action makes any sense or not, why can't the gunslinger (whether he's shooting a viable target or not)?

If the social Adept is using his social skills in ways that just don't matter, they just don't matter. Quoting a movie instead of responding to what's being said to you is just silly. No wonder people think "pornomancers" are overpowered if they get away with stuff like that.

It doesn't matter how good a liar you are or how likeable or charismatic, sometimes. When you get pulled over and they ask for your license, you can't say "Rhubarb chicken in my purple waffles!" and flip a cop off, and then just sling some dice and expect the cop to just chuckle, give you a warning instead of a ticket, and go on with his day. Social rolls in Shadowrun still require you to be speaking the same language as your desired target for a reason. You don't just spout random words and roll dice, then call it a day, because Adept powers are just massive social skills (those skills are augmented, not wholly replaced, by the magic in question).

The pornomancer is using inappropriate(to those looking on OOC) words to try to convince him to let them through. It would be analogous to the gunslinger holding on to his pistol with his feet and firing the gun with his manhood - it is going to be tough but it doesn't mean it cannot be done. The gunslinger shooting someone else is analogous to the pornomancer talking to the guy in the other car to get them past the guard. The target is wrong.

And the traffic cop thing? Well, you would be wrong, because I did it, in a different language even. I was let off with a warning, "Not more than this, here, ok?" *cop points to the speedometer*

Isn't the big question if "These are not the droids you are looking for" was what the PLAYER said or if it was what the CHARACTER said? It could have been a simple pseudo-funny comment from the player while rolling the negotiation test. Some groups want to play the whole conversation before rolling dice, other groups simple allow "I'll talk my way through" *roll*.

Of course, if the character said "These are not the droids you are looking for", I wouldn't even allow him to roll Negotiation, perhaps Bluff if there's a slight chance that he could make it sound funny to relax the situation.

Yup, in theory the command can be anything. I checked specifically if any commands are automatically ignored, or if there is any limit at all. There is no limit save one: The GM decides.

In your game you may of course rule that killing yourself is just something that cannot be done. Heck, you may even say that it is impossible even with control thoughts etc. (as they do in D&D). It's your game.

Or you can just say you need an incredible amount of net hits to pull it through, like 15, 20, 50... sky's the limit. And you would still be well within RAW, the rules are THAT vague.

Personally I'd go with 20 net hits for the kill yourself order, unless the target was already suicidal. It's damn unlikely to happen (the highest in our games have been 17 net hits till now), but it CAN happen with the use of edge. And when it does, I'm going to say; Fuck it, he's dead. After all if the adept can pull this off then by jove he can probably kill the target in another fashion also.

Ta da. That's the quote we've got about the situation that got me started.

When the player in question even says out loud "despite the words having no bearing (sp) on the situation, we got through," it tells me that their GM does not look at the game and the rules and the world and logic itself the same way I do.

No, I was speaking in Chinese and gesturing to my speedometer. This comment was made in point to this quote of yours:

It was not meant as a counter example. It was made in illustration that there is a difference between what you'd expect in the real world and the fictional Shadowrun world and vice versa. But yes, your whole point (by my view of your straw man argument) is moot.