Hey guys, been doing some interesting stuff lately, looked at a bunch of the different roletypes. And i think i found one that would be really fun to try, problem is that i dont really know much about it and ive looked and had a little success, but aside from little things i cant think of anything to help make the ultimate face.

The idea is basically a guy with incredible force of personality, that manages to stay completely off the radar, you dont remember him even if you work with him all the time pretty much, your eyes notice him, but just kind of slide off like hes part of the backround.

So, if anyone could give me some advice or point me to/point out some helpful stuff in the books it would be much appreciated, thanks guys.

No one would admit knowing the pornomancer personally.

slightly off from what i was asking about, is that just a running gag around here or is there a story behind it? ive seen it pop up around here a few times.

The pornomancer is the ultimate Face build. People tended to use the seduction social test as an example of its prowess. Some of the builds get some really absurd amount of dice for social changes (well over 20 dice for a standard test and over 40 for a seduction test). It is generally cited when talking about min-maxing at character creation.

Human Ki-Ad with Blandness and Erased qualities.

that actually sounds kind of like what i need, but the whole pornomancer thing makes it sound wierd, basically that plus the ability to stay completely anonymous and off all the grids would be what i want

i just read the pornomancer........cant stop laughing, face hurts alot, omg thats hilarious

There's more or less a built like that, or at least close to that, for the most used skills.
But in most cases, you're not gonna be much better than average at best with anythiny else.
Ultimate Mundane Climber had 40+ dice for climbing.
Brick the Tank Troll had 40 Dice for soaking damage i think.
The ultimate medic had 40 dice for that.
And so on and so on ^^

It's ironic timing, because I'm kind of working on what I consider a "real" face - sacrificing a huge dice pool for the ability to blend in with the masses, and with about 50 points in contacts.

For your concept - I would go adept.

Don't get glamour (too memorable) or tailored pheromones (can't be "turned off"). For other qualities, blandness and erased (you only really need the 5-point version), along with possibly linguist (a boost to languages helps you fit in). First impression fits, too, since it represents an ability to fit into new situations smoothly.

For cyberware and bioware, you don't really need anything, but I'll give you the load-out on my build. For bioware, I got mnemonic enhancer: 2 (more dice for language skills), clean metabolism, and vocal range enhancer (for both a bonus to social skills, and the ability to alter his voice). For cyberware, I got cybereyes (standard, normal-looking ones where you can change the color), a commlink (with an agent) and sim module, and a datajack. Note that none of this gear is illegal.

For powers for your guy, get kinesics, facial sculpt, melanin control, and linguistics - those are the essentials for your concept. You can add things like sustenance, eidetic sense memory, multi-tasking, and enhanced perception to round him out.

This is one of the areas where being a tightly tuned Mystic Adept can also work rather well, but unfortunately that's better suited for high point games since merely taking on a few negative qualities won't really recoup you the points you need to have relatively minor magical prowess and still be well-rounded. It's a shame, too, since Fashion, Sterilize and some of the mind tinkering spells are great clutch tricks to have, even if you do have to be careful about astral signatures.

In my head I had an elven mystic adept/seductress shaman throwing around absurd social dice pools 20DP+ easy). Combined with the right spell selection, he/she would be unstoppable in social situations and no slouch in a fight either. This was not a pornomancer build either but something very playable out the gate.

- J.

Hey Glyph, what do you mean when you say that you only need the 5 pt version of Erased?

The 5 point version burns unwanted data in a week, while the 10 point version does it in 24 hours. It's partly personal preference, but to me, the biggie from the quality is getting unwanted data to disappear - I don't see needing it to disappear right away happening too often. YMMV.

Furthermore, with blandness, wo is going to remember to research you? ^^

One could convert my 'Nullhead' into a Face.

I've always thought that an excellent face could be made with a magician (elf with a Cha tradition naturally). Effects similar to (and, at sufficient Force, more powerful than) pheromones could be produced with a custom-built Illusion spell (or Manipulation, but the mere Illusion that you are more appealing should be enough and it fits well with Mentor Spirits like Seductress and Trickster). Throw in spells like Physical Mask and you can easily have the super-charismatic face that never shows his true face (sorry for that one). My own PC that was the source of the HappyDaze handle was of this type - an elf magician of the Black Magic tradition and the Seductress mentor spirit that concentrated on Illusion spells and social skills. Lots of fun.

The adept route is really useful and versatile, but you can do everything you need to do with Qualities, Bioware, and tech gadgets. The face in my group went all bioware, except for the eyes, on the principle that a cyberware scanner will blow the best disguise if it doesn't fit with your cover. Bioware, being a lot harder to detect, fit the bill.

Depends on your character concept. For the Face in my group, the adept thing really didn't fit her concept, so she made it work with technology.

The problem there is that such custom spells don't really have much mechanical precedent*, so you'd really have to hope your GM is willing to get his hands dirty with building custom spells, particularly since "what is appealing" is very subjective whereas Mind Control spells are a brute force "Do what I tell you" affair. But even so, Fashion and other nifty spells can help you make sure you are rested, ready and have the appropriate dress for many situations. Plus, adepts are simply more specialized than casters as a general rule, so the flexibility inherent in the Spellcasting skill is a pretty good trade off even if you cannot replicate kinesics.

*By this I mean that it's hard to come up with a decent drain code/threshold for the spell simply because there's not many spells like it in the book, not that the concept itself is unreasonable. I can't even decide if it'd be better to look at the Increase Attributes line of spells or the Influencing spells for inspiration. Either way, you're looking at adding another way to boost social tests, and social tests are already rather easy to boost to ungodly levels.

If you want to be a good infiltrator, there's much to say for being a human, unAwakened so that you don't look funky to assensing. No unusual cyberware, only stuff that a normal wageslave might have (make sure you don't have foreign models, too). Maybe some discreet bioware, but tailored pheromones might show up on chemsniffers they use to detect drugs and explosives.

Skillwires can be very useful; they're not so unusual, and help picking up skills to blend in. A big stack of knowsofts is even better. Being able to talk the talk does wonders for your credibility.

Research and perception skills are also at premium; the more you know, the better you can tailor your approach to the target.