But we have no idea what Leadership (Tactics) *does*. It's just some random example specialization. It definitely *is* wrong for it to be Charisma if it's a Logic application, and there are cases of skills with multiple attribute pairings.

You could make an argument for it to be Intuition as well.

Being a Great Tactician isn't about charisma.

It's about Logic or perhaps Intuition.
Yes, great Tacticians are often charismatic, but that's really a side effect of being a good leader and not about their Tactical abilities.

I guess it depends if you're making up tactics on the fly or not. Intuition is awareness and speed.

It's not an or so much as an and. If you remove Intuition, then you're removing creativity from the tactic or strategy. If you remove Logic, then you're removing the ability to think through the tactic or strategy to it's conclusion and likely result.

A logic based tactician or strategist would be by the book.

It’s one thing to be smart and initiative when it comes to coordinating your own actions, but cutting through the sounds of combat with a clear authoritative and encouraging voice is a Charisma based skill.

I’ve employed Tactics with the notion that it insures a mission is carried out with minimal problems by using it to prevent Glitches of teammates, as I stated earlier.

In fact the player with the high Leadership skill has gained Street Cred with a reputation of “you want a job to get done flawlessly? Hire Marko to lead them!”

Indeed. Direct Neural Interfaces do not exist.

Again, *if* that's even what Leadership (Tactics) is. I think that it makes the most sense for Leadership (Tactics) to mean 'in combat/action', and Leadership (Strategy) to be 'during planning', but that's just a ballpark guess, and the actual Tests would be something like 'Persuasion' anyway.

The problem is inventing an entire mechanic based on a specialization example. It's fine to make house rules, but I like to keep them well separate from the actual rules.

Back on the topic of Intimidation, I think that some people might be misunderstanding where the skill part of the skill fits in.

Just like how anyone can tell a lie, but not just anyone can make you believe that lie, anyone can make threats or mess a guy up. It doesn't take any skill to say, "If you don't _____, then I'll ______." The skill comes in looking into the person's eyes and dominating them. That's where the charisma comes in. The character who is doing the intimidating is going to make sure that the person talks, and, more importantly, that when they talk, it's not a line of crap. They'll make sure that the opposition backs down, and they'll make sure that it isn't a ploy to work in an ambush.

There's no special practice needed to smash a dude's fingers with the butt of your pistol, but to do in such a way that it reinforces your relative positions takes finesse. It's the difference between doing and saying something terrible, and being something terrible.

Well. That, and making the right threats, at the right time, believably. It's a *skill*.

It's always nice if the only way to guess the game-mechanical uses of a skill is to look at the specialties for that skill.

More important.....

Why is Instruction an option for PCs? Come on, what % of PCs created have Instruction as a skill? Less than a fraction of a percent? It's also a very bland and boring skill. I don't see any potential for abuse in it.

I had one in SR2, as far as I know it was the only one in our gaming group that ever had it.

Fitted her role as a "Special Military Advisor" before her circumstances changed and she ended up in the shadows.

My Cyberlogician (SR4A) has it...

How do you abuse Instruction?

Not sure you can. It's more a flavor skill, even if it does use up valuable BP.

A rare choice certainly, but not without applications.

I'd recommend it for –
– characters with high ratings in key skills (e.g. Dodge) to speed up the other PCs' advancement and reduce glitch probabilities
– characters in a magic-heavy team for the speedier sharing of spells
– characters with not a lot to do in their downtime besides make some extra cash off their abilities

And taking might even pay... Right place/right time karma for teaching a team mate a necessary skill for a job in record time?
Or because now the Charisma 1, troll gun toter, now has etiquette at 2 and doesn't screw up during meetings reducing everyone's pay by 1/2?
Or because there is now more reasons for the team to stick together?

I'd reward those actions, for sure. Hell, everytime he helps someone in training I would give the guy an extra Karma point for being a good team player, and chances for a second one for good roleplaying.

Its not as "exciting" as Firearms dice pool of over 9000, but it can give the players a very good reason for interesting intra party role playing situations.

This (emphasised section).

Leadership isn't about Logic or Intuition, it's about getting other people to agree and/or comply. It's incorrect to have a player roll Leadership (Tactics) to concoct a good plan. Specialisations cannot be separated from the base skill in this way – Leadership (Tactics) doesn't make one a better tactician just as Blades (Swords) doesn't make one a better swordsmith.

Well demonstrated.
Just as a high Blades skill allows a character to use the Sword to the utmost; Leadership-Tactics skill allows a character to use the “course of actions” to the utmost.
That’s why I use Tactics (in planned combat situations) to be used to prevent teammate Glitches – assuring everything goes according to plan, as oppose to creating the plan.

I do like that idea. It makes a supervisor-type team member useful.

You don't... Why would you want to?

Sadly, because Tutorsofts are so dominant, you can't really abuse it

Though if your group uses the skill learning rules. Getting extra dice from your instructor is very nice.

Because I find it greatly humorous to take a mostly useless skill and finding the one obscure overpowered way to employ that skill in order to break the game.

This may be a bit of a bad idea, but in one game I was playing, there were two equally valid plans at how to accomplish a run. The group couldn`t agree on which plan to use, so the GM got the two guys with the best charisma on each side, and had them use a leadership test, with bonuses from the other`s on that side as a possibility. This simulated a heated debate, and if they had it I would even argue that the tactics spec. could apply. The winner of the opposed test determined which plan we actualy did.

I know this isn`t the best way to do things, but it was a speedy, on the fly idea for an argument that was going nowhere. To each his/her own.

It's at least realistic… a persuasive personality typically beats logical securitization.
I say, well played

I suppose you could use Leadership to incite riots everywhere you go. That would be fun.

Could be nicer. +1 die per TWO hits on the instruction test?

So on average that's +1 hit for every 18 dice in the instructor's dice pool. Is an Instruction DP of 18 even possible?

Well, your math is slightly wrong. It +1 mathematically guaranteed hit per 18 Instruction dice. But that +1 hit varies based on your learning pool. If you have a number of dice divisible by 3, then you need 18 dice on your instruction. However if you need just 1 more die to get a mathematical extra hit, then the instructor only needs 6 dice. Likewise, if you need 2 dice, the instructor needs 12 dice.

Elf
Genetic Optimization Charisma
Exceptional Attribute Charisma
Aptitude Instruction

Natural Charisma Max: 10 Charisma
Instruction: 7
Tailored Pheromones: +3
20 Dice

At the risk of sounding offended (which I almost am) my maths is clearly not wrong. On average (as in probabilistic expectation) 18 dice for the tutor adds 1 hit for the student. If that student is only after 1/3 of a 'hit' then yeah he can be more relaxed about the quality of the tuition, but it doesn't change the expected tutor-DP to bonus-hits ratio.

Thanks for the build.
Now I'm just wondering how long would it take to track him down and how much would he charge for that 1.1r hit bonus...

To note something, based on another thread, Tailored Pheromones are a dicepool modifer, so a Charisma 10 Elf with Rank 3 Tailored Pheromones will still only have a Charisma of 10.

Edit: And yes, your math is wrong as you pointed out. It's only applicable in 1/3 of situations. While it is nice to look at the extreme, it's much more logical to look at the midway point and require that an instructor has 12 dice which will cause the instructor to be useful in most cases.

Edit 2: I'm going to assume you're British since you used "maths".

#1 - Mathematics is not a quantitative noun it's just a noun of mass. Much like cinnamon where you don't say cinnamons for plural. Removal of the -s suffix results in a non-existent word.
#2 - Math is an abbreviation. If we look at other words that have a -s suffix and look at their abbreviation, we will see the same as the American math. Some examples include linguistics being shortened to ling rather than lings and physics being shorten to phys.
#3 - Maths is an abbreviation that has come about due to the erroneous perception in the population at large that a -s suffix always indicates that a noun is plural and neglects that a -s suffix can have other meanings.

Gotta love the internet.

Really? You think it's more logical to take the mean requirement of the situation than to determine a unit value for the tutoring service? The ratios 18:1 and 12:0.6r are the same, so calling the first one mathematically wrong and the second one mathematically right is non-sensical yet twice you have done so before going on to contradict yourself.

I was passing comment on the weak value of the tutor, for which the unit ratio of 18:1 is not only perfectly true and sufficient but also the standard starting place for making situation-specific calculations (the kind that aren't really needed when we aren't even discussing so much as a hypothetical situation). At no point was I saying that on average a student needs to find a tutor with a DP of 18. You are not wrong in your assertion that a tutor with a DP of 18 will not always be necessary to boost a player's expected hits by 1, but try saying so without decrying what is fundamentally true and more general than your own offering.

Quick!

Someone is WRONG on the Internet!