So I've heard of Pornomancers, and from a Google trip I basically got the idea that it was a build from SR3 that rolled up to 50 dice for social tests (and I really wanted to say over 9,000). I started wondering, "How can we do that in SR4?" So I tried. Also, if anyone knows what techniques the original gangsters used to make these beasts, it would be illuminating.
Note- this is for a 400 BP build and I omitted the non-social factors. Assume -35 BP of Negative Qualities. Also, let it be noted that my build has 10 Gymnastics Dodge dice.

Race:
Elf

Qualities:
Adept
Mentor Spirit (Gryphon)
First Impression
Linguist
Class III Surge
Glamour
Vorneronasal Organ
Symbiosis - -10 BP

Attributes:
Charisma 8/9 (11/13)
Magic 5/6 (4/5)

Skills:
Influence 4

Magic:
Kinesics 4
Linguistics
Commanding Voice
Improved Leadership 2
Enthralling Performance (Singing)
Voice Control

Bioware: 1 Ess worth
Tailored Phermones 3 - .6 Ess
Genetic Optimization (Charisma) - .2 Ess
Enhanced Pheremone Receptors - .1 Ess

Gear:
Doses of eX

All in all, that makes for, by my calculations, around 27-30 Dice for social tests. Here's how:
4 (Influence) + 8 (Charisma) + 3 (Glamour) + 1 (Voice Control *1) + 2 (Vorneronasal Organ) + 4 (Kinesics) + 3 (Tailored Pheremones) + 2 (Enhanced Pheremone Receptors) [+ 2 (Improved Leadership) + 2 (Gryphon)] {+ 1 (eX) + 1 (Symbiosis *2) + 1 (First Impression)} = 27 {30} Influence (31 {34} Leadership)
*1 Voice Modulation bioware from Augmentation suggests that, at GM's discretion, an owner's social tests may be modified by + 1 if a listener can hear and understand the speaker, and Voice Modulation bioware and cyberware are exactly the same as an adept's Voice Control, if not inferior, IMHO.
*2 I believe the Symbiosis description suggests that a "victim" may be granted positive social modifiers with those who live in the area that the user is attuned to.
The Leadership dice are used when using the Commanding Voice adept power.

Amidoinitrite?

I believe the current Cap for the Pornomancer in 4th Edition is 51 Dice... Cannot Remember where the writeup is at, But Glyph could probably point it out to you...

That one is pure SR4 (though the madness introduced with SotA:64 allowed broadly similar builds, the focus was on insane TN mods rather than huge die pools).

~J

Well, ok, but the targeted character or NPC would have to first be sexually attracted to the Pornomancer: Gender (obviously), Physique (some like a lot of back), Fetish (the original role-playing), etc…
Otherwise, those skills and modifiers could be mostly useless.

That's true. This has always been much more a numeric exercise than usable character. Even beyond that, there are generally limits to what a social test can accomplish, regardless of hits. It's a lot of GM calls.

I though pornomancer made use of commanding voice to make people his/her slave, regardless of any of those factors.

That's not really what that power does, though.

I always looked at the build as "wasted extra effort".

While not true of all tests, generally speaking with social tests winning by 1 net hit won't be all that different from winning with 10 net hits, mostly the difference will come in the form of GM description but not actual outcome. So to me, it seemed a waste to build up such a insanely high pool when one could easily spread out to other areas.

It's the math. Optimization is for the challenge first, for breaking the game *second*.

Yeah, but a lot of the maxed out pornomancer dice were effectively situational bonuses which applied to an unlikely situation. Sort of like giving a melee character the assumption of superior ground (only with lots more dice involved). You don't need to be a street samurai to shoot fish in a barrel...

I think a "face-o-mancer" build that focused on never (or very rarely in actual play) having negative situational mods would be a lot more useful in actual play. A lack of negative mods is just as good as getting bonus dice, right? That probably means being a human instead of an elf (or god forbid, dryad) among other things. Although in some cases the negative mods are to tiny to worry about- -3 for racism doesn't matter so much if being an elf means you have an extra 4 charisma dice.
Bonus- you might be able to take the Blandness quality. Verbal Kint much?

Preaching to the choir. I'm just pointing out that it's about making big numbers, not making playable characters.

No, you're thinking of this.

The pornomancer was essentially a dice pool exercise, to see how many dice one could get for seduction, kind of like the ultimate climber. Some of the less extreme ones are actually playable, but they are still a lot more limited than a traditional face, who can blend in the social scene, has lots of contacts, and is good at noticing things and digging up information. I did a more traditional face here, and despite having significantly less dice to toss, I still think it would be a more effective build in many situations.

initiate with your first Karma for Cognition for these last two points of Charisma
plz gimme more

Honestly, I can't imagine Heightened Concentration affecting modifiers like *that*, but it's just another RAW failing. Like Cover, that's probably something that should be shifted into a bonus to the defender, but then you lose the chance of Glitching.

The best part about the pornomancer was the description of such a being humping air to do his thing.

http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?show...st&p=545898

Air humping, the new extreme sport.

My favorite part was when Frackula named it.

"33 dice is nice, but 34 dice is kind of edging into munchkin territory, ya know?"
Ah, those innocent days...

I'm not Glyph, but here's "my" latest version

Surged dryad adept with
Charisma 15(Metegenic Improvement (Charisma)+Genetic Optimization (Charisma)+ a friendly mage sustaining a force 10 Increase Charisma with 5 successes )
Aptitude Con
Con (Seduction) 7
National Fame
Tailored Pheromones 3
Enhanced Phermone Receptors 3
Vocal Range Enhancer
Improved Social Ability [Con] 3
Kinesics 3
Rating 6 emotitoy
Symbiosis

3+15+9+4+3+2+1+3+3+6+1= 50

No, it's worse—lack of negative mods is purely situational.

Speaking of which, this should work in the face of issues like attraction, etc. Otherwise you destroy the meaning of social skills in the game.

~J

Woof, I missed out! Forgot about the 6 extra dice from the emotitoy. One question, though - why not Glamour? That adds three dice while ME only adds the one Charisma. I took the Voice Control power over the cyber/bioware because Commanding Voice says that your voice cannot be "amplified by technological means" or somesuch, and while bioware may not be "technological."

You guys are right, though, that my character would not be a very good face. My fluff idea consisted of the neighborhood cocktail singer whose club owner was very connected and very loyal. And male. And heterosexual.
Enthralling Performance/Commanding Voice to the crowd, and maybe they a throw a few extra new ones on the bar. I was thinking more along the lines of KOTOR's Battle Meditation, but, like, Sexy Meditation. I'm sure Bastila used that sometime anyway.

But looking at these, I can see that, yeah, Social Adepts can kick ass as faces. And Glyph, I like your character a lot, but I'm thinking of making a "sniffing" face with smell perception, using some of your build as a guide.

Thanks, all!

because we take both! surge dryad ftw

damn dp

The Dryad already has glamour as a racial quality.

welll,hmmm Guys
You know that the Pool is capped by either 20 Dice or [nat Attr & Skill] X2 ?!!
so with the Dryad its[ 10 + 7 ]x2 = 34 Dice Max

with a Dance on the Cap
Medicineman

And in this case, the natural attribute is like 10, the skill is 7, so that's 34. Seems like enough.

Man, surged Dryad? That's like, redoodoodiculous. And great. So, take away the need to seduce and command, and you still have an incredible speaker, albeit clumsy as a five legged fish and just as fragile, who can barely open a heavy door, walks into poles in the middle of her path because she doesn't react in time to move out of the way, and not to mention can't resist a good chocolate or drug, and just can't figure out how triangles work. And did I mention that practically everyone in the neighborhood knows who she is, where to find her, and how to exploit all of those weaknesses? Time to blast some Goblin Rock in your headphones to avoid the siren's song and collect your runner's bounty!

This does not necessarily hold true.

@Medicineman:
Remember, that's an optional rule. The ironic thing is that most faces won't even need to worry about it - the pornomancer itself is only a dice pool exercise. Really, they "fixed" the wrong problem - instead of reducing a dice pool that an actual character intended for play would never have, they should have fixed the cheese that is empathy software, and defined the limits of social skills a bit more, so that less GMs treat them like they are mind control.

@PresentPresence:
You would be surprised how viable a hyper-specialist can be. Not every high dice pool equates to a one-trick pony with a lot of glaring weaknesses.

I suppose I did exaggerate a bit, but I agree with what Mongoose and Glyph hinted at, that such an obvious character in a community (A SURGEd Dryad who smells like angel farts and can sing like 'em too? It would be kinda hard to hide out...) might not be a viable choice for a face. A face is not just meant to be a speaker, but a deceiver, as is seen in the A-Team's iconic career namesake. So giving such a character the archetype of "Face" seems inappropriate. I bet the security guard at the high-security lossa money facility would have heard of the sexy SURGEd Dryad working with him, no matter how much she tried to convince him that she was "new" or tried to seduce him. Well, maybe he would let her seduce him, but he would be reporting her "incapacitating" him the morning after.

But she does not look anything like her.

You've lost me. Are you saying she was disguised? That's the Stealth group, which was not covered under the optimization Max and Makki suggested, which is what I was commenting on.

Julia Roberts as Tess Ocean as Julia Roberts. It was a con job.

Have you ever dealt with someone who was really convincing? All that tends to go out the window once the Face shows up.

~J

Yeah, the pornomancer isn't a full-bore face. She can negotiate the pay for her team, and smooth-talk her way past things like gangers and checkpoints. She is decent, if not great, at acquiring or fencing gear, which depends on negotiation rather than con. She is essentially some kind of entertainer - stripper, lounge singer, or what have you - who is a potential face. To fully grow into that role, she would need to increase her non-con skills, or at least acquire the missing ones such as leadership and intimidation. She would need a lot more contacts, higher perception, and some good linguisofts. And a modicum of stealth skills, although blending in will always be a problem for her.

However, while suboptimal, she is still a playable character. At least, the more modest version that doesn't have some of the more problematic social bonuses (global fame, etc.).

Con-based skills with insane modifiers are a complete replacement for Intimidation. They may have shoved some more stuff in under Leadership in SR4, but unless that's the case it seems entirely orthogonal to Face work. Lack of contacts is valid, but that's only one aspect of Facing and the aspects the build does cover support rapid contact acquisition.

Perception could be a problem if it's even a third as important as Int is.

~J

Well, at least Julia Roberts doesn't look like Julia Roberts (global fame).

You miss the point. The question isn't rather or not a pornomancer is the ultimate face. The question is rather or not they're viable player characters, which they are. You've got to compensate for some things, but there's no reason a hyperspecialised character has to have huge glaring weaknesses. Really, it's no different than the min/maxing you have to do on less powerful characters.

The main issue, and that is one that shows up in many games, is that the rules are linear while the real world is one of diminishing returns.

so for instance the empathy software price should not be a set sum times the rating, but perhaps instead have the cost of each rating level be the cost of the level before, squared.

but that is more cumbersome to calculate at the table, so they go for rules that are linear for ease of play.

The pornomancer works by dying, preferably in the most brutal fashion possible, and then is never talked of again. Any player at the table that tries to make a new pornomancer is the slapped in the back of the head for having a stupid moment.

And do you do this to every hyper-specialized character? Troll tanks, speed sammies, cocooned riggers? Anyone with a dice pool of 20+?

Whats wrong with cocooned riggers?

Or speed sammies?

Obviously, the problem with 'cocooned riggers' is the lack of alliteration. Cocooned controllers? Wrapped riggers?

Heheheh... Just Awesome...

The thing about characters who are singular in their purpose is that they generally require an entire team of people to compensate for their weaknesses. This character is the sort you will find running endless errands for the Huckleberry Cat she 'adopted' or being 'petted' to death by Lennie the Mentally Handicapped Troll from Oklahoma. In short, their own strengths do not compensate for their weakness thus the team is required to support them.

Which is why you end up with movie style teams. Five or so very specialized characters who can generally cover the entire spectrum. Not everyone can be Micheal Weston, sadly. Hehe

After reading, I think I am beginning to agree that specialization is good. Who wants a team of runners who can all speak, hack, fight, shoot, cast spells, rig drones, and infiltrate (and everything else that people have to do) decently?I'd rather have a guy who can hack well, but isn't very stealthy, a guy who can cast spells well, but can't rig drones, and a guy who can kick ass up close, but is awkward in social settings. Everyone doesn't have to do the same thing at once. (Man that sentence sounded weird when I typed it. Rollin' Edge on grammar.)
Bottom line? I think I'll make a SURGEd Dryad, but I know now that she doesn't have to be crippled. I don't have to be so constricted that I spend loads of extra BP to give her that few extra dice; I can use that to give her skills that help with what she is specialized in. 25 BP for maxed Charisma? How about Disguise 3 and Pilot Ground Vehicle 3 with a Thundercloud Contrail for the same price? That's just an example, but I hope you guys get what I mean.

This reminds me of an excellent example in an old DnD book, 'the complete guide to thieves' (or something like that). It put forth a very simple idea: You want to break into a mansion through a second story window, incapacitate a guard or two, and break into a safe to steal the valuables. Now, in theory a single thief could do all of this on her own, but would have to be so exceedingly skilled, that the job might not even be worth her while. A group of far less skilled, but more specialized thieves however could manage it. One climbs up to the window and drops a rope. Another sneaks close to the guards and KOs them. And a third is able to pick the safe. None could have done it alone, and even split three ways, it is more than they could manage working alone.

That's my own personal PC design philosophy - be really good at what you do, but be able to function outside of your specialty. Two good questions to ask for a character are "Can this character fill a role on a shadowrunning team?" and "Could this character have survived on his own before joining a shadowrunning team?"

The team is required to support everyone, in a good team of runners. If you're able to outshoot the sammie, outhack the decker, outdrive the rigger, and outtalk the face, then what the hell do you need a team for? Poleplaying games have supported the need for team play from the very beginning. A hyper-specialist, properly made, has no weaknesses that are any more significant than anyone else of his archetype.