Evening all.

Obviously the true Social Adept from Street Magic can't be bumped over from SR4 as is, so I was wondering how well it was possible to make a Face Adept in SR5. I'd imagine Voice Control, Kinesics and Improved Ability would be taken, but has anyone built one? Is it possible to make a Face that's on-par with Mundanes?

Cheers.

I'd say Pheromones are now pretty much mandatory, since Kinesics got gutted. With a combination of Improved Ability and Pheromones, an Adept can be viable.

I have said it before, and I will say it again. You do not need Pheromones for the Adept to be Viable.

In your games, maybe not, but fact is that the Adept will have an overall DP disadvantage compared to an augmented Face.

Don't really see that. Pheromones give a couple of dice... Adept Skill Focus gives a couple of dice. In the end, it will balance out quite nicely.

Pheromones provide a blanket DP bonus. Adept Powers provide a DP bonus to a specific skill.With just Con, Etiquette and Negotiate (the three most common social skills), that's 4.5 PP worth of powers just for the DP bonus.

Yes... And that cost can be reduced by Geasa, and or Adept Ways if they ever come back.
And since it is my belief that any DP over 20 is generally wasted effort, there really is not going to be that much difference.

The flipside is that Improved Ability scales higher - as you raise your skills, you can take up to 6 (or 7 with Aptitude) ranks of Improved Ability, for 18 or 20 dice from the skill alone. Kinesics also goes back to having no maximum, so you can be far more capable at resisting the work of the guy across the table and at hiding your true intentions. An Elf Social Adept can, without need for qualities, have 8 Charisma and 18 skill, plus a specialization, for 28 dice before social modifiers,

I always thought that a toon with say 4 cha and 4 etiquette would be 'viable' as a face.

They are... Just not on Dumpshock...

This

I have an adept elf face right now. Kinestetics, improved ablity con, various specilizations. What I had a problem with was putting recources to E. So little nuyen.

Dumpshock! Where Sanity Jacks Out!

~Umi

8 + 18 = 26, but yeah, that's huge.

Doesn't the book read that skills can be improved by 1.5? Doesn't that mean that a skill of rating 6 can be increased by 9 for a total of 15? Of course that wasn't intended, just saying.

I would use it for Leadership. 8 Charisma + 4 Improved Attribute (Charisma) + 12 Leadership + 1 Aptitude + 7 Improved Skill (Leadership) = 32 dice

Plus 6 Edge, all exploding. You would need a maxed out Social Limit and maybe the Indomitable quality to get the most successes. Then use that to add huge numbers of dice to help your team do all sorts of things.

i wouldn't say viable as a face, but that covers well enough for most others (well, that plus you don't really want to be defaulting on certain other skills, like con).

i mean, if you're a face, you are by definition attempting to have a social focus. you'll need at least 3-4 different social skills (con, negotiate, etiquette, and probably intimidate. i'm still not sold on leadership being a good buy, particularly, but you could invest here as well). as far as the dicepool size, if that's what you mean, i'd say it's a little low for someone who intends to be a face, as in someone who's primary focus is social manipulation, at least for a standard campaign. you could get by, but really, you need to be able to reliably persuade people after negative modifiers are applied... i would want to see at least 12 dice for a dedicated face's social skills. too many times a social skill check will make an extremely large difference... it's like demolitions almost. you really don't want to be using a small dice pool for demolitions (setting up or removing), because the consequences of failure tend to be really bad. likewise, a given con check may mean the difference between the guard opening the door into the secure area for you vs the guard hitting the panic button and you being halfway into the run and already having to worry about an HTR team showing up and dealing with heightened security in general.



he mentioned specialization too

To reach that point, you need to invest a lot of time and Karma. Which is fair, given the benefits.



He is, depending on what you want to do. Being an above average negotiator? No problem. Being Sophie Devereaux with some negative modifiers stacked against you? Not a chance.

8+18+2 - I did mention the specialization there, after all. That said, Improved Charisma doesn't exist - the power is Improved Physical Attribute, and is specifically and explicitly limited to Body, Reaction, Agility, and Strength.



I find that a little low for a character's main specialty, but if Face is secondary or tertiary it's alright.

Mission contacts (i.e the people you will be negotiating against) usually have 12+ on their pool. In fact only one is less than 10 and one is over 20 - a dice pool of 8 is NOT enough for a face.

I play a MysAd Face/Jack of all Trades and found that, when converting from 4A to 5, keeping karma efficiency and the spirit of the character in mind, I lost about 5 dice from metagenics, 1 die from bioware, 2 dice from First Impression, 2 dice from specializations, and 6 dice from software; a total of 16. Granted, a lot of those bonuses were excessive and simply due to loss of slatbooks. I did go ahead and switch out my Nanohive and Vocal Range Enhancers for a Used set of Tailored Pheromones, though. I'm interested to see what comes back this edition, and how.

I'd say my character's efforts are more frustrated by the loss of some of the other Adept Powers that were pretty integral to my character, namely Commanding Voice and Enthralling Performance. One new thing I'm trying is Improved Charisma on a preparation - haven't yet put it to use, but that stands to net me a few more dice. Ugh, who am I kidding - I got totally gutted . I am interested by Leadership though - if I can't use it to make strangers do what I want, by god, I will help my allies do what they do best. My group got to talking the other day, though, and we've got a bit of a problem with the apparent lack of any tie to the leader's skill in the check being attempted. Does this seem weird to anyone else and has anyone come up with a good house-rule.

I play a social adept in SR4 and can not convert him to SR5 because of the lack of Commanding Voice. The entire character is built around that power, and the use of the Leadership skill which I feel got nerfed in this edition.

Because powers you can only use half (or less) of the time for the same (or larger) total "magic cost" is totally "the same bonus."

Not sure what you are getting at here. Of course, I do not mind Geasa, as they are generally built into the traditions I use. *shrug*

On average a Geas means that the power is only active/available half the time.
A good example is "only at night" or "only during the day."
Others are even less often ("only while (un)injured").

The only one that isn't that crippling is "in a certain stance." Which you can define anyway you want to, e.g. "acting nonchalant." Which you can pretty much justify as being true whenever you need it to be true, which to be honest, is a little cheesy.

Hell, my drake "reality hacker" mystic adept had the geas "while using AR," which I squished with his perception of his tradition (that 'reality' was just a larger computer simulation and magic was cheat codes / admin level access). And even that can come with its own downsides (spam zone).

So is that really balanced along side the not-that-much-essence Tailored Pheromones?

Sorry, I missed the specialization part.

I was talking about the spell to increase Charisma. LOL, you could also increase your teammate's attribute if you wanted, giving that player even more dice. So you could add your high Social Limit + 4 to your teammates' tests if you become a leadership mystic adept. Then they just need to spend Edge to remove their limit... Make your team super deadly.

Those are examples, and nothing more. Others are Geasa that require you to NOT do something, or to DO something each and every day, or break your Geasa.



Traditions have strictures that many merely see as "Fluff." These Strictures often make outstanding Geasa.

My Mystical Adept Black Magic Tradition follower of Adversary, for example, is forbidden to kill with magic, or any extension of his Magic. So, That generally cuts out Combat Spells, some Manipulation Spells, and a good number of cool applications of other categories of Spells. Why? Because in Adversary's eyes, You cannot manipulate and tempt an opponent that is dead. Pretty Harsh, in some instances. Not so bad in others. Still, Kill an opponent with Magic, and his Geas is broken for 24 Hours. And he MUST atone. No, he is not a pacifist, but that is what his mentor demands.

My Oni Ninja MUST perform a Ritual at Local Twilight, every evening, to venerate the Kami. The Ritual takes about 40 Minutes (20 minutes prior and 20 minutes past local twilight). He misses it about half of the time, not because he forgets, but often because he cannot stop, set up a shrine, and then pray for 40 minutes. Even when he misses it, he performs the ritual first opportunity the can, though the Geas is still broken for the next 24 Hours. Again, one must meet the demands of the Kami if one is to benefit from their gifts.

Yes, I think that it IS balanced against Tailored Pheromones, personally. But then again, I have never played any other way, so... *shrug*

Yeah, but not all those skills are useful. Leadership really isn't that useful of a skill, and Performance is pretty much just fluff.

True. The useful ones IMO are:
Con
Negotiate
Etiquette
Intimidate

Getting +3 to all of them is 6 PP, and increasing their limit costs even more. Therefore, I believe that Pheromones are a cost-effective way to enhance a Face.

Leadership did get more useful in SR5 though, since the skill now has clear rules and no longer relies on favorable DM interpretation.

Well, your limits will increase with your Reputation, so not all that much of a concern, really.

Really? I'd peg Etiquette and Intimidate as much less useful than Con and Negotiate. Not useless, per se, but they definitely get used about as often as Leadership, IME.

Leadership is a lot less useless than people believe, provided you remember to use it. The ability to boost your entire group in a single complex action can be very valuable, particularly if it gives your combat-oriented allies an extra initiative pass. Likewise, a universal teamwork skill is nothing to sniff at, particularly in non-combat situations. It can be used over comms to shore up a weak point in the party (EG your street sam needs a boost to the con skill to get him past the cops) or to boost the efficiency of an ally with a high dice pool but a low limit (for whatever reason).

Of course, if you come into the minion master role somehow then a boost to your whole group is exponentially better. Hiring a gang to perform an ambush? Leadership boosts their surprise checks so that none of them fail when the trap is sprung. Said gang have only got 6+1d6 initiative? good leadership may just get them that second IP. This works just as well for enemies, gms.