OK So I started working recently on converting the portion of my current rules that cover social stuff in my system into a thread discussing in needlessly extensive detail what they do and why they do it.
Why? Well clearly because there's been a lot of talk about social mechanics lately and I felt a full and needlessly detailed clarification of what I've been up to would be good to have.
The next to most recent iteration of my home brew rules are over in my own invention, and likely will see an update of some form to what will probably the iteration of rules after this one eh, sooner or later, I dunno. Anyway. The vast majority of what I'll describe here is in that rules set if you want to see a complete set of options and their context within a larger rules set. There are even some combat examples with mixed physical and social specialists.
However the general idea is to outline a fairly complete description of the basic mechanical decisions here regardless.
I'm leaning to descriptions and explanations rather than the rules text, because there isn't much point presenting that without the entire system and that is available elsewhere anyway. It fluffs it all out a bit and I've included stuff, like summaries of relevant skill sets that are largely unnecessary. But I wanted to be excessively complete.
This system is conceptually complete
This like a lot of things, may seem silly, but is an important note. It's not just some claim that hey, I actually have this thing in a working rules set. I mean this thing has a god damn plan and sticks to it.
THIS system is different in that it is not just a complete example but also an actual complete strategy. It does NOT rely on saying “well of course you'd ALSO need a system to handle lies, this thing only handles haggling, badly, if it's ever finished” and other similar failed angles of attack on the problem of social mechanics that people have attempted.
And that's what I mean by complete. It has a strategy for handling everything, some of that is with MTP but the boundaries of where that kicks in are very starkly clear and formalised.
In The Beginning MTP!
So before ANY social mechanic kicks in you get to do whatever the hell social interactions you like between characters with pure unmitigated MTP. You can decide of your own free will that your character wants to be friends, or not, or give gifts, or not, or talk further, or stab things, or not.
This may seem like a strange thing to mention. As it is in large part the absolute run of the mill taken for granted status quo of “Normally you just get to control your own fucking character's actions”. But it has turned out to be a vitally important option and various discussions on the boards here have made it absolutely clear that there are a number of reasons this step SHOULD be in basically any social system.
1) It Lets You Have MTP Chats
Which is nice. You CAN just say “Honourable King! The kingdom is under threat you must launch your missile knights at the ogre army!” And have the player/GM in charge of the king say “Hm, seems pretty reasonable MISSILE KNIGHTS AWAY!”. And all in all that's a good thing even for the simply reason that it's fun (and quick and productive) to have MTP chats like that without rolls interfering.
2) Prevents complex mechanics applying without conflict
At NO POINT should a social mechanic REQUIRE rolls to determine the outcomes of social actions... when everyone is actually more than happy to simply agree on the outcomes of simple social MTP. We don't want to roll when everyone already agrees because A) The roll might disagree with EVERYONE at the table, which definitionally NO ONE will want, and B) We don't want to waste time with complex mechanics when we already have our answer. And B) holds true even for counting up piles of ass pulled modifiers to force a predetermined “sensible” agreed upon outcome. If we've predetermined out desirable outcome already, we don't want to waste time and effort on a needless roll OR ass pulling modifiers to stop us from paying attention to the result of a needless roll.
3) Players and GMs need Free Will at SOME point
Alarmingly a number of lets charitably call them “counter proposals” have over the years actively demanded social mechanics that do NOT on ANY result permit a player/GM to determine the actual action their character takes. Actual social mechanic proposals HAVE included “Everything is a roll, on a success you MUST do one thing and on a fail you MUST do the other thing.” Under this system everything is NOT a roll, and when it isn't a roll you have free will. You ALSO have free will if you WIN a social contest, so even if someone trumps this section with the social combat and fails to make you into a friend you CAN still decide to be friendly to them. If you want to. And oddly, yes, it was actually important to note that specifically too.
4) Writing adventure's by dice alone is sub-optimal
Also alarmingly there have been a number of “counter proposals” that involve say, rolling a dice to decide if a big bad guy is allowed to decide to monologue. Or rolling a dice to determine if the city gate guards let you in, yell at you, or froth at the mouth and declare eternal blood feud on you and all your kind. That is also somewhat unacceptable. Leaving in the ability for the GM to actually decide the nature of encounters in a reasonable manner lets you insert SOME pretence of story and rationality into your adventures. The alternative.... is the story where Anonymous Level 1 Goblin #11 tries to monologue you with a “We Aren't So different” speech while the Big Bad and the local shop keepers unquestioningly attack you on sight. Because Dice.
The Costs And Risks Of MTP
MTP social actions are largely free. The only limitation on the number you can take is MTP, and you can take them WHILE doing other things. You can ask the king to launch the missile knights of his own free will WHILE you are spending REAL actions fighting the ogres.
Risk wise there are basically no risks you are always in full control of your own characters during MTP resolution and no one can actually MAKE the king launch the missile knights, and if you fail to convince him to launch the missile knights at the ogres it doesn't AUTOMATICALLY make him launch them at you.
I mean he CAN launch the missile knights at you instead, but he doesn't have to and he might have just decided to do that ANYWAY because, well. MTP. So it's not actually a RISK of anything you actually DID. At least not mechanically. And that is important, what with the rewards being so unreliable.
The Rewards of MTP
The rewards of pure MTP can be very dramatic. But that's ok. Because as long as you keep your MTP nice and unadulterated there isn't really an avenue to exploit it. Your pure MTP is still in the end just arbitrary decision making.
So what if the GM gives you a kick ass expensive boat thanks to social MTP. He COULD just MTP your next result of walking around the corner with finding a kick ass expensive boat sitting there with the keys in the ignition and the engine fuelled up on dragon juice and already running.
Presumably as both are basically direct arbitrary decisions by the GM he isn't giving you a boat you flat out shouldn't have. And if he needs a mechanic to avoid doing that... its a fucking arbitrary decision, he can just damn well decide differently. And if that's not enough then you have a basic problem in your wealth and reward guidelines that is going to crop up anyway every time the PCs say “oooh so can we just take the kick ass dragon juice boat those dead missile knights were driving?”
Retrying
And there are only really pure MTP limits on retries. If you REALLY want to you can just ask “How About Now?”. Or “Would you believe 3 boy scouts and a Sausage Dog?”. And hell the player on the other end of the interaction CAN change their mind if they want to. Or not. Whatever.
In Between You Can Pull Numbers Out Of Your Ass
Anyway. Like every other system under the sun, when the mechanics don't cover something you are encouraged to make a flat arbitrary decision on success, or pull a number out of your ass (ideally shallowly inspired and influenced by actual mechanical abilities players have) and call an arbitrary roll.
At SOME point you MIGHT want to do that with your MTP social resolution. Presumably however you ONLY do this when you both A) Can't decide what outcome you want from your MTP social resolution and B) Don't actually care if you get a success or not from the outcome.
And as such presumably this is only an option the GM uses to determine if player MTP social actions work when the GM is feeling indecisive.
Since the system has potential themed social attack bonuses and social defences already those can be incorporated into any random ass number generation and arbitrary roll, or into any argument for an arbitrary roll free success.
However there are some implications for this.
Cost, Risk and Players as Targets
Again, no cost for this. Not even in actions, because it's basically exactly the same as pure MTP only you are basically voluntarily flipping a coin to make your decision for you.
Risk wise, again, there is no risk players don't HAVE to decide their own character's actions by flipping a coin, and it is assumed WON'T and it is encouraged that they DON'T. Hell. The GM probably shouldn't.
The proviso here is that the GM probably shouldn't use this sort of mechanic on the players. At no point should the GM be able to say “I ass pulled a number and rolled on it and that let me make your character do what I want!”. I'd suggest at most in that regards the GM say “it's pretty convincing, in a purely non-binding manner” and if the players say “wow that's convincing, but I might just go ahead and do something else anyway because of potatoes” that is fine because we are still under MTP risk/cost limitations and they still have full MTP control over their own character's actions.
Rewards and Retries
Could be the same as MTP. Because again, this entire option can and should be reasonably trumped by pure MTP and arbitrary decision making.
HOWEVER. There should be fairly firm limits on using the arbitrary ass pulled roll for changing minds or retrying failed attempts at social MTP/Arbitrary rolls. IF you say “well there is no cost AND no limit on retries and I have decided if you ever roll over a 19 you will get FREE CANDY” then the players are going to get FREE CANDY and will roll until doomsday in order to get it.
And we want to avoid that. So IF you call for an arbitrary ass pulled roll on an MTP action it needs to be limited to either “one try only”, “limited time only” or “no do-overs without arbitrarily impressive new content/context”.
There is however a resort to go to for retries...
The place for giving out rewards of any actual value that the character originally did NOT choose to give you falls into the domain of the actual formalised system. If the player in charge of a character says “My character doesn't like you enough to give you that/Your lies are insufficiently convincing for my character to fall for that.” then the APPROPRIATE response within this system is to resort to Social Combat not to resort to any kind of arbitrary ass pulled roll.
Special Formal Actions
Before you get to the full on social combat proper there are some other bits.
Now. Unlimited contextually variable goals in social mechanics appear to be a design dead end. I could point you to threads here, but basically there are massive emergent failure points on bidding wars and such even IF you can get valuation working... which you can't.
BUT we can get away with a small number of LIMITED variable goals. It won't be enough to cover say, contextual valuation of, well, any particularly significant range of goals like those planned by people that want a system that calculates specific goals as diverse and bullshit as “Give me that chicken your mother never trusted” and “Surrender what may or may not be the filthy filthy key to the universe”. But if we keep our variable goals to a narrowly limited entirely formal list we can do SOMEHING.
And that something in this system is Social Special attacks. The social equivalent of Disarm, Trip, Grab etc...
When do Social Special Attacks Happen?
They are actions using the combat system and combat action costs, they can happen in, around, simultaneously but separate to, and entirely outside of combat. Almost all of them are designed to directly interact with other combat subsystems, especially the Alert and Stealth mechanics.
So what Social Special Attacks Are there?
Currently any default character can attempt...
Prevent Alarm
A friendly, seductive, or deceptive attack. Basically on success convinces a target to remove the formalised Suspicious state (Alert mechanic) and refrain from running off or yelling to spread information about intruders and such (that operates under actually formalised Alarm spreading rules). It interacts predominantly with the Stealth/Combat Map Exploration rules but also with the main Social Combat mechanics, surprise assassination attacks etc... You use it mostly to have a quick chance at turning a bad situation (caught by guards somewhere you shouldn't be) into an opportunity to sneak off or lie to them more with less penalties to either option.
Social Surprise
A friendly, seductive or deceptive attack. You can make a social attack that on success merely makes you appear non-threatening thus setting you up to make a surprise assassination attack. Works almost exactly like making a Stealth action to set up for a surprise assassination attack. Only its a social attack instead of a stealth action.
Social Parry
Scary, friendly, seductive or deceptive (so, basically any of them). In an emergency you can just yell at someone to try and interrupt their action. Works almost exactly like the same default parry special attack for physical attack options. Just with social instead.
Distract
Scary, friendly, seductive or deceptive (so, basically any of them). Perform an action to draw attention. Any target you succeed against cannot detect OTHER character's attempts at stealth actions. Ties in with the Stealth mechanics to remove potential observers and help other characters attempting sneaking off or setting up for surprise assassination attempts.
Disguise
Disguise is the odd man out of the system. A combination Deceptive social attack and special Stealth action. And the end state it creates... is the appearance of another character. Which is the broadest least formal result on the special social attacks list. It ties in with other disguised based combat actions you can gain from later skills (like switching place with other targets in the middle of someone's attack). It also ties back into both the MTP level social resolution and the formal social combat. A successful disguise basically only contributes a new factor then throws you back to MTP with a new informal negotiating chip, that can STILL result in an impasse of a GM/Player saying “I don't care if you look just like him, my guy wouldn't do that thing you are asking him to for some reason” that throws you to formalised social combat. Despite that relative devaluation, it's probably one of the strongest “single roll” social options, and formalising it so it can tie in with bonuses and other similar actions all in all is a productive alternative to leaving it out in the cold with the purely arbitrary bullshit of “Other Actions”.
Wait? Four types of social attack? Whats this Scary, Friendly, Seductive, Deceptive stuff?
That should come up in a second.
For now however it's worth noting the (largely there for possibly misguided flavour) imbalance between the types where Deceptive gets the most special attack options, and Scary gets the least. There was SOME attempt to balance this out with the options you get if you decide to specialise in the otherwise not that great scary skills. But yes, by default scary does the least “extra” stuff.
Cost/Risk?
All special social attacks are a combat action in time costs. Pretty much all of them are a single action cost There sometimes are ways of doing them as an extra action at various resource and skill costs.
The general risk being while you are spending your action or resource, unless the targets are surprised already, they might be doing something else of a similar time cost in nature. Like maybe shooting you full of arrows. Or yelling for more guards. Or making Scary attacks to subdue you. Etc...
Rewards/Benefits
Are significant but rather clearly formalised.
What About Contextual Modifiers?
Probably best to see the social combat section proper for this, but a few small modifiers from there apply to special social attacks, and some special social attacks may come with their own small, and importantly finite list of small and finite modifiers.
It's also worth noting that basically all those modifiers are at least somewhat under the control of the active parties rather than being arbitrary unconditional GM ass pulled bullshit like “But I just decided his mother HATED your species, but he hated his mother, but he is conflicted, plus seventy billionty ass point, minus eleventy billionty, give or take further ass modifiers”.
They essentially take the same role, and operate under the same limitations as minor contextual modifiers for a normal physical attack action.
The Transition to Special Social Actions
The main social system transitions quite smoothly between informal MTP->Dispute occurs->Formal Social Combat. Special social actions are however somewhat independent. Fortunately their effects are very narrow and specific. So it's actually very simply just a case of Special Social actions occur when players want to attempt them to achieve their results. Exactly like, well any regular formalised individual action.
Which “side” of the Alert mechanic transition you fall on however IS notable and important as these social special actions could fall either side of it, and can be effected by the alert bonus. And one or two also get to ignore the Alert bonus, and potentially either remove it, or remove observers with it from other character's Stealth attempts.
The Stakes of Social Combat
OK so before we talk about the transition to social combat from social MTP we need to know what is going to be at stake once we hit social combat proper.
We cannot have unlimited goals of variable difficulty
It's just not reasonable we can only have a very limited number of potential end states here.
Complexity and time investments demand large rewards
Once we are spending a bunch of time and complexity on this, enough to call it a kind of “combat” equivalent system, or any notable part of a combat system. It needs to have rewards in a similar scale to actual combat.
Minimum Combat Stakes
Social attacks are going to be a thing you sometimes do in the middle of combat. And, as we know from any number of failed versions of lame debuff mechanics and lame alternative damage track mechanics and what not... any action you attempt in combat needs to in SOME way directly contribute towards victory and do so to a value at least comparable to (and compatible with) attempting to defeat enemies through regular attacks.
So social combat actions ARE attacks. They deal damage in the form of social confusion, which can contribute to ultimately defeating a target by any means, just like making someone dizzy before you stab them. There are social special actions (default and others) that achieve the equivalent of regular special attacks.
And if you defeat a character with your social attacks in social combat the MINIMUM reward is that they are REMOVED AS A COMBAT THREAT. And it is recommended that the standard reward be more in line with the defeated target becoming, in some form or flavor, an actual ALLY.
Indeed eliminating threats and turning them into (some sort of) allies is the whole thing the formalised social mechanics are all about.
Broad End States
So end states need to be limited in number and rewarding in scale. We need to cover most potential goals with the least and largest potential defeat states. And our model is going to be Charm Person. The end state is “Add major motivating factor that broadly lets me achieve my goals”.
So the stakes being played for are the ability at the end of the combat for the victor to say something like “And now that character will do that thing I want them to because they are now my FRIEND”.
There is some limited wiggle room of “I wouldn't do that even if you are my FRIEND!” or “Since we are friends I am going to voluntarily help you out with this thing I want to do that you never even asked for ehehehehe”. But the guidelines are that players should be co-operative and victory states should actually be rewarded you can weasel in some control so that your character gives out Friendly flavoured rewards in a manner that you feel is in keeping with your character's feel... but you DO give out rewards.
These Stakes Are BIG Stakes, no excuses given
Let's be clear. Let's not pretend otherwise.
Highly limited social influence over a character can EASILY be leveraged into potentially huge impacts or rewards. It is EASY to rob or murder someone who trusts you. So these broad end states CAN be exploited. There is SOME limit in the form of deal breaker events and such, but... generally by then any damage that is going to be done can be done.
But, as outlined in the past. This is an issue with any social mechanic that lets you so much as make someone trust you enough to “hold my luggage thanks” just long enough for your luggage to frame them for regicide, loot their bank account and explode in their face.
And indeed in systems that attempt to implement bonuses for highly variable contexts... weaselling new and exciting ways for innocuous luggage to explode in the faces of normally polite members of society is rewarded with bonuses to the attempt, which is generally a bad thing. And rapidly these systems are either discarded or become a negotiation contest of attempting to convince the GM to hand out the lowest possible “trivial” difficulty ratings for the biggest possible reward you can cram into a brown paper bag.
The stakes in my system acknowledge that it is possible to achieve big things once you have taken some portion of control away from another player in the form of automatic character “trust”. But at least here if you are going to force an exploding hello kitty lunch box onto a character because your lies are so awesome then they have the recourse of having hopefully level appropriate social defences (and attacks) you have to overcome first. So even though you MIGHT blow them up... you overcame the appropriate opposition for that to be a valid reward.
Recovering From Social Defeats
Duration on social defeats is important. We kind of care if a social defeat lasts longer than a single combat or not.
So... social defeats are set to an “indefinite” duration. Permanent until cured.
Social defeats can be cured by simply being away from the victor for a very long time. If you go off for months and months when you come back your “Friends” might not be so friendly any more.
Alternatively if someone ELSE social defeats a character their social victory is allowed to trump prior social victories, effectively ending prior defeat states as necessary.
Also there are...
Deal Breaker Events
Each of the standard flavours of social defeat have “Deal Breaker” conditions. “Friends” DO in fact stop being friendly the moment they catch you in the attempt to literally stab them in the back. Unfortunately it might well by then be too late for them, but on the off chance, the “Friendship” is cancelled.
Some of the bigger potential long term “pay offs”, especially the “easy” ones turn out to be pretty readily cast as deal breakers. Your friend might well trust you with his credit card, and it might well be easy to then empty his account and flee the country. Come back and he won't be your friend anymore though.
So effectively if you don't put some effort or restraint in your “use” of allies created by social defeats you end up expending them as one time cash ins and if you want to do it again you better go defeat them again.
The Social Contract
OK that title is really just a bad joke. But. It's not altogether hard to imagine a situation where you benefit from a social victim staying in a defeat state in the longer term without doing anything to meet the conditions of a deal breaker event.
BUT that is considered to meet the requirements of some sort of actual honest and mutual relationship of some form. If you “Friend” a victim and they help and protect you and you do the same for them instead of leaving them to be eaten by wolves in a ditch then they STAY your friend and the social defeat can be maintained indefinitely.
The behaviour of characters and the way the exploit social defeats through deal breakers or not leads to a nice split of archetypes between exploitative con men and trustworthy honourable dudes who influence and lead with honourable coolness. And you really do want your social mechanics to do both those things.
The Transition from MTP to Social Combat
OK so. People MTP a bunch. Players disagree. Some player then says “I want to win this disagreement and make that character do what I want... because of Fear/Friendship/Seduction/Deception (and other options with advancement)”
That's it. It's player conflict triggered. A player or GM opts into making a social attack with the presumed goal of winning the social combat. The stakes are influence over another player/GMs character as outlined already.
As simple as this is drawing the line here and in this manner is WHY this system meets a lot of very basic goals in permitting actual player autonomy over their own character's actions. THIS is why the system never generates a roll in contrary to what EVERYONE at the table wants a social outcome to be.
And if you take away no other single mechanic from reading this for your own then I strongly recommend THIS is the mechanic you walk away with. Formalised social mechanics should ONLY kick in when MTP has reached a clear dispute.
The Mechanics Of Basic Social Combat
So now lets get into some actual meat of the social combat itself.
Social Actions Are Attacks
The basic social action in my system is an attack.
It rolls the same dice regular attacks do (a d20).
It adds modifiers in a similar way (mostly bonuses vs certain keywords on defences).
It rolls against a defence score, though unlike normal attacks it rolls against a dedicated Social Defence instead of the Normal Defence.
And it deals damage to your hit points until it defeats you. (In my system that is generally one hit point per attack, standard named characters have 3 hit points).
Social Defence
Is 10 plus a bunch of accumulated bonuses with various typed keywords mostly used to control how they stack and as match ups for attack bonuses.
Social Defence is one of the two defence scores every character has. It is used not only by social attacks but also as a basic defence against Stealth actions (like hiding, sneaking and pick pocketing), because fuck it, three was too much and SDef was a close enough fit.
Default social defence of the 10 plus maybe 5 Alert is higher than default NDef. The starting point of your NDef bonus is only a 5 instead of a 10 and there is no direct alert equivalent unless you count standing on a table for +1.
Unskilled character vs unskilled character it is easier to stab each other than lie to each other. ESPECIALLY if the stabbing has already started. But it's still possible to opt for the lies.
When collecting skills and items to boost your defence scores NDef wins out on available bonuses, in size and to some extent variety. But both have advancement options.
Level Appropriate Numbers?
Well. In THEORY the idea is that social targets have social defences in keeping with their over all power. If I were running a Level based system I could totally claim “I got this”.
Unfortunately it's a relatively free and open point's based system. So actually you CAN build a high value character made of crazy Normal attack and maybe even crazy NDef with a really low SDef and no good Social attacks.
However there ARE only 2 defence types. There are MANY sources of bonuses to both. There are MANY viable defence strategies that work on either or sometimes both. And anyone who lets the gap between their SDef and NDef widen too far is opening themselves up to an obvious weak point to incredibly common attack types. Rack your NDef up over 15 without doing anything for your SDef and even entiraly untrained characters attacking you will be motivated to switch to SDef.
With much of the system's bonus structure built around match ups of attack bonuses triggered by keywords on target defences and other attempts to generate situational variation to optimal action choices... over all this looks like a bit of a good thing.
Extensive experiments seem to suggest that the optimal strategy is indeed to try and cover both bases at least somewhat on defence, and to start out specialising in a single attack form, then move on to some alternative attack forms (social or otherwise) as you run out of specialisation options.
The Alert Bonus
EVERY character can add a large 5 point Alert bonus to their SDef.
By default they don't. And when casually walking around they don't. Even when being gate guards at the gate guard post they don't. Even if they observe, make or are targeted by a Social attack they do not.
They may however choose to become alert if they observe a normal attack (failed or otherwise) on anyone, make a normal attack (failed or otherwise on anyone), observe a a failed stealth action, observe failed attempts to conceal weaponry beyond that permitted in the area, observe equipped weaponry just plain not permitted in the area even if no conceal attempt is made or observe an intruder in a secured area. Note that is after observing so stealthy characters are mostly rolling against non-alert guards, but if they fail and try and lie their way out they roll their social attacks against alert guards.
Interacting With The Alert Bonus
Notably there is a formalised special social attack you can attempt that specifically just removes the Alert state, and convinces guards to not spread the alarm. It doesn't talk you past or get you out of trouble, but removing the alert state is helpful and preventing them from spreading alarm is extra helpful. Presumably then you lie your way through, hide again and cheese it, or friendly over and back stab them all quietly, and you can do all that with standard mechanics.
Aside from that you can pick up various skills that let you ignore Alert for various costs and in various contexts. Allowing characters who invest in social skills to be somewhat less hampered by attempting to use them while their buddies stab things with swords.
Multi-Target Penalty
Default social attacks as a base line have an important differentiation from default normal attacks. Your default normal attack has one target. Your default social attack may have VARIABLE numbers of targets. You can attack one target, you can attack all targets in a zone, or you can attack everyone in sight.
But there is a penalty to attack for targeting groups. The penalty is currently -2 per distinct character profile or separate zone of targets beyond the first. So you can attack everyone in one zone if they have the same character profile (ie identical mooks) at no penalty, but if they spread out it costs you and if you are targetting small diverse groups, say a bunch of named characters, it costs you.
Skills enable you to reduce or ignore this penalty at the cost of resources or in specific circumstances.
This is a recent minor revision of the original multi-target penalty mechanic as seen in the currently posted rules in the mousetrap thread.
But all the same. You can stab one dude or you can lie to everyone. At a cost.
That's Too Much Social/Combat Compatibility RAAAAAAPPPPPEEEE!
No really, that's the actual criticism trundled out in past versions of this.
Apparently people don't like a unified single damage track. Also they demand, but then ignore, the existence of something like the Alert mechanic.
Simple fact is I'd like to throw in a separate damage track. But separate damage tracks are fucking crap RPG combat mechanics. They are a big pile of doo doo that doesn't work and breaks the game and makes the optimal party one that only works with the same damage track and... etc.... It is simply not a palatable option and I've TRIED to make it one and it's just not good enough. Not even close.
I might even like to have a separate damage track by bait and switch with save or die for social... only fuck it, turns out save or die is ALSO really unpopular and kinda terrible and moving save or dies onto unified damage tracks is ALSO generally a really good thing.
Now you could be revolutionary and say “the alert penalty is just not big enough”. But... A) Nobody ever actually has, they just argue that fuck you no one is ever allowed to lie in combat.
And B) Well fine then change it. What is good enough? I'm currently pretty happy with where I have the balance between “Noticeable Penalty for nearby swording” and “penalty for nearby swording so large that you are strongly motivated to sword everything to death and take no prisoners every fucking time swordy mc sword pants gets his swords out of his sword pants”.
And that's the important thing to note. You CAN go too far in penalising social actions near swording actions. And if you do there is a mechanical motivation to be particularly distasteful murder hobos. If you CAN viably end a combat encounter with social actions you can negotiate surrenders and make allies instead of corpses and that is all in all FAR healthier and less icky story telling than what you generate when the only viable option to end a combat encounter is to turn ALL your opponents into corpses no exception. That is where I would end up if I made that Alert bonus too large.
Other Benefits of Social/Combat Compatibility
OK so, aside from not motivating players to go into exclusively homicidal killing sprees the moment someone cops a mere arrow to the knee there are a lot of other benefits of the social mechanics occurring in combat time with combat mechanics. We can and already have got things like social special attacks you would pull of in regular combat to aide regular combat. You genuinely WOULD potentially pull off a Social Parry “look over there!” to prevent a normal sword attack landing on yourself or an ally in normal combat.
You can totally just exclusively roll seduces against a guy who is trying to sword you as your thing for a whole combat and we know how that works and it's potentially viable in various circumstances. Especially when sword guy neglected his mind and ended up with a low SDef compared to NDef. And... that's pretty cool.
Also the answer to the question “how long am I spending lying to this guy in room A while my buddy swords his friend in Room B?” is readily answerable with basic encounter resolution in a unified time management system. (And is especially important as much of this system is built around large encounters where players may well be doing exactly that on a large map).
You can bring along the Friendly Elf who only specialised in Friendship and have them be a viable character right next to Swordy Mc Sword pants. Where in other systems Friendly Elf is just plain not viable at all. Or even worse you are heavily motivated to build EITHER a party consisting entirely of friendly elf OR entirely of swordy mc sword pants, and seriously, fuck that.
If friendship is as strong as sword pants I will pre-emptively sword pants all my friends!
Yeah. No. OK so people have actually freaked out and claimed on occasion in past that they will, in actual games, run around pre-emptively killing every 3.x wizard on sight for mind crimes since he MIGHT use charm person.
Since the people who pulled that particular “kill all wizards!” claim, even aside from that craziness, were claiming they would do that in my system “the moment anyone opened their mouth” and continued to claim as much ignoring the entire “oh hey utterly non-binding MTP is the default thing that ACTUALLY happens “the moment anyone opens their mouth”.... yeah they weren't arguing honestly on that.
Now. I don't take these claims altogether seriously. But there IS a potential risk if you get your balance wrong on risks/benefits OR the alert penalty of producing an incentive some form of this behaviour. There is SOME point at which social attacks could incentive sword stabbing as a response.
The real trick is however that what we actually want in this system is to create incentives for multiple types of mixed encounters. Swords in reply to words is actually a thing we want. But only sometimes. We already have the ability to have encounters start with combat and become social, however you need some drive for all social and social to combat transitions as well.
In an entirely lawless scenario there may be sufficient incentive for a character facing a large social risk to switch to normal attacks as a strategy. This is... probably a good thing. When you go to lawless pirate town if you lean too hard on the shopkeeper for a discount he MIGHT just start shooting you with a crossbow, he might just be better with a crossbow, and elevating the situation to Alert status may be the difference he needs to help him fend off the social attacks.
But that's not good in a normal law abiding scenario in a less stabby type of society... but your answer actually lies in the societal context itself. Social influence and attempts to create it are considered lawful and inoffensive by society. Making friends is not a crime, but shooting random people with a crossbow IS. Your driving pressure for exclusive social encounters is a mix of the benefit of not creating an Alert penalty to work against AND the benefit of not ending up wanted for murder crimes in the local society.
So there are some reasonable upsides to most scenarios, hopefully nothing too huge to act as a bludgeon that homogenises every encounter into pure combat or pure social.
Basic Social Attack Types
OK so there are four basic social attack types everyone can do. As already mentioned a bit back in the social special attacks they are Friendly, Scary, Seductive and Deceptive.
Friendly Attack
Your friendly attack makes people trust and like you, it makes them into your friends. Ultimately this is also intended to turn into the “I'm an awe inspiring noble leader” sort of thing as well, but the current material just covers “super friendly guy”.
Friendly attacks get a +2 bonus if you appear not to be equipped for combat, and a -2 penalty if you have actual observable weapons readied.
Friendly defeats have deal breaker events on actions that prove you are not in fact your victims friend. Notably including attacks on their person and major thefts of their important stuff.
Scary Attack
Scary attacks terrify people. They make them fear your wrath so much you can boss them around.
Scary attacks suffer a -2 if you do not appear to be equipped for combat, and a -4 if you appear to be helpless.
Scary defeats have deal breakers if you attack your victim, since the power you have over them is all about withholding the threat of violence. They ALSO have deal breakers if your victim can fully escape you, or if you are defeated or otherwise rendered helpless in front of them.
Seductive Attack
Makes people into your romantically themed friend.
Suffers up to a -6 “inappropriate target” penalty split between -3 for wrong gender and -3 for species.
Seductive defeats have similar deal breakers to Friendly ones. With the addition that at least in the longer term seductive victims will have some sort of romantic expectations (ranging from as little as occasional chocolates and flowers up to as much as marriage and monogamy and 47 children at the earliest convenience) and if you don't deliver they may expire faster than standard Friendly ones do.
Deceptive Attack
Lets you tell a ridiculous web of lies and have your subject believe them to be true. You only get to add further lies to a limited degree as long as they are consistent with the initial lies, so you to some degree at a disadvantage for ongoing influence and certainly for changes to it. But initially you have far greater control over the target through the lies you can make them believe.
Doesn't have specific contextual penalties.
Deceptive Defeats have deal breaker events based on the victim encountering evidence that your web of lies is false. This encourages liars to tell lies that are as ridiculous as they like... as long as they aren't too easily and immediately disprovable. And you CAN lie an ogre into thinking he can fly like a real missile knight, but he will stop believing you when he hits the bottom of the chasm.
Advanced Social Attack Types
OK so there are further social attacks you can pick up beyond the default ones as characters advance.
Mind Control Attack
So since the system has social defence and mental influence and such already... bring on Mind Control. It's not on the basic list, but you can learn it as a skill if you want awesome mind powas.
The mind control magic attack you can learn acts like a social attack, targets social defence, lacks the usual social targetting option but has different ways of upgrading to multiple targets (and ignores standard multi-target penalty if you pay for them). And has a strong general bonus of +4 vs all, with +2 more vs Stupid targets (its a keyword you can get) and -2 vs Magic and -2 vs Mystic (so trained wizards with magic defence auras get the full -4).
Mind control lets you just flat out tell your victims to do what you want and has no deal breaker conditions. If you want to just command people to stab themselves you just can. It does not automatically include any remote viewing/communication or remote command/control. But you can do things to get that.
You can get items that let you flavour your Mind Control attack with the basic social attack types if you want scary or friendly mind control. This lets you tie in various bonuses, combos and bonus special effects with the right skills and gear.
Insanity
In late 2013 it was decided that there needed to be more social magic in the system. Results are questionable.
The insanity attack varies slightly form the mind control profile for bonuses gaining a +2 instead of -2 vs Magic. So magic aura guys who don't get wizard training are hit harder, and guys who get wizard training but aren't wearing their magic aura today are the best defenders.
Insanity deals a variety of defeat states you can learn to inflict and basically inflict various compulsive behaviours ranging from simple KO defeat to berserk rages or compulsive social attacks on other targets or even delusional perceptions of things which are not there (work a lot like illusions).
One of the main tricks with insanity intended to differentiate it and make it “worth it” is you can pay a small cost to add the defeat effect as a temporary status effect for 1 turn on hit.
Like mind blast you can get items to theme your insanity attack to a basic social attack type to pick up various bonuses and advancement options.
Dreaming
Was the other new social themed magic in the system. Again quesitonable, it has a number of other things going for it, but it's social attack profile is basically a flat out sleep attack.
Sleep attack is a mind blast style profile with +4 vs all, +2 vs Weak and +2 vs Non-Strong. So Weaklings keel over and sleep just like that and the best at resisting are the mighty strong guys.
Again, you can get items to theme your sleep attacks into one of the four basic types for various benefits.
Illusion
Illusions work oddly. Unsurprisingly. But they work primarily off the social defence mechanic and partly off the social attack mechanics.
So you summon an illusion, costs are both in current Energy and in a temporary reduction in Maximum Energy you don't get back until you stop maintaining the illusion. Convincing targets an illusion is real is a special undamaging social attack at +2 vs Non-Magic +2 vs Stupid +2 vs Non-Tricky +2 vs Non-Mystic ignores Alert, ignores multi-target penaltiy. REVERSES range penalties into bonus to attack.
Targets convinced of an illusion generally treat it as a real object. But the OTHER thing you can do with illusions is have them make social attacks. So as actions or for energy costs illusionists can set their illusions to make social attacks of their own, and the illusions then continue to do so automatically (same attack, same targets etc...) as if they were the illusionist with a slightly modified profile +2 vs Non-Magic -2 vs Tricky -2 vs Mystic And some magical illusion keywords for various match ups.
Illusionists also have nifty invisibility and disguise bonuses in their skill sets, but you could just build a social all rounder (or specialist) who summons lots of social attackers into combat as a thing.
The Social System and Skills
OK so you can just go and make basic social skill attacks if you like. And you can go and pick up the advanced ones. Each flavour of basic social attack has it's own skill set, the magic social attacks are surrounded by skill sets, there are general skills anyone can take that interact with social skills, there are social skill tie ins in all the various “class theme” skills sets, and at least 2 of the class themes revolve somewhat around social stuff primarily.
So here are some summaries of some of that material. Here in large part just to point out some of the fun content we are missing out on for lack of these sorts of social mechanics.
Basic Good and Bad Traits
OK so the base system uses Good Traits and Bad Traits in place of attributes for individual character customisation outside of the skill system.
So characters are things like Fast and Stupid or Strong and Ugly and so on.
Good Traits always contribute one of the main sources of bonuses to your normal defence, and provide something else, usually an active ability or a fairly major alteration to your basic resources/actions. Bad Traits... do a variety of things, usually more like the active and resource changes and are more positive than negative over all, but flavoured after a “negative” fluffy trait.
Now since Social stuff runs in the combat system using the same resources and timing things like the Fast and Slow traits that influence the order characters act in are relevant, and traits that alter your available Energy or hit points are also directly relevant. However some traits are specifically socially targeted and add directly to your social defence and have secondary/active abilities that are directly relevant to social actions.
It's probably worth running down the social interactions on the lot...
Good Traits
Fast No social defence, one of the best normal defences. Acts first, spend energy for extra movement.
Strong No social defence, one of the best normal defences. Spend Energy for additional damage on hit (can apply to social).
Tough No social defence, one of the worst normal defences. One of the few (and the best) source of additional hit points in the game. Spend Energy to convert special maiming injuries to standard HP ones.
Energetic No social defence, poor normal defence. One of the few and best Energy bonuses in the game. Restore energy faster if you somehow are restoring it already.
Pretty A moderate bonus to social defence AND normal defence. Make non-pretty characters reroll against you for Energy. Interacts favourably with enemies with the Decadent bad trait and some other things.
Tricky A moderate bonus to social defence AND normal defence. Energy to re roll your actions against non-tricky opponents. Tricky interacts favourably with several things including the Stupid Bad Trait.
Supreme Nearly best Normal Defence, No social defence. Small bonus to Energy and Hit Points. Energy to add Fast and Strong to any action (so you can go first and bypass some defences but only at a cost unlike actual Fast and Strong characters. Active ability is poor, but numbers pretty good.
Virtuous Nearly best normal defence. And a poor (but better than none) Social Defence bonus. Gets pretty keyword for the decadent interactions. Energy to render an attack Unblockable (which is a big deal) and can apply to social.
Charismatic Best social defence (and nearly best normal defence). Gains extra energy for being hit by social attacks.
Determined Nearly best normal defence. Poor but better than none social defence. Small bonus to Hit Points. Regain energy for taking normal or social damage. Spend energy to add strong to a single action, which is pretty much only good for edge case defence bypassing. Picks up tricky for interactions.
Irrepressible Poor to moderate Normal Defence, the worst Social Defence higher than none in the good traits. An actual penalty to maximum energy. Energy to add fast to an action to go first. Regain 1 Energy every turn. A touch experimental, very awesome for the energy bonus and poor at basically everything else. Picks up tricky for interactions.
Mysterious Very worst normal defence bonus on the good traits. worst social defence bonus higher than none. A small bonus to maximum energy. And a very Energy expensive abilty that allows you to ignore Alert bonus on social OR stealth actions, and Small Energy regain if you succeed on Stealth actions.
Strong No social defence, one of the best normal defences. Spend Energy for additional damage on hit (can apply to social).
Tough No social defence, one of the worst normal defences. One of the few (and the best) source of additional hit points in the game. Spend Energy to convert special maiming injuries to standard HP ones.
Energetic No social defence, poor normal defence. One of the few and best Energy bonuses in the game. Restore energy faster if you somehow are restoring it already.
Pretty A moderate bonus to social defence AND normal defence. Make non-pretty characters reroll against you for Energy. Interacts favourably with enemies with the Decadent bad trait and some other things.
Tricky A moderate bonus to social defence AND normal defence. Energy to re roll your actions against non-tricky opponents. Tricky interacts favourably with several things including the Stupid Bad Trait.
Supreme Nearly best Normal Defence, No social defence. Small bonus to Energy and Hit Points. Energy to add Fast and Strong to any action (so you can go first and bypass some defences but only at a cost unlike actual Fast and Strong characters. Active ability is poor, but numbers pretty good.
Virtuous Nearly best normal defence. And a poor (but better than none) Social Defence bonus. Gets pretty keyword for the decadent interactions. Energy to render an attack Unblockable (which is a big deal) and can apply to social.
Charismatic Best social defence (and nearly best normal defence). Gains extra energy for being hit by social attacks.
Determined Nearly best normal defence. Poor but better than none social defence. Small bonus to Hit Points. Regain energy for taking normal or social damage. Spend energy to add strong to a single action, which is pretty much only good for edge case defence bypassing. Picks up tricky for interactions.
Irrepressible Poor to moderate Normal Defence, the worst Social Defence higher than none in the good traits. An actual penalty to maximum energy. Energy to add fast to an action to go first. Regain 1 Energy every turn. A touch experimental, very awesome for the energy bonus and poor at basically everything else. Picks up tricky for interactions.
Mysterious Very worst normal defence bonus on the good traits. worst social defence bonus higher than none. A small bonus to maximum energy. And a very Energy expensive abilty that allows you to ignore Alert bonus on social OR stealth actions, and Small Energy regain if you succeed on Stealth actions.
Slow Adds the bad slow keyword to your actions and your defence. Which makes you go last. Spend energy to remove slow from actions, negating this penalty, and potentially the same penalty from the occasional action that would be slow even without this trait.
Weak Adds the bad weak keyword to all your actions and your defence. Making you susceptible to various attack bonuses and extra defences. Spend energy to remove it, again potentially removing it from actions that are weak without this trait.
Clumsy Adds bad clumsy AND Slow keyword to defence, but does not slow down your actions. Causes you to trigger misteps into pit falls and other environmental hazards much more easily than a normal character does, but lets you spend energy to “accidentally” not trigger a hazard at all.
Fragile Weak to your defence but not your actions. Penalty to your Hit points. 1E to convert all standard normal injuries taken in a single turn into a damaged limb instead.
Feeble Slow to your defence but not your actions. Penalty to your Energy. At 0 Energy you can spend hit points in place of Energy.
Decadent Decadent to defence and actions, making you susceptible to a number of advanced bonuses and skills mostly associated with seducers. Cannot target pretty characters (or items) with actions unless the action is Seductive or unless you pay an Energy fee. Regain energy if you actually succeed in an action against a pretty target. Ignore Ugly bonuses to enemy defences.
Cowardly Adds a small bonus to your social defence and your normal defence. But gives you the Cowardly keyword, which is bad for match ups against advanced scary skills and bonuses, and you take extra damage from even default scary attacks.
Stupid Adds stupid to your defence and actions (bad for match ups against Deceptive attacks, illusions and some other mind magic). AND applies a small penalty to normal and social defence. Energy to cheaply block social attacks due to your oblivious stupidity, but doesn't work against tricky social attacks.
Ugly Adds ugly keyword and matching moderate ugly bonus to Social defence, and converts all Pretty bonuses to Ugly instead. Decadent characters ignore this bonus. Gain energy for damaging pretty targets (normal or social).
Impatient Stupid to defence but no actions, no direct penalty to defences. Lose energy any time you don't spend it, but you can rest more easily to regain energy and can move while resting.
Reckless Clumsy to defence, but no extra hazard triggering (so hazards get an attack bonus against you, but you don't trigger them more). All your attacks, including social, gain a backfire effect and reroll against secondary targets chosen by the GM if you miss entirely.
Vain Never gain Alert against social attacks (but get it against stealth), never count for multi-target penalty for social attacks, may substitute yourself as a target to any social attack in your LoS as if using a Guard action. Which is hilarious with a nice high social defence or the Charismatic good trait.
Weak Adds the bad weak keyword to all your actions and your defence. Making you susceptible to various attack bonuses and extra defences. Spend energy to remove it, again potentially removing it from actions that are weak without this trait.
Clumsy Adds bad clumsy AND Slow keyword to defence, but does not slow down your actions. Causes you to trigger misteps into pit falls and other environmental hazards much more easily than a normal character does, but lets you spend energy to “accidentally” not trigger a hazard at all.
Fragile Weak to your defence but not your actions. Penalty to your Hit points. 1E to convert all standard normal injuries taken in a single turn into a damaged limb instead.
Feeble Slow to your defence but not your actions. Penalty to your Energy. At 0 Energy you can spend hit points in place of Energy.
Decadent Decadent to defence and actions, making you susceptible to a number of advanced bonuses and skills mostly associated with seducers. Cannot target pretty characters (or items) with actions unless the action is Seductive or unless you pay an Energy fee. Regain energy if you actually succeed in an action against a pretty target. Ignore Ugly bonuses to enemy defences.
Cowardly Adds a small bonus to your social defence and your normal defence. But gives you the Cowardly keyword, which is bad for match ups against advanced scary skills and bonuses, and you take extra damage from even default scary attacks.
Stupid Adds stupid to your defence and actions (bad for match ups against Deceptive attacks, illusions and some other mind magic). AND applies a small penalty to normal and social defence. Energy to cheaply block social attacks due to your oblivious stupidity, but doesn't work against tricky social attacks.
Ugly Adds ugly keyword and matching moderate ugly bonus to Social defence, and converts all Pretty bonuses to Ugly instead. Decadent characters ignore this bonus. Gain energy for damaging pretty targets (normal or social).
Impatient Stupid to defence but no actions, no direct penalty to defences. Lose energy any time you don't spend it, but you can rest more easily to regain energy and can move while resting.
Reckless Clumsy to defence, but no extra hazard triggering (so hazards get an attack bonus against you, but you don't trigger them more). All your attacks, including social, gain a backfire effect and reroll against secondary targets chosen by the GM if you miss entirely.
Vain Never gain Alert against social attacks (but get it against stealth), never count for multi-target penalty for social attacks, may substitute yourself as a target to any social attack in your LoS as if using a Guard action. Which is hilarious with a nice high social defence or the Charismatic good trait.
Social Development
One of the basic social things you can do with skills is accumulate some bonuses for your Social Defence. At one point I decided there wasn't enough of this. So I added some skills to the General Skill set everyone has access to.
Socially Developed lets you get a small but notable bonus to your social defence based on one of 6 keywords. Each bonus has an opposed bonus type which if you attempt to stack the pair will instead cancel out. So you can be Posh or Common, Educated or Ignorant, and Naughty or Strict.
You can only take one of the 6 options. So they aren't going to end up cancelling out from here.
In addition each of the now... 12? Class themed skill sets gives out another small bonus to SDef, but theirs are all half from one of the 6 keywords and half from another (not cancelling pairs though). So you can be a super Posh person just by being socially developed then you can pick up a little skill tax option from the Assassin skill set to add a little more Posh and a touch of Educated.
You could shop around the various class sets and play an elaborate stacking game trying to build up a bigger pile than you cancel out. But each keyword you acquire, even if you cancel a pair out to 0 bonus, is an opening for attack bonus match ups.
Most of which come straight from three skills in Socially Developed. Class Warfare (large social attack bonus vs opposing socially developed keyword). Class Traitor (large social attack bonus vs your own socially developed keyword) and Class Dominance (small bonus against all socially developed keywords other than your own and the opposed one).
Other Social Defence Bonuses
You can also pick up some social defence bonuses from various class theme skill sets and monstrous abilities that revolve around sight, hearing, smell and magic senses. Thats basically four more keywords for bonuses and match ups and a potential source of additional bonus stacking for final social defence totals. Nothing too special there other than a bit of super hearing and super vision and stuff.
The Social Skill Sets
So there are a bunch of skill sets dedicated to the specific default social skill types and things that you do with them. Here is an outline of the things those skill sets do.
Terrorism
The skill set for the scary attacks.
Bonuses and Abilities vs Cowards You can gather bonuses to all your attacks against cowards. You can add scary to normal attacks so even they deal more damage to cowards, you can cheaply block attacks made against you by cowards.
Bonuses to being scary Some simple bonuses to your scary attacks.
Ignore Alert Bonus on Scary Attacks For energy, or you can just do it if you are suffering from physical damage, because Scary attacker should get actual bonuses for being scary in physical combats with physical damage flying around.
Ignore Multi-Target Penalties For energy, or by 1 step per physical injury you are suffering. Again. Because physical damage and being scary should work extra well together.
ignore alert AND multi-target together for a discount For energy, or on any targets who are suffering physical damage. Because yet again, scary and stabbing are extra nice friends.
Avoid Scaring your allies when scaring groups Flat out what it says, since by default group scary attacks are somewhat indiscriminate.
Be So Scary People Have Difficulty Attacking You Make scary attacks against attackers, deal no damage but cancel attacks on success.
Make additional Scary distract or parry attacks For an energy cost.
Be So Scary People Drop Stuff Add disarm effects to scary attacks.
Be so scary people are paralysed Your scary attacks can temporarily prevent alarm and can stun people bad enough they miss their next action (and are set up for assassinations).
Kill People with scaryness Be so scary you can assassinate attack with a scary social attack and it can actually knock out or even kill them.
Be so scary everyone wants to attack you Anyone you hit with a scary attack must attack you or forgo attacks, pay energy to upgrade this to anyone you target with a scary attack. Acts as a guard action for target substitution for interactions with skills that enhance guard actions.
So over all your Terrorist is the bane of cowards and benefits from actual physical violence going on around them (and even against them).
Bonuses to being scary Some simple bonuses to your scary attacks.
Ignore Alert Bonus on Scary Attacks For energy, or you can just do it if you are suffering from physical damage, because Scary attacker should get actual bonuses for being scary in physical combats with physical damage flying around.
Ignore Multi-Target Penalties For energy, or by 1 step per physical injury you are suffering. Again. Because physical damage and being scary should work extra well together.
ignore alert AND multi-target together for a discount For energy, or on any targets who are suffering physical damage. Because yet again, scary and stabbing are extra nice friends.
Avoid Scaring your allies when scaring groups Flat out what it says, since by default group scary attacks are somewhat indiscriminate.
Be So Scary People Have Difficulty Attacking You Make scary attacks against attackers, deal no damage but cancel attacks on success.
Make additional Scary distract or parry attacks For an energy cost.
Be So Scary People Drop Stuff Add disarm effects to scary attacks.
Be so scary people are paralysed Your scary attacks can temporarily prevent alarm and can stun people bad enough they miss their next action (and are set up for assassinations).
Kill People with scaryness Be so scary you can assassinate attack with a scary social attack and it can actually knock out or even kill them.
Be so scary everyone wants to attack you Anyone you hit with a scary attack must attack you or forgo attacks, pay energy to upgrade this to anyone you target with a scary attack. Acts as a guard action for target substitution for interactions with skills that enhance guard actions.
So over all your Terrorist is the bane of cowards and benefits from actual physical violence going on around them (and even against them).
For your friendly dudes. Innocent nice guys, skilled diplomats, bumbling fools and inspiring leaders.
Less Penalties for being armed, better bonuses for being unarmed Simple numeric improvements really.
Just plain better Friendly attacks Just some friendly attack bonus.
Oops, well I'll drop my weapons now then Extra last minute chance to disarm to avoid armed penalties to friendly attacks.
You should disarm too Add multiple disarms to your next friendly attack based on how many items you throw away on your own voluntary disarmaments.
Additional Socially Developed Bonus Small applies to all socially deveolped keywords other than your own main choice's opposed keyword. Only works on friendly attacks, is called “Class Unity” for fun and profit.
Ignore Multi-target Penalty on your friendly social attacks, for Energy. And ignore multi-target penalty on any target who for whatever reason isn't getting alert bonus against you. Also lets you make your friendly attacks selective to avoid hitting allies. Because it's easier to do that with friendly attacks than scary ones so it's not a separate skill cost.
Ignore Alert Bonus For energy, or if you choose to forgo your OWN alert bonus as a show of good faith.
Ignore Multi-target AND Alert Bonus for a discount Energy Cost And throw in an extra friendly attack a turn for Energy if you like.
Ignore Penalties For failed Stealth on Prevent Alarm and I called it Don't Panic!
Bonus to the special friendly attack for setting up assassinations what it says.
Look so friendly people won't attack you because you are so friendly Get to make undamaging friendly attacks against people trying to attack you to cancel their attack.
Force targets hit by friendly attacks to be social If you hit with a friendly attack they must make social attacks, if you spend Energy extend this to anyone you targeted with a social attack. It's an “whoa we are all friends here stop stabbing people” option.
Over all your Friendly character one way or another benefits from seeming innocent and unarmed and has a way of becoming like that and profiting in the process. They can give up their alert to convince others to do so and they can potentially force a stop to the physical violence at least in any single turn.
Just plain better Friendly attacks Just some friendly attack bonus.
Oops, well I'll drop my weapons now then Extra last minute chance to disarm to avoid armed penalties to friendly attacks.
You should disarm too Add multiple disarms to your next friendly attack based on how many items you throw away on your own voluntary disarmaments.
Additional Socially Developed Bonus Small applies to all socially deveolped keywords other than your own main choice's opposed keyword. Only works on friendly attacks, is called “Class Unity” for fun and profit.
Ignore Multi-target Penalty on your friendly social attacks, for Energy. And ignore multi-target penalty on any target who for whatever reason isn't getting alert bonus against you. Also lets you make your friendly attacks selective to avoid hitting allies. Because it's easier to do that with friendly attacks than scary ones so it's not a separate skill cost.
Ignore Alert Bonus For energy, or if you choose to forgo your OWN alert bonus as a show of good faith.
Ignore Multi-target AND Alert Bonus for a discount Energy Cost And throw in an extra friendly attack a turn for Energy if you like.
Ignore Penalties For failed Stealth on Prevent Alarm and I called it Don't Panic!
Bonus to the special friendly attack for setting up assassinations what it says.
Look so friendly people won't attack you because you are so friendly Get to make undamaging friendly attacks against people trying to attack you to cancel their attack.
Force targets hit by friendly attacks to be social If you hit with a friendly attack they must make social attacks, if you spend Energy extend this to anyone you targeted with a social attack. It's an “whoa we are all friends here stop stabbing people” option.
Over all your Friendly character one way or another benefits from seeming innocent and unarmed and has a way of becoming like that and profiting in the process. They can give up their alert to convince others to do so and they can potentially force a stop to the physical violence at least in any single turn.
The set for the romantic themed social actions.
More Bonuses and Abilities vs Decadent characters Bonuses to normal and social attacks against them, cheap Energy based block against their attacks.
Cancel various inappropriate target penalties Seduce characters disinterested in your gender or your fantasy species/race without penalty. Notably this also interacts which some abilities that merely check if there is a penalty to qualify whether something is a target for certain special effects.
Simple bonus to seductive attacks What she said.
Bonus to seductive attacks vs Opposite Gender Which also changes to a flat bonus to all if you have cancelled your inappropriate gender penalty.
Ignore Multi-Target Penalty on Seduction attacks For Energy cost, or remove warn items for the same.
ignore Alert Penalty For Energy cost. Also ignore Alert on any targets with 0 Inappropriate Seductive Penalty when you are wearing only Skimpy items or less.
Ignore Alert AND Multi-Target penalty) for a discount Energy cost And Energy for an extra seductive attack each turn. When in skimpy worn items or less ignore Alert AND Multi-Target Penalty on 0 Inappropriate Seductive Target penalty targets.
Be so Seductive people can't attack you Energy to make undamaging Seductive attacks against targets who attack you, cancelling their attacks on hits.
Bonus to Seductive special attack used to set up assassinations That thing.
Bonus to Seductive special attack used to Distract from other character's stealth actions That other thing
No penalty for being equipped with combat gear on Seductive Prevent Alarms Called it Alarmingly Attractive.
Seductive Attacks make worn items fall off May add a free disarm to your seductive attacks. Pay Energy or disarm your own worn items for more.
Force Social Attacks and force people to target you Targets hit by your seductive attack forced to target you and make social attacks only. Extend to all targeted for an Energy cost. Target Substitution counts as a guard action for interactions with things that enhance guard. Because this is basically the friendly one and the scary one COMBINED targets can “opt out” at the cost of suffering Drain 1 (which deals damage to their current Energy or their Current HP if they are out of Energy).
Over all the seductive character is the bane of Decadent characters, profits from dressing provocatively and taking clothing off, and can be the centre of attention in a couple of ways, up to target substitution and forcing social responses.
Cancel various inappropriate target penalties Seduce characters disinterested in your gender or your fantasy species/race without penalty. Notably this also interacts which some abilities that merely check if there is a penalty to qualify whether something is a target for certain special effects.
Simple bonus to seductive attacks What she said.
Bonus to seductive attacks vs Opposite Gender Which also changes to a flat bonus to all if you have cancelled your inappropriate gender penalty.
Ignore Multi-Target Penalty on Seduction attacks For Energy cost, or remove warn items for the same.
ignore Alert Penalty For Energy cost. Also ignore Alert on any targets with 0 Inappropriate Seductive Penalty when you are wearing only Skimpy items or less.
Ignore Alert AND Multi-Target penalty) for a discount Energy cost And Energy for an extra seductive attack each turn. When in skimpy worn items or less ignore Alert AND Multi-Target Penalty on 0 Inappropriate Seductive Target penalty targets.
Be so Seductive people can't attack you Energy to make undamaging Seductive attacks against targets who attack you, cancelling their attacks on hits.
Bonus to Seductive special attack used to set up assassinations That thing.
Bonus to Seductive special attack used to Distract from other character's stealth actions That other thing
No penalty for being equipped with combat gear on Seductive Prevent Alarms Called it Alarmingly Attractive.
Seductive Attacks make worn items fall off May add a free disarm to your seductive attacks. Pay Energy or disarm your own worn items for more.
Force Social Attacks and force people to target you Targets hit by your seductive attack forced to target you and make social attacks only. Extend to all targeted for an Energy cost. Target Substitution counts as a guard action for interactions with things that enhance guard. Because this is basically the friendly one and the scary one COMBINED targets can “opt out” at the cost of suffering Drain 1 (which deals damage to their current Energy or their Current HP if they are out of Energy).
Over all the seductive character is the bane of Decadent characters, profits from dressing provocatively and taking clothing off, and can be the centre of attention in a couple of ways, up to target substitution and forcing social responses.
It's lies. All lies.
Bonuses vs characters that aren't Tricky and characters that are stupid Yep.
Flat bonus to deceptive attacks Yep.
Cheap Blocks vs Stupid characters Suck it stupid characters.
Ignore Alert On Deceptive Attacks For energy or as long as the target is already suffering a social injury or defeat you have dealt them.
Ignore Multi-Target Penalty on Deceptive Attacks For energy and on targets already suffering a social injury/defeat. Note that this is a bit less useful since large groups are likely mooks with little to no extra HP. So you also get selective targeting on this one to avoid lying to your friends when they stand near/among enemies.
Ignore Alert AND Multi-Target Penalty on Deceptive Attacks[/b] For energy cost. Also Energy cost for extra deceptive attack in a turn. Also lets you pay once and keep benefiting indefinitely as long as you keep deceiving at least some portion of the targets you deceived in the prior deception.
Easily Defeat a character you have already defeated with deceptive attacks So if a character is still suffering a social defeat from you you can pretty much one hit defeat them with a new social defeat. For handy last minute “No wait, THIS is the new web of lies you should believe” turn arounds.
Change Your Socially Developed Choice Since socially developed interacts with all sorts of things changing the choice on the spur of the moment with 'Class Charlatan” is potentially all sorts of weird edge case handy.
Bonus to all Disguise actions Since disguise actions are related to deception.
Trick attackers into attack targets you select instead of the ones they select Make undamaging deceptive attacks to alter the selected targets of attacks being made by your victims. Can be used agianst normal and social attacks. Unlike the other “free parry” social skills this one is not passively usable when unaware of attackers.
Force social and force everyone not to target you Characters hit by your deceptive attacks cannot target you and must use social attacks. This is pretty hefty so they can opt out for drain 1 like the seductive one.
So deceptive characters are good against stupid ones, get all sorts of bonuses revolving around keeping the lies going consistently and pull confusion shenanigans with switched targets and disguises.
Flat bonus to deceptive attacks Yep.
Cheap Blocks vs Stupid characters Suck it stupid characters.
Ignore Alert On Deceptive Attacks For energy or as long as the target is already suffering a social injury or defeat you have dealt them.
Ignore Multi-Target Penalty on Deceptive Attacks For energy and on targets already suffering a social injury/defeat. Note that this is a bit less useful since large groups are likely mooks with little to no extra HP. So you also get selective targeting on this one to avoid lying to your friends when they stand near/among enemies.
Ignore Alert AND Multi-Target Penalty on Deceptive Attacks[/b] For energy cost. Also Energy cost for extra deceptive attack in a turn. Also lets you pay once and keep benefiting indefinitely as long as you keep deceiving at least some portion of the targets you deceived in the prior deception.
Easily Defeat a character you have already defeated with deceptive attacks So if a character is still suffering a social defeat from you you can pretty much one hit defeat them with a new social defeat. For handy last minute “No wait, THIS is the new web of lies you should believe” turn arounds.
Change Your Socially Developed Choice Since socially developed interacts with all sorts of things changing the choice on the spur of the moment with 'Class Charlatan” is potentially all sorts of weird edge case handy.
Bonus to all Disguise actions Since disguise actions are related to deception.
Trick attackers into attack targets you select instead of the ones they select Make undamaging deceptive attacks to alter the selected targets of attacks being made by your victims. Can be used agianst normal and social attacks. Unlike the other “free parry” social skills this one is not passively usable when unaware of attackers.
Force social and force everyone not to target you Characters hit by your deceptive attacks cannot target you and must use social attacks. This is pretty hefty so they can opt out for drain 1 like the seductive one.
So deceptive characters are good against stupid ones, get all sorts of bonuses revolving around keeping the lies going consistently and pull confusion shenanigans with switched targets and disguises.
Wait what? Well There's a social skill set that revolves around being anti-social. With swords and fire.
Bonus to normal attacks Against characters who make social attacks this turn.
Bonus to Sdef Against social attacks but not stealth actions.
Prevent Social attackers from Ignoring Alert or Multi-Target Penalty if you are a target.
Actual Class Warfare Get bonuses to your normal attacks against characters with selected Socially Developed keywords on their social defences.
Cheap Energy based block Against social damage AND against social “effects” (like disarms, parries and stuns, which cannot normally be blocked).
When your normal attacks hit NO MORE SOCIAL against you anyway. For the remainder of the turn. Its a bit costly in skill points.
Ignore all those social skills that make you make social attacks or target specific people Screw those guys.
So the Anti-Social character steps into a social encounter... and beats everyone up for trying to use social attacks on them. It's marginally questionable as a largely “defensive” or “reactive” skill set, but it provides all sorts of tools for a character who wants to say “screw you social attackers”. So far no one has taken advantage of this one.
Bonus to Sdef Against social attacks but not stealth actions.
Prevent Social attackers from Ignoring Alert or Multi-Target Penalty if you are a target.
Actual Class Warfare Get bonuses to your normal attacks against characters with selected Socially Developed keywords on their social defences.
Cheap Energy based block Against social damage AND against social “effects” (like disarms, parries and stuns, which cannot normally be blocked).
When your normal attacks hit NO MORE SOCIAL against you anyway. For the remainder of the turn. Its a bit costly in skill points.
Ignore all those social skills that make you make social attacks or target specific people Screw those guys.
So the Anti-Social character steps into a social encounter... and beats everyone up for trying to use social attacks on them. It's marginally questionable as a largely “defensive” or “reactive” skill set, but it provides all sorts of tools for a character who wants to say “screw you social attackers”. So far no one has taken advantage of this one.
OK so at some point I determined two things. I felt I still needed more “special” social attack “extras” AND I determined all the various magical energy explosion type skill sets needed some social tie ins.
So, with some exceptions, each energy explosion skill set got a skill that lets you “enhance” your social skills with elemental magical powers. You can (with some exceptions) apply only one such enhancement at a time.
This enhancement adds a bonus to your social attack that somewhat matches the elemental normal attack bonuses for the skill set, which means you are often getting a social attack bonus for the target having a particular keyword on their normal defence.
Also the enhancement added the elemental type keywords to the social attack, which then opened up the attack to add various “additional effects” you could add to the normal physical elemental blast.
Which opened up the wonderful world of lying to people so hard they catch on fire.
Here is a quick run down of the potential benefits to social attacks from those skill sets.
Electromancy
Bonus vs Grabbed/grabbing targets. Lets you pick up extras to perform electrical stuns, magnetic disarms. Teleport to the location of targets hit. Automatically grab them on the teleport.
Cryomancy
Bonus vs Targets with exposed body or already in frozen state. Extras to freeze victims solid into the freeze state. Potentially shatter frozen targets with social attacks. On defeating a frozen target teleport to location and shatter them.
Pyromancy
Bonus vs flesh, plastic, and oil. Sets things on fire. Extras for regaining energy if YOU are on fire. Bonuses to your social attacks and your social defence when you are on fire.
Kinetomancy
Bonus vs non-strong targets, penalty vs magic targets. Throw things around, grab them etc... with lies.
Sonomancy
Provides some bonuses which aren't counted as an enhancement so you can stick them in with enhancements from other sets. Make your action loud to ignore range penalties on social attacks. Get a bonus vs Non-Deaf characters who lack magical training. Possibly damage and destroy items on targets, damage limbs on characters with hard keyword on their body. Make your attack deafening for a bonus against targets you have not yet deafened. Get a touch of social defence from pretty magical skin. Some nice dips for most social characters what with it being the closest you'll get to “music” skills.
Venomancy
Bonuses vs animals and plants. Extras for kills and KOs from a poison effect. Paralytic poison for a stun to cancel targets next turn actions and set them up for assassinations. Make sneaky attacks or release secret invisible poison clouds that reduce social defences. Social defence poison could be triggered by spurting venomous blood when you are injured.
Solumancy
Bonus vs Cloth and Flesh, penalty vs Ceramic. Extras to soften normal defence with a penalty. Glue or grease things. Dissolve lots of items.
Shadowmancy
Even your normal magical blasts are scary so they hurt targets harder (and have a bonus against them anyway). Make areas darker then get bonuses to your social attacks from the shadows.
Illuminomancy
Ignore bright light penalties to various social actions, which is good because you make areas brighter, and can get bonuses to your social actions from it. Blind things and set them on fire with social hits.
Hydromancy
Social attack Bonus vs targets in fog or cloud effects and bonuses to your SDef in fog or cloud effects. Add drowning effects to social attacks. Ignore alert on targets holding their breath or drowning. Create those Fog clouds, get rid of them again.
Aeromancy
Bonus vs Obfuscating defences. Rip away soft items, suffocate people with lies, throw them through the air.
Petramancy
Bonus vs Armoured targets. Extras for Petrifying social attacks or burrying targets under avalanches of minerals on social attacks. May summon stone walls as part of a social attack.
Hortimancy
Bonus vs animals and plants (again). Pin or grab on social attacks. May rip up soft items with thorns as an extra.
Necromancy
Bonus vs Undead. Vampiric Energy or HP effect. Socal defeats can also turn the victim into an Undead creature.
Healing
Free social attacks on people you heal, bonuses based on how much you have healed them. Also can heal social damage so that's a thing.
Mind Control
Somewhat covered already for it's own type of social attack/defeat. Also however has a contagious chaining multi-target upgrade, stealth version of attack so you can use it with a chance of not being noticed, you can throw controlled victims in the way of attacks for blocks. You can expend a social defeat on a victim to erase their memory since the defeat (within a limit of one Strategic Turn). Social defence bonus from mental powers. Disguise bonus from mental powers, and a unique special undamaging deception attack to let you read thoughts, chance of being detected. Reduce maximum energy (until effect is ended) to telepathically link for communications to continue gaining information from and giving orders to victims. tims 1 victim per block to block any attack they are within LoF of.
Illusion
Already somewhat covered for it's illusion summoning and their potential social attacks. Also has bonus to disguise (with illusions), ability to make summoning illusions a potentially stealthy action, a realy nice “perfect block” where you leave behind an illusion to suffer all your injuries while you sneak off, can be used vs social.
Insanity
Covered already for it's unique insanity causing social attacks. Also has a mental magical social defence bonus. Bonuses to Distract special social attacks. Bonuses to scary social attacks. And immunity to Mind Reading from Mind Control and Dreaming skill sets. Contagious chaining multi-target effect for insanity attacks, passive insanity attack triggered by potential defeats. May defeat yourself with an insanity effect to block injuries/defeats of other sorts.
Dreaming
Covered already for its social sleep attack. Also has a variant special mind reading action (dream based) and once you do that your knowledge of their dreams, aspirations and fears grants you a notable social attack bonus vs them. That same potential mental/magic social defence bonus. Seductive attack bonus. Distract special attack bonus. Contagious chaining multi-target sleep attack upgrade. Stealthy sleep attack to avoid being noticed. Defeat yourself with sleep to block something else. You can also wake people up and heal them in the process, and potentially walk around in astral form while sleeping (potentially allowing you to wake yourself up). Gain free passive sleep attacks on characters that don't move around enough.
Transmogromancy
Bonuses vs Non-Magic and Weak. For extras can add turning into a monstrous mutant to social defeats, or can remove standard damage to mutate limbs away with lies and yelling. Significant shape changing and disguise abilities. Has a crazy ridiculous ability where you can transform victims into you and let your original form melt away (or something depending on other resources not covered here), notable primarily because you potentially could do this on a social defeat of the victim instead of a physical defeat.
Webomancy
Improved social defences when in webs... and apparently I neglected to make a “My personality is spider webby!” skill for this one... hm...
Swarmermancy
Mostly about controlling bugs, summoning bugs and shooting bugs into peoples eyes and stuff. Social bonuses to tame bugs. Vision bonuses to social defence and LoS shenanigans using controlled bugs. And if you have other magical social attacks you can originate them from bug swarms you control.
Animancy
Is all about shaping and controlling physical matter to create instant weapons, armour and golems. So not much direct social interaction. It has a skill for disguising your golems and matching uniforms with your armours. In theory your summoned golems are social entities and could make or be targeted by social attacks. Also it has an ability where you make a direct personal puppet to use as a surrogate, and there are some rules about the interaction of that with social damage and defeats. Also also you could potentially use the item creation abilities for shenanigans with item resources associated with social abilities and bonuses.
Summoner
Is all about teleporting yourself, your friends and your enemies. Has no direct social interactions, though as a mobility set since position can be important to the combat style social attacks it has indirect relevance. I should probably change the attack roll from hostile teleport to social instead of normal, or give that as an option.
Bonus vs Grabbed/grabbing targets. Lets you pick up extras to perform electrical stuns, magnetic disarms. Teleport to the location of targets hit. Automatically grab them on the teleport.
Cryomancy
Bonus vs Targets with exposed body or already in frozen state. Extras to freeze victims solid into the freeze state. Potentially shatter frozen targets with social attacks. On defeating a frozen target teleport to location and shatter them.
Pyromancy
Bonus vs flesh, plastic, and oil. Sets things on fire. Extras for regaining energy if YOU are on fire. Bonuses to your social attacks and your social defence when you are on fire.
Kinetomancy
Bonus vs non-strong targets, penalty vs magic targets. Throw things around, grab them etc... with lies.
Sonomancy
Provides some bonuses which aren't counted as an enhancement so you can stick them in with enhancements from other sets. Make your action loud to ignore range penalties on social attacks. Get a bonus vs Non-Deaf characters who lack magical training. Possibly damage and destroy items on targets, damage limbs on characters with hard keyword on their body. Make your attack deafening for a bonus against targets you have not yet deafened. Get a touch of social defence from pretty magical skin. Some nice dips for most social characters what with it being the closest you'll get to “music” skills.
Venomancy
Bonuses vs animals and plants. Extras for kills and KOs from a poison effect. Paralytic poison for a stun to cancel targets next turn actions and set them up for assassinations. Make sneaky attacks or release secret invisible poison clouds that reduce social defences. Social defence poison could be triggered by spurting venomous blood when you are injured.
Solumancy
Bonus vs Cloth and Flesh, penalty vs Ceramic. Extras to soften normal defence with a penalty. Glue or grease things. Dissolve lots of items.
Shadowmancy
Even your normal magical blasts are scary so they hurt targets harder (and have a bonus against them anyway). Make areas darker then get bonuses to your social attacks from the shadows.
Illuminomancy
Ignore bright light penalties to various social actions, which is good because you make areas brighter, and can get bonuses to your social actions from it. Blind things and set them on fire with social hits.
Hydromancy
Social attack Bonus vs targets in fog or cloud effects and bonuses to your SDef in fog or cloud effects. Add drowning effects to social attacks. Ignore alert on targets holding their breath or drowning. Create those Fog clouds, get rid of them again.
Aeromancy
Bonus vs Obfuscating defences. Rip away soft items, suffocate people with lies, throw them through the air.
Petramancy
Bonus vs Armoured targets. Extras for Petrifying social attacks or burrying targets under avalanches of minerals on social attacks. May summon stone walls as part of a social attack.
Hortimancy
Bonus vs animals and plants (again). Pin or grab on social attacks. May rip up soft items with thorns as an extra.
Necromancy
Bonus vs Undead. Vampiric Energy or HP effect. Socal defeats can also turn the victim into an Undead creature.
Healing
Free social attacks on people you heal, bonuses based on how much you have healed them. Also can heal social damage so that's a thing.
Mind Control
Somewhat covered already for it's own type of social attack/defeat. Also however has a contagious chaining multi-target upgrade, stealth version of attack so you can use it with a chance of not being noticed, you can throw controlled victims in the way of attacks for blocks. You can expend a social defeat on a victim to erase their memory since the defeat (within a limit of one Strategic Turn). Social defence bonus from mental powers. Disguise bonus from mental powers, and a unique special undamaging deception attack to let you read thoughts, chance of being detected. Reduce maximum energy (until effect is ended) to telepathically link for communications to continue gaining information from and giving orders to victims. tims 1 victim per block to block any attack they are within LoF of.
Illusion
Already somewhat covered for it's illusion summoning and their potential social attacks. Also has bonus to disguise (with illusions), ability to make summoning illusions a potentially stealthy action, a realy nice “perfect block” where you leave behind an illusion to suffer all your injuries while you sneak off, can be used vs social.
Insanity
Covered already for it's unique insanity causing social attacks. Also has a mental magical social defence bonus. Bonuses to Distract special social attacks. Bonuses to scary social attacks. And immunity to Mind Reading from Mind Control and Dreaming skill sets. Contagious chaining multi-target effect for insanity attacks, passive insanity attack triggered by potential defeats. May defeat yourself with an insanity effect to block injuries/defeats of other sorts.
Dreaming
Covered already for its social sleep attack. Also has a variant special mind reading action (dream based) and once you do that your knowledge of their dreams, aspirations and fears grants you a notable social attack bonus vs them. That same potential mental/magic social defence bonus. Seductive attack bonus. Distract special attack bonus. Contagious chaining multi-target sleep attack upgrade. Stealthy sleep attack to avoid being noticed. Defeat yourself with sleep to block something else. You can also wake people up and heal them in the process, and potentially walk around in astral form while sleeping (potentially allowing you to wake yourself up). Gain free passive sleep attacks on characters that don't move around enough.
Transmogromancy
Bonuses vs Non-Magic and Weak. For extras can add turning into a monstrous mutant to social defeats, or can remove standard damage to mutate limbs away with lies and yelling. Significant shape changing and disguise abilities. Has a crazy ridiculous ability where you can transform victims into you and let your original form melt away (or something depending on other resources not covered here), notable primarily because you potentially could do this on a social defeat of the victim instead of a physical defeat.
Webomancy
Improved social defences when in webs... and apparently I neglected to make a “My personality is spider webby!” skill for this one... hm...
Swarmermancy
Mostly about controlling bugs, summoning bugs and shooting bugs into peoples eyes and stuff. Social bonuses to tame bugs. Vision bonuses to social defence and LoS shenanigans using controlled bugs. And if you have other magical social attacks you can originate them from bug swarms you control.
Animancy
Is all about shaping and controlling physical matter to create instant weapons, armour and golems. So not much direct social interaction. It has a skill for disguising your golems and matching uniforms with your armours. In theory your summoned golems are social entities and could make or be targeted by social attacks. Also it has an ability where you make a direct personal puppet to use as a surrogate, and there are some rules about the interaction of that with social damage and defeats. Also also you could potentially use the item creation abilities for shenanigans with item resources associated with social abilities and bonuses.
Summoner
Is all about teleporting yourself, your friends and your enemies. Has no direct social interactions, though as a mobility set since position can be important to the combat style social attacks it has indirect relevance. I should probably change the attack roll from hostile teleport to social instead of normal, or give that as an option.
So... I made a point of putting something that ties into social abilities in basically every “class theme” skill set. So I'm going to run through them and their social tie ins quickly here.
Amazons and Manazons
Amazon/Manazon Pride is Naughty and Posh from the Socially Developed keyword list.
Opposed Gender Cannot Seduce/Scare you Because you stab yourself into a physical defeat instead if that happens.
Opposed Gender Normal Defeats produce social defeats You can opt in to an “I'll follow your orders until I can win a rematch” social defeat on normal defeats. Presumably for a mix of flavour and to motivate enemies not to finish you off while you are down.
Scary vs Opposed Gender All your attacks vs opposed gender are scary. So normal attacks hurt harder if they are cowardly.
Apply a -1 Penalty to Opposed Genders attacks against you Including social attacks.
Bonus to Friendly and Seduce vs Favoured Gender
Bonus to Scary vs Opposed Gender
Bonuses to attacks and damage vs opposed gender, get bigger if the opposed gender attacks/damages you first.
Cheap blocks vs opposed gender can block social
bonus revenge attacks vs opposed gender Can be social attacks and can be triggered by social attacks.
It's worth noting that amazons/manazons DO have an opt in “just plain beat me up to get a social defeat” ability. But it's also worth noting it's not just opt in and flavour appropriate... it's not a seduction defeat, its in fact not a standard social defeat at all.
Opposed Gender Cannot Seduce/Scare you Because you stab yourself into a physical defeat instead if that happens.
Opposed Gender Normal Defeats produce social defeats You can opt in to an “I'll follow your orders until I can win a rematch” social defeat on normal defeats. Presumably for a mix of flavour and to motivate enemies not to finish you off while you are down.
Scary vs Opposed Gender All your attacks vs opposed gender are scary. So normal attacks hurt harder if they are cowardly.
Apply a -1 Penalty to Opposed Genders attacks against you Including social attacks.
Bonus to Friendly and Seduce vs Favoured Gender
Bonus to Scary vs Opposed Gender
Bonuses to attacks and damage vs opposed gender, get bigger if the opposed gender attacks/damages you first.
Cheap blocks vs opposed gender can block social
bonus revenge attacks vs opposed gender Can be social attacks and can be triggered by social attacks.
It's worth noting that amazons/manazons DO have an opt in “just plain beat me up to get a social defeat” ability. But it's also worth noting it's not just opt in and flavour appropriate... it's not a seduction defeat, its in fact not a standard social defeat at all.
Barbaric Law is Ignorant and Strict from the Socially Developed keyword list.
Convert Scary Defeats Into berserker rage lacking in self preservation or common sense social defeat instead.
Smell based SDef bonus
Pretty bonus from muscles
An Extra HP Which of course counts for social damage too.
Social attack bonus vs cowards.
Additional scary attack in turn for 1E. Multitarget all cowardly targets, ignores alert on cowards, ignores multitarget from cowards. If your primary action is an attack that hits this attack can now use standard social targetting, ifnores multi-target penalty outright and can ignore Alert penalties on anyone the primary attack hit.
Social Attacks deal extra damage[/i] if they are scary and you are injured.
Energy Recharge ability for defeating enemies and it works on normal AND social defeats.
Cheap Social block for Energy vs Strict, Educated or Posh attackers.
Convert Scary Defeats Into berserker rage lacking in self preservation or common sense social defeat instead.
Smell based SDef bonus
Pretty bonus from muscles
An Extra HP Which of course counts for social damage too.
Social attack bonus vs cowards.
Additional scary attack in turn for 1E. Multitarget all cowardly targets, ignores alert on cowards, ignores multitarget from cowards. If your primary action is an attack that hits this attack can now use standard social targetting, ifnores multi-target penalty outright and can ignore Alert penalties on anyone the primary attack hit.
Social Attacks deal extra damage[/i] if they are scary and you are injured.
Energy Recharge ability for defeating enemies and it works on normal AND social defeats.
Cheap Social block for Energy vs Strict, Educated or Posh attackers.
Tactics
Surrender with a binding social defeat at any time. Presumably as part of a deal or attempt to influence opponents into not killing your.
Tactical Genius is Educated and Strict from the Socially Developed keyword list.
Throw on a little Tricky to your Sdef good for the bonus and for tricky interactions.
Energy to social attack along side a normal attack Ignores alert on targets the normal attack misses.
Your social attacks damage extra mooks They just do.
Standing on a table is better for you And improves your social attacks by +2 instead of the normal +1. AND you can make the bonus significantly bigger again (after rolling) for Energy.
Forgo defeating your victims with any attack to regain an Energy. Regain MORE energy if they were suffering social injuries, but those are healed as part of the effect. As part of a minor limitation to doing this to your friends attacks that you use this ability on become lowest priority for the Damage Cap mechanic (meaning if any other attack hits it deals damage and you won't be using this ability).
If a target misses you you can make your attack on them unblockable It's costly but it can apply to social attacks on trigger AND on the upgraded counter attack.
Can move then attack or attack then move on charges And this includes ranged attacks. Social attacks are ranged attacks.
Retreat as a powerful damage blocker It's costly, requires (but also provides free) movement, and can apply to social damage.
Tactical Genius is Educated and Strict from the Socially Developed keyword list.
Throw on a little Tricky to your Sdef good for the bonus and for tricky interactions.
Energy to social attack along side a normal attack Ignores alert on targets the normal attack misses.
Your social attacks damage extra mooks They just do.
Standing on a table is better for you And improves your social attacks by +2 instead of the normal +1. AND you can make the bonus significantly bigger again (after rolling) for Energy.
Forgo defeating your victims with any attack to regain an Energy. Regain MORE energy if they were suffering social injuries, but those are healed as part of the effect. As part of a minor limitation to doing this to your friends attacks that you use this ability on become lowest priority for the Damage Cap mechanic (meaning if any other attack hits it deals damage and you won't be using this ability).
If a target misses you you can make your attack on them unblockable It's costly but it can apply to social attacks on trigger AND on the upgraded counter attack.
Can move then attack or attack then move on charges And this includes ranged attacks. Social attacks are ranged attacks.
Retreat as a powerful damage blocker It's costly, requires (but also provides free) movement, and can apply to social damage.
Gladiatorial Prowess
Gladiatorial Prowess is Ignorant and Common from the Socially Developed keyword list.
Spare a targets life to apply a minor social defeat like effect with a cashable favor, minimum value, spare your life later.
That Muscular pretty bonus Same one from barbarian.
Bonus to attacks vs Decadent applies to normal and social.
After Defeating An Opponent make a social attack On various observers as you show off by ignoring multi-target penalties and getting bonuses to the attack based on the number of injuries worth of ALL targets you defeated in the prior turn.
Add Energy Drain damage to attacks Normal or Social. Damages Energy, or HP if Energy is 0 already.
Spare a targets life to apply a minor social defeat like effect with a cashable favor, minimum value, spare your life later.
That Muscular pretty bonus Same one from barbarian.
Bonus to attacks vs Decadent applies to normal and social.
After Defeating An Opponent make a social attack On various observers as you show off by ignoring multi-target penalties and getting bonuses to the attack based on the number of injuries worth of ALL targets you defeated in the prior turn.
Add Energy Drain damage to attacks Normal or Social. Damages Energy, or HP if Energy is 0 already.
Knightly Code
Knightly Code is Educated and Posh from the Socially Developed keyword list.
Small Vision Bonus to Sdef And pick pocket and item concealment attempts get a notable penalty against you.
Simulate A Lancelot from that Monty Python Movie Charge Using scary attacks to paralyse guards while you charge towards them for a while.
Throw Away Your Weapons and Other Advantages Your Opponent No Longer Shares For fairness. And also a free social attack that either ignores alert on the guy you a duelling and adds a parry and stun effect, or ignores alert and multi-target penalties on other observers you target to just try and impress normally.
Gain all sorts of improvement to Guard actions and target substitution effects including enhanced revenge attacks That interact with various social target substitution skills and can be used to jump in front of social attack targetting your allies.
Defeat a target all by yourself without attacking others while you do so To regain energy. Could be a social defeat or a normal defeat contributed to in part with social damage.
Small Vision Bonus to Sdef And pick pocket and item concealment attempts get a notable penalty against you.
Simulate A Lancelot from that Monty Python Movie Charge Using scary attacks to paralyse guards while you charge towards them for a while.
Throw Away Your Weapons and Other Advantages Your Opponent No Longer Shares For fairness. And also a free social attack that either ignores alert on the guy you a duelling and adds a parry and stun effect, or ignores alert and multi-target penalties on other observers you target to just try and impress normally.
Gain all sorts of improvement to Guard actions and target substitution effects including enhanced revenge attacks That interact with various social target substitution skills and can be used to jump in front of social attack targetting your allies.
Defeat a target all by yourself without attacking others while you do so To regain energy. Could be a social defeat or a normal defeat contributed to in part with social damage.
Mystical Warrior
Inscrutable is Educated and Strict from the Socially Developed keyword list. But is weird because it give 0 educated bonus and puts all its bonus on Strict instead (but you get both keywords).
Mental magic bonus to SDef gain a free attack (can be social) against any target that fails a stealth action against you as the observer. Even if you would be otherwise unready or asleep.
Spend Energy to move or charge (with the attack) after making an attack Chain it if you like and the triggering attack can be social.
Apply TWO enhancement effects to a single social attack If you have them.
Rather powerful anti-magic block that can apply vs magical social damage.
Mental magic bonus to SDef gain a free attack (can be social) against any target that fails a stealth action against you as the observer. Even if you would be otherwise unready or asleep.
Spend Energy to move or charge (with the attack) after making an attack Chain it if you like and the triggering attack can be social.
Apply TWO enhancement effects to a single social attack If you have them.
Rather powerful anti-magic block that can apply vs magical social damage.
Thievery
Thieves Code is Educated and Common from the Socially Developed keyword list.
Can join an opt in honourable thief club The members of which do not rob from or kill each other
Get A Hearing Bonus On your social defence
Aside from that the thief class set is mostly about pick pocket actions and disarm tactics. Item resource shenanigans for social related items could be of use. But it also contains a skill that lets you make a social attack by revealing a successful pickpocket to the victim to ignore alert on them ignoring multi-target penalty on anyone you reveal the robbery to if targeting more observers. And dealing an extra damage on the primary victim. Bonuses vs targets without Naughty or with strict if you steal all the targets clothes.
Can join an opt in honourable thief club The members of which do not rob from or kill each other
Get A Hearing Bonus On your social defence
Aside from that the thief class set is mostly about pick pocket actions and disarm tactics. Item resource shenanigans for social related items could be of use. But it also contains a skill that lets you make a social attack by revealing a successful pickpocket to the victim to ignore alert on them ignoring multi-target penalty on anyone you reveal the robbery to if targeting more observers. And dealing an extra damage on the primary victim. Bonuses vs targets without Naughty or with strict if you steal all the targets clothes.
Assassination
Refined Assassin is Educated and Posh from the Socially Developed keyword list.
Can negate a small selection of weird options like the defeat conversions for Manazon/Amazon, Barbarian and Knight, which would be handy if you were a social attacker planning to deal out those defeats to targets with those abilities.
Vision Bonus to SDef and ignore shadow related bonuses to stealth AND social attacks against you.
Social Attack After Defeating a target with an Assassination Attack for a parry stun ignore multi-target ignore alert. Also removes Alert from them for the duration of the parry and the stun on hit. Handy to help facilitate sneaking off or further social attacks so you can assassinate someone, shock everyone observing it, then sneak off or directly set up to do it again.
Social Attack Assassinations Pull off the assassination effect only with social attacks dealing a social defeat. Of course requires you make the target Unready, but you have a stun in set and many ways to do that including the social surprise set up. Various other abilities in this set potentially enhance or modify or trigger on assassinations and could be applied to this.
Can negate a small selection of weird options like the defeat conversions for Manazon/Amazon, Barbarian and Knight, which would be handy if you were a social attacker planning to deal out those defeats to targets with those abilities.
Vision Bonus to SDef and ignore shadow related bonuses to stealth AND social attacks against you.
Social Attack After Defeating a target with an Assassination Attack for a parry stun ignore multi-target ignore alert. Also removes Alert from them for the duration of the parry and the stun on hit. Handy to help facilitate sneaking off or further social attacks so you can assassinate someone, shock everyone observing it, then sneak off or directly set up to do it again.
Social Attack Assassinations Pull off the assassination effect only with social attacks dealing a social defeat. Of course requires you make the target Unready, but you have a stun in set and many ways to do that including the social surprise set up. Various other abilities in this set potentially enhance or modify or trigger on assassinations and could be applied to this.
Dancing
This is a largely social focused skill set largely built to tie in with seduction and let you run around distracting people and going on about how sexy and limber your character is.
Sexy Bimbo is Ignorant and Naughty from the Socially Developed keyword list.
A Questionable Ability To get free access past a guard point once per strategic turn by claiming to be the entertainment.
Ability to use fans as damaging weapons Handy because they don't look like weapons, which is helpful for a lot of social attack modifiers.
Move Distractingly Must be in skimpy gear or less, targets with LoS on you suffer a penalty equal to how far you moved reduced by your Inappropriate Seduction Target Penalty against them.
Get Bonuses To Your Normal Attacks vs targets based on your innappropriate sedcution target penalty. Make the bonus bigger by spending energy after rolling.
Disarm worn items to act while grabbed or escape from grabs
Add Parry to your distract actions So they also cancel the actions of targets they distract from being observers to other people's stealth attempts. AND add Prevent Alarm for 1E or a worn item tossed away.
Take Off Worn Items to daze observers by making an undamaging Parry and Stun seductive attack ignoring multi-target (but not Alert).
Use that stunning thing when you take off worn items for any reason including as a cost for other abilities or because someone else disarmed them off you.
Get an contortionist attack bonus for anyone in a grapple with you this applies to normal AND social attacks.
Sexy Bimbo is Ignorant and Naughty from the Socially Developed keyword list.
A Questionable Ability To get free access past a guard point once per strategic turn by claiming to be the entertainment.
Ability to use fans as damaging weapons Handy because they don't look like weapons, which is helpful for a lot of social attack modifiers.
Move Distractingly Must be in skimpy gear or less, targets with LoS on you suffer a penalty equal to how far you moved reduced by your Inappropriate Seduction Target Penalty against them.
Get Bonuses To Your Normal Attacks vs targets based on your innappropriate sedcution target penalty. Make the bonus bigger by spending energy after rolling.
Disarm worn items to act while grabbed or escape from grabs
Add Parry to your distract actions So they also cancel the actions of targets they distract from being observers to other people's stealth attempts. AND add Prevent Alarm for 1E or a worn item tossed away.
Take Off Worn Items to daze observers by making an undamaging Parry and Stun seductive attack ignoring multi-target (but not Alert).
Use that stunning thing when you take off worn items for any reason including as a cost for other abilities or because someone else disarmed them off you.
Get an contortionist attack bonus for anyone in a grapple with you this applies to normal AND social attacks.
Acrobatics
Circus Freak is Naughty and Common from the Socially Developed keyword list.
Get a token amount of Vision, Smell AND Hearing to SDef It adds up to a lot, but its three whole keywords.
That Same Contortionist Bonus From Dancer
Regenerate Energy for making Undamaging Attacks Mostly designed for trips and throws and grabs and such, but actually also works with undamaging social attacks like distract, various parries, etc...
That attack mobility thing from Tactics
Acrobatics skill set is otherwise mostly mobility based. It interacts indirectly with social stuff because positioning is still important for social attacks.
Get a token amount of Vision, Smell AND Hearing to SDef It adds up to a lot, but its three whole keywords.
That Same Contortionist Bonus From Dancer
Regenerate Energy for making Undamaging Attacks Mostly designed for trips and throws and grabs and such, but actually also works with undamaging social attacks like distract, various parries, etc...
That attack mobility thing from Tactics
Acrobatics skill set is otherwise mostly mobility based. It interacts indirectly with social stuff because positioning is still important for social attacks.
Socialite
OK this is another social focused class set. The socialite is a bit like the opposite of the Anti-Social skill set. It's all about controlling a social encounter and punishing people for not being social enough.
High Society is Posh and Strict from the Socially Developed keyword list.
Opt In to a social contract To get a free undamaging social parry attack against any target that attacks you if you have not first attacked in their LoS. And it works passively when you are surprised. Social attacks count as an attack for this purpose, but NOT social parry attacks, like this one or the ones from the various “I'm so social you can't just attack me” skills.
If defeated by physical rather than social means You can guilt trip social revenge by continuing to lie there hamming it up with further social attacks against dwindling numbers of targets (you must have socially attacked them the prior turn AND hit) until you miss everyone or win.
That Same Social Assassination ability from Assassination skill set
May make social attacks while grabbed or knocked down
Social Attacks can break a grab And you can move around each time you hit with a social attack. Potentially move around a lot. It's called social mobility, it also gets you through guard actions preventing movement.
If your targets don't hit you with a social attack your social hits against them deal extra damage.
Normal and social attacks get a bonus Against anyone who hasn't made a social attack this turn.
You can hover in the air not falling And maybe move about a bit with energy, and make more damaging social attacks on people below you, as long as you continue to make social attacks. Presumably yelling REALLY hard or being inspiring enough to distract gravity.
High Society is Posh and Strict from the Socially Developed keyword list.
Opt In to a social contract To get a free undamaging social parry attack against any target that attacks you if you have not first attacked in their LoS. And it works passively when you are surprised. Social attacks count as an attack for this purpose, but NOT social parry attacks, like this one or the ones from the various “I'm so social you can't just attack me” skills.
If defeated by physical rather than social means You can guilt trip social revenge by continuing to lie there hamming it up with further social attacks against dwindling numbers of targets (you must have socially attacked them the prior turn AND hit) until you miss everyone or win.
That Same Social Assassination ability from Assassination skill set
May make social attacks while grabbed or knocked down
Social Attacks can break a grab And you can move around each time you hit with a social attack. Potentially move around a lot. It's called social mobility, it also gets you through guard actions preventing movement.
If your targets don't hit you with a social attack your social hits against them deal extra damage.
Normal and social attacks get a bonus Against anyone who hasn't made a social attack this turn.
You can hover in the air not falling And maybe move about a bit with energy, and make more damaging social attacks on people below you, as long as you continue to make social attacks. Presumably yelling REALLY hard or being inspiring enough to distract gravity.
Fortunate Fool
Lucky Fool is Ignorant and Posh from the Socially Developed keyword list.
Gets an extra HP its a little conditional but you can spend your energy and become exhausted to keep standing for 1 more HP.
When you miss with a normal attack you can make a free social attack and say “oops er...”.
Attacks that miss you attack someone else at random, that include social attacks.
You can substitute someone else for yourself by rolling a deceptive disguise action to fool people into thinking they are you. While that is happening you can then sneak off, and the first time you use it you can sneak off very far away and declare you never arrived.
Reroll just about anything for Energy including your social attack and social attacks against you.
Gets an extra HP its a little conditional but you can spend your energy and become exhausted to keep standing for 1 more HP.
When you miss with a normal attack you can make a free social attack and say “oops er...”.
Attacks that miss you attack someone else at random, that include social attacks.
You can substitute someone else for yourself by rolling a deceptive disguise action to fool people into thinking they are you. While that is happening you can then sneak off, and the first time you use it you can sneak off very far away and declare you never arrived.
Reroll just about anything for Energy including your social attack and social attacks against you.
Wizardry
Wizards Rules is Educated and Strict from the Socially Developed keyword list.
Vision and Magic to SDef and ignore shadows bonuses on stealth and social effects.
Make your social attacks magic for a bonus vs the mystically trained, because wizards get to boss around other mystics.
Ignore Alert at close range By making you social attack magic. Extend range at energy costs.
Turn magic attacks into escapes from grapples Can work on social magic attacks.
Repeat a previous turns upgrades to magic actions at no Energy cost, can work on social magic attacks.
Copy a magic skill you've seen someone else use could be useful for social skills.
Energy for cheap damage block Works on magic attacks, including social.
Use any magic block powers to protect allies including the one from this set, including various magic blocks that work on social stuff.
Vision and Magic to SDef and ignore shadows bonuses on stealth and social effects.
Make your social attacks magic for a bonus vs the mystically trained, because wizards get to boss around other mystics.
Ignore Alert at close range By making you social attack magic. Extend range at energy costs.
Turn magic attacks into escapes from grapples Can work on social magic attacks.
Repeat a previous turns upgrades to magic actions at no Energy cost, can work on social magic attacks.
Copy a magic skill you've seen someone else use could be useful for social skills.
Energy for cheap damage block Works on magic attacks, including social.
Use any magic block powers to protect allies including the one from this set, including various magic blocks that work on social stuff.
Witchery
Witches Passions is Naughty and Common from the Socially Developed keyword list.
Get Social Defence From smell and magic.
Make your hair wrestle things which among other things lets you make close range wrestling social attacks while grabbed.
Heal Injuries including social damage with witch's spit.
The Evil Eye makes a social attack against a single target at long range sneaky so it's hard to detect and as long as it succeeds the target can't alert anyone else to what is happening and indeed is not themselves capable of becoming alert.
Cheap Energy Block for damage from non-magical attacks Including social ones.
Convert HP into Energy for magic skills Including magic social skills
Large energy cost to prevent all blocks in LoS (including yours and allies) stops social blocks too.
Gain a social attack bonus vs non-magic targets
Get Social Defence From smell and magic.
Make your hair wrestle things which among other things lets you make close range wrestling social attacks while grabbed.
Heal Injuries including social damage with witch's spit.
The Evil Eye makes a social attack against a single target at long range sneaky so it's hard to detect and as long as it succeeds the target can't alert anyone else to what is happening and indeed is not themselves capable of becoming alert.
Cheap Energy Block for damage from non-magical attacks Including social ones.
Convert HP into Energy for magic skills Including magic social skills
Large energy cost to prevent all blocks in LoS (including yours and allies) stops social blocks too.
Gain a social attack bonus vs non-magic targets
Magician
Charlatan is Educated and Common from the Socially Developed keyword list.
Opt in to a crazy ability That forces you to spend Energy for a cheap block vs Deceptive attack damage. And every time you use it gives you a free deceptive attack in the next turn per use and only death or KO will stop you so it can even go off after a social defeat, during a stun etc....
Make any magic skill not be magic Has various uses, but could result in some weird “fake magic” enhanced social actions.
Increase your social defence[/b[ With Vision, OR Smell OR Hearing, and switch between them.
Additional moderate Attack Bonus vs Non-Tricky targets works on social attacks. But costs Energy to use (after roll).
Add Disarm to magic or Energy attacks They might be social.
On a hit or a miss with a magic Energy attack may vanish in a puff of smoke ignoring alert on a stealth action. Those attacks may be social.
Pay actions or Energy to make OTHER characters perform Distract actions as an extra action and if it succeeds it parries attacks that would hit you. Bring a skilled distracting lovely assistant with your or something. If you go for something ideally choose something scary for the extra stuns. You may also treat hit targets of the distract as not alert for your own social actions.
Opt in to a crazy ability That forces you to spend Energy for a cheap block vs Deceptive attack damage. And every time you use it gives you a free deceptive attack in the next turn per use and only death or KO will stop you so it can even go off after a social defeat, during a stun etc....
Make any magic skill not be magic Has various uses, but could result in some weird “fake magic” enhanced social actions.
Increase your social defence[/b[ With Vision, OR Smell OR Hearing, and switch between them.
Additional moderate Attack Bonus vs Non-Tricky targets works on social attacks. But costs Energy to use (after roll).
Add Disarm to magic or Energy attacks They might be social.
On a hit or a miss with a magic Energy attack may vanish in a puff of smoke ignoring alert on a stealth action. Those attacks may be social.
Pay actions or Energy to make OTHER characters perform Distract actions as an extra action and if it succeeds it parries attacks that would hit you. Bring a skilled distracting lovely assistant with your or something. If you go for something ideally choose something scary for the extra stuns. You may also treat hit targets of the distract as not alert for your own social actions.
Sorcery
Sorcerous Moods is Ignorant and Posh from the Socially Developed keyword list.
Max Energy Bonus Spend it on social stuff if you want.
Small magic bonus to NDef AND Sdef
Ignore Multi-Target Penalties at close range Extend range for increasing energy costs.
Stun self to pay for an Energy cost on a magic ability include social magic.
Knock self out to pay for unlimited Energy cost on a magic ability Includes social magic.
Wrestling magic attacks with explosive escape Could be social magic.
Make any skills magical Make your regular social skill set magic. It now interacts with magic stuff. Like the meta skills from this set and wizard.
Slow Down or pay Energy for more damage on a magic attack Including social ones.
Block Magic attacks and earn energy for doing so A little more complex than that, but works on social magic.
Priesthood
Priestly Dedication is smaller bonus than usual Socially Developed class bonus, but you can pick any single keyword from the six.
Magic and Hearing bonus to Ndef
Scary Social attack to stun magic and mystic characters
Energy for extra damage on attacks vs magic targets can be social attack.
Add Energy Drain damage to attacks vs Magic targets can be social attack.
Inspire Your Allies By letting them spend your energy. Can be spent on social stuff.
Cheap Block vs Magic Social Damage For energy.
Sacrifice Helpless or Willing victims for energy Willing is pushing it for most social defeat states beyond Mind Control and maybe one of the Insanity defeat states. But there are those two, and Sleeping defeats are helpless.al to the target's Max Energy, Min 1
Psionics
Social System And Items
I'm not going to go into full detail on items for social stuff.
There are items that help your social attacks marginally, but more often they provide energy for social attacks, or magic attacks (which happen to be social) or provide blocks against social attacks, or are pre-requisites or resources needed for special social attacks.
Commonly there are worn items that let you use the “I'm so social I'll cancel your attack with a social attack if you try to attack me” skills once free per turn.
It's worth noting that many block skills and item related blocks in the game only work on normal attacks and characters may well want to collect some of the OTHER items that let them block social damage to cover their bases a bit.
The End
And that is basically it.
It's far more detail than required, and indeed somewhat more material in some regards than the original material itself.
But that's pretty much the current state of it.
Later I might throw together some sample character builds from the actual rules texts or write up some sample encounters.
Max Energy Bonus Spend it on social stuff if you want.
Small magic bonus to NDef AND Sdef
Ignore Multi-Target Penalties at close range Extend range for increasing energy costs.
Stun self to pay for an Energy cost on a magic ability include social magic.
Knock self out to pay for unlimited Energy cost on a magic ability Includes social magic.
Wrestling magic attacks with explosive escape Could be social magic.
Make any skills magical Make your regular social skill set magic. It now interacts with magic stuff. Like the meta skills from this set and wizard.
Slow Down or pay Energy for more damage on a magic attack Including social ones.
Block Magic attacks and earn energy for doing so A little more complex than that, but works on social magic.
Priesthood
Priestly Dedication is smaller bonus than usual Socially Developed class bonus, but you can pick any single keyword from the six.
Magic and Hearing bonus to Ndef
Scary Social attack to stun magic and mystic characters
Energy for extra damage on attacks vs magic targets can be social attack.
Add Energy Drain damage to attacks vs Magic targets can be social attack.
Inspire Your Allies By letting them spend your energy. Can be spent on social stuff.
Cheap Block vs Magic Social Damage For energy.
Sacrifice Helpless or Willing victims for energy Willing is pushing it for most social defeat states beyond Mind Control and maybe one of the Insanity defeat states. But there are those two, and Sleeping defeats are helpless.al to the target's Max Energy, Min 1
Psionics
Metaphysical Moods is Educated and ughty from the Socially Developed keyword list.
Send Mental Messages To People Lets you communicate with willing or helpless in LoS. Not all that much use since the willing cuts out it's use as social attacks, but could be used to manipulate people after a social defeat. And generally stay in touch.
Remote View things, then astral project there then socially attack people if you like.
Add tiny magical mind bonus to Social Defence and different to the one that appears in mind control, insanity and dreaming skill sets so it will stack.
Rest action can't be interrupted Regain the energy and spend it on social attacks.
Mind War against people using Mental attacks (so basically Mind Control, Insanity and Sleep) to cancel or retarget the attack to your preference. Mind War is an undamaging special magical mental attack of your preferred standard type. For Energy upgrade mind war to try it on ANY magic attack that turn. It really needs an exception so it doesn't trigger itself.
Send Mental Messages To People Lets you communicate with willing or helpless in LoS. Not all that much use since the willing cuts out it's use as social attacks, but could be used to manipulate people after a social defeat. And generally stay in touch.
Remote View things, then astral project there then socially attack people if you like.
Add tiny magical mind bonus to Social Defence and different to the one that appears in mind control, insanity and dreaming skill sets so it will stack.
Rest action can't be interrupted Regain the energy and spend it on social attacks.
Mind War against people using Mental attacks (so basically Mind Control, Insanity and Sleep) to cancel or retarget the attack to your preference. Mind War is an undamaging special magical mental attack of your preferred standard type. For Energy upgrade mind war to try it on ANY magic attack that turn. It really needs an exception so it doesn't trigger itself.
Social System And Items
I'm not going to go into full detail on items for social stuff.
There are items that help your social attacks marginally, but more often they provide energy for social attacks, or magic attacks (which happen to be social) or provide blocks against social attacks, or are pre-requisites or resources needed for special social attacks.
Commonly there are worn items that let you use the “I'm so social I'll cancel your attack with a social attack if you try to attack me” skills once free per turn.
It's worth noting that many block skills and item related blocks in the game only work on normal attacks and characters may well want to collect some of the OTHER items that let them block social damage to cover their bases a bit.
The End
And that is basically it.
It's far more detail than required, and indeed somewhat more material in some regards than the original material itself.
But that's pretty much the current state of it.
Later I might throw together some sample character builds from the actual rules texts or write up some sample encounters.
