I guess it goes back to my belief that influencing is more important than combat and combat is more complex than influencing. There is no race that has huge advantages in combat with out some disadvantages within that same area. The same can not be said of high charisma races in the area of influencing currently. It also can not be said that races with high charisma are as significantly disadvantaged in combat as low charisma races are in influencing. Simply because of the complexity of combat, and the diversity of skillsets.

In closing though, I would prefer that the issue be discussed, tested, and addressed before it has a significant effect on the political atmosphere of the game.

Well, the issue at hand is probably viscanti having such crappy charisma, compared to merian, elfen and faeling. Estarra has said viscanti are the most vain of the races, and nurture outer beauty more than other races, so their low charisma doesn't make much sense, especially now it became so important in influencing.

Instead of having recovery be based on skill rank like some people suggest, why not take a lesson from Knighthood and make Damage skill based? It makes sense, since it would reflect your better ability to hurt your opponent's opinion.

It would also soften the matter of Cha controling recovery, since fast hits mean little if there's not enough damage (ESPECIALY in debate, since every attack means a chance to lose).

Edit: Add that to a better Debate system (which everyone seems to agree needs an update of some form.. in fact anyone have any ideas on how the system should be?) and adding new events that require combative people to make a real difference (or make the current Combat conflicts more worthwhile to get involved in) and maybe Influencing in general would sound alot better?

There is a certain attraction in the complexity the rock-paper-siscors game offers, but let's not drive it too far..

Daevos is correct in stating that Influencing has a larger degree of control over the fates of the nation-states than does any military engagement, and it is a staggering difference in terms of the cities.

There are precisely three things you can accomplish with combat, none of which have a massive impact on a nation-state's overall health:
1. The Sea Quests (Gorgogs, only hurts 1/2 the nation-states)
2. Killing Miners/Undead Miners (Only affects ore commodity production, not power)
3. Killing Supernals/Demon Lords/Avatars.

This last one has a large degree of initial impact, namely the 1k-5k power you lose per being, but if they are not raised then this is a one-time deal: combat cannot continue to impact this, leaving us with only 2 things that combat can have any lasting impact on. Note that I am referring to the overall health of the nation-state, not that of the individual guild which will be crippled in combat by the death of the beings. That guild, of course, can still influence with no malus, as the slayings of those creatures does not affect Charisma nor your Influence skillrank.

Now, Influence affects what? Villages.

While combat can play a role in helping to secure a village in certain instances, it will never in-and-of itself capture a village. In fact, with the advent of Sanctuary, it is possible to a clever and organized nation-state to eliminate combat from any village influencing, reducing it's effect to nothing. As villages control the most stable and consistant means of gaining power (and the only means of earning gold for a nation-state) they are a more important proposition than any military engagement.

So why then, for all the varied complexities of combat, does an ability of such a higher degree of importance base its power solely on one statistic: charisma?

Instead, it should be a combination of effects. Look at how combat plays out:
Strength of attack: Charisma v. Intelligence/Strength
Your "health": Charisma v. Constitution + Resistances
Your speed: Charisma v. Balance/Equilibrium

The one statistic is clearly too overriding a factor, and that has nothing to do with individual race statistic distribution. It doesn't matter if you're Tae'dae, Viscanti, Merian, or Igasho. Influencing is too closely bound to a single statistic.

(mostly quoted to show who I'm aiming the reply to. Good post by the way)

The first part of your post makes sense and is a real argument. I'll defend the fact that Influence affects villages because, until rather recently, combat was the true factor in influencing a village. True, combat doesn't capture the village, but it didn't matter how well you were in influencing: kill well and the land is yours.

The changes to villages came from the fact that people wanted a non-combative way of helping thier Nations (and basic quests weren't cutting it) and it seemed the best place to offer it was in Influencing. Now, for the crafty and charasmatic there's Influencing, and for the Creative there's Libraries.

Now we need something for combat: as important as the former two but seperate. I don't believe the Avatar/Supernal/Demon fights count since that, to me, seems more a way to destroy an enemy after weakening them in other ways than an empowering event like Influencing. Perhaps the Astral can be converted to support this, I don't know.


As for the actual matter of Charisma, alright so everything Influencing empowered by one stat sounds too much. The question is, how should it be changed? We've already seen that the REAL power of Influencing, at the moment, is the recovery speed (note that Charisma wasn't too cared about before the change: mugwumps and other equ-bonus people were THE influencers), as such putting it somewhere other than charisma just makes the stat near useless all over again. High charisma was meant to have an advantage over low charisma in Influencing matters. Thus, it makes sense to give the biggest effect (recovery) to Char.

Thus I propose that if a change is made, have the changes effect Ego damage and/or max ego. I hold by my suggestion to Ego damage being skill based. Max ego... I can't find a way to move it from Char that makes sense (Int having an effect doesn't: you can be smart and think low of yourself. Same for Str and Dex realy).

Personally I would prefer if speed was static so that every one had the same recovery rate. With charisma just determining the ego damage per attack and max ego.

That's actually not a bad idea. Why not just make influencing not affected by racial eq advantages or Charisma?

If that's a proposal for charisma affecting speed and Influence skillset affecting damage (I'm not sure if I understand it right), it makes less sense than the other way around.

Responding quickly with coherent argumentation seems more like something you can learn while the strength and impact of your words is rather an aspect of your personality (though it can be learned too, but there's always that factor of... talent, can't find a better word).

Also, if speed is the most important factor, everyone should have an equal chance of acquiring that. Charisma still has an effect on influencing, so it's not useless, just not deciding about everything.


Well, or that way.

Although I think having another reason to trans the skillset if you want to influence would be nice.

Influencing would need a complete re-haul. Should the denizens always get a hit in? Should they never get a hit in if you go as fast as possible? If speed is static, one of those has to be done, and they both are stupid choices, if you ask me. Perhaps their attack rate should be very random, so they hit back 50% of the time. Perhaps they should attack in a set amount of time regardless of what you do, rather than the current way, has them reset their attack timer whenever they're hit. If this was done, they would have to be weakened, of course.

In most of these cases, I just don't think the Admins have the time to really work at it, with all these other 'projects' in the works.


EDIT: The best and simplist 'solution,' if you ask me, is to just give Viscanti more charisma, perhaps at the cost of some minor penalty. +2 CHA, -1 CON or something.

I don't see why a overhaul would be necessary if the recovery was static (ie not effected by racial balance penalties or bonuses). If there was a problem, it would have presented itself when people who lacked such bonuses or penalties in the past influenced.

I think some people are exaggerating a barely existant problem here.

You are assuming that charisma is the only stat that affects damage, speed and tankiness. It is a major contributor in all, but by no means the only one.

Damage:
- As your skill in Influence increases, so too does your damage in each attack.
- As your charisma increases, so too does your damage in each attack.
- As your projected appearance becomes more impressive, so too does your damage in each attack.

Speed:
- Here, charisma is certainly the overwhelming advantage. Ugly, uncharismatic races with speed are no longer able to utterly eclipse charismatic races.
- Note that guild skills affecting equilibrium recovery will still affect speed in influence.

Tankiness:
- Charisma determines base ego, which can be modified quite a bit, especially city races with populus.
- Superego, a skill in Influence, also effectively doubles your existing ego. I also suspect increasing skill in Influence might decrease the damage done against you.

Clearly skill in Influence already strongly affects 2 out of the 3 components, and I suspect that a Faeling with Inept Influence will be quite inferior to an Orclach with Trans Influence.

I'm actually glad that if you want to influence now you have to pick a charismatic race. Once again, there is almost NO disadvantage to any individual character who cannot influence well. They are in zero danger of this weakness being used against them. The only danger now is from telepaths preying on ego.

I would also suggest appeasing those who chose an ultimately uncharismatic race by giving Viscanti a racial ability that can be turned on or off, Masquerade, which gives them +2 charisma in exchange for -2 intelligence. That is, they are projecting an illusion about themselves to make them appear more 'normal', like the Emperor did, but it takes a lot of mental concentration to maintain.

I don't think its necessary, but maybe it will stop some of the complaints.

That is actually a very good idea, but I would suggest strength instead of intelligence as the tradeoff, because if you have Masquerade up and then drop it, it would be much easier to lash/toadcurse, amissio/wrack that person due to the sudden increase in max mana.

If it was static, then denizens would either always attack back, or never attack back, based on how fast the static speed was. That's why I mentioned a complete overhaul.

Or just make it unforceable for that reason.

Strength not only makes little sense in the conceptual view of the ability, it would have no significant disadvantage, allowing all Master Viscanti's to keep up the ability permanently. That is effectively upgrading the entire race to have +2 charisma. And I would be firmly against that.

There are few cases in which you need to worry about one-on-one combat and influence at the same time. I don't think it would be too much of a problem to force a choice, and the skill also gives some nice RP opportunities to viscanti to work with non-tainted races.

Edit: Or even better yet, make the on/off process delayed and stopped by any action. I like this so much I'm going to go idea it.