how does it work, whats the best way to do it, how many lessons do i need for it to be effective, how much experience, if any, do you really get...etc...

Influencing? Well, there are two types of influencing, really. The first kind, which you use based on your skillset, I believe you have to trans to get any good use out of it. It is useful if you're out getting experience, but not as useful as just bashing tends to be. Can't say I know much more beyond that myself.

For village influencing, you don't need any lessons at all. You need city or commune rank in order to get any skills at all to influence.

Upon joining a city or a commune, you are at CR1.

At CR2, you get the first of three skills.

CR3 brings sanctuary and crusade, which can be used during influencing to either peace a room (meaning, nobody can attack anybody in a room with sanctuary), or to make your influencing ... twice as effective, I believe.

CR4 allows you the second of the three skills, so that at that point, you have two skills at your disposal while influencing.

Not sure if CR5 brings anything, but CR6 gives you the third of these three skills.

Now, if you want to be effective with village influencing, besides gaining city or commune rank, you can learn to Analyze in Influence which will allow you to see if a denizen is influenced or not in some sort of way (anything but laidback means that this denizen is influenced in some way). You can also learn how to Divert, which allows you to bring a denizen's attention away from someone who's influencing them and on to you.

(Sorry I couldn't be more helpful with the first type of influencing, which I'm betting is the one you're asking about...)

Normal influence works from your knowledge of the Influence skillset, your charisma, and the appearance you project.

There are five ego-battles you can engage in with sentient denizens:

** Charity - You sometimes gain a small amount of gold if you win, or any item they carry.
** Empowerment - You make them slightly stronger and healthier for a short time.
** Weakening - You make them slightly weaker and less healthy for a short time.
** Paranoia - You make them act strangely, and be unable to respond to other players for a short time (so they cease to function in quests, for example)
** Seduction - You make them attack any of your personal enemies that they see.

Certain denizens will be more susceptible to one attack, and immune to another, and you can tell this by using the Analyze skill in Influence.

Each battle consists of repeatedly hitting a denizen with up to three different attacks for a certain ego-battle until either your own ego is destroyed, or the denizen submits to you. Cycling through the different attacks I find is the most effective, so they cannot become resistant to one of them. So for instance, when battling for charity, I would use Begging, Supplication, then Wheedling, then Begging, Supplication, and Wheedling, and so on. Each time you use an attack you lose a small portion of your ego, but also if you are too slow in using your attacks the denizen will question your motives, draining much more ego.

To be successful:

* You need good clothing so that in your STAT output you see "From the clothing that can be seen, you look like royalty" or "you look opulent".
* You need to be a high charisma race, I'd think over 12 charisma is generally in the 'good' bracket.
* You need to learn Influence as much as possible. The higher level your skill in Influence, the more damage your attacks will do, and also you'll have greater access to different attacks. At very high levels in the skill you'll also gain the ability of SuperEgo, which reduces all ego damage you suffer. To start with, a single attack of each type should be enough, but you'll need more to handle the tougher denizens. Analyze is also quite essential.
* By far the most important asset to become a master at influence is having some form of equilibrium bonus so you can avoid being questioned. Merians, Mugwumpi, Furrikini or Aslaran races have this inherently, and Hartstone Druids are able to gain it with their skills.

I'd suggest starting with some of the unnamed village denizens first, such as the furrikin farmers in Estelbar, or the wandering orcs in Acknor. The experience you gain from winning an ego-battle is identical to what you gain if you kill the denizen. If you lose, you will lose an equal amount of experience as if you had been killed.

The good part here is that you don't have to pray, so it's much much less experience loss than if you die and pray.

But if you die you can vitae. So I imagine losing influence battle costs you more exp...

Nah, because Vitae costs 20 power.

I think it was about a 15% loss or so when I last lost an ego battle, which was about when the game started... so I may be completely off. Much less dreadful then praying.

Much more dreadful than vitaeing.

This has been changed, WOOT! Finally people with High Charisma get some benefit from it! I finally have a chance to influence guards, where as before, even constantly sipping, and having super ego, I had -zero- chance to empower them.


I you divine!



As for the Influence Experiance loss: that only happens for non-village influencing of denizens. And I've noticed it's about half as much loss as dieing normally without vitae.

Noooo! Jitwix entire point was to be a scholoarly mugwump thats good at influencing! How am i supposed to get xp now?

Join the Faeling hordes!



(We need a Faeling horde smilie!)

Really, It never made sence to me that all the races that were awsome fighters with the eq bonus got to be awsome influencers as well, and the High Cha people, sure they had a lot of ego, but it did them just about all of no good. I'm glad Charisma means something now.


Edit: meh, faeling Druids are still the best at Influencing oh well I'll take what I can get.

Faeling Druids or Faeling Celestines. Can't the Faeling Celestines achieve 20 Charisma?

TWENTY?? Now let's see whose laughing at Yila NOW! See.. I told you all oldschool faelings rocked, but Nooooooooooo...

EDIT: So this means the higher con races will now be better than the fast eq races for influencing, is that correct?

the faster eq races fastereq no longer applys to Influencing speed, so yes. on another note



You are wearing:
blah..blah...blah...

Total:
6 rings
1 necklace
2 bracelets
Greatrobes
Moondancer Torc
A pack

From the clothing that can be seen, you look prosperous.


....so whats up with that? I added 6 rings and it did -nothing- to how rich I look, I'm still prosperous. I would hope adding 5,400 worth of Jewlery would make me look richer. Or is there a 'Maximum' that jewelry effects it, and the rest needs to come from clothing?


I refuse to where shoes... Zenji just doesn't see a point in them, skiping through the forest and what-not.

There's a maximum that affects it. That's really not a lot, though.

but i mean, without the 6 rings, I'm prosperous, and -with- the 6 rings I'm still prosperous.. Unless I've gone from low-end to high-end *shrug*

It's the robes. You don't look nice in armor, sadly. Wear real clothes, and you'll look fine again. Maybe if you wear a coat and cloak over the robes? Dunno. Armor's not supposed to make you look nice.

I'm royalty in field plate and a helm... and if I remove them as well as my scabbards, my rating starts to drop. Even wearing the helm and nothing else increases my rating. So are you sure about that?

Armour makes you look great.