Richter's good looking, but that doesn't mean he's a smooth talker, or a better influencer.

In Richter's case it does. And as in Real Life, people are influenced easier by someone who is good looking, rather than someone who looks like Riff Raff from The Rocky Horror Picture Show (well except for me, I thought Riff Raff was awesome).

As a combination of looks (what the Divine said they were like at least) combined with intelligence (except in the case of Brood Viscanti) and the Viscanti would obviously have decent orator skills - in a rigid House structure, that is pretty much given as a developed skill in that situation, why wouldn't the Viscanti have a higher charisma in regards to influencing?

When you chose race, you see low charisma, and figure 'Guess I won't be good at influence'. Except as long as you have a decent eq rate, charisma didn't really matter. Now it does. Now you're actually experiencing the drawbacks Viscanti are meant to have.

No, no I'm not. I'm a Shadowlord Faeling . Before this, charisma was one of two things that did matter- equilibrium was the other. Now, they were a bit out of balance, and faster eq balance gave you a huge advantage, but charisma still gave you a larger ego pool which did help (albeit slightly). Now there is only ONE thing that matters for influencing, to balance it the other was removed entirely and incorporated into this one SINGLE statistic.

Due to this, the design decision to have viscanti with low ego is being debated, as Estarra has even stated that Viscanti are supposed to be prideful, vain people who care for their appearance, which would give them an INFLATED sense of self, not less.

After just reading the first post and not reading anything else, I think it would be cool if using the Changeself illusion gave you the charisma of the race you turned into, but non of the other attributes.

I think that makes a lot of sense also, some Mage guild should put that in their envoy report.

So if you illusion yourself as a faeling you will have faeling charisma.

Magnagora is the city of Viscanti. The image of a bunch of faelings influencing for Magnagora becase Viscanti suck at it is not appealing to me.


It makes sense and it might be a good idea, but it's a bit unrelated to the topic.

Doesn't appear unrelated. Avaer mentioned ladantine who used illusions to make himself more appealing to the people he was trying to influence.

Ladantine used illusions, not his viscanti self.

Then every single mage in the game will be running around as a Faeling during village influencing. So... no. There are already tons of ways to raise charisma.

Netzach + 1
Populus + 1
Blessing + 2
Throne + 2

That's 18 charisma right there. You'll have no trouble influencing denizens. Throw on a truefavour, and have someone herofete all the influencers, and you've got Master Viscanti with 20 int running around... even minus the throne, which can be a pain to get, and you're still damn high.

Oh right, you didn't read the thread.

And Guido's right, mages would always have the highest available charisma for influencing, so it's a bad idea after all.

Arn't mages allready super important for influencing since they put up the demenses?

Sounds like a good balance to me.

Lets keep the Mages all scholarly like and there for group combat!

Being vain and arrogant != charismatic.

But remember that Estarra has said that your ego is a representation of how full of yourself you are. That's why having it shattered is so damaging. Someone vain and arrogant is likely to have more ego (but also would take more damage from having that broken).

Another bad idea. Would give cities a HUGE advantage, and would be even worse in eliminating racial weaknesses.

Faelings are sooooo much sexier than Viscanti Faelings are obviously superior in the ego and looks department.

Mr Superiorty-Complex

Don'tcha just love it when people get all uppity like that?

Upon reflection, I realize the concept of this skill doesn't quite fit, as Nokraenom pointed out, and also I was a little too willing to give Viscanti a boost they certainly don't need.

There is no way in hell Viscanti should have a means of making themselves more charismatic just because. They are tainted, they are warped, not very charismatic at all. Remember that vanity simply means they are terribly concerned about their image, not that they are good at using their charms to influence others.

In exchange for the lower charisma just of their specialization race, they have access to the most powerful influencing ability, laetitia. They also have one village almost locked into their domination.

Laetitia is nowhere near as important as it used to be since it got put on the 4.5 second or so tick timer between castings on a single person. And Avaer, read the other parts of the thread please. Viscanti may be tainted, but they aren't warped visually, they pride themselves on their vanity and their looks - which is Ego. They are a highly political race - as demonstrated by the House structure in Magnagora, which means they have to be proficient at oral debating, which is yet another + to why their charisma should not be as low as it is. To be honest, wether this gets changed or not affects me not at all. I haven't been a Viscanti since early beta, and am not on my way to changing back, as I have more fun as one of the other races. Before this change came in, Charisma wasn't as important a racial stat, so Viscanti could survive in the cutthroat world of village influencing and debating. Now this change has come in, it leaves Magnagora at a supreme disadvantage compared to all the other organisations in the peaced villages, just because they chose the city race in an expectation that they would still be on a roughly level footing with all the other organisations competing for villages.

Excuse me?



"Noble" or not, they're portrayed as twisted, demonic-looking beings. While some Viscanti can possess certain beauty, the majority of them are yuck according to the aforementioned (Especially in comparison to other races, which they are a twisted mass of). If it came between a Viscanti and an Elfen I'd go with the pretty forestal. Hell, Brood Viscanti (The obvious brutes of the bunch) LOSE more charisma than normal Viscanti. I suppose if they weren't good at fighting they'd be "in the mines" too.

As has already been mentioned previously, the vast majority of the uglier looking Viscanti get shuffled off to places like the mines where they are out of sight. Viscanti are a vain race, proud of their looks, and much kinder than Hitler, as instead of killing all deviants, they utilise them in the non-public relations roles like the mines, and probably other drudge roles around the city too. And to be honest, it doesn't really matter WHAT the Brood Viscanti look like, if they are covered in field/fullplate and are wearing a greathelm - you can't see much of someones face with one of them on.

We'll just nerf your regen so you can have a few more points of charisma