Help Reader | Lusternia, Age of Ascension

9.1.9 THE INFLUENCE SKILL (Common)

The skill of Influence is a non-lethal form of interaction with the sentient denizens of Lusternia (non-player characters) and other adventurers (player characters). Rather than slaying denizens for such base reasons as gaining experience, you may instead enter into ego battles that are not inherently considered as hostile (i.e., won't cause you to be immediately enemied).

Debating is a form of conflict that relies entirely on words and takes places between two adventurers (see AB INFLUENCE DEBATING). It is most useful during village revolts as winning a debate shatters the ego of the loser of the debate. Once shattered, the adventurer cannot engage in influencing or debating for the next 10 minutes and so are effectively taken out of the contest for that amount of time. See HELP VILLAGE INFLUENCE for more information on village revolts. Debates can be safely practiced in arenas or in special debate rooms available in each organisation. Though simple of the surface, debating can get complex with the introduction of abilities from the Dramatics skill.

Influencing a denizen is an engagement in forces of personality to try to temporarily change that denizen's behaviour. Losing an ego battle will result in a loss of experience similar to that of losing a battle in combat, whereas winning an ego battle will result in gaining experience similar to winning a battle in combat. It is worth noting, however, that some organisations may take the weakening or begging of their loyal denizens to be inappropriate.

To try your first ego battle, you can: INFLUENCE <mob> WITH BEGGING
Doing so will initiate a charity ego battle.

There are five general types of ego battles:
(1) Seduction, which will charm the denizen and cause him or her to attack your enemies.
(2) Empower, which will raise the denizen's level.
(3) Weaken, which will lower the denizen's level.
(4) Charity, which will cause the denizen to give you gold or an item (if holding one).
(5) Paranoia, which will cause the denizen to succumb to paranoid behavior and not act in a normal manner.

There is also a sixth form of ego battle that is not dependent on your skill in influence, but rather your rank in a city or commune, and can only be used on denizens of villages during the window of time when that village is 'in play' and not under any sphere of influence. You can see those abilities at the bottom of AB INFLUENCE if you have them and the first one is gained at city or commune rank 2 (see HELP CITYRANKS or HELP COMMUNERANKS).

Once the type of ego battle has been started, the denizen will become fixated upon it and only ego attacks of the same type will be recognised. Further, the denizen will become resistant to an ego attack used over and over, meaning target will be able to just ignore your influence attempts more and more often. For example, a denizen will become resistant to begging (a charity attack), so it is more beneficial to alternate with other charity attacks. Once a denizen has won or lost an ego battle, he or she will be exhausted and not enter into another one for some period of time.

Your ability to overcome such resistance increases the higher the prestige of the clothing and jewellery you wear. The exception to this are the charity influence skills, which is more effective with tattered rags than fancy clothes (i.e., the lower the prestige of your clothing, the better you are at charity influence attacks). For more information, see HELP PRESTIGE.