Cantankerous: the Social Combat Play Test

[Tequila Sunrise]

If you’re like me, social encounters are a bit disappointing. Vivid narration helps, but only goes so far. What’s missing from traditional social encounters is an element of tactics and teamwork. This play test is my first effort at achieving that. Right now I'm just planning to run a single encounter, and see where this goes from there. So if you’re on board, write a 1st level character using these rules!

Abilities: Only Wis and Cha are important here, so distribute one of these pairs to those two abilities: (10, 18), (12, 16), (14, 14)

Social Initiative Bonus: 1/2 level + Cha modifier
Morale Defense: 15 + 1/2 level + Wis modifier
Morale Points: 10 + level + Wis score

Attitude: Attitudes are unique to social combat. They allow you to protect yourself or an ally from certain morale attacks. Each attitude grants a defensive bonus against one kind of morale attack, but can also be temporarily countered by other morale attacks. Here’s how it works: at the beginning of social combat, you choose an attitude. At the beginning of each turn, you use that attitude to protect someone by assigning its bonus to yourself or an ally. (Until the beginning of your first turn, your own attitude’s bonus applies to yourself.) The bonus lasts until the beginning of your next turn. The attitudes are:

Calm: +10 morale defense against Bluff attacks.
Irate: +10 morale defense against Diplomacy attacks.
Happy: +10 morale defense against Insight attacks.
Angry: +10 morale defense against Intimidate attacks.

Skills: Choose training in one social skill: Bluff, Diplomacy, Insight or Intimidate.

Powers: All social combatants have access to the same eight powers. Four of these are opening powers -- you can use them at-will. The other four are closing powers -- you can only use them after an enemy has been hit by an opening power.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

Opening Powers

Casual Bluff
“We’ve got another job lined up that pays better.”
Target: One creature
Attack: Bluff vs. Morale Defense
Hit: 1d8 + Charisma modifier morale damage, and the target is open.
Effect: Until the end of your next turn, the target takes a -5 penalty to morale attacks that don’t include you. If it does make an attack that doesn’t include you during this time, you can use an immediate reaction to make an Intimidate vs. Insight attack against it. If you hit, you deal 1d8 + Charisma modifier morale damage.
Special: If you hit a target that is Irate, it loses that attitude.

Diplomatic Appeal
“We’re happy to assist a wise man like yourself, but fetching from the Dark Wood is dangerous work.”
Target: One creature
Attack: Diplomacy vs. Morale Defense
Hit: 1d12 + Charisma modifier morale damage, and the target is open.
Special: If you hit a target that is Angry, it loses that attitude.

Insightful Remark
“The full moon is tomorrow night, so you must need that ingredient soon.”
Target: One creature
Attack: Insight vs. Morale Defense
Hit: 1d8 + Wisdom modifier morale damage, your allies gain a +5 power bonus to morale attacks made against the target until the end of your next turn, and the target is open.
Special: If you hit a target that is Calm, it loses that attitude.

Rough Insinuation
“These hedge mages are boring me. Let’s go find trouble.”
Primary Target: One creature
Attack: Intimidate vs. Morale Defense
Hit: 1d4 + Charisma modifier morale damage, and the target is open.
Special: If you hit a primary target that is Happy, it loses that attitude.
Effect: Make a secondary attack against an enemy other than the primary target.
Secondary Target: One creature
Attack: Intimidate vs. Social Defense
Hit: 1d4 + Charisma modifier morale damage.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

Closing Powers

Biting Bluff
“We’d like to help, but our other job is pressing.”
Target: One creature
Effect: The target is no longer open.
Attack: Bluff vs. Morale Defense
Hit: 2d8 + Charisma modifier morale damage.
Effect: Until the end of your next turn, the target takes a -5 penalty to morale attacks that don’t include you. If it does make an attack that doesn’t include you during this time, you can use an immediate reaction to make an Intimidate vs. Insight attack against it. If you hit, you deal 2d8 + Charisma modifier morale damage.
Special: If you hit a target that is Irate, it loses that attitude.

Diplomatic Suggestion
“Give us a bit more gold to buy healing potions, and we’ll make it worth your coin.”
Target: One creature
Effect: The target is no longer open.
Attack: Diplomacy vs. Morale Defense
Hit: 2d12 + Charisma modifier morale damage.
Special: If you hit a target that is Angry, it loses that attitude.

Insightful Repartee
“We’re your only option. Nobody else in this town will step foot in the Dark Wood.”
Target: One creature
Effect: The target is no longer open.
Attack: Insight vs. Morale Defense
Hit: 2d8 + Wisdom modifier morale damage, and your allies gain a +5 power bonus to morale attacks made against the target until the end of your next turn.
Special: If you hit a target that is Calm, it loses that attitude.

Brutal Insinuation
“Hey guys, remember what happened to that miser we met last month? A shame, what happened to him.”
Primary Target: One creature
Effect: The primary target is no longer open.
Attack: Intimidate vs. Morale Defense
Hit: 2d4 + Charisma modifier morale damage.
Special: If you hit a primary target that is Happy, it loses that attitude.
Effect: Make a secondary attack against an enemy other than the primary target. If the secondary target isn’t open, refer to Rough Insinuation for secondary damage.
Secondary Target: One creature
Effect: The secondary target is no longer open, if it was.
Attack: Intimidate vs. Social Defense
Hit: 2d4 + Charisma modifier morale damage.

 

[LostSoul]

Cool. Let me know what the situation is and I'll whip up a character to play.

Question: Do you want to play through it in good faith or do you want to try and "break" the system? (Not in a "I'm a jerk" way, but in a way that a normal player might try to interface with it.)

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

By all means, break my system if you can. If there are glitches and loopholes, I want to know about them before I run a live encounter!

 

[[OMENRPG]Ben]

Definitely interested, although looking over it again, there would be no placement for Intelligence? I can understand your position of making it Wis and Cha, but wouldn't certain knowledges and things influence social encounters? Not sure.

Well, here's the idea for my character:
An exceptionally perceptive albeit blunt character who is forgettable. So, high WIS, low CHA.

Perneyon Tallot
Insightful Human

WIS: 18
CHA: 10

Social Initiative: 10 + 0(1/2 Level) + 0(Cha) = 10
Morale Defense: 15 + 0(1/2 Level) + 4(Wis) = 19
Morale Points: 10 + 1(Level) + 18(Wis) = 29

SKILL

Insight: 5(Train) + 4(Wis) + 0(1/2 Level) = 9

 

[LostSoul]

By all means, break my system if you can. If there are glitches and loopholes, I want to know about them before I run a live encounter!

Cool. I will be RPing a player who is RPing a PC. Pretty neat.

The "player" is going to be a regular joe who doesn't really care too much about social conflict, he's more into dungeon delving. He doesn't mind speaking in character but he likes speaking in 3rd person and gets annoyed when people use voices and get too into it. He's kind of lazy so sometimes he'll just make a die roll instead of speaking in character, if that's possible. He wants social conflict to tie into what he's here to do - adventure!

To be a decent test we'll need an in-game situation with some background. I'll make my PC based on that background.

 

[[OMENRPG]Ben]

Cool. I will be RPing a player who is RPing a PC. Pretty neat.

The "player" is going to be a regular joe who doesn't really care too much about social conflict, he's more into dungeon delving. He doesn't mind speaking in character but he likes speaking in 3rd person and gets annoyed when people use voices and get too into it. He's kind of lazy so sometimes he'll just make a die roll instead of speaking in character, if that's possible. He wants social conflict to tie into what he's here to do - adventure!

To be a decent test we'll need an in-game situation with some background. I'll make my PC based on that background.

Clever! It's like Inception, RPs within RPs!

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

Inception, lol. I'm going to find a way to include that word in the title of the actual play thread! I'm going to wait one more day for a couple more players. If nobody else shows by Monday night, I'll ask you two to write second PCs. We'll begin on Tuesday!

Anyway, here's the in-game situation: you've just made PCs for a fresh 1st level campaign. Your first in-game interaction is with Cantankerous, ye olde towne wizard, who wants you to fetch a special herb from the Weirding Wood for him. He's assisted by his two apprentices, Dee and Dum. The old fart is offering you a measly 100 gp to finish the job, and you want more!

Oh, and in case the OP was unclear, don't bother with all the other typical character-making options. (But if there's some issue you can imagine with fully stated-out PCs, let me know.)

 

[Rune]

Rev. Gabby McBlusterson

...a charlatan evangelist:

WIS 10 (+0)
CHA 18 (+4)

Social Initiative Bonus = +4
Morale Defense = 15
Morale Points = 21

Skills:

Bluff (Trained) = +9
Diplomacy = +4
Insight = +0
Intimidate = +0