Resisting mental influence

[syys]

In 1E, mental influence was too powerful (if played by the book). It was trivial to get enough successes on a social roll to convince, for example, the opposing army to slaughter their commanders and join you instead. In 2E, mental influence is a bit too weak for my taste. The Presence etc. charms are themselves OK, and MDV is a good addition. But resisting any effect with just 1 WP makes them very weak in practice. Essentially, everybody has access to a perfect defense against mental/social attacks, at a cost of 1 WP only.


I disallow mortals from using WP to resist unnatural mental influence. But this doesn't help with magical beings. What kind of solutions have people come up with to balance mental effects?

 

[Persell]

I generally have any given character go with any command that they don't find entirely unreasonable. The guard is generally ameanable to doing things if you throw in a bribe, the Fey will go with a suggestion that lets it escape with it's life etc. If you really want to make someone do something they don't want to, then you have to use unnatural mental influence. Normal social combat is for convincing them to do things that aren't completely unreasonable.

 

[syys]

I generally have any given character go with any command that they don't find entirely unreasonable. The guard is generally ameanable to doing things if you throw in a bribe, the Fey will go with a suggestion that lets it escape with it's life etc. If you really want to make someone do something they don't want to, then you have to use unnatural mental influence.

The problem is that resisting unnatural mental influence is trivial.

 

[Lord Ben]

First of all you and your players or DM have to only want to use mass combat for good story situations.   If you join debate for deciding which tavern to visit that'd end up being a poor use of the mechanics.  Likewise if you have an epic showdown between two armies that is clearly meant to be a climactic battle scene don't join debate during the taunting phase and try and talk the Enemy General into joining you instead when he's been the arch enemy for the whole series.


Also, feel free to retreat from social combat.  A social attack takes 4-5 minutes to make.  Not everyone is going to stick around to listen to the whole arguement.  Sometimes you can stand on the corner and hand out pamplets while shouting "would you like to hear of the glory of serving me?" and people will just wave their arms in the air and say "not interested" and keep walking down the street.

 

[Lord Ben]

I generally have any given character go with any command that they don't find entirely unreasonable. The guard is generally ameanable to doing things if you throw in a bribe, the Fey will go with a suggestion that lets it escape with it's life etc. If you really want to make someone do something they don't want to, then you have to use unnatural mental influence.

The problem is that resisting unnatural mental influence is trivial.

Once or twice, then you begin to get broken down.

 

[Persell]

I generally have any given character go with any command that they don't find entirely unreasonable. The guard is generally ameanable to doing things if you throw in a bribe' date=' the Fey will go with a suggestion that lets it escape with it's life etc. If you really want to make someone do something they don't want to, then you have to use unnatural mental influence.[/quote']
The problem is that resisting unnatural mental influence is trivial.

Once or twice, then you begin to get broken down.

Seriously. The average has somewhere between 6-8 Willpower to spend. Toss a few Social Combat charms that take 2-3 Willpower to resist and they're out of Willpower and totally defenseless.

 

[Moonsilver]

This is why the idea of needing Unnatural influence for doing something that does not come naturally helps.


Also just step in as the ST, allow non social combat conversations when its good for the story or roleplaying and just tell players they cant use it when it spoils the story or roleplaying.

 

[syys]

Most mental influence charms do not specify the WP cost to resist, so it defaults to 1. At any rate, I find it problematic that the only way to use mental influence is to exhaust the target's WP with repeated usage. (I wouldn't like it if everybody had a perfect defense against physical attacks at a cost of 1 WP, either!)


But I don't want to debate the issue. If people don't find this to be a problem in their games, good for them, But if there are others who also think this is a problem, I am interested in hearing what solutions they have come up with.

Also just step in as the ST, allow non social combat conversations when its good for the story or roleplaying and just tell players they cant use it when it spoils the story or roleplaying.

This can be OK for some kinds of games, but I don't impose such story-driven external constraints on character action. (Not sure what you mean by spoiling roleplaying; if you mean acting out of character to get some game mechanical benefit, that's not a problem with my players.)

 

[Lord Ben]

I took him to just mean a social character trying to make every enemy into his ally via social combat instead of fighting is just as annoying as a player who insists on issuing demands to everything and  then killing it if they say no because he has no social skills.


There is a place for both in the game, sometimes you just need to have good players who will play within the story.

 

[Moonsilver]

The Social Comabt rules have caused problems, I started a similar thread to yours and we had tales of PC's running away from npc's to avoid Social Combat


I dont think there is a simple rule change answer. So you need to be a bit deus ex and wing it so the story and rp does not suffer.


I did some tweak house rules, but left it more or less as it was.

 

[Praedoran]

Resisting


Resisting social combat with Willpower is not something to consider lightly.  Anytime someone uses Willpower is when they REALLY don't want to do something.  It is a mentally exhausting experience and simulates combat as well:


In combat you have health levels before you die.


In social combat you have Willpower before you're literally dominated.  If an opponent repeatedly uses his Willpower to defy your words, he's going to end up in a situation where he's powerless.  However, he has the option of yielding to certain choices in order to keep his "emergency" reserves there to prevent him from doing anything really stupid.


For example (taken as inspiration from the Wiki):


You vs. Doorguard


You're trying to convince the Doorguard to let you in.  You've got weapons and armor on and he knows that a bloodbath may ensue if he lets you by.  He will try to resist your bullying with everything he's got.


or


You're trying to convince the Doorguard to let you in.  You're in appropriate dress for the event and look relatively harmless.  In fact, you've brought courtesans with you that would make all the nobles drool.  Unless he's sporting Conviction 5, then he's probably going to just let you in.

 

[syys]

The Social Comabt rules have caused problems, I started a similar thread to yours and we had tales of PC's running away from npc's to avoid Social Combat

I should say that I use (dodge) MDV, but not the social combat rules, which I find too simplistic and at the same time too cumbersome.


I don't see any problem with characters running from people who they are afraid would overwhelm them with their superhuman manipulation or divinely inspired arguments! In my game, some characters are careful not to talk face-to-face with very powerful entities who might (practically speaking) brainwash them. Just like they are wary of getting into physical combat with clearly superior opponents.


It occurred to me now that a good rule might be that if the successes on the mental influence roll exceed double the target's MDV, WP cannot be used to resist. I have to think about the number of extra successes needed, though, maybe MDV's worth is too steep, I should look at typical MDVs and dice pools.

 

[wordman]

A point to consider here: Exalted, like all games, is a ballet of resource management. Most often the resources being managed are motes. Willpower, however, is a critical resource in Exalted because it is the most limited in supply. It has much smaller totals and rate of regeneration than motes and even, any many cases, health levels. Managing Willpower is critical in higher-Essence Exalted combat, largely because it controls Combos.


So, even if you look at most social attack charms and say "really, this is just a way to force an opponent to spend willpower", this is not an insignificant effect.

 

[Persell]

A point to consider here: Exalted, like all games, is a ballet of resource management. Most often the resources being managed are motes. Willpower, however, is a critical resource in Exalted because it is the most limited in supply. It has much smaller totals and rate of regeneration than motes and even, any many cases, health levels. Managing Willpower is critical in higher-Essence Exalted combat, largely because it controls Combos.
So, even if you look at most social attack charms and say "really, this is just a way to force an opponent to spend willpower", this is not an insignificant effect.

I've got to agree here. In a contest of two well-built, high-essence Exalts, the one who loses is almost certainly the one who runs out of Willpower first.

 

[Persell]

Managing Willpower is critical in higher-Essence Exalted combat, largely because it controls Combos.
So, even if you look at most social attack charms and say "really, this is just a way to force an opponent to spend willpower", this is not an insignificant effect.

Yeah, this is a serious point. In the Solar game I play in, I'm the diplomat/Social-Fu character. Once we were about to get in combat against a seriously superior opponent. In the standard "Bad-guy-monologue" I was able to whittle down our opponent's Willpower enough that he only got off 2 combos in physical combat.
Never heard another mention of "Indigo always gets his ass handed to him, why do you bother with those Presence charms?"  8)

 

[Persell]

The one thing that always got me is that there no benefit for successes beyond the mental defense value.  If you get 1 success or 20 it's still the same to resist.  Anyone come up with good house rules for this or do they just accept it and shrug.