[Social Engineering] [Pyramid 3/54] The math and tactics of using Elicitation?

[vicky_molokh]

Greetings, all!

As the campaign goes by, I keep seeing situation where I Request Information. So I'm thinking of eventually buying up Elicitation. Not yet, as I only have [2] in Diplomacy, and Elicitation is a Hard Technique. Of course, if half the time you use Diplomacy you ask for information, it's actually long-term a good idea to get all five levels of Elicitation [6], and never stop using it, making it so that other people always roll Will-5 to resist your Requests for Information. As an added bonus, you have more of a chance of getting your info without the target figuring out that s/he/it gave it to you, which seems awesome in an intrigue-laden campaign like Clancy's.

Now, since I'm not ready to buy up the Technique yet, I'm actually more urgently interested in answering just how big a penalty I should try to take with the default level. Since Influence attempts are Quick Contests, the only thing one should be wary of is whether the modifier improves the chances of the diplomat or the target.

But I'm kinda confused. Unlike Deceptive Attack, Elicitation (a) reduces both values by an equal number and (b) seems to reduce the expected MoSes of both the diplomat and the target by the same value. Should that be taken to mean that the level of Elicitation picked doesn't matter at all as long as no points were spent on it, other than the fact that it reduces the chance of the target figuring what the question was about after answering it (which kinda means always taking -5 is incentivised)?

Thanks in advance!