[SE] Between Unrestricted Reaction Rolls and Predetermined Reactions

[vicky_molokh]

Greetings, all!

As you probably heard, I'm not quite happy with the all-or-nothing nature of 'best-case' Predetermined Reactions. As it stands, the best-case limitation makes it such that you can have progressively more and more charming character get better and better reactions, then suddenly hit a wall, past which no further improvement is possible.

IME, this produces undesirable results:
If invoked, the hard cap eliminates the difference between the good socials and the awesome ones. Since the NPCs likely to have hard caps tend to be the ones most relevant for the plot, this also means that these differences become nullified precisely in the situations where they would carry the most meaning.
Replacing or supplementing the best-case limit with a Predetermined Reaction Penalty doesn't seem to produce a mere 'hard-to-convince' result either: it produces a character who will get very angry at mediocre socials instead.

I'm looking for ways, preferably close to RAW or maybe even completely RAW (though I doubt the latter is possible), to rework the hard cap into a soft cap of some sort. My idea so far was something that multiplies the Reaction Roll Improvement by some value larger than 0 but less than 1. Of course, this will need to use either the Expanded Influence Rolls (SE31) or a houseruled MoS-based Reaction Adjustment in order to be of meaningful use with Influence Rolls in addition to normal Reaction Rolls.

Are there other ideas that provide (more) elegant solutions without straying too far from RAW (e.g. no dependency on heavy rewrites of other SE bits)?
Thanks in advance!