Quote:
Originally Posted by Refplace
Some have a built in knowledge of cultural norms (or sub culture) and include things like symbols, Heraldry, colors, flags, uniforms, etc and area knowledge like locations and even laws.
Others just focus on how to talk to someone in certain circumstances.
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All of them are reliant on ability to navigate social norms, which is a combination of having the skill and having the contextually appropriate Cultural Familiarity.
Heraldry, Area Knowledge, and Law are their own skills. Certain forms of Savoir Faire may include a little bit (Heraldry has a default from SF(High Society), and SF(Military) implies some coverage of legally-mandated military codes of conduct), but not a lot.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Refplace
Streeetwise and Savior Faire are pretty broad, though Savoir Faire requires a specilaity.
Carousing, Fast Talk, Diplomacy and Sex Appeal are much more limited in scope.
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I'd say the opposite! Streetwise and Savoir Faire are narrow - they're very inappropriate Influence skills outside the specific social context they're meant for.
Carousing is a special case, it's not actually an influence skill except (per Social Engineering p32) in
very limited use-case. Being a complementary skill skill of sorts is its main functionality. It does have pretty specific required context, but it cuts across most social lines - some individuals and a very few subgroups might never be targets for Carousing but most can be if you're able to put yourself at the right occasion for it. (
Why the same skill covers everyone's idea of partying hard...eh.) And it's an HT/E skill.
Fast Talk and Diplomacy are as close to universal as you can get. Diplomacy is the influence skill whose closest thing to a downside is that it can't be used in active combat. And that it's a Hard skill, of course. Fast Talk applies to anyone anytime (unless they're immune to influence skills of course), though it burns bridges...hopefully behind you! There
might be some contexts where one or both of them is specifically penalized, but I'd expect those to be rare.
Sex Appeal usually will only be applicable to somewhere in the neighborhood of half the population (depending on the frequency of bi/omni-sexuality vs. asexuality), at least without some means of switching your presentation. Depending on social structures (gender segregation of organizations and level of openness about sexual orientation) the set of targets available to a PC of a particular sex may seem much more or much less useful. That said, it's otherwise pretty general.
(Tangent - I feel like there must be rules about resistance to Influence rolls for targets in a group that I'm not finding...)