A File from Aayko's The Legends Corner
Legends I
On this page we try to gather everything that is known about Diplomacy.
Contents:
General points
Diplomacy is used to gain control of a character that belongs to another
player or that is non-player controlled. There are four possible
strategies:
A) Methods that have the chance of directly gaining control of the character immediately.
These methods can have both player-owned characters and NPCs as target. (This
also goes for D1, even though the old rulebook description seems to suggest otherwise.)
* Influence D2 - uses flatery and persuasion
* Induce D1 - uses negotiation with the extra support of 'encouraging' crowns
B) Methods that do NOT bring a character under your control immediately, but
that can lower the Loyalty Rating of a player-owned character and even have him/her
drop to neutral (non-owned, NPC) status (i.e. he can be knocked out of the control
of the player who owned him). These methods require a character
that is player-owned as target (cannot be NPC, as these are already neutral).
* Bribe D3 - uses blunt 'buying' by crowns
* Intimidate D4 - uses threat
All methods have a chance of backfiring:
* Induce or Bribe: if failing, then the Loyalty of the target to its present
owner (either a player, or so called 'player 0' i.e. NPC) may increase.
* Intimidate or Bribe: the present owner may get a report of your attempt.
Note that Intimidate is no physical matter, more like verbal bullying: your Personal
Combat is of no relevance, just your INF. Don't ask me how it exactly works, though.
When you influence a location or guild owner away from another PLAYER, then each slot of
soldiers in that force/guild takes a separate dice roll and they may go over to you, stay with the other player
(he can do an Extract to get them) or desert. If the owner was NPC you of course get the
town with all its items in possessions slots and all the soldiers in location slots.
In LII games, when you do a diplomacy attempt involving a Berseker (whether as Sponsor or
as Target) and it fails, then the Berseker involved could loose his cool and go into a temper tantrum.
The chance of such a riot/brawl is equal to the sum of the Berseker skill
ratings of sponsor and target (capped at a high level). Result of the riot is 1-10% wounds on both participants.
[Meaning that after many attempts, you could well suddenly find your precious target dead...be carefull]
Note that if you have a Target that is Insane, then he could well behave as if he was a Berseker!
Always keep an eye on your amount of characters/guilds/forces versus the maximum amount you are
allowed to have. If you already have your maximum amount of characters, then a succesful influence
attempt will still leave your target NPC. And if your target was a guild/location owner, while you did
not have your maximum amount of characters yet, BUT you already
owned your maximum number of guilds/locations, then you get neither character nor guild/location...
In the case of guilds you need to do a Special Action to drop some of your inactive guild
numbers to create room. Making room for the location can be done with either L11 (drop inactive force) or
B11 (gift empty location with fortifications to nearest monster).
Diplomacy can not be conducted by a Sponsor who is captured (let alone dead), nor can diplomacy
be conducted towards Target characters that are captured (prisonner) or dead.
Influence rating
Your Effective Influence value {} is used in diplomacy. How is it determinded?
A) ('pure') Base value: you can buy some at setup and practice it in the game (S2).
B) Effective value: ('pure') Base value plus one modifier and some 7 additions.
1) Blesses: Blesses raise your Effective value (and Curses decrease it); there are spells, bards and items that can
accomplish blessings. This is a modifier (1+bless%/100%)*Base
2) Marks: per Mark you get +3 points Influence rating added.
3) Titles: titles will often give bonusses against specific races; they do so in pre-SOP
modules, and in SOP especially titles gotten by Racial Adventures will nearly always give high
Influence bonusses towards specific races. Note that these are 'hidden' influence bonusses
(+1 to 20 points added to your Effective INF rate) that are not added unto your general Influence
rating on the printout, but are added temporarily when issuing a diplomacy order against the specified race.
Note that a few Titles [f.e. Heretic, Criminal] have negative Influence bonusses...
4) Familiars: familiars sometimes give additions to your general Influence rating, and always give extra
Influence bonusses towards a specific race. The latter are again 'hidden' bonusses that will be listed
seperately and not included in your general Influence ratings. Note that a few familiars [f.e.
spooky things like Ghosts] can give negative bonusses to your general INF rate...
5) Status: some supernatural statusses have negative bonusses to the INF rating, others
have positive bonusses. See f.e. SOP module book page 94.
6) Diplomat Elixers: potion #445 (both In Use or by Activation) will temporarily increase your
Influence rating with +1. Note that you can only get the benefit of max 2 identical potions to
work for you on Activation - using more than 2 potions will mean that the 'overdoses' are simply
lost [so you cannot pump up your influence with 100 Diplomat Elixirs].
7) Items: some items may supply INF adds
8) Spells: spell 160 (and 161) can affect your INF rating. Whether a positive effect is
capped at a maximum of + Base INF, is not totally clear (see Update November 95 p.7)
Influencing
The following elements determine the chances of a succesfull Influence attempt
with order D2:
I) Influence rating of sponsor : the higher the Effective Influence
rating (see above) the higher the chance of succes. As a rule of thumb, players
believe that each point of Influence rating gives about 3 to 5% of succes. However
this is a gross simplification, which is not valid in many cases; according to MG
the reality is far more complex.
II) Loyalty rating of target : the higher the Loyalty rating the lower the
lower is the chance of succes. The Loyalty rating is a straight negative
(-1% per point). For the exact numerical values of the categories
of Loyalty, see below. Note that also NPCs have a loyalty - towards 'player 0'.
III) Prestige
When a target character has Prestige, then your chance of succes is never higher than
30%. This cap at 30% is done as the very last part of the calculations. So also after any
Prestige difference penalties are added! This Prestige difference penalty is as follows:
- If the prestige of the Target is higher than that of the Sponsor, then there is a -11% (or -10%)
per point of prestige difference.
- If the prestige of the Sponsor is higher than (or equal to) that of the Target, then there is no
positive modifier.
When a Sponsor with an ID above 1000 tries to influence a target with base prestige, he always gets an
extra -100% modifier. This comes on top of the normal prestige difference penalty, if there is one,
and it is also applied when there is no such penalty. This in practical sense makes such characters (former NPCs)
very restricted in trying to influence characters. But it is NOT true in itself that such characters cannot
use their prestige offensively (the April-May 95 Update, page 3, is wrong)!! If their influence rate is high enough
to negate the -100 effect and if they have a greater prestige than the target then they might get lucky! A similar thing
goes for your Main: if his influence is high enough, he can succesfully influence targets that have a higher
prestige.
Responses to the D2 order reflect the 'pure' BASE prestige of the target. In LI games this would be
the Base value on the Character's Overview (once you'll get him) minus any points from Marks and
Titles; in LII games the reported value on the Character's Overview (once you'll get him) is the
Enhanced value, so also here any adds from Titles and Marks were subtracted during the Diplomacy
process. This explains that after you have gotten the NPC, you will sometimes be surprised to
find he has a higher prestige than you - and still you got him?!; but subtract adds from any
title or mark, and he could have had a lower counting prestige than you anyhow! To rephrase this:
during an influence attempt, for the Target the 'pure' Base prestige (so without effects of Marks and Titles) is the relevant
defensive value, and for the Sponsor the Effective prestige is the relevant offensive value. Also see SOP book page 100 (Titles).
For Prestige (also prestige reports), check out the Prestige file.
IV) Traits of sponsor versus traits of target
(1) Race: If the races of sponsor and target are the same, things
will go smooth; if the races differ than racial hatreds may give
negative modifiers towards the chance of succes. In older modules
such modifiers were not made known. In SOP they are made more explicit,
and several possibilities exist:
*Target and sponsor are of the same race, i.e. of the 'Main race': no modifier
*Target is of the 'Secondary race' of the Sponsor: modifier -25%
*Target is of the 'Hated race' of the Sponsor: modifier -999%
*Target is of 'Other race' (i.e. a non-Main/non-Secondary/non-Hated race) : modifier ranges
between -100 to -999%.
Note that you always have to look at the Sponsor, and then check the table which races
are Main/Secondary/Hated to his race; so the 'Main race' is the race of the Sponsor, not that
of the Target.
The 'Other race' case is wickedly concealed in the module book... But use some common sense
(a.k.a. intuition) to make an estimate. In general the maximum modifier applies if the Target race is not
compatiable with the Sponsor race either way (i.e. neither from the viewpoint of the Sponsor
nor from the viewpoint of the Target). So a 'freakish' race (f.e. Draconians, Insektoids etc.)
that has no Secondary races listed, will get the maximum modifier of -999% when doing diplomacy
with ALL(!) other races but their own. And as nobody has Draconian as Secondary race, a non-Drac doing diplomacy with a
Draconian as Target will also get the -999% modifier. However, a Skullhead doing diplomacy with
a Wazuri would likely have a modifier below -999%, more in the direction of -100, for even
though Wazuri is no Secondary race of Skullshead, Skullhead is a Secondary race of Wazuri. And
as the mirror example of that: an Elf doing diplomacy with an Orc will get a rather high negative
modifier (-700%?), for even though Orc is not a Hated race of Elf, Orcs do have Elves as Hated
race.
*Target is of Monster race (#281+): modifier is -999%, UNLESS the sponsor
is of the exact same Monster race as the Target.
(2) Culture : If target and sponsor belong to the same culture type, things
will go smooth, otherwise differing lifestyles will result in negative
modifiers. In newer modules like SOP these modifiers are made explicit:
Civil/Urban races (#201-220), Barbaric/Rural races (#221-240) and Nomadic
races (#221-240) have modifiers of -10% to -15% between them.
(3) Religion : If target and sponsor have the same religion then things wil go smooth
(modifier of 0 to +25%); if their religions differ then the religions may in a few cases
be tolerant or even supporting (modifier of 0 to +25%), but more often will be disliked
(modifier of -10 to -25%) or outright hated (modifier of -50 to -90%). [SOP figures!]
In general, Evil versus Good religions (and vice versa) will have large negative modifiers.
(4) Gender and Beauty: If target and sponsor are of the opposite sex, then there is
a positive modifier. This modifier will be largest when target and sponsor have compatible
Beauty ratings; but if the difference in Beauty is large, then this modifier will be
small (even zero or negative???). Note that this means that you can design your Main (Diplomat) too ugly
OR too pretty...
(5) Skills : If sponsor and target have skills in common, then there will be
positive modifiers. This goes on a per skill basis (so you can have a maximum
of three positives here). I've once read or heard (don't ask me where) that each skill in
common will have an effect of +3 Influence ratings for the sponsor (so very crudely
speaking: a +10 to +15% modifier per shared skill?).
(6) Faction : If sponsor and target are specifically assigned to different Factions, then
political strife will result in negative modifiers. In elder modules these modifiers were not too big, but in
LII/SOP they are -999%.
So in SOP, a NPC who is a member of a faction can only be influenced by a PC that is member
of that same faction. You only get the minus of -999 when the NPC is a member of a faction you're
not a part of. A NPC who is not a member of any faction can be influenced by any PC
(regardless of which faction this PC is member of). Spelled out this gives five possible cases:
- Sponsor is member of faction X and Target is member of faction X: no negatives
- Sponsor is member of faction X and Target is not a specifically assigned member of any faction: no negatives
- Sponsor is member of faction X and Target is member of faction Y: -999%
- Sponsor is not a member of any faction and target is member of faction Y: -999%
- Sponsor is member of both faction X and faction Y, and Target is member of faction Y: no negatives
(7) Blood Enemy: If sponsor and target are blood enemies, then there will be a negative modifier.
In elder modules this modifier was not too big, but in LII/SOP it is -999%.
V) Other Sponsor factors
(1) Wounds: Sponsor's wounds are a direct negative (f.e. 80% wounds equals a minus 80% modifier).
(2) Plague: Poisoned condition does nothing, but if Sponsor is infected with pox and/or plague then
he will get a big negative modifier (between -25 and -90) when doing diplomacy.
(3) Marks: apparantly some Marks give extra bonusses provided they are combined with a certain
status? See Update April/May 95 page 2: Evil/Undead, Divinity/Religious, Destiny/Any.
(4) Insanity: an insane person can do diplomacy, but does get negative modifier. Not unlikely it
is -50% (as with Spell Research).
Inducing
The D1 order has the ability to increase your chances of success by (at best) 30%. This
increase or modifier is added to your normal Influence effort, and BEFORE any caps are applied.
It works like this:
R = (crowns spent)/(greed resistance + target's prestige * 20)
The Influence modifier is: (R-1)*100%
If R is smaller than 1, then the modifier is negative. F.e. R=0.85, then modifier is -15%
If R is larger than 1, then the modifier is positive BUT with a maximum of +30%!
So Inducement will shift at most a +30% to your favor in an influence attempt. It is said
to work best against characters who have
- about Average loyalty or less
- 2 points or less prestige
- a greed resistance of Poor.
A sum of 500 crowns seems about right is such a case.
Loyalty rating
Loyalty has the following numeric values:
Extremely Poor: -32767 to -3
Poor: -3 to 0
Below Average: 1-4
Average: 5-7
Good: 8-10
Very Good: 11-15
Excellent: 16-26
Extreme: 27-50
Fanatical: 51-100
Very Fanatical: 101-200
Extremely Fanatical: 201-500
Super Fanatical: 501 - 32767
To lower the loyalty rating before Influencing, you can use
the Seed of Suspicion spell #36.
Religious Converting
As religious negative modifiers are one of the important things to prevent, converting
your target before doing diplomacy is in general a very good idea. How does spell
294 work? It does not work on Priests and dead characters. And if your religion does not
have the convert spell on its standard list, than the spell is (always?) hidden
in the Holy Symbol or Bible of your religion.
The chance of converting someone is:
(Priest rating * 5%) + random factor (ranging from -15 to +15%) + loyalty modifier
The loyalty modifier is:
1) If Target is an NPC: no modifier
2) If Target is owned by you: + loyalty of character
3) If Target is owned by another player: -/- loyalty of character.
So conversion of characters of other players is harder, and converting your own characters
is easier, than the conversion of NPCs.
