"Life in Oppara isn’t difficult to handle, once you’ve learned the rules:
if a senator tells you that what you want to do is illegal, talk to a different one;
if the district tax you pay is too high, move to the next house over;
if you require a diplomat to get the upper hand in negotiations, hire your rival’s out from under her;
if you need an honorable noble, promote the nearest farmer;
if you make a mistake, act like it never happened until people feel awkward and follow suit;
if you don’t like your past, pay a historian to write a new one;
if your office needs more funding, buy a weapon and declare yourself a military branch;
and if you need to keep something hidden forever, claim it’s urgent and hand it to a government official."
~Baronet Solmon Menander, Taldan bureaucrat
Social Combat
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Social Rounds: The Events in the Senate section details the timeline you should use to run this social-focused portion of the adventure. Each event lists a number of social rounds that follow it. During these social rounds (considered to be roughly 15 minutes each), the PCs can attempt various skill checks to influence NPCs or to generally carouse a specific area of the senate. Descriptions of the areas and the NPCs list a variety of possible skills the PCs may use to influence the guests. A PC can attempt only one major action each round, including influencing an area, influencing a specific NPC, or attempting mission-related skill checks, but they can travel freely around the senate between rounds to investigate or influence new areas or characters.
Influencing an Area: A PC can attempt an appropriate skill check with a set DC for one of the areas of the senate, hobnobbing and impressing the general crowd in that area. Each area has two thresholds, which represent levels of influence over that area. Every point by which the PC’s result on one of these skill checks exceeds the DC is added to a pool of points specific to that area. When the number of points earned by the party as a whole exceeds the threshold of an area, then the GM provides the PCs with the information and story award associated with that area’s threshold value.
Influencing an NPC: A PC can attempt various skill checks to influence the NPCs listed in the Dramatis Personae section. These rules are a simplified version of the rules for influencing an individual presented in Chapter 3 of Pathfinder RPG Ultimate Intrigue. Each social round, a PC can move to any location on the map on page 16 and select a single NPC in that area as her target to influence. She then attempts either a discovery check or an influence check. A discovery check allows a PC to learn either one of the skills she can use to influence the target or a weakness that grants her (and any other characters with whom she shares this information) a +4 bonus on future influence checks. The exact skill and DC required for a discovery check varies; learning an influence skill normally requires a successful Sense Motive or Knowledge (nobility) check with the DC listed in parentheses in the Influence entry of the target NPC’s social stat block. Learning a target’s weakness requires a successful skill check using the skills and DCs listed in parentheses in the target’s Weakness entry; the GM can reveal the skills needed to recognize these weaknesses without need for a separate discovery check. An influence check is an attempt to win the target’s favor. PCs must attempt a skill check using one of the skills listed in the target’s Influence entry, though discovering what these skills are requires a successful discovery check. A successful skill check against the listed DC counts as one success, indicating growing affection or respect for the PC. Each target lists the total number of successes needed to gain their favor. At the GM’s discretion, PCs can attempt to use a skill not listed in an NPC’s stat block, but doing so increases the influence check DC by 5. A PC earns one additional success if her influence check exceeds the listed DC by 5 or more. A failed discovery or influence check can be attempted again in subsequent rounds with no penalty unless otherwise noted.
