Nicholas D.'s page

Our group just started this a few weeks ago.

Borai - Melee Solarion
Skittermander - Vanguard
Entu Colony - Envoy
Human - Mechanic (Experimental weapon)
Android - Operative

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We are playing as a crazy group of Evangelista of Desna out to spread the good word. Our Android also happens to be our head priest (con man). So far it's been a blast although a very challenging start!

And the bold skills can be revealed to the players? It specifically says so for the weakness/discovery section but not for the bold items in the influence section

Again that's just my interpretation, but yes it seems like the intention is for you to reveal the Bold skills to your PC's. These discovery skills are almost always Sense Motive and a Knowledge skill in this module but I know at least in the next module Songbird, Scion, Saboteur that one of the NPC's has Sense Motive and a profession check in place of Knowledge.

I do believe this system was designed to allow people with a variety of skills to interact with different NPC's and thus it makes the system appealing to a larger group of adventurers as they can all participate.

Diplomacy seems to be a universally usable influence skill as you've noted in the first two modules. In the second module at least some NPC's have higher DC's for diplomacy so using other skills may be more advantageous; that doesn't seem to hold true in Crownfall as all of the influence DC's are set the same regardless of skill used.

I assume it is up to the GM what limit on people talking to one person at a time is. In this scenario one plus aid other is probably the cap to avoid people feeling bullied

I ran this very similarly, it does mention in the princess's stat block that only one PC can influence her at a time but otherwise I let them have up to two others aiding as a maximum but whatever you feel works balance wise.

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If you are running this module or even just adapting the system. I heavily recommend checking out The Rising Pheonix's flash cards. They can be found here:
https://paizo.com/threads/rzs2uytr?Get-your-flash-cards-ready-SPOILERS-GM-O NLY

I made some minor modifactions and had some printouts for my party specifically from the Intrigue rules summary section and the starting missions page. If your just adapting the rules the intrigue rules summary will still be helpful and could save you some time to have it printed out for your players as this system is probably quite different but fun compared to your typical dungeon crawl.

Could someone please advise on how to read the social stat blocks. I am really confused about the influence sections where some skills are in bold and others are not

My reading was that the skills in the discovery section reveal either a weakness or an influence skill

Is it actually that the first set reveal a weakness and grant the +4 and the bold skills under the influence section are actually “discovery” checks as well despite not being in the discovery section of the block

I have clearly misread something somewhere

Lanathar this is just my interpretation but I hope this helps

In Crownfall it states

"...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."

So for example Baron Okerra needs an Knowledge Nobility or Sense motive check with a DC of 15 to figure out which skills can effectively influence him. This check is the bolded portion of the influence stat block. It is then followed by a listing of skills (Bluff, Diplomacy. and Knowledge [Local] in this case), which you can provide your PC's if they succeed at the influence check.

I Think of it as a pre-check before your PC's can influence someone. Your players will be using their previous knowledge or their intuition and observation of how a person reacts to see what interests a given NPC and how they can use this information to sway their viewpoint. Consider if all you knew about someone was that they love cats you are more likely to engage them in a discussion about cats than politics; given that you already know they have an interest, it's a good talking point to get them to open up and leave a positive impression. So the check is basically to find out what interests a given NPC.

The Discovery section works a little differently.
Again quoting from Crownfall

"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."

In this case the bolded portion are skills you can provide your PC's to find out someones secrets or doubts. So again using Okerra as an example his weakness checks are Knowledge(nobility) or Linguistics DC 16. If your players make either of these checks you can read or paraphrase the unbolded section that follows it from the NPC stat block. Essentially they are able to infer that Baron Okerra is unsure about the impact Eutropia's bid will have on the stability of Taldoran Law and can exploit this for a +4 on any future influence checks. Maybe they can try and prove that a stable line of succession will help the country or exploit some obscure Taldan precedent in another law.

I hope this helps clarify the stat blocks sorry it was a little verbose.