Improving NPC attitudes and Exaltation Gala - GM ONLY

[Totus Gnarus]

This is for GMs only. Begone players, I say! Begone!

Spoiler:

I've been reading through the AP, and so far, I've been left a smidge confused by the attitude shifts of NPCs. Each book gives a list of NPCs that may or may not be present, and also lists some perks they can provide should the PCs get them onside. Some of this, particular for Senators that are present at the Day of Exaltation, may have already occurred before Book 2. My question is 'how do successful influence checks made during the Exaltation Gala translate into attitude adjustments, i.e. Indifferent --> Friendly?'

I ask only because Book 1 only provides information regarding influence checks made during social rounds, not attempts to improve attitude via Diplomacy checks.

[Trichotome]

Every character has a section in their influence statblock called "Successes Needed". This is the number of successful influence checks needed to increase their attitude by one step. So if the PCs make 3 successful influence checks on an indifferent character with 3 Successes Needed, they'll go from Indifferent to Friendly. Another 3 and they'll go to Helpful.

The books pretty much assume that you don't use Diplomacy checks to influence people, or at least don't really account for it. Once a character has or hasn't been influenced, that's it (at the Gala at least; the Jubilee has rules for later interactions). If you wanted though you can have players use downtime to correspond with these characters, thus giving them more rounds to make influence checks against them.

[Totus Gnarus]

I suspected as much, but I thought I'd ask around anyway. Thanks for the reply, you were just in time for my next session too, so that's handy.