Influence
No one succeeds alone.
Influence represents the allies, contacts, patrons, organizations, and institutions that support a character throughout their journey. While money can buy equipment and services, Influence grants access to opportunities, resources, and relationships that wealth alone cannot secure.
Influence measures more than friendship. It may represent trust, loyalty, admiration, obligation, political leverage, blackmail, fear, shared interests, or mutual dependence. A supporter may aid you because they like you, because they owe you, because they fear you, or because helping you advances their own goals.
Supporters can provide:
- * Discounts on goods, lodging, training, repairs, and services
- * Access to restricted people, places, and organizations
- * Information, rumors, intelligence, and opportunities
- * Safehouses, storage, banking, and logistical support
- * Transportation and travel assistance
- * Political influence and introductions
- * Military, economic, or organizational assistance
SUPPORTERS
Every character can maintain a limited number of meaningful relationships.
Your maximum number of supporters is equal to:
5 + your Charisma modifier
This limit includes all supporters regardless of scale, including individuals, organizations, regions, nations, realms, and minions.
A village blacksmith occupies one supporter slot. A kingdom occupies one supporter slot. A planetary government occupies one supporter slot.
This limitation is intentional. Influence is not about accumulating hundreds of contacts. It is about deciding which relationships matter most.
MINIONS
Creatures under your command through class features, feats, spells, magic items, or similar abilities count against your supporter limit.
Minions cannot themselves create additional minions or possess leadership-style abilities. This prohibits them from acquiring or using abilities such as:
- * Leadership
- * Animal Companions
- * Familiars
- * Summoning Effects
- * Simulacrum
- * Planar Binding
- * Similar abilities determined by the GM
This prevents exponential growth of followers through chains of subordinates.
ATTITUDES
Every supporter has an Influence score ranging from -20 to +20.
NPCs normally begin with an Influence score of 0 (Indifferent) unless the GM states otherwise.
Once a creature, group, or institution becomes Friendly, Helpful, or Loyal, it is considered a supporter.
Attitudes describe the overall state of the relationship, but the exact reasons behind that relationship are narrative. A Loyal supporter may be a close friend, devoted follower, political ally, indebted noble, frightened subordinate, or blackmailed official.
BENEFITS OF INFLUENCE
Supporters provide discounts, favors, access, and opportunities.
Supporters only provide discounts, services, or benefits appropriate to their level of influence and capability.
The level of an item, service, favor, or resource determines whether a supporter can reasonably provide it.
A village merchant may provide a discount on common goods but cannot grant access to royal archives. Likewise, a king may influence national policy but is unlikely to personally repair your armor.
GAINING INFLUENCE
Influence is earned through meaningful action.
### Step 1: Provide Meaningful Value
To gain Influence, you must provide something the target genuinely values.
Examples include:
- * Completing quests
- * Solving problems
- * Gifts
- * Protection
- * Political support
- * Valuable information
- * Reputation
- * Military assistance
- * Economic assistance
Threats and intimidation can also create Influence, provided the threat is significant and believable.
Trivial assistance rarely generates Influence.
### Step 2: Make an Influence Check
After providing meaningful value, spend at least one minute interacting with the target and make a Charisma-based Influence check.
The base DC is:
10 + the target's level
The GM may modify this DC based on circumstances.
The skill used reflects how you are building Influence.
### Influence Results
Influence cannot exceed +20 or fall below -20.
MANIPULATION
Influence gained through deception or intimidation is inherently unstable.
Each successful Influence attempt made through Bluff or Intimidation grants a Manipulation Token.
If your deception is exposed or it becomes clear that you cannot enforce your threats:
* Lose half your Manipulation Tokens (minimum 1)
* Lose Influence equal to the number of tokens lost + 1d12
* The target gains a +20 circumstance bonus against future Influence attempts from you
This penalty is reduced by 5 each time you:
* Successfully influence the target again
* Successfully enforce a significant threat
* Successfully prove a major deception to be true or believable
Once the penalty reaches 0, it is removed.
SCALING
Influence can grow beyond individual relationships. Characters may merge supporters into larger support networks, concentrating their influence into increasingly powerful institutions.
INFLUENCE TIERS
To merge supporters:
* You must possess three supporters of the same tier.
* They must belong to the same larger structure.
* You must perform a significant action that benefits that larger structure.
Examples include:
* Saving a town from destruction
* Resolving a guild crisis
* Ending a regional famine
* Defending a nation during wartime
When merged, the three supporters are replaced by a single supporter of the next tier.
The new supporter's Influence becomes equal to the lowest Influence among the three merged supporters.
EXAMPLE
A character has influence with:
- The town mayor
- The town blacksmith
- The town innkeeper
After saving the settlement from a dragon attack, which is considered a significant favor for the entire town, those relationships may be merged into a single supporter representing the town itself.
This process allows Influence to scale from personal relationships to organizations, nations, and eventually entire worlds.
The higher the tier, the greater the potential rewards. However, larger supporters have larger expectations and require increasingly significant achievements before they grant Influence.
SUPPORTER TYPES
Every supporter possesses one or more specialties.
Specialties represent the kinds of aid that supporter is particularly suited to provide, typically expressed in the form of a profession or industry. Common specialties include:
- Artisan
- Clergy
- Criminal
- Diplomat
- Explorer
- Merchant
- Military
- Nobility
- Politician
- Scholar
- Smuggler
- etc.
A supporter typically has a number of specialties equal to their tier.
Supporters may provide favors outside their specialties, but doing so is more difficult. Requests outside a supporter's specialties increase the favor DC by 5 and reduce the effective level of assistance by 1d6 levels.
REQUESTING FAVORS
Supporters may be asked to provide assistance beyond their normal benefits.
Doing so risks exhausting goodwill, leverage, political capital, or resources.
FAVOR DIFFICULTY
The DC of a favor is: 10 + Favor Level
Favor Level normally equals the supporter's level, though the GM may adjust it based on the highest level of any hireling(s), item(s), or service(s) involved. Apply additional modifiers based on circumstances as noted in the table below:
FAVOR MODIFIERS
Conflict of Interest: A conflict of interest is when a favor directly conflicts with the supporter's own goals such as asking a merchant to give up a profitable customer or venture or requesting a noble paladin compromise their moral code. Depending on the severity of the request, this could be as low as +5 or as high as +15. Some NPCs or organizations simply won't do certain things that they find ridiculous, but if it's a conflict that's within plausibility considering greater goals, the +5 to +15 represents willingness to compromise one goal for another.
Rushed: Rushed favors are sprung at the last minute without the normal time needed to prepare for such a request. A rushed request with +5 to the DC can get things done in half the normal time needed if successful. A +10 to the DC can get it done in one-quarter the time and +15 in one-eighth the normal time, but only if successful.
Minor Favor: Routine assistance involving little cost or risk. Examples:
- Information
- Lodging
- Minor discounts
- Small loans
Moderate Favor: Meaningful aid requiring resources, influence, or personal risk. Examples:
- Combat assistance
- Investigation support
- Restricted access
- Significant funding
Major Favor: Assistance that could alter the course of major events and create extreme risk. Examples:
- Massive resource allocation
- Military deployment
- Political intervention
- Protection from powerful enemies
### Favor Results
The value of X depends on the magnitude of the favor.
NEGLECT
Relationships require maintenance. Every game session, there's a 5% a supporter will request a favor (roll separately for each supporter). Even if a supporter isn't present, they may send word that they are requesting aid from you.
Whenever a supporter requests meaningful assistance and receives nothing in return, Influence is lost.
The character may attempt a Charisma check to soften the damage.
A supporter reduced to low Influence through neglect may become distant, resentful, hostile, or seek assistance elsewhere.
ROLEPLAYING INFLUENCE
Influence is not merely a resource. It is a network of relationships. Every supporter wants something and to maintain the relationship, there must be relationship maintenance.
Understanding what a supporter values is the key to gaining Influence, maintaining Influence, and leveraging Influence effectively.
- A village merchant may want profit.
- A knight may want glory.
- A guild may want trade.
- A nation may want security.
- A planet may want survival.
The larger the supporter becomes, the greater the scale of their ambitions. While it is far easier to gain Influence with individuals than with nations, individuals can be merged into larger supporters over time.
Influence begins with people. Through trust, leverage, obligation, and mutual interests, those relationships can grow into organizations, regions, nations, and eventually entire worlds.