Influence

This page should hopefully give you a better understanding of the influence system in Rusted Promises.

Basics

Before we get into the details of influence, such as souls and their social skills, we are going to discuss the basics of it.

What Is Influence And What Do I Do With It?

Influence refers to points gained through social actions. These points can then be spent in a wild area, such as the farm or Eastbank Forest, to increase the amount of social influence you have in an area. Increasing your control of an area will cause you to gain salvage when others are active(killing monsters) in the area. The more control of an area you have, the better the chance you have of getting salvage more often, or of getting better salvage.

This means that more popular hunting areas are going to be more hotly contested. Making it a bit of a trade-off. Do you go for the area that a lot of people hunt in, and thus increase your chances of gaining salvage by virtue of a lot of people hunting there. At the expense of having to constantly spend influence to keep yourself near the top of the chart. Or do you go for a less frequented area and rely on the fewer people influencing it to cause you to get more salvage.

Influence can also be used to advance research going on. You contribute social favor(influence points) to increase the speed at which a topic of research is advanced. This is done using the research command. More information on it can be found by checking HELP REASEARCH in game.

Social Skills

Social skills are the proficiencies you need to succeed at social actions. These are raised through doing social actions, and the proficiencies you have are dependent on your soul. Social skills have no effect on combat. Instead they are used only for social actions and roleplay purposes.

Social Actions

Social actions are how you gain influence. These are done in Firmament, with certain areas allowing certain types of social actions to be done.

A social action is done by checking sa list, then doing sa (action) where (action) is the name of the action you are performing. A social action success or failure is determined by performing a roll involving one or more of your social skills, and rolling it against a set number. Some social actions take energy(patrol points). They reward you with influence, and most reward with crowns as well. Though some cost crowns instead, but can net you some salvage if you succeed.

Details

Here we will list social souls and the skills, as well as what areas involve what social skills. As a note, these souls are not the only souls to give social proficiencies, but they are the social souls. Some combat souls give proficiencies, and Craft Apprentice does as well, though only Commerce. Also, some souls contain proficiencies that are not social proficiencies, such as unseen having stealth. But for the purposes of this we are only listing the social proficiencies.

Gaining Salvage

When you've spent influence to gain some control over an area you will have a chance to gain some salvage when people are killing monsters in that area, as mentioned above. The type of salvage you gain, however, is influenced by the type of salvage you can mine in that area. For example, controlling the desert will give you an increased chance to gain arcane, as it is rich in that type of salvage. So determining the sort of salvage you will use most, then finding an area with a lot of the type of salvage you want will be more beneficial than just picking an area at random.

Souls

Soul	Social Proficiencies
Courtier	Commerce, Deceit, Empathy, Entertain, High Society, Intrigue, Oration, Underworld
Merchant	Commerce, Deceit, Empathy, High Society, Intrigue, Underworld
Noble1	Commerce, Deceit, Empathy, Entertain, High Society, History, Intrigue, Oration, Underworld
Performer	Empathy, Entertain, High Society, Intrigue, Oration, Underworld
Unseen2	Deceit, Empathy, Intrigue, Underworld

1) The Noble soul is not sold, but gained only through taking the Noble Birth or Royal Born perks. The Noble Birth merit can also be gained after creation by purchasing the New Noble Line item from the Lunar store.

2) The unseen soul is not sold by the Freeswords, but by the Thieves Guild.

Social Action Types by Area

Area	Social Action Types
Beach	Entertain
Castle District	Entertain, Intrigue, High Society
The Diseased Pig	Deceit, Entertain, Underworld
FreeSwords' Inn	Entertain
Mange Square	Deceit, Underworld
Marketplace	Commerce, Deceit, Underworld
The Thieves Guild	Deceit, Underworld

All areas of the city have the Who is Who social action, which is an intrigue action. However, Who is Who doesn't give any XP, crowns, or influence. It can give an intrigue puzzle, if you want to practice, but succeeding doesn't give anything. On the other hand, Who is Who also does not cost any energy to perform.