[8-bit]

There have been so many changes to the powers, that I really have no idea how to build a Face Adept now. Do you go Exceptional Attribute - Magic? Speaker's Way? Commanding Voice, or Authoritative Tone? Is Kinesics any good now? I assume Mentor Spirits stayed the same.

Any advice would be appreciated.

[Shrazkil]

Authoritative voice and kinesics = cool resolve essentially, so very useful. Speakers way is just too costly to really fit in, especially if you are an elf already, has some usefulness if you are have 5 or less charisma.

Depending on what you need offensively, i like authoritative tone 3, kinesics 3, and cool resolve 1, for basically +4 to social skills, whether offensive or defensive.
3.25 PP

[adzling]

Ok yeah let's not open that box again....

Currently the ones you *must* have are:
Commanding Voice
Authoritative Tone
Cool Resolve
Voice Control (via Raven for free) as it helps with Impersonation checks AND adds 1 to your social limit per level.

For the impersonator face:
Facial Sculpt (just one level, anything more is mostly a waste)
Melanin Control (it's way too expensive but still helpful if you don't have your box of makeup handy).
Keratin Control (it's way too expensive imho but still helpful if you don't have your box of wigs handy).
Mimic (as written pretty useless, our table adjusted it to last longer, hours instead of minutes).

nice to have:
Kinesics

Way of the Speaker is awesome due to:
1). bonus to interaction skill of your choice, leadership is likely most useful.
2). silver tongued devil enhancing duration of commanding voice

You should also consider getting a rating 3 Tailored Pheromone implant, that +3 dice is a huge help for anything you'll be doing face to face.
And it also adds +3 to social limit, whether you are within smell range of your target or not.

My elven pistol/face adept uses or is planning on taking all of the above over time.

[adzling]

I would add that Way of the Speaker is awesome but only as you initiate due to every initiate level adding +1 dice to social skill of your choice (chosen when you take the way), out of chargen it's likely not worth it.

Also Shrazkil is mostly right re: auth tone and kinesics but the reality is that PCs will rarely have to "defend" against a social roll.
It's much more common to have to affect an NPC socially than resist an NPC's social skills.
So therefore kinesics is less important than auth tone and cool resolve imho.

[Shrazkil]

I would add that Way of the Speaker is awesome but only as you initiate due to every initiate level adding +1 dice to social skill of your choice (chosen when you take the way), out of chargen it's likely not worth it.

Also Shrazkil is mostly right re: auth tone and kinesics but the reality is that PCs will rarely have to "defend" against a social roll.
It's much more common to have to affect an NPC socially than resist an NPC's social skills.
So therefore kinesics is less important than auth tone and cool resolve imho.

Yeah kinesics to match auth tone is more of a personal preference than anything, i like to have them just match up so i can just add +4 to all my mods on my sheet.

If you are going for an extreme in one peticular area , then speakers way can be worth it.

[8-bit]

Ok yeah let's not open that box again....

Currently the ones you *must* have are:
Commanding Voice
Authoritative Tone
Cool Resolve
Voice Control (via Raven for free) as it helps with Impersonation checks AND adds 1 to your social limit per level.

For the impersonator face:
Facial Sculpt (just one level, anything more is mostly a waste)
Melanin Control (it's way too expensive but still helpful if you don't have your box of makeup handy).
Keratin Control (it's way too expensive imho but still helpful if you don't have your box of wigs handy).
Mimic (as written pretty useless, our table adjusted it to last longer, hours instead of minutes).

nice to have:
Kinesics

Way of the Speaker is awesome due to:
1). bonus to interaction skill of your choice, leadership is likely most useful.
2). silver tongued devil enhancing duration of commanding voice

You should also consider getting a rating 3 Tailored Pheromone implant, that +3 dice is a huge help for anything you'll be doing face to face.
And it also adds +3 to social limit, whether you are within smell range of your target or not.

My elven pistol/face adept uses or is planning on taking all of the above over time.

Yeah, I've always wanted to play an Impersonator Face. I just can't give up my Improved Reflexes 3 (I can maybe drop to 2, but I just love 3 so much).

Not sure about that Tailored Pheromone implant; I think giving up Power Points is a little too costly for my tastes.

About the Way of the Speaker bonus to a skill, where is that? Is it in the errata? I don't see it in my book. Never mind, found it. Have to initiate for it though.

Thanks for the answers guys!

[adzling]

Yeah I hear u re pp.
But think about it this way, level 1 or 2 synaptic booster costs less essence than you would spend in po to replicate via adept enhanced reflexes.
My toon took way of the burnout in chargen and took synaptic boosters.
The. Post chargen took rating 3 pheromones (and a bunch of other cyberware totaling about 3 essence points.
Then I riased Magic and initiated.
As his magic raised two points he automatically lost way of the burnout and can now take speakers way.
I takes some careful managing of karma and money but works really well once you got it all

Essence wise u can't beat +3 dice to interactions and social limit and the +2 dice and +4 initiative, you'd spend more in pp via adept powers.
For mentor spirit raven is hard to beat.

[8-bit]

Yeah I hear u re pp.
But think about it this way, level 1 or 2 synaptic booster costs less essence than you would spend in po to replicate via adept enhanced reflexes.
My toon took way of the burnout in chargen and took synaptic boosters.
The. Post chargen took rating 3 pheromones (and a bunch of other cyberware totaling about 3 essence points.
Then I riased Magic and initiated.
As his magic raised two points he automatically lost way of the burnout and can now take speakers way.
I takes some careful managing of karma and money but works really well once you got it all

Essence wise u can't beat +3 dice to interactions and social limit and the +2 dice and +4 initiative, you'd spend more in pp via adept powers.
For mentor spirit raven is hard to beat.

I definitely like the ability of Burnout Way adepts to do that, but I'm thinking straight up Speaker's Way build. I agree that the augmentations are really useful.

I always liked Raven for a Mentor Spirit. Seducer isn't bad, but you just can't beat Raven. Peacemaker is also way too harsh IMO, and kind of unrealistic given how gritty Shadowrun is.

[Shrazkil]

Toughest part of adept faces is the balance between attributes and skills, you end up hurting one or the other especially if you go elf. Best blend i could find is with priority D elf, with a point added to edge. Otherwise i end up with priority D skills, and have to be good at only a few aspects of facery.

[Whiskeyjack]

Where is Authoritative Tone printed?

[8-bit]

Where is Authoritative Tone printed?

Street Grimoire errata. It replaces Street Grimoire's version of Commanding Voice, as that was a misprint. The "real" and correct Commanding Voice comes from Stolen Souls.

[adzling]

Yeah that's one way to do it.
I went a different route.
I went:

Attributes
Nuyen
Metatype
Magic
Skills

This let me max out my attributes (8 cha!) and have enough $$ for some very good cyberware (including Synaptic Boosters 2 = +2d6/+4 to initiative for less than one point of essence with Way of the Burn Out).
With Magic at 2 I used the 3 special attribute points from metatype C to increase it to 5.
Skills sucked but with all the ware, attributes and PP I only needed a few skill points to get my face dice pools up around 14-18.

During play I initially focussed on raising skills (cheaper than raising stats) and getting a some more 'ware (tailored pheromones 3) which very quickly pumped his face skills up around 18 for most of them.

Now I have moved onto spending karma on initiating, increasing magic and taking way of the speaker....

So there are different approaches to making your adept face all of which can work.

Toughest part of adept faces is the balance between attributes and skills, you end up hurting one or the other especially if you go elf. Best blend i could find is with priority D elf, with a point added to edge. Otherwise i end up with priority D skills, and have to be good at only a few aspects of facery.

[Rift_0f_Bladz]

My combat/B&E Adept has bought lvl 1 in face sculpted, and is planning to get both keratin control and melanin control (have) as foci. Also a potential useful power (as foci) is Linguistic, the ability to learn language rank 1 without spending karma, which is super helpful for a face adept.