Hi everyone!

I'm excited to announce that our hotly anticipated Persuasion system is now live! This is a new General skill, so it is immediately available to everybody!

WHAT IS PERSUASION?
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Persuasion is a General skill that allows you to engage in social combat with NPCs through careful argument and rhetoric. Using a combination of logical, emotional, and ethical appeals, you'll work to convince denizens to perform various actions - from simple favours to more complex tasks.

The system uses a new resource called acumen, which represents your mental energy and capacity for rhetorical combat. Acumen can be restored through the new prudence elixir or the sphinx tattoo (newly available in the Tattoos skill). Please note that anabiotic will NOT restore acumen.


WHERE TO LEARN & GETTING STARTED
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The Persuasion skill can only be learned from Taron the Fence at v53435 in Esterport or from another player.

Each Appeal category scales with different attributes (Wisdom, Intelligence, and Strength), and your maximum Acumen will be based on your level and an average of these three stats. All three Appeal categories will get heavily used throughout your Persuasion attempts, so you'll want to invest in all three stats.


HOW PERSUASION WORKS
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Persuasion attempts function vaguely like a card game. When you begin, you'll draw three appeals from your repertoire (your deck) into your active thoughts (your hand). Each time you use an appeal from your active thoughts, it moves to the back of your mind (discard pile) and you'll draw a new appeal to replace it. Once your repertoire is empty, everything in the back of your mind goes back into it.

The key to success lies in strategically choosing which appeals to use and when. Some appeals create special effects when used in sequence, and different personality types among denizens will be more or less susceptible to different categories of appeals.

Be aware that Persuasion attempts typically take significantly longer than normal bashing - this is intentional. You'll also want to review AFFLICT LIST PERSUASION to understand the unique afflictions that can affect you during persuasion attempts.

Failing a Persuasion attempt will result in experience loss and also the 'dissuaded' affliction for five minutes, which prevents any further Persuasion attempts until it fades.

Persuasion is a solo activity, you can't 'team' NPCs in persuasion combat.


IMPORTANT NOTES
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- For the first week, there will be NO XP LOSS from failed persuasion attempts while everyone gets used to the system.
- NPC's persuasion strength is at the same level as their regular PvE level.
- A feedback thread will be opened in the new Discord feedback section in two days - we want to give everyone time to experience the system before collecting structured feedback.
- Class skills currently do not affect Persuasion in any way. We'll be looking at adding minor class interactions in the future, but these will be carefully balanced to avoid any class becoming dominant in Persuasion.
- This is very much a first iteration - expect frequent adjustments as we see how everything works in practice.
- We'll be closely monitoring the numbers and making regular balance adjustments.
- System builders will find new GMCP Char.Vitals for 'acu' and 'maxacu'.
- Custom prompts now also have the following tags: @acumen, @%acumen, @maxacumen, and ^U (colour tag).


I strongly recommend reading through the AB PERSUASION files in particular, as there's far more detail there than I can cover in this announcement.

We're really excited to see how you all use this new system. Please report any bugs you encounter, and remember that the feedback thread will be opening in two days!

Penned by my hand on Tisday, the 24th of Ivolnos, in the year 9 AC.