Fellowship is defined as "your character's ability to interact with other creatures, to deceive, charm or befriend." This doesn't sound like it's a purely physical characteristic, yet there are several critical damage effects that permanently lowers fellowship, well only 6, and you could make a case for Rending - Head - Critical Damage 7 since it says you have trouble speaking without slurring your words after it. As luck would have it just one of my characters have personaly felt the full force of half of those. That was an void born adept with a starting fellowship of 25, so not very suited for social interaction to begin with, but I can just imagine what this would do to a Scum or Cleric (the heavily fellowship based careers).

Now since fellowship clearly is not just based on how you look, you should be able to repair these damages with reconstructive surgery, something that I feel could be suggested in the book, but even if you don't, 5 of those 6 should be able to be negated simply by not showing your face, or as Energy - Body - Critical Damage 8 would have it, the body. But even if you don't do that, how would a burned or scarred face diminish your ability to deceive someone? It's not like it would make i easier to read the face. I do think that you could require the master chirurgeon talent to be able to perform the surgeries, and maybe a number of successes depending on the severity of the damage.

Have any of you already used reconstructive surgery to fix this, or maybe removed the fellowship damage all together?

But even if you don't do that, how would a burned or scarred face diminish your ability to deceive someone? It's not like it would make i easier to read the face.

Congratulations, you have just stumbled upon the generic problem of any system not differentiating between Charisma and Appearance/Beauty (and possibly even a third ability - for the sake of the example, let's call it Manipulation).

Have any of you already used reconstructive surgery to fix this, or maybe removed the fellowship damage all together?

I'd let the fellowship damage stay as most fellowship tests involve evoking sympathy, which is a little harder to do when your face is burnt off. Of course, reconstructive surgery certainly isn't impossible.

Cifer said:

Yes I know this is a common occurence in RPGs, I've played my share of them, and often used work-arounds to handle the lack therein. This wasn't meant to sound like I found something nobody else had, it was more just a background to my question.

Of all the fellowship based skills, I would say that not all has a real need of sympathy, some can work just as well with other angles: Blather - Glibness; Command - Authority; Deceive - Empathy. And while we're touching on the subject of fellowship based skills, when you read the description text of disguise it does not sound like a fellowship skill, more an intelligence skill.

well, half of a disguise is how you wear it. Acting like you should be where you are. Trying to modify your voice to sound like the person you're disguised as. knowing the right things that a guard would want to hear from a mine worker who's late ... ok, that's as much a decieve check as a disguise. But there you go... social base for disguise. Actually putting on the pants shouldn't requite an intelegence check or my players are going to be in trouble

Of coarse you may want to add disguise (int) checks for making sure they know how to put on particularly complex uniforms and tie a bow or something. But most skills can be like that, if you want to command some barbarians in battle they might respect how tough or strong you look so roll your command (strength) to get them to charge (what do they care if you look like you've been through a few fights. they probably like that). How about a gambling game that where luck is an insignifigant factor, instead you read your oponents (like PRS, or fist of dragonstones), use your gambling (fel).

Read the text on disguise, it only says it's used to mask your true appearance and talks about the physical changes you can make. It's not about acting as someone else just looking like someone else. It does not, like you say, take an intelligence check to put on a pair of pants, but that's not what it takes to look like someone else, it's more about knowing wich features to hide and wich to accentuate to make you as unrecogniseable as possible. To quote the text:

Appropriate clothing, props, make-up and prosthetics are often key to a successful disguise, as are more radical accoutrements such as plastic surgery, bionic implants and polymorphine.

Concealing yourself could be considered intimidating to some and a sign that you have something to hide by others.

In my regular game the Tech Priest and my Skitarii came up with a perfectly reasonable fix for facial disfigurment. My Skitarii got his face hamburgered by a bolt round in our last game.

The answer, flay the flesh off his skull, replace his eyes and seal the exposed bone of his skull with a clear epoxy like substance. He already had one surgury to replace his jaw with a TP rebreather unit. The insane magos who over saw that surgury decided to switch out the pain killers but leave the muscle paralytic, leaving him paralized and feeling every cut of the scalpel as his jaw and throat were removed. Yay insanity points! The magos was upset that the Tech Priest did not want me turned into a proper gun servitor. I have a feeling the Tech Priest has the same idea in mind for the skull polishing. Why waste the drugs on the Skitarii when he can save the money and buy more bolt rounds for himself.

Actually, while Fellowship is influenced by appearance, I generally rule that it only matters in extreme cases. Deceive is not harder if you aren't pretty per se, but if half your face is melted off it's more difficult because people don't want to look at/talk to you, let alone consider what you have to say. So you might be able to get them to leave you alone with some ease, but engaging people in conversation looking like a freak is hard. Covering your face helps, but people don't like interacting with people that have their "tells" covered, try having a conversation while wearing dark sunglasses indoors, people tend to be less open. So I think the model is valid, and I rule that all stat damage can be recovered somehow, the the difficulty, time, and expense vary.

I'd also rule all the fellowship damage is irrelevant when dealing with the Mechanicum.

I think, in part, there's a cultural issue to be concerned with. People are raised to believe in a Platonic notion of what a human "should be" (it's one of the stated reasons for the chauvanism of the setting). Space marines are closer to the ideal, because they are more "Emperor-like". Thus, having your face melted off does two things. First, it assaults your own sense of your own humanity - losing the part of you that people identify in terms of humanity makes you feel less like a person. Secondly, it assaults other people's senses of what you, as a human, should look like.

Mind, I'm not saying it entirely makes sense, but as a simplification it makes more sense in 40K then you might immediately think.

Injuries like that can also hinder your confidence to be able to manipulate someone, or just your self esteem in general. So, its up to you how you interpret the stat. Plus people are more likely to trust good looking people, its just a fact of life.