ACKS II — Influence & Reactions

A small Foundry VTT module that augments the ACKS II game system (acks) with a reaction/influence roller for the three ACKS II influence tones: Diplomacy, Intimidation, and Seduction.

It does not modify the ACKS system — it hooks into the character sheet and chat, and reads actor data through public paths only.

Features

• Tone-aware 2d6 roller. Pick a tone and the form swaps to that tone's exhaustive modifier set (every modifier from the player rules and GM screen).
• Attitude tracker. Portraits of the influencer and target flank a clickable 5-rung attitude ladder (Hostile → Friendly, relabeled Intimidated/Overawed for intimidation). The current attitude supplies the relationship modifier.
• Attempt levels. A single Attempt selector drives everything: level 0 is the initial reaction (instant — the 2d6 result sets the attitude directly); levels 1–5 are attempts to influence (each shifts the current attitude 1–2 rungs and carries a time cost). After any roll the tracker advances and the attempt steps forward, so the initial reaction rolls naturally into the 1st attempt.
• Auto-population with overrides. Charisma, target Will, alignment match, the level/HD gap (class level for characters, HD for monsters — ±1 at a 3+ difference), and the relevant proficiencies (Diplomacy, Intimidate, Seduction, Mystic Aura, Performance/Art) are detected from the character and the currently-targeted token. Every value is editable, and a Reset to defaults button re-detects them. Auto fields are badged ✨; a value driven by a proficiency (e.g. the bribe fee under Bribery) is badged 🖐; overrides are highlighted.
• Effect-driven modifiers (extensible). Only the four core proficiencies (Diplomacy, Intimidation, Seduction, Mystic Aura) are hardcoded. Every other reaction bonus — Beast Friendship, Animal Husbandry, Folkways, and any custom proficiency or class power — is contributed by an Active Effect on the item, so new content works without touching the module. See Reaction-granting effects.
• GM adjustment / overridable total. A generic catch-all bucket for anything not modeled (Bargaining, Command, ad-hoc rulings). The Final Modifier cell is itself editable — type over it and the difference is banked as a GM adjustment.
• Rich chat card. Shows the roll, the list of active modifiers, the starting → ending attitude, the attitude shift and time cost, and a Mystic Aura "bewitched" note when a total of 12+ triggers the kicker.
• Screen-faithful layout. Modifiers are laid out row-for-row in the order of the Judges Journal GM screen, grouped by Both / Either / Character / Target.
• Drag to set the parties. Drag any actor or token onto the left portrait to set the influencer, or the right portrait to set the target; auto-populated values (CHA, Will, alignment, proficiencies) refresh to the new actors.
• Bribes move gold. The bribe row has a fee (gp) that auto-populates from the target's HD via the Henchman Monthly Wage table — scaled by the bribe bonus and Bribery proficiency — overridable and resettable. On a roll with a bribe, the fee is transferred from the influencer's Gold to the target.
• Stored attitudes. Influencing a target auto-saves a relationship as an acks-influence.attitude Item on the character (current attitude + attempts used per tone), and the roller auto-loads it next time. A Relationships strip on the character sheet lists them (click to open, drag to another actor to transfer a contact). Non-GM players hide target details and get a GM-whispered roll + a public attitude-only reveal.
• Launch points: an Influence button in the character-sheet header, the /influence (or /inf) chat command, a macro in the module's Influence Macros compendium, and a module API: game.modules.get("acks-influence").api.open(actor).

Installation

From GitHub (manifest URL)

In Foundry: Add-on Modules → Install Module, and paste this manifest URL:

https://github.com/NocTempre/acks-influence/releases/latest/download/module.json

This resolves to the assets of the newest GitHub release, so a release must exist first (see below). Foundry uses the same URL to detect and install updates.

Cutting a release

Releases are produced automatically by .github/workflows/release.yml when you push a version tag whose number matches module.json:

git tag v1.0.0
git push origin v1.0.0

The workflow rebuilds the compendium, packages module.zip (module code + templates + styles + lang + the compiled pack + docs, excluding dev tooling), and attaches module.json and module.zip to the release.

Local development

Copy or symlink this folder into your Foundry data Data/modules/ directory as acks-influence, then enable it in a world running the ACKS system.

# from your Foundry userdata dir
ln -s C:/Proj/acks-influence Data/modules/acks-influence   # (or copy the folder)

Compendium

The module ships an Influence Macros compendium with an Influence Roller macro that opens the tool for the selected token (or your assigned character) from anywhere — drag it to your hotbar.

The example proficiency compendium was removed in 0.10.0. Its 23 items are superseded by the acks-lib / acks-abilities / acks-content path, which imports abilities from your own books with audit provenance attached — shipping placeholder copies alongside that would only give you duplicates. Nothing in the roller depended on it: the effect convention below is read from whatever items your world actually has, and proficiency auto-detection works against the ACKS system's own compendium and any imported content just as it did before.

If you were using those items as examples, the same structures are documented in Reaction-granting effects — add the effect to your own items to get identical behaviour.

To regenerate the macro pack after editing tools/build-packs.mjs:

npm install      # dev-only: pulls classic-level
npm run build:packs

The compiled LevelDB under packs/macros/ is committed and shipped; node_modules/ and package.json are dev-only and not loaded by Foundry.

Reaction-granting effects

Any proficiency, class power, item, or actor can feed the influence roller with a passive Active Effect. Add an effect with a single change:

Field	Value
Attribute Key	flags.acks-influence.reaction
Change Mode	Add
Effect Value	the modifier, e.g. 2 or -1

Roll families. The key's last segment names which family of 2d6 social roll the modifier feeds:

Attribute Key	Applies to
flags.acks-influence.reaction	the three influence tones, and the Reaction to Hiring Offer
flags.acks-influence.loyalty	Hireling Loyalty
flags.acks-influence.morale	morale rolls

One effect may carry several changes — that is how a rule spanning families is expressed. Inhumanity modifies "reactions, loyalty, and morale" in RAW, so it is one effect with three changes rather than three items to keep in sync. A Diplomacy bonus, by contrast, is reaction-only and will not appear on a loyalty roll.

Then, on the effect's flags (flags.acks-influence), you may set:

• situational (boolean, default true) — true shows it as an unticked checkbox the GM enables when it applies (e.g. Beast Friendship, only vs animals); false applies it automatically (e.g. an always-on class power).
• tone — restrict the bonus to a context. One of all, diplomacy, intimidation, seduction, or a comma-separated list (e.g. diplomacy,intimidation). Default all. The bonus is only offered — and only appears in the roller — for its matching tone(s).
• label (string, optional) — display label; defaults to the effect's name.
• bewitched (boolean) — if the roll's total reaches 12+ while this effect is active, the chat card notes the subject is bewitched/charmed (like Mystic Aura). E.g. Command of Voice, Glamorous Aura.
• alignmentSign (law | chaos | neutral) — the bonus is +value when the target's alignment matches, −value otherwise. E.g. Deathly Visage (+2 vs Chaotic, −2 vs non-Chaotic).
• alignmentOnly (law | chaos | neutral) — a gate, not a sign flip: the modifier only pre-checks when the target's alignment matches (e.g. Ancient Pacts, +1 vs Chaotic monsters — no penalty vs others).
• vs (string) — target-kind scoping: a comma-separated list of race/kind tokens (e.g. animal, dwarf, human,demi-human, beastman, monster, goblin). The modifier pre-checks when the current target matches a token (from the roller's auto-detected, overridable Target kind field), stays unchecked when the typing is known and doesn't match, and falls back to a plain situational checkbox when the target's kind is unknown. Combine with situational: true for bonuses with extra conditions beyond the kind (e.g. Animal Husbandry's "tame AND uncontrolled").
• optionalRule (string) — ties the effect to a world setting; currently btaCaste (the By This Axe p.56 dwarven caste rule). When the setting is off the effect stops contributing, no need to remove it from actors.
• actsAs (diplomacy | intimidation | seduction | mysticAura) — the power is that core proficiency under the hood (non-stacking). If the character lacks the base proficiency, the power replaces that proficiency's checkbox name in the roller and borrows its hardcoded mechanic (including the Mystic Aura bewitched kicker). If they already have the base proficiency, the power is redundant and doesn't double up. E.g. Glamorous Aura, Bedazzling Glamour.

The roller lists non-actsAs effects under a Proficiencies & Powers group (badged 🖐). Abilities that exercise each flag: Beast Friendship, Animal Husbandry and Folkways (situational, tone-scoped, vs-scoped); Command of Voice and Glamorous Aura (bewitched); Deathly Visage (alignmentSign); Ancient Pacts (alignmentOnly + vs); Bedazzling Glamour (actsAs); Inhumanity (paired vs changes of opposite sign on one effect); the BTA caste items (optionalRule).

Note: bonuses are read from effects on the owned item/actor, so a system or homebrew proficiency only contributes if it carries such an effect. Add the effect to your own items — or to imported content — to extend the roller.

Imported abilities (acks-abilities / acks-content)

The roller also reads the structured effect model at flags["acks-abilities"].extras.effects[], so abilities imported from your own books by acks-content drive it with no hand-authored Active Effect. A { type: "modifier", target: "reaction" | "loyalty" | "morale" } effect becomes a modifier row, with its acks-lib scoping (vsKinds, vsAlignment, tones, optionalRule) honoured and level-scaling values resolved at the character's level.

Two rules govern how the two sources interact:

• An Active Effect wins. If an item carries both, the hand-authored effect is used and the imported model is skipped for that item — a GM who added one to an imported ability meant to override what the import classified. Only social-roll effects claim an item; an unrelated effect on the same item changes nothing.
• Unaudited mechanics are offered, never asserted. Most imported abilities are classified by an automatic scan rather than read against the page, so they are flagged unaudited. Those rows appear with a ⚠ badge and are never pre-ticked, whatever their scope says — the printed text governs until a chef has signed the entry off.

Racial & cross-species reactions

See the local rules extract (acks-rules/acks-influence/ACKS-Reactions-Reference.md) §6 for the RAW: core ACKS II has no human/elf/dwarf reaction penalty — what exists is Inhumanity (PC/JJ; reactions, loyalty, and morale), the optional BTA dwarven-caste rule, type-scoped powers, and the MM hard hatreds. The module implements exactly that, plus a campaign hook:

• Target kind — the roller detects the target's race/kind tokens from the class name (characters) or the acks-monsters enhanced sheet typing plus name recognition (monsters), and shows them in an overridable field. vs-scoped effects gate on it automatically.
• Campaign race relations — the world setting Campaign race relations (JSON) takes directional rows: [{"from":"dwarf","to":"elf","value":-1,"label":"Grudge of the Vaults"}] (from = influencer race/category, to = target; asymmetric by design — add a mirror row if you want both directions). The best-matching row (exact race beats category) appears as an auto-populated "Racial relations" modifier on all three tones and the hiring/loyalty pages, mirroring Inhumanity's reach. Modules can contribute rows at runtime via api.registerRaceRelations(rows); setting rows win ties.
• BTA dwarven caste — caste items carrying optionalRule: "btaCaste" are gated by the By This Axe: dwarven caste reaction modifiers world setting (default on; it is an optional rule). Turning the setting off stops the effects contributing without removing them from actors.
• Hard hatreds (dwarf↔goblin, gnome↔kobold) surface as RAW chat notes — never a forced result.
• API: kindOf(actor), matchesKind(categories, tokens), relationFor(kindOf(a), kindOf(b)), registerRaceRelations(rows).

Rules reference

See the local rules extract (acks-rules/acks-influence/ACKS-Reactions-Reference.md) for the consolidated, rules-complete reference this tool is built from (player rules pp. 84–87 plus the Judges Journal GM screen).

Layout

module.json                     manifest
scripts/
  module.mjs                    hooks: sheet button, /influence command, API
  influence-app.mjs             the ApplicationV2 roller
  constants.mjs                 tones, bands, time steps, modifier definitions
  actor-data.mjs                auto-population from actor/target (public paths)
  racial.mjs                    race/kind typing + campaign relations registry
templates/
  influence.hbs                 roller form
  influence-result.hbs          chat card
styles/influence.css
lang/en.json
packs/
  macros/                       compiled LevelDB macro pack (shipped)
  _source/macros/               human-readable pack source
tools/build-packs.mjs           regenerates the macro pack (dev-only)
docs/SOCIAL_ROLLS_AUDIT.md      scope & integration audit (findings)
acks-rules/acks-influence/ACKS-Reactions-Reference.md

License

Code: © NocTempre — proprietary; all rights reserved except as granted to Autarch LLC under the ACKS II App License. This module is not open source or Open Game Content, and no license is granted to copy, redistribute, or reuse its code. See LICENSE.

ACKS II content is used under the ACKS II App License. ACKS, ACKS II, and Adventurer Conqueror King System are trademarks of Autarch LLC.

Unofficial — this is an unofficial fan module, not published or endorsed by Autarch LLC.

Registration #: [pending registration]

Requires: a legitimate copy of the ACKS II rules this module draws on — Adventurer Conqueror King System II (ACKS II), reaction & influence rules [confirm exact publication title(s)]. The module is not a substitute for the books and is free to use.