In nanvaent, a good example of socials that were turned into an ability were 'pant and 'slobber'.

As a wolf, pant would restore GP and slobber HP, or the other way round (I forget).

Also 'tuck' was another, which would wimpy you out the fight.

A more common scenario would be hugging someone while on fire, or wearing spiked armour, or while surrounded by a fireshield/shockshield spell.

But yes, this basically comes back to the question I asked in post #5 about intrusive socials. Personally I avoid them, but that does limit the number of options available.

Ah I think I misunderstood Shas' example in that case.. That's an interesting concept.

I thought he was talking entirely in soul terms.

Yeah, I was saying that if the action involved in a "social" would be expected to have physical consequences, do you model those consequences? I chose holy water and vampires, as a non-vampire dousing himself with holy water would presumably be unlikely to sustain damage, but the vampire coming into contact with his holy-water-soaked clothes perhaps might experience painful burning. But one can imagine diseases being transmitted via socials such as kissing, or shaking hands, or coughing on people; or someone with rabies might transmit it by drooling on a wound; or, as KaVir says, if you're wearing spiked armour then hugging someone might damage them.

Obviously this makes life substantially more complicated. You not only have to model the effects of the social, you also have to give people the ability to try to avoid the effect: if a fire elemental tries to hug you, then you need to be able to at least try to dodge. So being the target of a social becomes something one has to consent to, rather than merely passively experience.

Sounds like socials are turning into sneaky ways to initiate combat…

Hugging is a classic backstab tactic after all.

… And (topically) does this mean a kiss on the cheek could lead to crucifixion?