Curious what builds people like in the current version? This is the one I've finally settled into:
- Full Scientist start (parents scientists/embraced it myself)
- Brainy/Gambler/Melee Master (massive int boost + zero melee training required for arena)
- Stocky/Massive/Abnormal (intimidation/domination/willpower reduction during sex)
- Master of the Whip/Master of the Ropes (massive boost to easily breaking a girl's will and making her love you for it)
- Young (minor bonus to persuade/seduce)
- Realistic dice (for consistent results once I get stats boosted)
The int stuff and the bondage stuff are really the only important parts to me. Being able to get full benefit from all the classes and books immediately is a huge boost to stats. Being able to quickly and easily break your slaves without having to grind any stats first is also a huge time saver. I toyed with the Arouser perk a bit since it didn't look like there was a way to duplicate that bonus, and it does seem to make seduction more effective but breaking a girl's will via bondage is so much more effective that the loss of Arouser doesn't really matter.
Melee Master was a bit counterintuitive for me at first since it seemed like a charm or manipulation boost would be more useful early on, but just boosting a girl's respect through some fighting and then a few seduction sessions make it easy to keep her happy and get free heals/stamina boosts/shower blowjobs even with crappy charm/manipulation. Plus it starts your melee off high enough to actually hit stuff so you can train it up a bit and have a chance at some free strength increases. Once you get to Crystal Hills you can buy the aim implant and switch to ranged attacks and be almost guaranteed to hit all the time with ranged attacks.
Charm and Manipulation both seem trivial to increase via seduction/bondage sessions, although I do still read the books for it for the nice initial boost. The house upgrades that give persuasion boosts are also pretty noticeable.
I haven't played around with boosting relations with my mercs yet so not sure how that works except that they seem to just grow to like you as time goes on even if you never talk to them. That might just be from house upgrades, not sure.
Edit: One other option that I also think works really well instead of Master of the Whip/Master of the Ropes is the combination of Arouser plus Pussy Pleaser. She won't enjoy being spanked/whipped as much, but she'll enjoy rough sex a lot more. Also has the advantage of working great with seduction.