What would an example of Influencing an NPC according to the rules in Ultimate Intrigue look like?

Question

So I've been looking over Ultimate Intrigue recently, and the Influence system is rather quite confusing.

For one, it mentions in a few different places that a different number of influence checks is needed for different levels of sway. Example: On page 106, when it talks about countering influence and one of the characters needs to make three successful checks because of her having moderate sway while another character needs only make two successful checks because he only has minor sway, and then after that when it shows the social stat block for the spy (pg. 108-109) it only lists,

"Successes needed: 3 checks."

So is that for a minor sway, or...?

Second off, if one makes a successful skill check using one of the listed Influence Checks, can they keep using the same check over and over again? Going back to the spy (because she is the only full social stat block I could find), it lists one of the Influence skills is

Profession (merchant) DC 15

So could the PCs just keep rolling against that DC and each success is a successful Influence Check?

I tried looking for an example play of the Individual Influence, but no dice. So if anyone knows of where on is, that information would be wonderful as well and might help clear this up.

(The spoilered parts are in case anyone wants to run the little bit in the book.)

Answer 1

I haven't been able to locate an example online at all for you, but I can talk about the mechanics. From some research, I was able to discover the system is actually used in the Hell's Vengeance Adventure Path, if you have access to it (part 2 specifically).

For the Influence part of the question, we find the following in the Influence rules.

In this system, a social encounter is divided into one or more phases. The length of a phase is flexible, and typically lasts 15 minutes to 1 hour—long enough for each PC to perform several minutes’ worth of actions per phase that are unrelated to influence checks (such as investigating a murder scene or surreptitiously defeating an assassin) without forgoing their chances to participate in the social encounter. GMs should determine beforehand how many phases a social encounter will last, thus determining how many chances the PCs will have to influence or learn about their targets—generally two to six. The GM should also determine whether the PCs’ actions can win them additional phases. For example, seducing a baroness or forestalling her carriage may both earn the PCs an extra phase in which to win her favor.

and, from the section on Influence Checks

No matter how many PCs speak to the same NPC, only one check to influence that NPC can be attempted during that phase.

So, there are limits to how many checks or rolls can practically be made to influence the NPC, based on how the GM defines the encounter. The PCs cannot make an unlimited number of checks. They could, however, make as many checks as they can in the time allowed.

Regarding the question of Sway, we find this under Benefits of Influence.

Each time the PCs sway an NPC using the influence rules (gaining the number of successes listed in the NPC’s social stat block), they increase their influence level over that NPC by one step.

And then the text goes on to list the Sway levels. So, the first time an Influence check is made, the NPC regards you with Minor Sway, the second time Moderate and so on.