Making the chicken fat and then eating it

[Pluvinarch]

After reading all the pact rules I started to imagine some exploits (not the magical ones) that a player could make.

Player as a Demon finds a gulllible or intimidated NPC.
Player makes a LOT of Patch Jobs deals with him, gaining Cover XP for his Cover 1 from NPC´s friends, family, allies, etc.
NPC gets money, contacts, beauty, a LOT of 3 dots merits from scratch or previous merits boosted to 5 dots.
NPC is on a power ride after so many boons: rich, beautiful, popular, high status.
Player comes back and says "What about more?" but this time its a Soul Pact. NPC probably accepts.
And then, BECAUSE the Player made a lot previous Patch Jobs you get a Cover 2 that is already super boosted with a lot of merits. And Player doesn't need to care much about NPC allies and friends becoming suspicious because allies and friends were already transfered to Cover 1 through the Patch Jobs. You have a Cover 2 that is powerful, rich, beautiful, strong and without social ties that could be targeted by Angels and the God-Machine.

Is that a bit over the top? Would you as a GM go along with it if the Player generates a good story? Or would you try to limit this? Maybe find a way to give the NPC some good sense or leverage?

[Mr.F.I.X.]

Do remember, despite this you wouldn't actually have those Merits benifits directly (if memory serves) though you can use the Merits at the expense of getting the imposter condition. I think it's odd but mechanically you don't gain the Merits of your Cover.

[Vent0]

I've seen it as a mechanical concession so you don't get "free" stuff.

You could also run it that you have those Merits, but as you didn't spend XP on them, they aren't protected by the Sanctity of Merits rule - so the ST can yank them whenever convenient for the story. And that isn't even getting into the potential havoc of messing with Pact-granted assets.

[Vent0]

A better bet is to cultivate a gullible and/or grateful Pactee, and slowly squeeze or cycle bits of their life away. When things get hard, they know they can just hit up their buddy (or, ideally, their buddy's organization) for more easy stuff at a low cost. That kind of life of ease is bound to breed consequences that can be sold off.

Properly done, you should be able to flense a person for more Cover dots via small Pacts than even a Soul Pact would net you.

[ArcaneArts]

After reading all the pact rules I started to imagine some exploits (not the magical ones) that a player could make.

Player as a Demon finds a gulllible or intimidated NPC.
Player makes a LOT of Patch Jobs deals with him, gaining Cover XP for his Cover 1 from NPC´s friends, family, allies, etc.
NPC gets money, contacts, beauty, a LOT of 3 dots merits from scratch or previous merits boosted to 5 dots.
NPC is on a power ride after so many boons: rich, beautiful, popular, high status.
Player comes back and says "What about more?" but this time its a Soul Pact. NPC probably accepts.
And then, BECAUSE the Player made a lot previous Patch Jobs you get a Cover 2 that is already super boosted with a lot of merits. And Player doesn't need to care much about NPC allies and friends becoming suspicious because allies and friends were already transfered to Cover 1 through the Patch Jobs. You have a Cover 2 that is powerful, rich, beautiful, strong and without social ties that could be targeted by Angels and the God-Machine.

Is that a bit over the top? Would you as a GM go along with it if the Player generates a good story? Or would you try to limit this? Maybe find a way to give the NPC some good sense or leverage?

I mean, it takes more time for that to really work, because too much too quick is a good way to get a case of the angels, but yep, you got a good conventional plan there.

[Pluvinarch]

Do remember, despite this you wouldn't actually have those Merits benifits directly (if memory serves) though you can use the Merits at the expense of getting the imposter condition. I think it's odd but mechanically you don't gain the Merits of your Cover.

Ah, makes sense now. Just like that Legend example where the Demon wanted to use an Allies (Mafiya) + Contacts merit for his crime boss cover but he had to use the Legend gameplay. So you don't get free merits from a cover, you always have to spend XP for it. Got it.

[Mr.F.I.X.]

Though a house rule I still feel you should be able to spend cover xp on a cover's social Merits that support the cover.

[xiongrey]

After reading all the pact rules I started to imagine some exploits (not the magical ones) that a player could make.

Player as a Demon finds a gulllible or intimidated NPC.
Player makes a LOT of Patch Jobs deals with him, gaining Cover XP for his Cover 1 from NPC´s friends, family, allies, etc.
NPC gets money, contacts, beauty, a LOT of 3 dots merits from scratch or previous merits boosted to 5 dots.
NPC is on a power ride after so many boons: rich, beautiful, popular, high status.
Player comes back and says "What about more?" but this time its a Soul Pact. NPC probably accepts.
And then, BECAUSE the Player made a lot previous Patch Jobs you get a Cover 2 that is already super boosted with a lot of merits. And Player doesn't need to care much about NPC allies and friends becoming suspicious because allies and friends were already transfered to Cover 1 through the Patch Jobs. You have a Cover 2 that is powerful, rich, beautiful, strong and without social ties that could be targeted by Angels and the God-Machine.

Is that a bit over the top? Would you as a GM go along with it if the Player generates a good story? Or would you try to limit this? Maybe find a way to give the NPC some good sense or leverage?

Honestly this sounds like a plausible Temptor Hell. Or at least a large step towards a hell that should take up a large portion of the Chron if not all of it. So I'm all for a player attempting this.