Point cost of Allies vs. other traits

[Michael Thayne]

It's been discussed before on the forums that Allies seem too cheap. This is especially easy to argue when you compare Allies to some other "relationship" traits, like Contacts and Patron, especially in high point games. I once had a supers game where a player wanted a billionaire Patron, and I gave him a slight discount, reasoning that the Patron would be cheap as an Ally. In retrospect, I'm not sure if this was the right decision. (It ended up being cheap relative to comparable Wealth.) Similarly, in a supers game, an ally who's hyper-competent at a single skill, and not particularly good at anything else, might have a base cost of 1 point, making PCs wonder why they should spend any more than that on Contacts.

First, if a PC is a hyper-competent sidekick to a wannabe adventurer who funds the PC's adventuring career and the wannabe adventurer has enough Wealth to be more valuable as a Patron than Ally, based on assets alone (say, built on 100% of the PC's points but with Multimillionaire 1), then the wannabe adventurer should be priced as a Patron, not an Ally. However, if the PC frequently needs to bail his incompetent boss out of trouble, the boss can also be a Dependant, bringing the cost down.

For Contacts, I think the advantage makes more sense if you think of much of the point of a Contact being that lots of social traits are effectively zero-point features, but a 1-point Contact lets you "double up" on these traits. For example, the GM might normally let PCs play either an employee of Mega, Inc. or the Metropolis Metropolitan Police Department, either option will make it easier for the PC to get inside info on her employer. A PC who wants easier access to inside info on both organizations, however, needs to pay points for a Contact.

To balance Allies and Contacts here, I'd say that if an Ally has zero-point social traits that make them more useful than a normal Ally, this adds 1 point to the Ally's base cost unless the Ally would normally already be worth 5 points or more. Furthermore, if the Ally actually has social traits with utility out of proportion to their point cost, sum the value of these social traits, plus the value of any Wealth and divide by 10 to get a minimum base cost for the Ally. This stacks with the bonus cost for unusual 0-point features: e.g. an Ally with Rank 4 in the same organization as the PC would have a minimum base cost fo 2 points, but an Ally with Rank 4 in a usefully different organization would have a minimum base cost of 3 points.

Finally, the Conjured enhancement from Dungeon Fantasy 9 worries me a bit. Having an easily-replaced Ally whose safety you don't need to worry about makes Ally feel more like Innate Attack than a normal social advantage. There might be a case for pricing all Conjured Allies as if the PC were built on 100 points, to avoid making it easy for legendary summoners to throw around disposable super-minions.

Thoughts?

[ericthered]

Allies are intentionally cheap, I would say. Where they run into 'balance' issues is contacts, which are presented as a single skill and thus balanced as a skill rather than vs. other socials.

I do like to set a campaign base cost for allies rather than using the character's cost.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Dungeon Fantasy 19 introduces the idea of a "static point total" for allies that are summoned. I see no reason why you couldn't generalize this and use it for allies in general. It works great for high point total games where buying even a highly competent ally is essentially a perk for the PC.

[sir_pudding]

Allies are cheap because the alternatives are free (in terms of character points):

• Another PC just requires a player.
• Hiring someone just costs money.
• Convincing someone to help you just requires good reactions.

So you aren't paying for someone that helps you as much as you are paying for them being guaranteed to be helpful.

[Celti]

Originally Posted by Michael Thayne

Similarly, in a supers game, an ally who's hyper-competent at a single skill, and not particularly good at anything else, might have a base cost of 1 point, making PCs wonder why they should spend any more than that on Contacts.

Addressing this point here, because the rebuttal is relevant to the entire post: It is incredibly rare and probably unrealistic to find a character who is hypercompetent at a single skill — but not at any complementary skills, skills of related fields, or the skills necessary to gain that hypercompetency. An character who dumped 40 points into Savoir-Faire (Police) in order to serve as a substitute Contact is munchkinism, which leads me to emphasise that the GM creates the character sheet of all Allies. The player might want an Ally who is focused on one skill and one skill only, but it is the GM's job to ensure that the Ally is a well-developed character appropriate to their concept and the requirements of the game world, and thereby to balance the cost of the Ally advantage against simply taking the traits it gives you yourself.

Also note that the relationship with an Ally is personal, and their personalities are very relevant — if you're doing something they disagree with, an Ally might try and talk you out of it, or refuse to cooperate. They can also get into trouble (even without buying them as a Dependent — that just guarantees it will come up on a given die roll!) and will expect you to come help them, just as they would help you. Again, the game balance of Allies is not exclusively in their point cost, but in the fact that they are not your character, they are simply NPCs you have a relationship with, and you can not dictate who they are and what they do.

Edit: Geez, no replies when I start writing this, and five when I finish? Did everyone see this thread at the same time?

[Kalzazz]

I like the DF 5 rules for low point value allies

Having played 3e, the Ally power scaling with the PC instead of scaling with CP spent is a definite improvement

I really like the Ally advantage, within bounds of sanity. Some concepts just require it. Where is a Paladin without a Paladin Steed, dragon rider without a dragon, wizard without a familiar, Pokemon Trainer without Pokemon etc

[Kalzazz]

As a note, I've a couple times seen Allies in some ways act like common sense

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Kalzazz

As a note, I've a couple times seen Allies in some ways act like common sense

The Ally really should have Common Sense for this, otherwise there's really no point in giving allies Common Sense.

[Kalzazz]

Quite possibly

One aspect though I think is that sometimes the DM (who controls the ally) has a clearer perspective on 'what's a really stupid thing to do in game' than the player, and as 'friends don't let friends drive drunk' advertisements explain, friends try to keep friends from doing dumb things

One Ally I have very fond thoughts toward was my characters lawyer . . . . part of the job of legal counsel IS to try to help their clients not get in trouble, and to help them find legal approaches to their problems

[Michael Thayne]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Allies are cheap because the alternatives are free (in terms of character points):

• Another PC just requires a player.
• Hiring someone just costs money.
• Convincing someone to help you just requires good reactions.

So you aren't paying for someone that helps you as much as you are paying for them being guaranteed to be helpful.

These arguments are compelling in many cases. I think they break down if (1) the PCs are effectively looking for social advantages on the cheap or (2) we're talking about conjured allies whose lives the PCs plan on being more casual about. The latter, if not checked, can wind up being a lot like getting an expensive advantage like Duplication (Construct, +60%; Reduced FP Cost 10, +200%) or Ukillable 3 + Regular Regeneration on the cheap.

I guess problem (2) could be solved by ruling that all conjured creatures have Unusual Background (Conjured Creature) for 50 or 100 or 150 points.

Originally Posted by Celti

Addressing this point here, because the rebuttal is relevant to the entire post: It is incredibly rare and probably unrealistic to find a character who is hypercompetent at a single skill — but not at any complementary skills, skills of related fields, or the skills necessary to gain that hypercompetency. An character who dumped 40 points into Savoir-Faire (Police) in order to serve as a substitute Contact is munchkinism, which leads me to emphasise that the GM creates the character sheet of all Allies. The player might want an Ally who is focused on one skill and one skill only, but it is the GM's job to ensure that the Ally is a well-developed character appropriate to their concept and the requirements of the game world, and thereby to balance the cost of the Ally advantage against simply taking the traits it gives you yourself.

Also note that the relationship with an Ally is personal, and their personalities are very relevant — if you're doing something they disagree with, an Ally might try and talk you out of it, or refuse to cooperate. They can also get into trouble (even without buying them as a Dependent — that just guarantees it will come up on a given die roll!) and will expect you to come help them, just as they would help you. Again, the game balance of Allies is not exclusively in their point cost, but in the fact that they are not your character, they are simply NPCs you have a relationship with, and you can not dictate who they are and what they do.

Edit: Geez, no replies when I start writing this, and five when I finish? Did everyone see this thread at the same time?

Except "skill" for Contacts is explicitly an abstraction, that factors in the value of Rank and suchlike. The police chief contact who's abstracted away as having Savoir Faire (Police)-21 probably actually has IQ 12 [40], Police Rank 7 [35], Legal Enforcement Powers (City) [5], Administration (A) IQ+2 [8]-14, Leadership (A) IQ+2 [8]-14, Savoir-Faire (Police) IQ+3 [8]-15, and various skills left over from the days when he was a mere detective that he's honestly kind of rusy on.

The real issue is when a Batman expy in a 500-point supers game declares that instead of taking Commissioner Jordan as a Contact or Patron, he will take him as an Ally and only pay 4 points to have him constantly available. My suggestion would be to price the police chief as a 5-point mini-Patron (costing 20 points if constantly available—c.f. Social Engineering p. 41), no matter how many points the PC has (assuming Ratman doesn't himself have Police Rank, Legal Enforcement Powers, etc.) Incidentally, if Commissioner Jordan's main function is to cover up Ratman's vigilante activities, the 20-point pricing looks pretty fair given the comparison with Legal Immunity, whereas 4 points looks underpriced.