Pricing Allies for very low or negative-value characters

[awesomenessofme1]

Have guidelines for this been written up anywhere? Like, if one character is [-20] and another is [-50], how much will it cost for the first to have the second as an Ally, and vice-versa?

[Donny Brook]

I don't know of any guidelines, but if it was me, I would do the following:

-If the ally is of no net benefit, it's a feature [0].
-If the ally is a negative benefit, build it as a Dependent at full negative point value.
-If the ally, even though negative point value, is any net benefit, it's perk-level [1].

[Shuckster]

So allies are priced in brackets based off the percentage the ally has of the character's point total, and it says that if the ally's point total falls between two percentages to use the higher of them, and since 25% is priced at 1 character point, and spending fractions of a character point is impossible, I usually treat that 25% as meaning "one quarter or less" the or less in this case referring all the way down to 0 and bellow.

An ally no mater how useless is still an ally even if they're just a dung beetle or a talking skull. However if they are more of a hinderance than an advantage than count them as the character's Dependent, not their Ally

[Tyneras]

GURPS Zombies does expand on Ally values, both for fractional point values below 25% (page 27) and for absolute point values (page 107) relative to the advantage holder, the worked example being a zombie summoner. This lets you reinterpret 25%, 50%, 75%, 100% and 150% as being relative to a 100 point character, so the ally is worth 75 points less, 50 points less, 25 points less, equal in value or 50 points more.

Under that pricing system, your -50 point ally would be in the 25 points less category, making them worth 3 points.

[Michael Thayne]

Originally Posted by Tyneras

GURPS Zombies does expand on Ally values, both for fractional point values below 25% (page 27) and for absolute point values (page 107) relative to the advantage holder, the worked example being a zombie summoner. This lets you reinterpret 25%, 50%, 75%, 100% and 150% as being relative to a 100 point character, so the ally is worth 75 points less, 50 points less, 25 points less, equal in value or 50 points more.

Under that pricing system, your -50 point ally would be in the 25 points less category, making them worth 3 points.

Seconding that Zombies has the rules you want here. To clarify, it specifically reinterprets the the 25%/50%/75%/100%/150% progression as -75/-50/-25/+0/+50 points relative to the PC's point total. So if a PC was built on -50 points, possible allies would range from an ally built on -125 points for a base cost of 1 point, to an ally built on 0 points for a base cost of 10 points.

[whswhs]

You can find the same rules for smaller fractions than 25% in GURPS Supers, if you have that.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by whswhs

You can find the same rules for smaller fractions than 25% in GURPS Supers, if you have that.

Or DF 9: summoners. But the folks talking about the alternate pricing in zombies have the rules that answer the question best.

[awesomenessofme1]

It looks like in this case, I'll be ending up with 1-point base cost either way. That's actually pretty convenient for me.

[Inky]

What are you building, if you don't mind saying?

[awesomenessofme1]

Originally Posted by Inky

What are you building, if you don't mind saying?

Racial templates for a parasitic alien and their most common host body. Generally, you wouldn't use Ally on a racial template, but in this case, giving them an Ally+Puppet by default made sense.