[Plane]

Originally Posted by Balor Patch

My first inclination is to do what DFRPG did with Signature Gear: make Ally a perk.

I think it was already possible to make Allies/Sig Gear perks in Basic if designed properly? SE and DF

Originally Posted by Balor Patch

The tricky part of that is that Ally has been stretched from proper NPCs to include summonable generic minions. In that usage it is more like an attack power then a relationship.

P41's "converts Allies from a social trait to a supernatural ability" sounds like it might not be social anymore, requiring it to be either physical or mental: I'd wager mental due to the concentrate maneuver, unless you added something like Requires HT roll to switch it over.

Originally Posted by Balor Patch

the points that pay for spell-raised zombies are the points that were spent on learning the spell

If that were the case I don't think you'd even need to cast the spell? The points would guarantee allies come hang out with you even if you can't engineer the circumstances.

It seems more like you have an ability to dictate scenarios where you can "spend points" (even though you actually don't, as casting it doesn't raise your point total, being 0pts as DF9 says) sort of like what Dominance does (buy Allies w/ Slave Mentality) or what Possession w/ Chronic enhancement does (buy Puppet and perhaps traits which are prereq for Puppet)

Originally Posted by Balor Patch

Some spells let you blow stuff up like Innate Attacks, some spells let you have zombies follow you around like Allies. That's why the PC bought the spell, and the Magery + IQ to make it work.

There seems like a functional difference between "I'm a mage who knows Zombie 30 but never encountered a corpse so I have no minion helpers right now" and "I'm a mage who knows Zombie 15 and encountered 100 corpses so I have 100 minion helpers right now" though.

The difference is like whether you just have the potential to create allies, or have put in the work to actually get them.

The "payment" for an ally seems moreso the resources traded in actually using the spell/skill like materials (corpse, maybe Magic Ingredients if using that optional rule) and energy (whether it comes from you, the ether or elsewhere) and casting time.

In many cases one can't simply purchase an advantage w/o context, in addition to whatever it costs you often need "side costs" to generate circumstances for that purchase, B291 "Adding and Improving Social Traits" standard is "must meet such NPCs during your adventures and earn their trust" for example. This would apply even if the Ally cost 0 character points (like some Dependent Allies) but Zombie has alternative demands to that since you don't need to RP earning their trust since they are just created trusting you due to their Slave Mentality.

Originally Posted by Imbicatus

The thing is that the zombie spell doesn’t give you a full ally. It gives you a mindless robot that is for all intents and purposes a disposable meat sack

Mindless robots can still be allies, they're just lower-value, which is why Minion is a +0% enhancement for them.

Originally Posted by Imbicatus

It’s good for cannon fodder, but it’s also a social stigma to be seen with one and if you raise an army of them there will be other factors like ‘good’ adventuring parties go on a quest to slay the necromancer.

I don't think that's meant to be an offscreen-disadvantage, DF9p13's template for a Necromancer lists Social Stigma amongst some of the options for them.

Originally Posted by Imbicatus

Just as the necromancer doesn’t get disad points for the enemy group,
they don’t have to pay ally points for the zombies they create in play

Where's it say having a recurring enemy wouldn't lower a necro's point value? That seems like a clear distinction between a famed necromancer who has earned the enmity of a squad of paladins vs the secret necromancer who merely has a potential enemy if his Secret becomes known.

Or a necromancer in a society which is fine with necromancy in which case you don't even take Secret.

Originally Posted by Gold & Appel Inc

Or, y'know, out of everybody who doesn't want a randomly homicidal lunatic around...

Yeah, in a sense people who fear random murderers have some kind of sub-perk level of almost-acquainstanceship and mutual service toward one another, that's got to be how supporting law and order w/ taxes works.

Originally Posted by Varyon

Are you supposing there’s some hidden built-in complex system using Advantages and Disadvantages for the standard magic system?
Are you hoping to justify getting free Allies by not getting standard plot protection for them?

Zombie already in a sense seems nearly like a free Ally without plot protection.

It seems like even "Favor" (which you lose after Ally helps you, unless you rolled a 3/4 on the FoA .. a good reason to roll even if you take x4 constantly, and actually making "6 or less" favors the most economic investment since you only lose your point on a 5 or 6) has some limited amount of plot protection: you still probably keep the perk if the one owing you a favor is killed off before they can deliver on it.

DF9p15 for example charges 6 points for the Ally Group of 5 servitors (10% or less) which uses a cost of 0.4 with x3 (1.2) for 15orless and is x5 for "size of group". There's a -10% power modifier there but that's not enough to save 1pt at such a low cost.

This is more costly than I would expect from standard magic due to the "Servitor Skeleton" and "Servitor Zombie" being 25pts instead of -162/-168 (M152)

Those seem to represent "I made a normal zombie but then they got better over time" which I think you could approach as "the spell gave me a 0pt ally then i had to pay points to retain them when their point total rose above 0" rather than "they didn't function like an ally until I paid for an ally".

Using the lowest possible (0.2) cost for a single <5% ally, since you will need to round that up to 1pt regardless of what FOA you choose, you may as well take x4 (0.8) for constantly.

Paying for that is easy: a <0pt dependent (B131) has a base value of -15. You can minimize their importance (only requiring "good" loyalty toward "acquaintance" dependents) to slash that to -7.5 (half) and then further with FOA (1/2 again for 'quite rarely' 6 or fewer) to -3.75.

The sum of that would be -2.95 points which wound round up to -2 points to gain a 0pt ally who is always available to help you yet rarely (6 or less) causes trouble for you.

To interpret weak allies as working that way is ungenerous to necromancers so I'm wondering if I could either find an even lower kind of FOA (maybe 1/3 value of dependents who appear on a 5 or less? dunno) so it would work out to 0.

Maybe something like "Not Dependent [3.75]" w/ "requires IQ roll -10%, maximum duration 1 hour -10%" knocking the price down to 3 points. Effect being in cases where you roll 6 or less and they would normally cause trouble for you: that trouble is held off for as many hours as you can pass IQ rolls, you're smart enough to compensate for your zombie's incompetence.

I guess that puts you ahead by 0.05 cp but that doesn't seem unreasonable for the added time/effort you would spend actually locating usable corpses plus ramifications of their misuse. Unless you actually purchased the corpse rights, you're basically stealing it, and stealing stuff should come with some risks of ramifications from those who don't want you stealing that thing.