Geese Stats

[Derrick_rp]

So the Alchemical Baroque setting has a vehicle that is a small raft treated with levitation salts pulled by a flock of geese. A player of mine saw the vehicle was unreliable and experimental and decided he wanted to play a test pilot set in that world. Basically, a clockpunk version of Tom Cruise in Top Gun.

Then we started talking about his geese, and it occurred to both of us that the stereotypical hot shot pilot has a lot of personality traits in common with a goose. Cocky, arrogant, aggressive, but fiercely loyal to his wingmen.

So then the character evolved into a hot shot pilot who relates more to his geese than people and refuses to go anywhere without his flock.

All this is to say that I think they qualify as allies, not dependents, because they pull his flying machine, so he gets a definite benefit from them.

[Inky]

Originally Posted by RGTraynor

Beyond that, we wouldn't be talking about a 50 CP goose, would we? This is an ally group. We might be talking about a small flock of 8-10 pters.

Apparently, that's not how it works - Basic Set says to calculate the ally cost and then multiply it for Ally Groups, x6 for 6-10 allies, x8 for 11-20.

Apparently, Basic Set also says "Ordinary trained animals are property purchased with cash, not advantages bought with points", but doesn't say why.

Apparently, you can cut down the cost of Allies by also taking them as Dependents - a group of Dependents is worth twice the cost of one Dependent, so a flock of geese with less than 25% of the PC's point value each (-10 points), present most of the time (x3) and at the lowest level of Dependents (x0.5) would be worth -15 x2 = -30 points as Dependents, and you'd also take them as Allies.

But, it seems like, in this case that might possibly be a point crock. Apparently, it's really difficult to make geese add up to more than 0 points, because of their low ST and IQ and other things - the template in Anon's Animal Album works out at around -97 points; if you say that these are specially bred working geese and give them ST 5 and IQ 4 instead of ST 4 and IQ 3, and add a bunch of stuff from this thread and the Goose-Fu thread too, there's still points to spare.
So, it looks like, if you use the Basic Set rule of [1] for allies less than 25% of point total, and call it x3 for present most of the time, it would be [18] for 6-10 geese or [24] for 11-20 geese - and if you use the rule about [0.2] for allies less than 5% of point total, it's [4] or [5].
Maybe this point-crock-ness is why Basic Set says to buy mundane animals as equipment rather than Allies.

[Donny Brook]

An issue with Allies whose nature implies substantial limitations (such as any realistic animal) is what to do with the accumulating CP arising from the PCs progress.

This is especially acute for Allies low down in the "up to" 25% range since even if they start at 0 or negative, they will still progress at 25% of the PCs gains.

Adding even [5] to a typical small animal without challenging realism is quite difficult.

This makes it pretty important to use the new rules in Supers or DF for low-value allies.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

An issue with Allies whose nature implies substantial limitations (such as any realistic animal) is what to do with the accumulating CP arising from the PCs progress.

s.

Add simple, realistic Skills ad perhaps especially add bought up Techniques based on those skills. That might be the bsst way to represent "tricks" and training.

[Dalin]

Originally Posted by Derrick_rp

... So then the character evolved into a hot shot pilot who relates more to his geese than people and refuses to go anywhere without his flock.

This is GURPS at its best. Sounds like it will be an awesome game.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Derrick_rp

Basically, a clockpunk version of Tom Cruise in Top Gun.

So then the character evolved into a hot shot pilot who relates more to his geese than people and refuses to go anywhere without his flock.

And a free reference to a Top Gun character.

Geese can definitely have Intimidation skill. I've seen them use it.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Inky

Apparently, Basic Set also says "Ordinary trained animals are property purchased with cash, not advantages bought with points", but doesn't say why.

I think that text is saying "A knight can buy a mundane warhorse with cash, you need not purchase it as an Ally" rather than "A knight must buy a mundane warhorse with cash, you can not purchase it as an Ally." That said, Ally generally indicates a much deeper bond than "I bought this horse a few winters ago."

Originally Posted by Inky

Apparently, you can cut down the cost of Allies by also taking them as Dependents - a group of Dependents is worth twice the cost of one Dependent, so a flock of geese with less than 25% of the PC's point value each (-10 points), present most of the time (x3) and at the lowest level of Dependents (x0.5) would be worth -15 x2 = -30 points as Dependents, and you'd also take them as Allies.

But, it seems like, in this case that might possibly be a point crock.

If you take your flock of geese as Dependents at the 15- (x3 cost) level, that means 95% of game sessions are going to involve you having to rescue them from danger. That's really not a useful group of Allies. Don't forget, Dependents isn't "I have a person/group of people for whom I feel responsible" (that's Sense of Duty), it's "I have a person/group of people for whom I feel responsible, and they get into trouble I have to save them from all the freaking time" (adjusted for Frequency of Appearance).

Originally Posted by Donny Brook

An issue with Allies whose nature implies substantial limitations (such as any realistic animal) is what to do with the accumulating CP arising from the PCs progress.

This is especially acute for Allies low down in the "up to" 25% range since even if they start at 0 or negative, they will still progress at 25% of the PCs gains.

Adding even [5] to a typical small animal without challenging realism is quite difficult.

This makes it pretty important to use the new rules in Supers or DF for low-value allies.

Enhancing skills and even attributes isn't that problematic, for a low-value Ally - although I'll note that [0] falls into the "up to 25%" (or "up to 5%") category regardless of if your PC is worth [50], [500], [5000], or more, so you don't have to keep pumping points into the animal.

Also, if you reach the point where further points added to your Ally will break verisimilitude, start having the animal get things like Luck, Destiny (the "Impulse Buys" variant that gives Destiny Points), and similar - the animal has metagame Advantages that keep it alive (or make it more effective) due to dumb luck and similar.

[Inky]

Oops, possibly I forgot that Frequency of Appearance for Dependents means how often they're a nuisance, not how often they're there! :-D Possibly, a much lower Frequency of Appearance would make sense, then, making it less of a point crock as it would probably be less than the cost as Allies. (Although, it seems like, some level of Dependents would make sense - if you have a flock of geese, even trained ones, they're likely to be a nuisance some of the time... :-D )

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by whswhs

I wouldn't put a goose as high as IQ 4. That's as high as the more alert mammals (other than primates): wolves, cats, perhaps rats, bats, and so on. But the ratio of brain mass to body surface area for birds generally is about half that for mammals generally (with the exception of songbirds, which are comparable to primates). And geese have observably small heads in proportion to total body size. I'd be inclined to give them IQ 3, like the less sophisticated mammals (for example, most hoofed mammals other than elephants, which I would guess are at least IQ 5).

However, geese don't seem to be easy to intimidate. I'd probably give them a moderately high Will, say 11 or 12.

Note that you can't compare bird and mammal brains like that. Birds don't have a neo-cortex but instead likely use the large pallium for the same purpose. Notably, as in all things with birds, this is a more parsimonious use of mass than in mammals, and while e.g. corvids have more developed large palliums than other birds, this is a significantly less proportionate increase in mass than the comparable difference in primate brains compared to other mammals.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Note that GURPS Supers has rules for smaller percentages.

As do a few other books, and yes in this case you ought to use those.