protecting your Zombies from Control Zombie

[Anthony]

Yeah, the obvious solution to control zombie is telling your zombies to kill people who try it.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

Unless something interferes with this idealized free retry process -- like someone killing the mage while they rest. Like, oh, the zombie guard he just failed to control, along with all the other zombies in the horde. And the other forces that the necromancer mixed in to cover weaknesses of zombies.

This seems like just one of those constructed white room problems.

Assuming it wouldn't be a problem assumes the mage takes those other logical countermeasures.

Yes it would be good to know when someone is trying to use this on your zombies, but if they're not actually performing visible rituals (you can avoid them at high skill, or w/ penalties using Flexiible Rituals) then you might be unaware of what they're doing.

Also unless you tell your zombie guard "kill anyone you see talking and moving their limbs" (goodbye to any human servants you might want around) they'd need some way of discerning who is casting spells. Do they have the IQ for that?

The other 'mixed in forces' might come with liabilities, like creatures able to betray you under other circumstances.

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Changing a password only 'increases security' if it happens after the attacker has already made progress on an attack. Not a very good analogy for the argument you're trying to make here.

If you have tried 99% of all permutations of a passcode and failed, you would have confidence you are nearing a solution.

If at that point the password was randomly changed: this is going to be very discouraging, because all your work is undone.

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

It would be practical if you've already abducted the zombie and chained them up in a controlled environment, but at that point the zombie is probably already written off by its original owner anyway.

Given that it's a regular spell, it would be hard to hide for hours in effective range of the target.

You might not have to stay near the entire time, you might venture off while recovering FP and venture near only when actually doing the 1-second casting.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Plane

AIf you have tried 99% of all permutations of a passcode and failed, you would have confidence you are nearing a solution.

If at that point the password was randomly changed: this is going to be very discouraging, because all your work is undone.

That's both an example of "if it happens after the attacker has already made progress on an attack" and not a great example, because passwords don't normally have a small enough space for exhaustive searching to be possible. (Though 4-digit PINs or phone unlock codes may if they don't have an effective lockout mechanism.)