is reducing Minion+50% to Minion+0% for Allies a case of double-dipping?

[Plane]

The reduced cost of the enhancement happens if your ally has IQ 0 [-100] or Slave Mentality [-40] but in either case these things would already lower the point total of the ally (which affects the base cost of the Ally social advantage) which would already influence the cost of a +50% enhancement, so why does the enhancement need to be cheaper?

I'd also posit that an IQ 20 Will 20 ally with Slave Mentality is probably a lot more useful as a minion than an IQ 10 ally without Slave Mentality... the latter will actually in the end be more slave-like since IQ 12 (20-8) and Will 14 (20-6) since the base stats outweigh the penalties Slave Mentality gives.

Allies who aren't minions are generally a drawback because they might rebel if mistreated - but if we're talking creatures who are IQ 1 caring for them (or making them pretend you care) probably isn't all that hard - not likely as high-maintenance as a friendship with an IQ 10 human would be.

The more consistent benefit of Minion is that you don't lose bonus CP if you get your Ally destroyed, and that doesn't seem like a negligible benefit if we're talking about sacrificing your Oldsmobile to destroy an enemy.

Is that more expensive if your ally is a horse because of the ethics of throwing away sentient creatures? But if it's about ethics, why should it be low-cost to throw away allies one abuses until they become slavish?

[Anaraxes]

Minion isn't about sentience, but obedience and duty.

As Basic says for the IQ 0 / Slave Mentality types, "the benefits of total loyalty are offset by the need for close supervision".

Slave Mentality doesn't mean the minion is a happy and willing slave. It means it has no initiative, takes no action without direct orders, and has no resistance or Will to speak of. An Ally Minion will act in your best interests (as it understands them) to the best of its ability. An Ally Minion with Slave Mentality won't do anything until the master takes its own actions to give it some orders (with a -8 penalty, anything of below human average intelligence can't even roll to try to do something on its own), and even then the Minion will also do what your enemies tell it to, thanks to the SM's inability to resist Influence rolls or make Will saves. An SM Minion is considerably less useful than a fully functional Minion that will actually be doing something useful rather than standing around waiting for more orders.

An IQ 0 Minion can't act even if you do give it orders, SM or no. It's a rock. So it's even one step less useful than an SM Minion.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

Minion isn't about sentience, but obedience and duty.

As Basic says for the IQ 0 / Slave Mentality types, "the benefits of total loyalty are offset by the need for close supervision".

yeah but it's a huge jump and seems to imply that the IQ 1 minion doesn't require supervision so they don't get the discount

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

An Ally Minion with Slave Mentality won't do anything until the master takes its own actions to give it some orders (with a -8 penalty, anything of below human average intelligence can't even roll to try to do something on its own)

Right - so an IQ 8 with Slave Mentality has equivalent initiative to IQ 0, but anyone with IQ 9+ Slave Mentality is in the IQ 1+ range.

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

and even then the Minion will also do what your enemies tell it to, thanks to the SM's inability to resist Influence rolls or make Will saves.

It says you can resist that at -6 though.

Plus we see in cases like GURPS Magic you just give the minion Indomitable to cancel that out.

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

An IQ 0 Minion can't act even if you do give it orders, SM or no. It's a rock. So it's even one step less useful than an SM Minion.

Aren't there still ways to make it tailored for your purposes and resistant to others using it?

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Plane

yeah but it's a huge jump and seems to imply that the IQ 1 minion doesn't require supervision so they don't get the discount?

You can expect your swarm of bees to be reasonably self-sufficient left to do their bizzness, but you can't expect your '64 Impala to do anything other than sit in the parking lot and get all hot and sticky inside.

Minion for nonsentient things is mainly because you can just leave them in a location indefinitely or abandon them without consequences and because they typically don't do anything useful without direct control so they do get left behind often.

[Anaraxes]

I wouldn't use Ally for anything non-sentient. IMO, it's pretty questionable for anything below IQ 4.

(Picking 4+ is to admit the multitude of companion animals in fantasy, most of which are smarter than typical anyway; note the line on B458 which puts "anything {the GM} ever saw a trained animal do in the movies" at IQ 5. Could even make it IQ 6, which is the lower bound for sapience, and let all the dogs, horses which Heralds' Companions are explicitly not, owls, cats which aren't familiars or of silvery hue, and so on just be trained animals, while making the many examples of more capable "animals" and creatures in animal shapes just be IQ 6+, the lower bound for language.)

Right - so an IQ 8 with Slave Mentality has equivalent initiative to IQ 0, but anyone with IQ 9+ Slave Mentality is in the IQ 1+ range.

The penalty is to a success roll (an IQ roll) to decide to do something, not directly to IQ (e.g., "treat your IQ as 8 points lower"). You need an effective skill of 3 to make a roll at all. "Try to roll a 1, hoping for a crit" isn't allowed. The SM would need above human average IQ to have any chance of success at all. Your IQ 20 example paragon would motivate themselves to act 74% of the time, not always act as a non-SM person of IQ 12 (which character doesn't need a roll).

It says you can resist that at -6 though. Plus we see in cases like GURPS Magic you just give the minion Indomitable to cancel that out.

On the one hand, if you're buying all these other traits, then the Ally isn't as cheap as you were concerned about in your OP, so you've answered your own question. On the other, if someone builds with a trait and then promptly takes another bunch of traits to cancel them all out, it suggests their concept doesn't really call for that trait in the first place.

Those kind of builds also deserve some extra scrutiny and consideration, as it hints at munchkinism. There's no guarantee with GURPS traits that any two collections that managed to cancel out all of the opposed mechanics will sum to 0 CP. Trying too hard to cancel all but one sentence of a trait description might be an entertaining meta exercise, but if it came up in an actual game, I'd suspect all the effort was devoted to squeeze extra points out of a loophole rather than achieve a workable model of a desired character concept.

When players find them themselves spiraling down that kind of rabbit hole, it's a sign that perhaps they should back up and try to reach their goal building the character other way around -- not a big negative and then a bunch of opposed positives to whittle it down, but just start with a small negative that actually represents the end goal.

(This is why there's are "Taboo Traits" and "Negated Disadvantages" rules -- not derived from mathematical purity or design theory, but just practical experience that that sort of self-negating build was too often abused, so needs to be at least a warning flag if not outright prohibited.)

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Plane

yeah but it's a huge jump and seems to imply that the IQ 1 minion doesn't require supervision so they don't get the discount

IQ 1 is dumb. Yes. But it still has it's own actions in combat so you can sic your swarm of bees on people without having to use up your own combat actions just controlling it.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

Your IQ 20 example paragon would motivate themselves to act 74% of the time, not always act as a non-SM person of IQ 12 (which character doesn't need a roll).

If we assume the IQ12 has some kind of unwritten "no nuisance rolls" perk for "doesn't need to roll to take initiative to go shopping for groceries" then we might consider that sort of common-sense task to be a +10 or whatever would bring you to a minimum effective skill of 15 for the NNR perk to work.

Then we could view Slave Mentality as removing the NNR perk?

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

IQ 1 is dumb. Yes. But it still has it's own actions in combat so you can sic your swarm of bees on people without having to use up your own combat actions just controlling it.

B458 doesn't cover being able to command IQ 1 pets.

IQ 2 reptiles can only be trained to "come to eat" and "don't bite master"

IQ 3 hawks can be giving "hunting" commands, but it's not until IQ 4 (dogs) where "attack" is added.

I imagine the distinction here between 2 and 3 would be whether you're attacking your natural prey (hawks hunting mice) vs attacking unusual non-prey targets.

Fantasy 47 has an IQ 0 carnivorous plant able to grapple (with it's two arms or Binding, it's sessile so has No Legs) or do 1d+2 bites using it's ST 20.

Herecine are Blind+Deaf so it seems like it operates on touch/smell to know when to grab an animal who is touching it's berries.

Seems to contradict the "unable to act" aka "rutabaga rule" at http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/faq/FAQ4-3.html#SS3.1.5

If the Herecine is not "acting" then I think we need some way to represent character ability to bite/grapple without using attack maneuvers.

Possibly taking "Uncontrollable" plus "Reflexive" on Binding or ST-based damage? Or some kind of enhancement on "Extra Attack" which allows it to be used even when you don't choose an Attack maneuver?

Presumably IQ 0 things always choose "Do Nothing" as their maneuver, which normally would not allow Extra Attack.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Plane

B458 doesn't cover being able to command IQ 1 pets.

Yes, if you command a swarm of bees directly you aren't doing it with Animal Handling and stimulus/reward training.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Yes, if you command a swarm of bees directly you aren't doing it with Animal Handling and stimulus/reward training.

So what are you using then, telepathy?

[ravenfish]

Originally Posted by Plane

So what are you using then, telepathy?

My understanding is that (non-supernatural) beekeeping mostly involves creating circumstances to which the bees respond with the desired behavior, rather than attempting to change how the bees respond to circumstances.

[On the other hand, if you've paid points to buy a swarm of bees as an ally, then presumably you've bought the ability to have them act in ways that actively benefit you, irrespective of strict biological realism.]