Now go ahead and take that knowledge to a fight against the assembled Houses of the Court, and see how well you fare.

I'm not sure what you mean. I only meant to say that when you know the catch for one Skavis you know the catch for all of them, and likewise for Raiths. To me, that means their Catch is more widely available to be discovered than for someone whose Catch is unique to them. I would reflect that by offering a 1 pt refund.

There is a measure of table preference in this, as in many things in DFRPG, and I'm just tossing my 2 cents out there. I respect that you disagree, and I think your point of view is supportable. So agree to disagree time, I think.

I like the perspective about how well known (or not) these things actually are in the Dresden verse, although the White Court weakness and the existence of the Jade Court still trike me as worth +1. The guideline for that price level is, if I recall, something like you need access to an arcane library and the know-how to research it, which is very much like Dresden going and asking Bob for the 411. A +0 refund catch is more like Nicodemus' noose, which as far as we know Harry is the only person in the world to figure out, and even he had to figure it out over the course of struggling against him. So a little more exclusive than the White Court's Achilles heel.

Does a pet dog need to spend refresh? Picking up the Claws power might be nice for it, but then claws gives the equivalent of a weapon 2, which is in the same league as a handgun or a modestly sized sword. Wolves or trained attack dogs might be that powerful in a fight, but a faithful Labrador retriever doesn't need to be so lethal. Of course, if you later train him up to take the fullest advantage of his natural weapons and strength, Claws might be justified . . . but you have to buy a stunt to get there. It all hangs together for me.

I like it. It leaves the important decisions to the table while reasonably pointing out the potential pitfalls. I also like the stunt becoming useless if the companion dies, it's a sensible cost that can be swapped out soon enough to not be crippling but is a heavy enough blow to hurt. I think we should also include a line or two encouraging players who lose a companion to think about modifying an aspect to reflect the loss; it should by no means be compulsory, but for certain characters in certain situations it makes sense. Losing your faithful dog or your apprentice would certainly be a terrible psychological blow, and might color your character's outlook going forward.

So do we think that we have come far enough in outlining our goals to revisit the specific wording for companion stunts?

Hiring minions for a short duration or a very specific task should probably be possible, but at a higher difficulty than if you just had the skill in the first place. So if you needed a hacker to access the information on a stolen hard drive, the scholarship difficulty might be 3 and the resources level needed to hire a hacker would be 5. Also that hireling is only there for the job, and occasionally might have secret motives or incompetence problems. They definitely aren't going to risk their lives or anything else important to help you.

A companion by contrast is invested in the same sorts of goals you are, and will accompany you even into dangerous situations. And while the GM controls the minion completely, you should probably get some say in the type of actions your companion takes.

Speaking of which, how about companions are controlled by the player who purchased them, but the GM gets to compel the companion's aspects for free in order to exert some measure of control himself. The player and the GM can also negotiate certain actions, like whether or not a dog companion chosen by the player would really jump in and help fight the Blampire he is currently fighting.

That gets a little complicated, I know. I think it still needs work. But I'm looking for a way to allow the player to control the companion, both to take the burden off the GM and to give him a little more investment in the companion character. But I also want to limit some things about the companion, so that they aren't as useful as having a second character.

On another note, what happens when a companion dies? Is the stunt refunded? Does the companion get replaced by a suspiciously similar substitute? I was thinking of refunding the stunt, but making the player take a severe social consequence to reflect the blow of losing such a valued ally. Anyone else have an idea?

For the record I'm still very interested in getting this done, but Christmas stuff will likely prevent me from doing much to contribute for the next week or so. Keep up the good work everyone, and I'll try to post my thoughts as often as I have the opportunity.

I thought that by throwing down something specific we could like or dislike, and pick apart, we'd be moving forward. It's how I work best. But I can take a step back for a bit more planning.

I included a minor bit of scaling because otherwise such characters wouldn't be worth it at higher refresh levels. Note that while skills scale with level, the amount of refresh does not, so I took a hybrid approach. The more you put in the more you get out, but the baseline stunt should be useful at all levels of refresh.

As for control, I think that pets granted through the abilities generated on this list should be controlled by the player. Otherwise why bother making them powers? Just deal with it like you would any NPC, with aspects on your character sheet and fate points for declarations to get them moving the way you want them to go. But if you want to be able to control them directly, this list of powers/stunts is where you go.

As far as deciding which principles we will use going forward, I'm conflicted. On the one hand, stunts seem to be a pretty good way to do pets, minions, and allies. On the other hand I would like whatever framework we have for such things to be flexible to allow both a pure mortal to purchase a secretary and to allow a 22 refresh wizard to purchase a familiar. And I know that a lot of people are uncomfortable with mortal stunts allowing things that are supernatural in nature.

So I'm open to other opinions, but my instinct is to go with mortal stunts that can be reflavored to grant mystically inclined pets.

This is potentially a huge topic with a lot of room for work, but I'll start small by picking what seems to be some of the low hanging fruit.

Mortal Stunts

Call in the Cavalry: You are a member of a major organization, or have close ties to one. Because of that connection, you can rely on them to back you up when the shit really hits the fan. Once per adventure, you may call upon that group to aid you directly. That aid takes the form of one individual or several who will assist you and protect you, even to the extent of risking their lives, so long as your actions match the goals and methods of the organization to which they belong. The GM has the final say in just what form this aid will take, but it typically consists of an individual or group of individuals who would constitute "Equal Opposition" (YS 333) to your character. In most circumstances they will aid your character for one encounter before their other duties call them away or their resources are spent. In some situations the organization will be unwilling or unable to extend their aid to the PC in question; treat this as a compel against one of the character's aspects or an aspect related to the current adventure.

Trusty Ally: With this stunt you are accompanied through life's travails by a devoted ally. The relationship between the two of you might be personal, professional, mystical, or anything else, but come hell or high water, you are in it together. Choose a high concept and two aspects for your ally. Your ally has no refresh to spend on powers and stunts, but may choose one skill at the level of one below your skill cap (So if your skill cap is Great, they may choose one to have at Good). They also choose two skills at the level below that, three skills at the next level down and so on. This ally tends to be useful in one or a small group of related situations, but not in others. For example a secretary ally would be good at doing research and deflecting unwanted social attention, but would be of less use in a fight. Keep this in mind when designing your ally's skills and aspects.

Band of Brothers: Requires Trusty Ally. If two minds are better than one, why not take that to its logical conclusion? You have a knack for attracting like-minded individuals to your cause, whatever that may be. You could be the captain of your department's Special Investigations, you could be a Cult Leader, the point is that you know how to lead. The first time you purchase this stunt you may have up to three allies, constructed according to the guidelines given in the Trusty Ally stunt. If you buy this stunt again you may have a large group of such allies, easily up to a dozen.

Partner: Requires Trusty Ally. You're not interested in a sidekick so much as a partner, someone who can keep up with you when the going gets really rough. The ally you gained with the Trusty Ally stunt is granted 3 refresh to spend on stunts and powers, as appropriate to their High Concept, and 5 skill points. You may purchase this stunt again, each time granting your ally 1 more refresh and 2 skill points. The added skill points give this NPC more scope to interact with the campaign, making them useful in a broader array of situations than an unimproved ally. Your GM has the final say in determining how powerful you can make a partner before it eclipses the importance of your actual character.

I've tried to incorporate a few different ideas into getting started on the mortal end of this problem, though these stunts could also be used to make familiars and other things. One thing that is very important is that not every NPC that is important to your character has to be modeled using these rules, in fact the VAST majority of the time you should skip it and just throw in an aspect on your sheet that mentions them. These abilities are specifically for NPCs that you want to be able to control in-game, and thus that you foresee playing an important role in almost every adventure you participate in.