Rystil Arden
First Post
A Fireball's radius is large enough that you almost never get that choice, and it sucks if your cohort is just going to die on the enemy's first turn every time.Rae ArdGaoth said:DC 14 isn't great, but L4 characters have magic items too, even cohorts. More points would definitely make the character better/more effective/more survivable, I obviously agree there. The question is should they be? It's not fair to compare a L4 cohort's effectiveness/survivability against a L6 challenge to a L6 leader's effectiveness/survivability against that same challenge. Of course the cohort will fare worse, I mean, technically the cohort's supposed to be kind of like a player controlled NPC, right? He's two levels lower and he's got worse stats, so yeah, he'll get blown away. That's why, hopefully, the wizard cohort is staying in the back, away from the fighter Leader, like any smart wizard would do when faced with a particularly challenging or dangerous encounter. (My own wizard, Fimble, is not staying in the back, which is probably going to bite him in the rear soon. =P)
I think that the cohort should indeed be more survivable. The cohort is intrinsically forced to face encounters appropriate for PCs two levels higher than the cohort--I think that's enough to keep the cohort down, and if there are total lowbies in the same adventure, a GM can think about disallowing the cohort. Crippling the point buy in addition doesn't sit well with me. I've always thought this, as I came into the picture after the current cohort rules (which I think suck) were already passed, but I never cared enough to start a thread.
As for cohorts having equipment, I invite you to look at Hogarth's equipment. He has ~2000 GP worth of stuff as a level 6 character, and most of that is healing wands/potions/scrolls (the rest is full plate mail). My level 4 Telepath has substantially more wealth. This results because when treasure is being split up, I'm guessing people don't want to give the PC with the cohort more loot just because of the cohort being there, so the cohort gets castaways and hand-me-downs.
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