Leadership Revisions

Rae ArdGaoth · May 28, 2007

Okay, so a summary of this proposal so far:

Cohort 30 PB: 2 votes YES, 1 vote NO, 1 "leaning to no", and an abstain.
Cohort XP Change: Approved.

SlagMortar suggested an alternative to creating and controlling your own cohort: allowing another player to create and control a "4th" character, for the express purpose of acting as a cohort. I think this an intriguing idea, worthy of its own proposal thread.

Bront · May 28, 2007

I'd have no problem toting around a cohort who was played by another player. In fact, that works better for the initial concept anyway.

My question is this. Would the cohort fall under the same cohort rules of conduct? (Leadership feat, advancing, etc)?

Rae ArdGaoth · May 28, 2007

I think yes. It would be a PC, and thus be 30 PB. But it would be a "4th character", and the mitigating factor would be that A) it's tied to another player's PC and B) it's permanently 2 levels behind that PC.

Problems might arise if players drop and a Leader is left Cohortless. In that case, the Leader's player should simply take control of the Cohort PC, as though it had been his PC's NPC Cohort all along. Also, a PC Cohort should have the option to break away and become a normal PC (or even a Leader PC!) by being upgraded from "4th character" status. In that scenario, the Leader PC would lose his Cohort, and again an NPC Cohort might be needed.

I was thinking... perhaps a PC Cohort could be 30 PB but an NPC Cohort could be 25 PB. That would reward the community for making relationships and also compromise with the many voices who oppose NPCs being as powerful as PCs.

However, it opens the possibility of "mule accounts" to create a 30 PB "PC Cohort", have the "player" drop, and then have an NPC with 30 PB. That may be a ridiculous reason for not allowing it, I don't know. One solution might be to have the PC Cohort lose 5 points if the player drops (making it an NPC Cohort). But that's really not acceptable, you just can't have characters with constantly fluctuating ability scores.

Rystil Arden · May 28, 2007

Yup, as Rae says, the Cohort would indeed fall under the normal Cohort rules, it would just be played by a guest player.

Although...Rae, I'm not sure if it is fair to ever allow the character to become a normal PC. Let's take an example (the first part of this might actually happen, sort of, so it's a good example)--Vanitri takes Elektra Planter as a cohort at level 9 and since she was my NPC before, I wind up playing her. She would be a level 7 Wizard. Let's say they all level up one more time (it's arbitrary how many) and Vanitri becomes 10, Elektra 8. Then let's say I dropped Aletheia or something and took Elektra as a normal PC. I'm now playing LEW's highest-level single-class Wizard (tied with Ashnar and Tenebrynn for spell-slinging potential, since they keep taking classes that don't give caster level increases), and she'd be three and four levels higher than my PCs of several years' time (though this is mainly because I have awful awful luck with games, since Vanitri started adventuring at the same time as my two PCs, so I guess it isn't too bad there). I'm not sure if that's a problem--I'd think it might be.

As to Point Buy, it definitely should not go down as a result of a player dropping. Frankly, I'm not sure it shouldn't be the same regardless--the reward of getting a guest player is the chance to roleplay without talking to yourself.

Knight Otu · May 29, 2007

The idea of player cohorts is quite interesting and may work. They should of course use the same rules, that takes care of the cohort player vanishing. What seems more problematic is the possibility of the leader player vanishing, or the leader character otherwise leaving the game (such as death without resurrection).

Velmont · May 29, 2007

I think, the main problem I see with that idea is that a person could have a 4th charaacter, that character could start at high level (could be 7th if a character take the feat at 9th level) and then free himself form his master... some people are playing for 3 years a character and they don't have a 7th level character yet, so why another could have character that could start at level 7 and could possibily free himself from his leader at some point and become a full character (and a 4th one)?

Rae ArdGaoth · May 29, 2007

That's very true, I didn't even think about it. It seems obvious now that such an exchange of characters would be incredibly unfair. Maybe you can only exchange a cohort for a regular PC of equal or lower level.

Solange · May 30, 2007

Rae ArdGaoth said:
That's very true, I didn't even think about it. It seems obvious now that such an exchange of characters would be incredibly unfair. Maybe you can only exchange a cohort for a regular PC of equal or lower level.

That makes sense.

Just a question. How does any of this play into the Thaumaturgist's ability to gain a plainer cohort?

Rystil Arden · May 30, 2007

Solange said:
That makes sense.

Just a question. How does any of this play into the Thaumaturgist's ability to gain a plainer cohort?

Should have no effect--sadly for all involved, I believe default Planar Cohorts are likely build on the 15 PB 11 11 11 10 10 10 array like most monsters, at least unless you proposed for them to get the Elite Array.

Solange · May 30, 2007

Rystil Arden said:
Should have no effect--sadly for all involved, I believe default Planar Cohorts are likely build on the 15 PB 11 11 11 10 10 10 array like most monsters, at least unless you proposed for them to get the Elite Array.

There aren't a lot of interesting ones in the SRD that I can find (that are LG). Why does adding 11 levels to a Hound Archon increase it's CR by 12?

Leadership Revisions

Rae ArdGaoth

Explorer

Bront

The man with the probe

Rae ArdGaoth

Explorer

Rystil Arden

First Post

Knight Otu

First Post

Velmont

First Post

Rae ArdGaoth

Explorer

Solange

First Post

Rystil Arden

First Post

Solange

First Post

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