Balanceing Cohorts in 4e

[Moon-Lancer]

Now I know 4e wont have cohorts, or at least i'm pretty sure it wont. But I was wondering, How would you go about making them balanced in 4e allowing them to have hero classes while still keeping in tune with the economy of actions? What if the cohort was a monster that was a mount?

would it be possible to allow you or your cohort 1 attack a round, but not both?

Is this an impossible endeavor?

 

[LostInTheMists]

Now I know 4e wont have cohorts, or at least i'm pretty sure it wont. But I was wondering, How would you go about making them balanced in 4e allowing them to have hero classes while still keeping in tune with the economy of actions? What if the cohort was a monster that was a mount?

would it be possible to allow you or your cohort 1 attack a round, but not both?

Is this an impossible endeavor?

Someone once had a very good idea (IMHO) regarding using your actions to "command" your cohort by trading up. Therefore, you could spend your Minor Action to give your cohort a Move Action or Minor Action, or you could spend a Move Action to give your cohort a Minor, Move or Standard action. This way you still get at least a Standard Action to perform your own action for the round, but also gain the benefit of having a minion without too much disruption of the economy of actions.

But hey... Communism looked good on paper, too. I'd have to try playtesting this to see it it actually works.

 

[Wulfgar76]

Is this an impossible endeavor?

Probably.
Any way you stack it, cohorts and animal companions are extra actions.

 

[Frostmarrow]

Probably.
Any way you stack it, cohorts and animal companions are extra actions.

You could sic your three men-at-arms on the three kobolds on the left flank, and have them cancel each other out.

 

[Jeph]

It'd probably be easiest to just treat cohorts as a normal character, and then make the combats tougher by an appropriate amount.

 

[TerraDave]

Now I know 4e wont have cohorts, or at least i'm pretty sure it wont.

....?

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

It'd probably be easiest to just treat cohorts as a normal character, and then make the combats tougher by an appropriate amount.

This should work - if every player wants also to control a cohort. Otherwise, the economy of actions between players (not characters) doesn't work out, and that can also be bad.

I somewhat like the trade-up idea, but you still end up with more actions and more characters to handle.

Maybe there should be rules for "mini-swarms" - two characters acting as one, but with more options and/or hit points and damage...

I think you can't really balance this fairly between players (and still expect to have "versimildingenskirchenteil, at least...)

 

[LostSoul]

How about this:

Leadership
You lead a cohort into battle.
At Will ♦ Martial
Special: When you select this power, the DM designates an NPC as your cohort. The cohort is an NPC equal to your level, and he gains levels along with you. You can only use this power on your cohort.
Minor Action
Target: One creature (cohort)
Effect: Your cohort takes a standard action of your choosing.

 

[Av3rnus]

Now I know 4e wont have cohorts, or at least i'm pretty sure it wont. But I was wondering, How would you go about making them balanced in 4e allowing them to have hero classes while still keeping in tune with the economy of actions? What if the cohort was a monster that was a mount?

would it be possible to allow you or your cohort 1 attack a round, but not both?

Is this an impossible endeavor?

I understand that from a gamist point of view, the economy of actions argument makes a lot of sense. But for me, the idea that you and your cohort only get one attack between the two of you strains verisimilitude a bit too much for me.

Still, you want to make sure that no single player is spending too much time, relative to the other players, figuring out what actions to take on their turn. A fully statted-out secondary character can lead to that, especially given that each class has a multitude of powers to choose from. So maybe we should just make cohorts really simple to use.

I'd suggest creating a special 'Cohort' class. It wouldn't really get any powers of its own, but it could multiclass using the 4e multiclassing rules. So, once per encounter (or day), your cohort gets to do something really cool and the rest of the time they're stuck using basic attacks. Wouldn't need to spend much time running them, and they certainly wouldn't outshine any other member of the party which, you know, makes sense for a mere cohort.

 

[Scipio202]

Well, I'd try to do something from the implied action tradeoff from Warlord powers:

At-will - replace your attack with another's basic attack (you both are in melee range)
Encounter - add your attack to another's basic attack

So, I'd tweak it slightly for cohorts:

Cohorts get a move action every round. At will, as a standard action you can have your cohort make a basic attack (though you don't have to be in melee range to the cohorts target). Possibly allow you to sacrifice your minor, or possibly your move, to let the cohort use a power instead of a basic attack. Once per encounter you can have your cohort attack as a minor action (thus allowing you to attack too).

Then to balance things, I'd say that having a cohort takes up a magical item slot/power usage. I.e. if normally people can draw up to X encounter powers from their items, while you have a cohort you only get X-1 powers. Plus presumably there is some kind of feat cost or something for initially getting the cohort.