[3.5] Cohorts no longer gobble up party XP

[Nightstorm]

Does anyone know if this is the only change in Leadership?

 

[ThoughtBubble]

I didn't have a problem with the initial ruling. I've got a quazi cohort in the group currently, who fills out the skillset of the group fairly well, and one NPC who takes a smaller share of the expierence. I've got 5 PC's in the group. With the two NPC's factored in, each made 1478 xp. The NPCS made 739 and 369 exp.

If we take the NPC's out of the picture, the players each made 1700. While the difference isn't negligable, it's not a huge deal either. If there had only been the single cohort, the total would have been 1545. In this case, I don't think anyone in the party would object to losing 155 xp to gain a trustworthy scout and archer. Though that may be mitagted by the fact that I give out bonuses for various individual actions throught the game, and the minimum anyone obtained last session was 125.

The worst part had to simply be calculating out the shares. Until I got some spreadsheet software it was a pain. I ended up givng each of the PC's 2 shares, and the NPC's 1 each.

Though I have to say that overall, the ruling is probablly a bit easier to implement, if setup with more special cases. I'm not sure I like that.

Sorry to bore you with the numbers earlier, but they were sitting right there.

 

[Destil]

As someone observed: while the GROUP may be able to handle higher-CR / higher-EL encounters, the individual risks and challenges increse; the chance that SOMEONE among the party-of-four-and-a-sidekick will die goes up out of proportion to any changes in XP awards.

Now, someone said a party of 4, with 1 cohort, would face creatures of CR11 or CR 12; they aslso stated a party-of-four and four cohorts might face encounters twice as tough as the same party with no cohots.

Well, I hate to tell you, but EL 12 is "twice as hard" as EL10 (a matched pair of CR 10 baddies is EL 12). EL 11, by extension, is probably 150% as hard as EL10.

One extra, guaranteed-to-be-lower-in-level character, and a 50% increase in challenge levels? THAT hardly seems fair, either!

This is highly dependent on how skilled the DM is. A goods DM will judge the party's ability to take/deal damage. Given how rough CRs (they can't aproximate anything smaller than 50%) are increasing it by 2 for a party with double the members but 1/2 of them one level lower an encounter with a CR twice as high will rarely be that much more deadly, if thought out properly. At very very low levels it can be a problem, but leadership isn't even available until 5th level, anyway.

There's a very small power discrepency between 8 20th level PCs and and 4 19th and 4 20th level PCs.

There's a more serious discrepency between 8 level 5s and 4 level 3s with 4 level 5s, but even that's not too serious unless all the 3s are multiclass psion/sorcerers or something.

And since CR rules don't very well fit partys larger than 4 PCs to begin with, I really don't see this as a serious issue. Unless you have a DM who always throws a single high offense / low defense creature at that party. What will give you a bodycount is just throwing one big, high offense creature at a party and upping the CR by 2 over what you had planed to begin with. But if you're only using that sort of challenge with large partys you already have encounters that end very quickly and typically have a body count, anyway.

 

[Celebrim]

Talk about the ultimate meta-gaming rule.

I can see how this makes things easier for some people running campaigns on fixed schedules (for example running a published module without modification), but for me, no thanks.

This may or may not be 'fixing' a problem, but it is philosophically completely inelegant and repulsive to me as a game master. The ammount of XP given is supposed to be rated to the challenge, but in this case as the challenge gets easier (more help) the total ammount of XP given _goes up_?!?!? And not only that, what makes this 'cohort' fellow so special that he is treated different than both PC's and NPC's for purposes of calculating XP? Isn't he basically just another NPC, albiet one that happens to be quite loyal to another character (PC or NPC)? Is there some special cohort aura that causes him to be an exception in the normal rules of the universe? If Bob the Grunt shows up to help the PC's fight (or other NPC's for that matter), does he also not dip into 'party XP'? If one hundred 1st level archers show up, do they each get half shares of party XP while the PC's still get the full ammount? If not, why not?

One of the basic rules of fairness in DMing is NPC's and PC's are basically the same, and as a DM you should rule consistantly between them. Anything that you as a DM allow your NPC's to do you should be prepared to allow your PC's to do. This encourages DM's not to ego trip whilst running a favorite NPC. Likewise, anything that the PC's do, they should be prepared to accept the same rules applying to the NPC's. This encourages PC's not to rules lawyer in order to gain advantages since they know that they will also be the victim of any broken ruling that they demand. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

Finally, this doesn't stop the problem of PC's metagaming thier XP. It just creates new rules for that meta game ("Oh boy, free XP for item creation!"). IF PC's are basing thier actions around maximizing thier XP in a particular encounter, something is fundamentally wrong with the campaign that mere rule lawyering won't solve. It's either too easy (PC's should welcome help in a dangerous campaign), or death carries to little penalty (PC's aren't making avoidance of death thier primary goal), or too meta-gamed (PC's aren't role playing), or the DM is meta-gaming himself (punishing players for having cohorts by upping the difficulty level), or something.

My personal preference is to give shares according to character level and involvement. Major actors in a story (generally speaking the PC's) get full shares, but if a party relies too heavily on an NPC - cohort or otherwise - he gets a full share according to his level. Lesser actors get half shares (or less) depending on the degree of contribution. If the cohort is pulling 1/5th of the weight in a party combat in terms of damage dealt and suffered, he's a full fledged member of the party.

Most RPer's I've dealt with have cohorts for RP purposes, and typically see the cohort as a fall back PC in case they lose thier own or wish to retire thier first PC because they want to change thier 'outlook' for a while. While I can't imagine any player complaining to much about recieving free XP, I can't imagine any of them complaining about the normal state of affairs (share and share alike) either and I have to wonder somewhat about the state of the campaigns that inspired this sort of change.

Some times I think 3.5 is more worried about compatibility with Neverwinter Nights II than with fixing actual problems in the system.

 

[Corinth]

If you spend a feat slot, then that means that--in an invisible fashion--you've spent your PC's XP to buy that feat. Hence your PC spent XP to buy that cohort, and the cohort is now part of the PC's array of class and character abilities; he's as much a part of the PC's adventuring accoutrements as his +5 holy avenger, and this revision acknowledges this to be the case. The rules change is nothing more than making the rules conform to the reality of the situation.

 

[Celtavian]

re

I tend to agree with Celebrim on this issue, though I still don't think a Cohort should receive full xp for the adventure. I do believe they should take a share of the earned xp though since they helped earn it.

I don't like this new method which cuts down on bookkeeping while at the same time destroying any type of game disadvantage for bringing along a full extra, slightly lower level NPC cohort. I can also see all kinds of abuse occuring by giving an NPC free xp that they don't earn while still being under the complete control of a PC.

I may keep the old rule or come up with something easier, but that still takes a share of the PC's earned xp.

 

[Staffan]

Re: re

I don't like this new method which cuts down on bookkeeping while at the same time destroying any type of game disadvantage for bringing along a full extra, slightly lower level NPC cohort.

As Corinth says, there is a game disadvantage - it costs a feat. And adding one character two or more levels lower than yourself isn't going to increase the party's power all that much - and in many cases, the cohort will be even lower than that, assuming the leadership -> cohort level table works out the same.

In 3.0, a 6th level character who gets Leadership will probably get a 4th level cohort (assuming no Charisma modifier). A 12th level character will get an 8th level cohort, and an 18th level character will get a 12th level cohort.

Tell me again how much an additional character 2-6 levels below your own will add to the party's capability?

 

[Brekki]

Good to hear, especially now that I'll get Leadership for my Awakened (Ex) Animal Companion.

I did exactly the same when our group went from 3.0 to 3.5. I used to have an awakened advanced brown bear as a companion. That's no longer possible so the companion became a friendly NPC for two gaming sessions ... next session I'll be lvl 12 and get Leadership so the NPC will become cohort and walk along nicely together with my new dire bear animal companion

 

[Jhyrryl]

DM Judgement

There's a reason that Leadership is in the DMG and not part of the core player rules. If the DM feels that her players are going to abuse the system, she doesn't allow it. If she feels that they aren't going to abuse it, she does.

For me, this rule is perfect for one of the campaigns I run, and is fundamentally similar to how I was already handling cohort experience. The campaign's premise is for the PCs to tame a wilderness, and form their own country. The cohorts in the campaign don't adventure with the party; they operate in the background, overseeing the construction of strongholds, roads, and other infrastructure, while the PCs take on the task of eliminating all the threats to their little emergent civilization. In the course of these duties, the cohorts are tasked with protecting the workers from the as-yet untamed wilds, earning experience in the process. A system like this establishes how much experience is being earned. (Although we'll eventually take a break from the main PCs, and play a session or three with the cohorts.)

In my other campaign, the one cohort doesn't get abused, so I'll probably be using this rule there as well.

But cohorts obviously don't work out well in all campaigns, thus the highly optional nature of the feat.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I don't think anyone else has mentioned it yet, so I will.

The idea of granting exp to the cohort is important when the cohort is many levels below the person who took leadership... a 9th level character might only have a leadership score of 5 (low charisma, bad experiences in the past etc. etc.) so that his cohort originally arrives at a much lower level than him. For the sake of argument, lets guess at 5th level.

If the cohort levels up at the same time as his master, he will always stay that far behind. At least by giving him a share of xps he has the chance to make up the gap a little, thus becoming more useful.

Note: of course, I don't have the DMG yet, and this understanding might be overruled by the text; until that happens it appears to be a beneficial effect of the new rule.

Cheers