Cohort Crafters

[Quidam]

I'm playing a high-charisma warlock and have been giving consideration on how best to take advantage of the 12th level ability, imbue item- it allows the warlock to substitute a UMD check for a spell prerequisite when crafting items.

Since 'locks can be feat-hungry and down time may be scarce for an adventurer, I was thinking of taking leadership at 12th to pick up a cohort with the relevant crafting feats and with access to the spell list deemed most regularly useful. For anything exotic, the warlock can work with him, providing the spell prerequisites and the xp.

Has anyone, from either side of the DM screen, seen use of cohort crafters in their game? Does xp become an issue due to xp spent on items and xp not accrued because of staying home to craft rather than going out with the party all the time? Does the level disparity cause cohort death due to this?

How about follower crafters?

To give you some set & setting, it's a Ptolus campaign. The character is a fey-based warlock who was turned from chaotic evil to chaotic good during his childhood by the Brotherhood of Redemption- a society dedicated to the ideal that there is no such thing as irredeemable evil. They have a 50g/HD bounty for any evil humanoid of a non-major race brought in alive. This being the case, I would imagine my DM would be open to a monstrous humanoid or fey cohort. Any suggestions along this line would be welcome as an aside.

 

[Moon-Lancer]

I think it may be slightly abusive, becuse your getting everything at half off and your not paying the xp, but I dont think thier is anything that forbids it. as long as you keep the cohort in the back of the party then they should be ok when your rechargeing your magic iteam maker.

 

[Quidam]

It's really more the downtime & the feats that I'm hoping to take advantage of with the cohort- I can't see how to do that without the xp issues though. If I ease the downtime restriction, I could be there crafting with him and providing the xp, which would help with a lot of the balance issues.

I was hoping to hear from someone who'd had experience with it in-game. Or with suggestions on non-standard races for cohorts of this type.

 

[coriolis]

My character is a cleric/thaumaturgist, and I briefly considered doing that (using an azer) when I got my planar cohort.

If you want to go that route, I would recommend looking at the artificer from Eberron, the magecrafter in Green Ronin's Hammer & Helm (might be reprinted in Advanced Race Codex: Dwarves) and the master alchemist from Magic of Faerûn.

All of these classes are geared toward item-making, either through an XP pool reserved for items, or abilities and feats that facilitate the process.

 

[Altalazar]

In one of the games I play, the DM just doesn't let cohorts craft anything except items the cohort would personally use.

But I don't really see a problem with a cohort crafter. It still takes time, money, and gp, and a heck of a lot of feats on the cohorts part, making the cohort less useful for other things. And a player does need to expend a feat to get a cohort in the first place. Why not let them benefit from the use of a precious feat?

 

[shai-hulud]

I was thinking about something similar to this. How much would a forge weigh? The reason I ask is because a Bag of Holding Type IV can carry up to 1,500 lbs and 250 cu. ft. If you placed several Type IV bags of Holding inside each other, you could create quite a large space. In each of the bags, you create a rigid border (solidifying each bag as a "room"). A 250 cu. ft. room is actually fairly small. It is only a six and a half foot cube room. But, it would allow for multiple different rooms for multiple different things. One room keeps all of the tools. Another room keeps all of the supplies. Each room would have a different purpose. Once you figure it out, you craft a bunch of humonculuses from the Eberron Campaign Setting and stick them in your now portable forge. Each time you are ready to begin crafting something, you infuse your crafters with the power they need, and they set to work crafting!!! Who needs a cohort?!?

This is more of a joke post than anything else. The rules for Leadership do discuss using your cohort for crafting and the ramifications of it. You can at some point in time let your cohort know that you have outgrown him and attempt to gain the services of another cohort, but you will have a penalty to your leadership score when doing so (especially if you have to kill your cohort to get him to leave).

 

[Kurashu]

I was thinking about something similar to this. How much would a forge weigh? The reason I ask is because a Bag of Holding Type IV can carry up to 1,500 lbs and 250 cu. ft. If you placed several Type IV bags of Holding inside each other, you could create quite a large space. In each of the bags, you create a rigid border (solidifying each bag as a "room"). A 250 cu. ft. room is actually fairly small. It is only a six and a half foot cube room. But, it would allow for multiple different rooms for multiple different things. One room keeps all of the tools. Another room keeps all of the supplies. Each room would have a different purpose. Once you figure it out, you craft a bunch of humonculuses from the Eberron Campaign Setting and stick them in your now portable forge. Each time you are ready to begin crafting something, you infuse your crafters with the power they need, and they set to work crafting!!! Who needs a cohort?!?

My on/off DM housed ruled an item that was essentially a small cube that produced an effect similar to Mage's Magnificent Mansion, but on a less grand scale. It was essentially a 1/day object that created a small house with a forge, kitchen, and bedroom (kitchen and bedroom were 1 room) for 8 hours. Basically, we used it as a portable base of operations. We used it more than once to capture a zombie horde and transport it. Too bad they ransacked everything. Jerks.

 

[Quidam]

The rules for Leadership do discuss using your cohort for crafting and the ramifications of it.

Could you provide a citation, please? All I've seen so far is what's covered in the feat description.

 

[SpiderMonkey]

Yeah, in my games we had cohort crafters, and I didn't find it broke things too much. We always ruled that the cohort would charge 75% cost to the PC. The PC would have to spend that money _on_ the cohort. Because of this, we found these cohorts were better equipped in general compared to their non-crafter counterparts.

We also used this 75% charge for crafting between characters. Made the crafters some rich mofos. The other PCs were happy, because 75 is still a great deal cheaper than full price.

 

[Shadowknight]

It's really more the downtime & the feats that I'm hoping to take advantage of with the cohort- I can't see how to do that without the xp issues though. If I ease the downtime restriction, I could be there crafting with him and providing the xp, which would help with a lot of the balance issues.

I was hoping to hear from someone who'd had experience with it in-game. Or with suggestions on non-standard races for cohorts of this type.

Another way to help with the balance issue is a feat from the book of ultimate feats (book 1 I believe). I don't remember the name, and I am not sure if it was printed in other sources, but what the feat does is allow you to transfer xp from someone else to create magical items. Basically the crafter takes xp from another willing subject when creating an item.
That might be an idea for you to check out...