Does defeating an NPC's cohort grant additional XP?

[Luce]

About the item creation. How would you treat 12L Wizzard with 10 shield guardians.
He is at 12CR, and has just using his feat granded abilities to create some "help".
If he had not created the guardians he would have had 20000XP more(2000/guardian).

In several sources, (ELH from the top of my head) some NPCs are rated at higher CR due to better than normal equipment.(Most of my players take care of the conhorts by lending them,
items they do not longer need. "Here you can take my +3, flaming, holy sword, No, no need to thank me, I have a better one.)

I persoanaly would not grand more XP for wizzard with wand, regardless how he got it. But if he gets 5-10 low-level magic users, (regardless with Leadership or Money) gives each a fireball wand and sets them against PCs, you bet they will increase the ECL.


For the conhort example you you have granded XP if the Big Bad had hired the help(as presented in Arms and Armor)?(it cost him resorses some after all)


At close, I urge the arguing sides to calm down. I am sure that my arguments will not convince anybody, who is not already inclined to think like me. And I asure you, there is hardly anything you can reply that will make me change how I feel.
The purpose of most people(IMO) who frequent this boards is to share ideas, not get involved into endless arguments(regardless how sound they may be)

We already seen many convinsing arguments for both sides. Take you pick, if you find you are wrong take imediate steps to corect it

 

[Lamoni]

Very interesting discussion. My first instinct was to say No experience since the cohort is just a feat. Then as I thought about it, I was going to say that I'd give some experience anyway since Leadership is not balanced with other feats. It is a feat that allows different play styles and is quite helpful in small groups.

Through reading this thread, I'd like to change my position. For two reasons...

First, the person with leadership could dismiss the cohort at any time, or get a psychic reformation and lose the leadership feat. There, now there is no feat regarding the NPC cohort, but the cohort would still be fighting or healing or whatever on his own as an NPC. In this case, I think everyone would agree that killing the NPC would give experience since he is no longer a cohort.

What if the PC was deciding on a cohort and there was a line of 'applicants' at the time of the attack. If they were all attacked at once, each killed applicant would give experience, just as the one that he picked as a cohort would give experience (if he picked one in time). If the PC could decide on one cohort, send him out to be killed, choose another, send him out to be killed, etc. until there were no cohorts left to choose, would that really deny all the experience from the encounter?

The second reason, which nullifies the whole argument is that I don't thing NPC's are allowed to take Leadership. A BBEG who is supposed to have a cohort can have one just by giving him one. No need to waste the leadership feat on it and there is also no need to have an evil leader restrict himself to having followers who are weaker than himself. Someone with wealth and political influence might attract many followers or cohorts who are more powerful than they are.

Therefore, since we don't normally award experience to NPC's... but only PC's there is no argument. Unless of course the party fighter kills the party sorcerer and their cohort and wants experience from it. Would it really matter who he killed first? Once the sorcerer is dead, there are no ties left and the cohort can be a normal NPC again.

 

[irdeggman]

First, good responses, irdeggman. I'm enjoying this discussion.

Me too Especially since it so civil, at least IMO.

Regardless, the correlation is that traps require resources to build (in the form of money and time, though time is a little subjective for a resource in D&D campaigns, and as others have pointed out, possibly in feats and skill points), just like cohorts via the leadership feat require resources to obtain (a feat and time only, no money required though I'd guess most DM's would require money to some degree) and magical items require resources to build/buy.

Actually acquireing cohorts (and followers) only requires a feat as written. It is up to the DM whether or not it requires time. It does require time to replace a fallen cohort though.

Quote:
Originally Posted by irdeggman
One - that is why Leadership is specifically listed as an "optional" feat for the DM to allow or not with a warning that it may unbalance the game. Hence if a Dm allows the feat into a game and doesn't alow the PC to gain cohorts and followers then he is doing the system an injustice - better to not allow the feat at all if it is not going to be used the way it is written (and obviously intended to be).


I agree. But, it is not optional in d20. I don't have the DMG with me right now to confirm whether that is a change in 3.5 or not. Fwiw, if it really is optional, then granting XP or not is also optional because it's essentially a houserule anyway.

DMG (3.5) pg "Feel free to disallow this feat if it would disrupt the campaign."

It is not in the SRD basically because it is in the midst of a bunch of "color" text that adds a whole lot about what the feat is about and such.

 

[irdeggman]

The second reason, which nullifies the whole argument is that I don't thing NPC's are allowed to take Leadership. A BBEG who is supposed to have a cohort can have one just by giving him one. No need to waste the leadership feat on it and there is also no need to have an evil leader restrict himself to having followers who are weaker than himself. Someone with wealth and political influence might attract many followers or cohorts who are more powerful than they are.

DMG (3.5) pg 104 "(NPC adventurers can have cohorts too.)"

pg 106 All of the description under the feat itself talks about characters not PCs.

Text in the SRD also states character vice PC.

So I would say based on the evidence that NPCs can indeed take this feat.

 

[dvvega]

I may have missed someone posting the following simple question ...

If a PC were to take leadership ... would his/her cohort count as part of the party's effective level when determining what kind of encounters they can face?

If the answer is Yes then the reverse (NPC with cohort) should be the same. Since there is no version of any feat that works one way for PCs and another for NPCs.

If the answer is No, then no amount of arguing or postulating will change the fact that as a feat, it bypasses certain things.

I believe, after reading the feat, that the answer is No since they don't count against the party for XP calculations and other "group" related things.


D

 

[FireLance]

Sigh.

Okay, I'll start by not letting you avoid the question. Skill Focus: trapmaking is used by an NPC in the making of a trap. The PCs overcome the trap. The PCs overcome the tramaker as well. Do the PCs in your game get experience for overcoming just the NPC, just the trap, or both?

I'll deal with the rest of it after you answer that question.

The way I look at it, the issue is whether the "extra" challenges - cohorts, spells, traps, whatever - reduce the challenge posed by the opponent.

If an evil cleric trapped his door with glyph of warding two days ago, and the party sprung or disabled the trap and encountered him with a full complement of spells, I'd award XP for both the glyph of warding and the cleric. If the cleric had just cast the spell and was down a 3rd-level spell and had the cost of the material components taken off his gear when the party reaches him, I'd only award XP for the cleric.

If a rogue had ranks in Craft (trapmaking), Skill Focus (trapmaking) and had his gear reduced by the cost of creating all the traps the party had to encounter before they met him, I'd only award XP for the rogue. If he had Skill Focus (trapmaking) and his gear was not reduced, it's more of a gray area, but I'd err on the side of generosity (not everyone makes full use of all the feats they have, as pointed out previously) and award XP for the rogue and the traps.

So, by the same reasoning, if the party defeats a BBEG and the cohort he had because of the Leadership feat, I would only award XP for the BBEG. Eyeballing the XP tables, it seems that like it isn't really a good deal for the PCs, because a cohort two levels below the BBEG would have been worth about half the XP award for the BBEG if he was a separate NPC.

But so what? If you're the DM, you get to pick the challenges faced by the PCs, and you define the risk/reward ratio by the choices you make. If you get your jollies by handing out the smallest award possible to the PCs for the risks that they take, more power to you. :\

 

[Macbrea]

So, to count the cohort or not, that is the question. Take this extreme encounter as an example:


Entering the tower of the Gnoll G'ther Stoneleaf
G'ther Stoneleaf, 8th Gnoll Sorceror (feat leadership, Cloak of charisma +2, Chr 20)
- Apprentice T'the Yeeks, 6th Gnoll Sorceror (feat leadership, Chr 16)
-- Under apprentice Rithik Worgrider, 4th Gnoll Sorceror
-- 5 Gnolls
- 2 Gnoll Favored Souls level 1
- 1 Gnoll Favored Souls level 2
- 20 Gnolls

Experience for party of four 8th level characters?

No cohort: 900 exp each
With Cohorts: 3050 exp each


Which would you consider correct.

 

[Infiniti2000]

Me too Especially since it so civil, at least IMO.

Sure is. Dunno what the heck Luce is complaining about.

DMG (3.5) pg "Feel free to disallow this feat if it would disrupt the campaign."

It is not in the SRD basically because it is in the midst of a bunch of "color" text that adds a whole lot about what the feat is about and such.

Differences between D&D and d20 bug me to no end.

If a PC were to take leadership ... would his/her cohort count as part of the party's effective level when determining what kind of encounters they can face?

It's not clear. But, let me respond to this with an example. Take two 12th level parties. In one, all 4 members take [insert feat other than Leadership]. Clearly, they're still 12th level. In the other, all 4 members take Leadership and wind up gaining 4 10th-level clerics (for example). Assuming that the two original groups are identical except for the 12th-level feats, which group is stronger? It's provably the second one because they can technically defeat challenges at EL14 (4 above 10, their cohort's level) without even being present.

 

[Lamoni]

DMG (3.5) pg 104 "(NPC adventurers can have cohorts too.)"

pg 106 All of the description under the feat itself talks about characters not PCs.

Text in the SRD also states character vice PC.

So I would say based on the evidence that NPCs can indeed take this feat.

Very true. NPC's can take this feat. It seems the only reason a DM would give this feat to an NPC is to try and screw over the party though. Why not take every BBEG who has someone that is two levels lower than they are and swap out a feat they won't use much for leadership. There, you effectively made no change to the challenge of the encounter, but now you no longer have to award experience for one of the opponents. Now what if the party goes against a group of 4 BBEG's with 4 lower level guards. Why not swap out a single feat from each BBEG so you don't have to add the exp for the guards?

Anyway, my point was that while you can give NPC's this feat... why bother? Why not just give them all the help you want with no feat? If you think that is against the rules then I would challenge that every DM has broken the rules. I would never want to hear from the players that the guards had better not fight unless their leaders had been penalized a feat or some wealth to get them. I would also never want my players to count the numbers in a small army and then argue that the leader couldn't command them because leadership didn't allow for that many.

Therefore, since leadership has no beneficial effect on NPC's... (they can have as much help as they want anyway) I say the feat was written for PC's. Since this is the rules forum though and it is legal to give NPC's the feat I fully expect my argument to be ignored.

 

[IcyCool]

Very true. NPC's can take this feat. It seems the only reason a DM would give this feat to an NPC is to try and screw over the party though.

Seems like a decent way to occaisionally balance out the PC's cohorts. The cohort doesn't figure into the party's ECL, doesn't eat up XP, and makes encounters quite a bit easier. Seems like a little weight on the other side on occaision is perfectly acceptable.