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Message: <blockquote data-quote="KarinsDad" data-source="post: 3471760" data-attributes="member: 2011">In my campaign, the player suggests some cohort ideas and I may or may not use them. I then design the cohort for plot and party weakness (class, race, and items). PCs are also 35 point buy whereas the NPC cohorts are 25 point buy in my campaign.Leadership can be a very potent feat, so I control it.This works well, especially for when a PC goes unconscious. We have also had players "swap cohorts" when a newbie type player gets a cohort that is too complex for him to play. The cohorts still belonged to the given PC, just the player of the cohort was a different player.If a PC with a cohort dies in my campaign, I do not bump up the level of the cohort. I give the player the option of playing a PC one level lower or the cohort two levels lower for two reasons: the cohort is an integral member of the team and some of my players prefer team consistency to team power; the PC might be raised from the dead, so the cohort tends to be a stopgap chance to play until that occurs. In that case, I have the cohort gain XP and when the PC comes back, I do not use the lose level rule, I use a lose XP and have to regain it house rule. So, a 10th level PC might come back with a 11th level cohort (if the cohort was played for a long time). At this point, I blow off the 2 level rule and just keep both acquiring XP as normal. It might be some time before the PC overtakes the NPC level-wise, but this does make it interesting (course, it has not yet happened in our game, but I'm waiting).To the OPs question, I found that cohorts make for good stories and good backup, but they tend to not outshine the PCs. They do, however, make the party stronger and hence, challenges have to be beefed up a bit (but not too much). I tend to beef up the challenges with more opponents, not necessarily with stronger opponents.</blockquote>

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