For those who took the Leadership feat: tell me about your cohorts!

[tarchon]

Cohorts seem to be too close in level with the PC's to me.

Eh, it is a feat after all, and you have to have good Cha to get one at the level below you. These guys are supposed to be the Robin to your Batman, so they can't be 1st level wimpazoids like followers. You definitely want one who won't die the first time the party gets hit with a fireball.

BTW, I haven't picked one up yet, but I'm planning on getting a Winter Wolf. Though seeing as how I had to play dueling lutes to get one measly first level elf follower, I'm not sure I want to know what I need to do to get one of those.

 

[Synicism]

At the end of our last Planescape 3E game, my character was a Ranger 8/Rogue2/Strider (custom PrC sort of like a rogue-ish Planar Champion) 10. I picked up Leadership late in the game and wound up with Swara, an awakened (as per the Druid spell) lioness barbarian. Totally unexpected, but it worked out real well.

 

[Privateer]

My players love to take Leadership, and I love to make up cohorts for them. Although they aren't in the game yet, here they are (abridged version, of course)

*shoos away any of his players*



For the fighter of the group: I have two ideas; one is a human who was born looking like an orc (see Arcanum, the computer game) and is now displayed in a P.T. Barnum-like museum of oddities, and a wrestler who is a devotee to the Earth Goddess (partially inspired from a line from As You Like It by Wm. Shakespeare).

For the rogue/monk: I plan on giving him an ascetic samurai-like rogue, and killing him off at the higher levels to make way for a different follower; a Nimblewright (MM2) who doesn't actually tell the PC about the fact that he is a construct. Hilarity ensues. Still not able to think up a good reason for him/it to refuse healing magic, however...

For the wizard and cleric: No idea. For some reason, I want to have one have something to do with chocolate. Maybe an aztec-ish sorcerer who drinks hot, bitter chocolate with jalapenos (and I'll have even more fun when I make some of the drink for the session, he-he...)

 

[ced1106]

Re: I don't get this feat

I personally don't understand the Leadership feat. I know how the mechanics work, it's just ...

Yep -- Many of the social mechanics of 3e (eg. Diplomacy, Bluff, Intimidate -- My half orc need a **high** Cha to Intimidate someone??) that were traditionally handled by roleplaying make me scratch my head, but I must admit that in the years of GM'ing, I never assigned a henchman or NPC to a player, nor did we really use the Cha attirbute.

I do see the mechanics as a useful crutch. Instead of spending time on roleplaying a social activity, you can just roll the dice a bunch of times and get to whatever the gamers want to do. Conversely, a GM can secretly make the roll to give him a framework for any necessary improvised roleplaying.


Cedric.
aka. Washu! ^O^

 

[Celebrim]

Well, as a DM I see it in some ways as a defence against bad role playing. If the PC could get followers without spending a feat, then I'd inevitably have someone asking why they didn't have followers and now I don't have to say 'Because you haven't earned them', I can say 'Because you haven't spent a feat'. On the other hand, if someone did through good RP earn the equivalent of followers, then I wouldn't mind letting him treat them more or less like followers and cohorts, but I'd give the player with the leadership feat a significant advantage in controlling these followers over the one without it.

In a former campaign, all the PC's ended up with retainers, henchmen, followers, cohorts, and hirelings enough to run a small country (which in many cases was exactly what they were doing). The difference between them is basically only how much the DM is willing to put up with before he takes them away, and how willing they are to risk life and limb on your behalf. Hirelings and followers may both be loyal to you if you treat them well, but only followers are going to go above and beyond the call of duty - ei break you out of prison, follow you to the bitter end, go with you into exile, help you in a rebellion against the King ect. Of course, even followers are only going to do this if you have given them reason to respect you.

If you haven't taken the feat, then I'm going to treat your followers like followers only if you've been extraordinary in your RP, but if you have taken the feat then I'm going to give you the benifit of the doubt.

cedric: So you let a player talk his way through situations even if his character has 3 CHR? I never let a player just say, "I try to be diplomatic so he'll give us a lift across the river" and roll a dice, but on the other hand, once a player plays out what he wants, his character still has to make the diplomacy check (with a circumstance bonus or penalty depending on how well the player performed).

And yes, I've observed that in real life only people with high charismas are capable of successfully intimidating people. I don't care how big and scary you are, swagger badly, and you just infuriate people. Scaring people and intimidating them into doing what you want or entirely different things. On the other hand, I've seen children bully and intimidate people quite successfully.

That is not to say however that the intimidate mechanics don't need fixing, just that they aren't broken in the way that people usually complain about.