Leadership - DM's how do you handle Cohorts and Followers?

[robberbaron]

My players' followers never appear in game.
One has them as the staff of her keep (drew Key from DoMT), one has them as the workers and management of a brothel and another had them as the clergy and congregation of a small temple. All nice background, producing a modest income and not interfering with the game.

 

[Storyteller01]

I have a few of questions so I thought I'd organise them formally.

Section One - Cohorts

1. Do you let the player design them fully, partly or do you do them completely yourself?

2. How do you assign attributes, random rolls (what system), elite array, standard array, other?

3. What classes can they have PC classes, or only NPC classes or even Prestige Classes?

4. In play who controls them, you or the player, or some combination?

1) Players design it themselves.

2) Same as characters (4d6, take the best three, assign as you will. Rolls must be observed by me).

3) Same available classes as the players.

4) General combination. The player generally controls the NPC, but I reserve the right to say 'would you do that in their situation'. No convenient 'loyal cohort takes the hit' situations, or at least not abused uses of it.


PS: I get final say on cohort equipment.

Section Two - Followers

Same questions but now about followers.

Players get to design them, and they use the same stat generation rolls. They can ONLY take NPC class levels (expert, aristocrat, etc). Player gets to control them, but they rarely see much use. Here are my players have:
-One uses his to crew a ship.
-One uses his as a spy network, effectively increasing his 'Game of Bones' level (a 3rd party abstract political system).
-One has a psionic assassins guild/explorers guild/spy network (the NPC's have the Wild Talent feat) but he just recently acquired them. Haven't seen them in action yet.
-One is planning half as spys/sappers, and the other half as bomb makers. This will probably see the most in game use, but I expect follower scores lowering due to excessive deaths.

PS: FMC, cohorts and followers don't gain exp. Instead, the cohort levels as your leadership score increases. The player is also responsible for their upkeep. Additional equipment, lodging, food, and materials they need comes out of their pocket.

If the cohort is a magic item maker, the exp cost comes out of the players exp. Said player can set aside exp in a pool for their cohort to use later.

Basically the followers and cohorts are extensions of the character as opposed to a separate entity altogether. They are treated as such. YMMV.

 

[GQuail]

1.) The Player had to sacrifice a feat for this ability, I will not use it as an excuse to abuse the player.

2.) The Cohort is Not an Evil Minion in Disguise.

3.) The Followers of the Player Character are, likewise, not evil minions in disguise.

4.) the Cohort is given according to the general gist of the player's intent. if the player wants a good swardsman as a bodyguard, he gets a class with a full BAB. Likewise, if he wants someone who can patch him up after a fight, he'll get a healer-type.

5) the followers are also of the general sort desired. No specific classes (which prevents players from attempting somethign stupid, like the "me and 20 warlocks" build I saw)

6) Cohorts are rolled, followers posess the elete array.

7) Followers are, for the most part, not likely to follow Players on adventurers, while cohorts are.

This is pretty much how I work it too. Only one PC has ever taken the feat, but he rolled up the character himself, and after some advice from me we allocated classes, skills and feats. Followers are pretty much in my domain, though he has asked to have at least one or two of certain classes on occasion.

The character's Leadership feat was to reflect the crew of his own ship, so the followers are generic crew (mostly unnamed red-shirts - he doesn't need a list of all those 1st level character) and the cohort is his first officer. Since he wanted someone who could command the rest of his crew we picked a class we'd never used before, the Marshal - which turned to be an interesting set-up. I play her as an NPC who, ultimately, does what she's told: just like familiars, but with more opposable thumbs.

I wouldn't complain too much if the DM took some of the Leadership choices away from me - I shouldn't have control of the classes of every one of my swarm of followers. But since a Cohort is a sidekick and probably going to be quite an important NPC, I would expect to have some say in their makeup. (I should certainly never end up with one I don't like, unless that's my intention for some cop-buddy film antics!)

 

[just__al]

I let players submit their Desired Cohort Build but I may make minor changes.

I will almost assuredly NOT change
1) Class (although anything totally off the wall I may ask for a rebuild)
2) Feat and Skills "theme" (although I might tweak slightly)

28 point buy, just like the players.

This is assuming that the players want to build their own cohort. If they don't, I'd be happy to do it between sessions.

Followers are pretty well created and "light statted" by me. If there's a desiered distribution I'll try, within the bounds of verisimilitude to stay to it.

In combat the players control (but I may over rule) some times that over rule is me telling the player the cohort wouldn't do that. Other times, it's the cohort either doing something else anyway (most notably not fleeing when the PC is in danger) or the cohort saying something to the effect of "I don't think that's a good idea boss"

Out side of combat the cohort is a VERY VERY loyal NPC controlled by me who pretty well will do anything asked of him/her.

 

[D.Shaffer]

Out of curiosity, how do you most of you DM's handle stats for non-humanoid cohorts? Do you take the stats as listed in the MM, or do you 'roll' as normal and then adjust from the standard racial norm?

 

[brehobit]

I have a few of questions so I thought I'd organise them formally.

Section One - Cohorts

1. Do you let the player design them fully, partly or do you do them completely yourself?

They are pre-stated NPCs, so me. But there are usually some choices.

2. How do you assign attributes, random rolls (what system), elite array, standard array, other?

Elite array

3. What classes can they have PC classes, or only NPC classes or even Prestige Classes?

Any.

4. In play who controls them, you or the player, or some combination?

Player in combat (barring silliness), 50/50 the rest of the time

Section Two - Followers

Same questions but now about followers.

Haven't had to worry about it yet!

 

[Dragon Snack]

If the cohort is a magic item maker, the exp cost comes out of the players exp. Said player can set aside exp in a pool for their cohort to use later.

I like it, it fits well with our house rule. Keeps bookkeeping simple, while cutting down on potential abuses...

 

[Tonguez]

Section One - Cohorts

1. The player gets to design the cohort. IMC players are expected to create at least three NPCs as contacts from their past including one who is higher level than they (a Patron)

2. Pointbuy

3. Cohorts can have PC classes but not PrCs

4. They are NPCs so DM run however I have experimented with letting a different player run the cohort - that worked okay.

Section Two - Followers

Followers are a numerical bonus "Labour Units" that can be assigned to achieving different tasks, they barely have names let alone stats and personalities...

 

[Arnwyn]

Out of curiosity, how do you most of you DM's handle stats for non-humanoid cohorts? Do you take the stats as listed in the MM, or do you 'roll' as normal and then adjust from the standard racial norm?

I have absolutely no idea - it's never come up (and likely never will). In theory, though, I'd just use what's the the MM.

 

[Mallus]

How do I handle cohorts and followers? Easy. I removed the Leadership feat from my game. All NPC henchmen are under my control, but on the plus side, players don't need to spend resources on them (just money and role-playing).

Until recently, that is. The campaign now has a semi-NPC tank fighter that's usually run by committee, though occasionally it becomes the back-up character for the player whose main PC is doing something time consuming off-stage .

It's a somewhat badly-programmed Warforged that's supposed to have been built by one of the PC's. In theory I have veto rights over it's action when it's not being directly run by player. But so far, that hasn't come up. My group has been great in playing up/out the Warforged's balky, badly-coded brain.