Leadership Feat: Cohort questions?

[Adjudicator]

1. Is your cohort one for life?

2. Can you dismiss a cohort and then attract another one?

3. If so, after how long?

Not looking to abuse the system, ie. Trade up for a better cohort each level or have need specific cohort (one that enchants my sword after adventuring with me) the dump him for another (perhaps as a mount).

My question stems from the warmaster prestige class. Part of his special abilities are Leadership bonuses.
"Leadership Bonus: Warmasters earn bonuses to their leadership level (character level + Cha bonus), enabling them to attract more powerful cohorts and followers when they use the Leadership feat upon earning a new level."
This leads me to believe that you can acquire new cohorts, furthermore, at each new level.

Am I reading something more into this?

 

[Rackhir]

I think the warmaster ability is geared towards taking the leadership feat multiple times. Which is permisable under the rules. Remember these guys are supposed to be leading armies.

Also remember your cohorts DO gain experience and will level. Given that they are usually a number of levels lower than the PC, the fact that they are getting half xp doesn't typically prevent them from leveling at about the same rate as the PC. They are not "fixed" at the level where you picked them up.

As far as dismissing the Cohort, well there are provisions in the cohort section of the DMG for replacing a dead cohort (usually with a penalty to the char's leadership score). I would assume it would be somewhat similar to replacing the cohort, with penalties (if any) to the char's leadership score to be assesed by the GM. I don't recall any specific rules for dismissing cohorts though.

 

[gfunk]

On a related note, does anybody know how Wizards put together the Special Cohorts list? It seems to be only vaguely based on CR, like the Summon Monster tables. Help!