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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rystil Arden" data-source="post: 3549077" data-attributes="member: 29014">So, it just came to my attention that 3.5 snuck in a horrible revision to Followers that allow them to have PC classes instead of just Commoner/Expert/Warrior.  Erekose said I don't really agree--the talented apprentice is a great cohort, or the eager young squire.  I've seen cohorts in games who later part ways with their mentor and become heroes in their own right, start their own NPC adventuring groups, and make the world a richer place.  Now, the followers?  Those should definitely be standard people.  But if we don't increase the Point Buy on the cohort, since we're using the foolishly-buffed Followers from 3.5, we risk Followers who are equally strong to the cohort, leading to a head-scratching moment of "Why did he bring the cohort and not the follower" (the answer being that rules disallow bringing the follower).I mean, Robin has been tossed around as an example--I contend that Robin is not an inherently inferior hero to Batman, but he's a sidekick because he's inexperienced (2 levels below Batman, say), and he's learning from the master.  Later, he goes off to become Nightwing, a hero in his own right.  The most interesting and engaging cohorts are not the dull, uninspiring, and ordinary people--they're the apprentice who sits at the foot of the master (any number of examples), the young squire-in-training who follows a great wizard at the hint of a future destiny (early Arthur, before he becomes his own hero), and other NPCs who engage with the PCs--who seem like someone with untapped potential. Now, it doesn't have to be any specific number of Point Buy for that to happen--I'm more trying to raise a discussion against the sentiment expressed in Erekose's point than I am trying to lobby for mechanical specifics.  On the mechanical side, the whole "double-penalised with level penalty and stat penalty leading to multiple deaths" issue is, I think, the strongest argument for a PB increase.  We haven't seen it as a problem yet because we only have one cohort, and it's a cleric, one of the two or three classes that can deal because it has a very large hit dice and doesn't have to go toe-to-toe (and he still died).</blockquote>

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