Leadership!

[Corlon]

Alright guys, two of the characters in my campaign have decided to take leadership.

They're ninth level, and both have enough of a score to get a 7th level cohort.

As the cohort doesn't drain the party exp, I was just wondering what affect this had on anyone's games (I supposed having 2 extra level 7 characters walking around will affect the power just a tad).

Any comments, stories, suggestions?

 

[Jdvn1]

Our Sor got a cohort a few games ago and he hasn't been as unbalancing as I'd expected. But maybe that's because he's the only fighter-type, so he balances what was previously unbalanced.

 

[Crothian]

It really depends on the class and role of ther cohort. My group aquired a cleric cohort that they used mostly for healing and that allowed the PC cleric use more spells in other areas.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Well, there're two things to look at here.

1. Technically, the DM gets to pick the cohort. The PC gets to decide what kind of cohort he wants to attract, but the DM actually rolls it up. Many DMs just allow the players to take whatever cohorts they want as a means of saving time / effort. If you don't want to make the cohort yourself, consider meeting the players halfway (set some class / race / feat guidelines, etc.).

2. Encourage your players to consider the benefits of a non-combat, off-screen cohort. One of the most successful Leadership stories I've found on these boards was a rogue who took the feat. His cohort was a wizard specialized in divination, who remained behind the scenes but would regularly contact the rogue with helpful hints, warnings about future events, etc. His followers represented a series of contacts in various cities throughout the world, each of which was able to communicate with his cohort. Thus, the PC was nearly always well-informed about world-wide goings-on.

 

[RigaMortus]

/my2cents
Our group doesn't even use Leadership. It is more of a roleplay thing really. If you get high enough in levels and start to get recognized, people will seek you out and want to join you. No reason to take a feat for something like that IMHO.
/my2cents

 

[Saeviomagy]

Alright guys, two of the characters in my campaign have decided to take leadership.

They're ninth level, and both have enough of a score to get a 7th level cohort.

As the cohort doesn't drain the party exp, I was just wondering what affect this had on anyone's games (I supposed having 2 extra level 7 characters walking around will affect the power just a tad).

Yeah, they will. Combined, those two extra characters are worth an extra party member in terms of CR. In theory that's a 1/5th increase in party power.

However, in practise, I've noticed that the most common thing that a character two levels behind the party does is... die. Or basic gruntwork (a cohort cleric is just awesome for a party...).

I can only imagine them making a serious difference to play if they are significantly better built than the rest of the party. If the entire party are, for instance, cleric 5/wizard 5, then a raw wizard or cleric at level 8 will probably end up dominating play.

However that probably won't happen - it's the DM who gets to generate the cohort. Let the PC be fairly specific about what he wants (ie - a wizard who specialises in battlefield control, or a cleric of travel and healing or a fighter who concentrates on surviving etc), but build it yourself.

 

[dvvega]

Leadership is one of those feats that confounds. Because the cohort was obtained with a feat, the character's CR remains the same (ala summoning). They gain experience outside of the normal XP methods (based on their leader). However this just doesn't gel.

Almost every time someone has taken a cohort in my campaigns they tank them up with "cast off" magic items, delegate them to filling in niche roles, and generally end up having way more resources (in spells and gear) than the average party.

For example: one character chose a cleric as a cohort, and since they had coincidentally rescued a group of pilgrims in a previous adventure, they attracted this group (their spiritual leader the cleric and the "mob" of pilgrims). This cleric essentially doubled their spell capability in the divine realms, and the other party cleric focused on the buffing, while the cohort only memorised healing/condition removal/dispel magic/etc.

This was just not working for me in the campaign. Encounters were becoming too easy at the appropriate CR and so forth. What I ruled at that point was that the cohort counted against the party's level (and numbers ... I use the +2 characters = +1 Party Level) but her XP was calculated as per the standard rules. This balanced it out pretty well.

D

 

[Corlon]

Well, one of hte characters is a cleric who's attracting a paladin. He's not really a powergamer, so I suspect it'll just be a straight paladin 7 that'll just boost the parties tank ability (a low HP fighter and the cleric is all we have in that respect)

The Wizard is attracting a rogue/fighter, and he seems to be wanting more in the "cool" zone than the "make him kick ass" zone, so I don't really see that being too much trouble.

And yes, it's only a three person party (fighter,wizard,cleric), so I guess this'll maybe round it out to the normal 4 person party.

 

[DM JOE]

In my game i let the players suggest what type of cohort they would like. Then we split the character into combat/roleplaying. Meaning the player runs him during any combative encounter and i run his personality. The only problems i have is not power level becoming unbalanced but the time it takes to run this new npc combative. By the way i got three players leadership in my game.

 

[Piratecat]

2. Encourage your players to consider the benefits of a non-combat, off-screen cohort.

I'm doing this in Sagiro's game, where my cohort will be a bard who does positive PR for us while ferreting out rumors and legends. . . and my followers will be a network of informers who start nice rumors about my character and pass on any information they learn about things which concern us. I really like the idea of using a cohort as a useful off-screen plot hook, as long as you can trust your DM to make the feat worthwhile.