More wild cohort feats?

[jgsugden]

WotC just posted up a few feats that increase the power of a wild cohort.

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/re/20031125a

Just what we needed.

The first is my favorite:

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Coordinated Strike [General]

You and your wild cohort are adept at coordinating your attacks to distract foes and catch them off guard.

Prerequisites: Wild Cohort, Handle Animal 5 ranks or Ride 5 ranks.

Benefit: During any round in which you and your wild cohort both make a melee attack against the same target, you each gain a +1 bonus on your attack rolls against that target.

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So, master and cohort are facing off against an ogre. The master is first in initiative.

1.) Does he get the bonus to attack because his cohort intends to attack the ogre later in the round? Or do only one of the two get the bonus each round (unless there is an attack of opportunity involved somewhere before the turn of the master or cohort).

2.) If so and he attacks the ogre, hits by rolling exactly what he needed including the bonus and kills the ogre, can the cohort now attack another foe, or must it attack the dead corpse because the master received the bonus? If it does not attack the corpse, do we retroactively remove the master's bonus, negating his killing blow?

3.) Let us continue to say the master gets the bonus even though the cohort has not yet attacked the ogre. Let us say the master attacks and barely hit the ogre, but does not kill the ogre. Now, the ogre goes and kills the cohort. We have the same problem as before: do we retroactively remove the hit?

 

[Gez]

My take:

1° No. Intention don't exist, since you can change your action until the last minute. You need the other to have attacked it before.
If they didn't worded it like Flank (something like "during any round
in which you and your wild cohort both threaten the same opponent..."), it is IMO for this reason.

2° Exactly the reason of my ruling in 1.
3° Another proposed scenario: there's a contingency on the Ogre that teleports him, or he tumbles his way out of range, etc.

 

[Pax]

I've never seen a campaign where the Paladin, for example, has to roll a seperate initiative for his mount. Nor where the Druid has to roll seperately for their Companion.

I think WOTC is presuming a "Sidekick" goes on the same initiative as it's "PC master".

One option to keep this balanced, is, to require the Master-and-sidekick pair (or whatever) to use the worst possible initiative modifier of all incolved creatures, for the single roll.

 

[ciaran00]

+1. Wow.

 

[The Spectrum Rider]

***
I've never seen a campaign where the Paladin, for example, has to roll a seperate initiative for his mount. Nor where the Druid has to roll seperately for their Companion.
***

Gosh, I have. Even sor/wiz's and their familiars. (Although the familiar always seems to delay....)

The Spectrum Rider

 

[Camarath]

As the feat is written, I agree with Gez that untill both characters have attacked the target in the same round neither would get the bonus. To make the feat worth wile I think that it should be changed to as follows.

Coordinated Strike [General]

You and your wild cohort are adept at coordinating your attacks to distract foes and catch them off guard.

Prerequisites: Wild Cohort, Handle Animal 5 ranks or Ride 5 ranks.

Benefit: If you and your wild cohort both threaten the same target, you each gain a +1 bonus on your attack rolls against that target.

 

[Caliban]

Well, the feat says that both of you get the bonus, not just one. And it says "during any round", which implies that order of attack does not matter. You know who your cohort is going to attack, so it's not like you're playing a guessing game here.