Question Regarding Cohorts (& Leadership)

[Scion]

I dont have the 3.5 dmg, but I do have the srd.

SRD:
Leadership:
Cohorts earn XP as follows:
The cohort does not count as a party member when determining the party’s XP.
Divide the cohort’s level by the level of the PC with whom he or she is associated (the character with the Leadership feat who attracted the cohort).
Multiply this result by the total XP awarded to the PC and add that number of experience points to the cohort’s total.
If a cohort gains enough XP to bring it to a level one lower than the associated PC’s character level, the cohort does not gain the new level—its new XP total is 1 less than the amount needed attain the next level.



I see no ambiguity, no way to rule it otherwise, it specifically says that cohorts do not draw exp out of the pool.

Plus, since the cohort is so low of level (and he is, have no doubts about that, 2 levels behind generally means you have a much lesser part in most things), along with taking part of the pc's money, and costing a feat are all enough payment without anything else.

 

[Pax]

The problem there, UG, is this: let's say you and I are players in the same campaign, and you take leadership but I do not. We're both, say, 10th level.

Now ... you, your (say) 6th level cohort, our two other 10th-level co-PC's, and I face off with some monsters; the EL is 12, a challenging fight for us.

Mini You, predictably, gets killed by the monsters (their CR is six over his level, that makes it a nightmare encounter for him!); we the PC's manage to pull through and defeat our foes, though. We spend the loot form that encounter, and a goodly amount of other loot, bringing your sidekick back to life.

And then, to add insult to injury ... you expect me to be happy with less XP ... ?!? Screw that, I didn't take the Leadership feat, I don't have a mini-me to boss around, so why should I help amortise your sidekick?

 

[Trainz]

BTW, I completely agree with you Pax.

Furthermore, a PC can have MORE than one cohort. Great for solos.

Right now, I'm playing a solo adventure with a friend of mine. He plays a minotaur and has 3 cohorts at level 4: A sorceror, a cleric, and a paladin. It creates fun role-playing moments too.

 

[drnuncheon]

My suggestion is this- follow the rules and don't speculate anything. The Leadership description specifically states that cohorts count as another person when determining XP

(speaking regarding 3.5) Er. No it doesn't. It specifically says they don't in the rules section. There's some flavor text that implies that they do. Any 'speculation' is a result of trying to reconcile the two.

J

 

[hong]

The problem there, UG, is this: let's say you and I are players in the same campaign, and you take leadership but I do not. We're both, say, 10th level.

Now ... you, your (say) 6th level cohort, our two other 10th-level co-PC's, and I face off with some monsters; the EL is 12, a challenging fight for us.

Mini You, predictably, gets killed by the monsters (their CR is six over his level, that makes it a nightmare encounter for him!);

This is because you don't know how to use Leadership.

Leadership is not there to provide you with another tank in battle. It's there to provide you with supporting cast characters; people who supply necessary skills, but in areas that don't give much glory.

The canonical use of Leadership is to provide you with a dedicated party medic, thus freeing the PC cleric to make full use of their super buff spells.

Another use is to give you a secondary spellcaster with tons of utility spells, but no boom spells. While being able to cast legend lore, stone to flesh, remove curse, contact other plane, etc can be very useful, it tends to fall by the wayside for most players who are fixated on the direct business of killing things.

Another use is to provide a bomb disposal guy, maxed out on Search, Open Locks and Disable Device.

A final use is to get a faceman with lots of social skills but no buttkicking ability to speak of. Very useful if your group is full of stereotypical 6 Cha psychopath PCs.

Supporting cast characters, IME, tend to survive much longer than anyone else because they don't do anything to attract the monsters' attention. The exception is in the case of a TPK, but then everybody's dead and the issue is moot. If you insist on throwing your cohorts into the thick of battle, that's your problem.

 

[Fester]

(speaking regarding 3.5) Er. No it doesn't. It specifically says they don't in the rules section. There's some flavor text that implies that they do. Any 'speculation' is a result of trying to reconcile the two.

J

If you don't read the sentence where it says this in its entirety then it would be an easy assumption to make. But what you say is correct - the Leadership feat does not give any mention of how xp is divided. This is left to the cohort description which reads:

1. Don't include a cohort as a party member when determining the XP awards for individual characters. In a party containing four PCs and one cohort, each PC get 1/4 of the overall XP award.

2. Divide the cohort's level by the level of the PC with whom he or she is associated (the character who attracted the cohort).

3. Multiply this result by the total XP awarded to the PC and add that number of experience points to the cohort's total.

It also says:

If a cohort gains enough XP to bring it to a level one lower than the associated PCs character level, the cohort does not gain the new level

As for treasure, it says:

...cohorts usually get only a half share of any treasure the party gains.

So, life kinda sucks for cohorts...

 

[Will]

As someone who took Leadership in 3.0, let me tell you, the XP I was draining from the party did not make me popular.

With the fraction XP, realize that cohorts will drop behind the PC, unless the PC gets level drained with some frequency. The cap of no more than 2 levels less... a cohort two levels less is _half_ the power of a PC, roughly speaking.

hong, damn his eyes, is of course on spot with cohort use. In the 3.0 game I was in, I got a spellcaster to buff my rogue/fighter because trying to get buffs from other party members was becoming a real hassle. The spellcaster otherwise just kept his head down. My followers were used to either watch the horses or for various minor social network/contact type things.

 

[hong]

Leadership does depend on having a group that appreciates the value of teamwork in D&D. If the other players don't care for teamwork -- if as far as they're concerned, it's every PC for himself -- then they probably won't see anything useful in the feat. In fact, to the extent that it helps one PC disproportionately, they're probably more likely to see it as one guy helping himself to the spotlight at the expense of others. They're also likely to ignore the benefits to everybody, like being able to take on tougher opponents, recover faster after a fight, greater flexibility, etc.

 

[Pax]

This is because you don't know how to use Leadership.

*sigh* I knew there was a reason not to take you back off of being blocked.

Leadership is not there to provide you with another tank in battle. It's there to provide you with supporting cast characters; people who supply necessary skills, but in areas that don't give much glory.

Where does Leadership say that? Where does it specify that the cohort must be there solely to buff the party? Why can't you, for example, get a good, defense-oriented fighter who maneuvers to provide you with flanking bonusses, along with "aid another" benefits, while fighting defensively and making heavy use of combat expertise ... ?

The canonical use of Leadership is to provide you with a dedicated party medic, thus freeing the PC cleric to make full use of their super buff spells.

Um; "canonical" means "it was written explicitly to be thus". Where does it say the purpose of Leadership is to generate a "party medic" ... ?

Another use is to give you a secondary spellcaster with tons of utility spells, but no boom spells.

Why? Why can't you have a sorceror with Magic Missile, Scorching Ray, Spectral Hand / Vampiric Touch, and other "no save allowed" spells ... ?

A final use is to get a faceman with lots of social skills but no buttkicking ability to speak of. Very useful if your group is full of stereotypical 6 Cha psychopath PCs.

I tend to play sorcerors, so I'd consider such a character to be rather intruding on my own out-of-combat "schtick" and be doubly ticked at the cohort's presence.

Supporting cast characters, IME, tend to survive much longer than anyone else because they don't do anything to attract the monsters' attention. The exception is in the case of a TPK, but then everybody's dead and the issue is moot. If you insist on throwing your cohorts into the thick of battle, that's your problem.

If you insist that cohorts must be wallflowers, then that's your problem. A cohort, properly supported by his attached PC, can make that PC significantly more powerful.

But the Cohort sticks to the character who took the leadership feat; loyalty to the other PC's is entirely secondary to that (if the PC leaves the group, for example, the cohort will go with him).

Leadership does depend on having a group that appreciates the value of teamwork in D&D.

No, it doesn't. Party cohesion depends on valuing teamwork; Leadership depends on taking the feat, and only on taking the feat.

If the other players don't care for teamwork -- if as far as they're concerned, it's every PC for himself -- then they probably won't see anything useful in the feat. In fact, to the extent that it helps one PC disproportionately, they're probably more likely to see it as one guy helping himself to the spotlight at the expense of others.

You can fully value teamwork, and still want your own character to "get ahead"; in that case, having to pay for someone else's "disposable buddy" (as the cohort has been called) is going to rankle.

They're also likely to ignore the benefits to everybody, like being able to take on tougher opponents, recover faster after a fight, greater flexibility, etc.

Hmm. Considering what you can get for a cohort, the odds are that it wont be a significant enough advantage for the whole party, to warrant the cost to the whole party.

Especially when you look at the alternate ways to GET a cohort. The feat Dragon Cohort, for example, gives you a dragon cohort (with a special 3-point discount on ECL) - that's in the Draconomicon, mind.

And you can look at some alternate ways to USE one's cohort. A paladin, for example, might profit greatly by having their Cohort also be their mount. A Paladin(15) with an ECL(11) mount ... well, that paladin is obviously going to be much happier with his mount, and likely to be very happy with the benefit he gained.

But other than making the paladin more capable in and out of combat, that particular cohort isn't going to benefit the party, now, is it?

So why should anyone else be amortising the level advancement of the Paladin's Cohort?

 

[hong]

*sigh* I knew there was a reason not to take you back off of being blocked.

Just admit that I pwnz you and life will become much easier.

Where does Leadership say that?

It doesn't. You're free to use Leadership in any way you please, just as you're free to use any other feat. You can use Expertise when fighting things that can never hit you, for example. You would be stupid to do so, of course, but being stupid has always been a player prerogative. Far be it from me to disallow people the option of being stupid.

Where does it specify that the cohort must be there solely to buff the party? Why can't you, for example, get a good, defense-oriented fighter who maneuvers to provide you with flanking bonusses, along with "aid another" benefits, while fighting defensively and making heavy use of combat expertise ... ?

Because they will get hit and die, as you so ingeniously pointed out yourself. But assuming that they didn't, that would indeed be a fine use of a cohort: to act as a meatshield optimised for defense. With profligate use of Expertise and fighting defensively they likely would never hit anything worth a damn either, and do relatively small amounts of damage when they do hit (compared to an offensive-oriented tank). Hence "supporting character" role.

Um; "canonical" means "it was written explicitly to be thus".

Canonical means "generally accepted" as well. Learn the lingo.

Where does it say the purpose of Leadership is to generate a "party medic" ... ?

Far be it from me to give you chapter and verse regarding precedent.

Why? Why can't you have a sorceror with Magic Missile, Scorching Ray, Spectral Hand / Vampiric Touch, and other "no save allowed" spells ... ?

You can, of course. You would then have to deal with the piddling issue of having to break through SR with a caster level check up to 6 lower than everyone else, and a similarly nerfed touch attack. But as said above, that's your prerogative.

I tend to play sorcerors, so I'd consider such a character to be rather intruding on my own out-of-combat "schtick" and be doubly ticked at the cohort's presence.

Consider the possibility that a player might take into account the existing makeup of a party before designing a cohort to fill the holes. It isn't hard.

If you insist that cohorts must be wallflowers, then that's your problem.

A cohort, being a character that exists in an auxiliary role to a player's primary character, has no need for spotlight time and therefore can quite reasonably be treated as a wallflower.

A cohort, properly supported by his attached PC, can make that PC significantly more powerful.

Are you finished choking your strawman yet?

But the Cohort sticks to the character who took the leadership feat;

See comment about "teamwork" above.

loyalty to the other PC's is entirely secondary to that (if the PC leaves the group, for example, the cohort will go with him).

Why are you so paranoid about a cohort's loyalties? Do you commonly play in games where everyone is out to slit everyone else's throats? If so, see again comment about "teamwork" above.

No, it doesn't. Party cohesion depends on valuing teamwork; Leadership depends on taking the feat, and only on taking the feat.

Let us now take it as a given that what was meant was "Leadership is a feat whose benefits will be most highly valued by a group that appreciates the value of teamwork". This should have been obvious from context, but perhaps some people need it spelled out for them.

You can fully value teamwork, and still want your own character to "get ahead"; in that case, having to pay for someone else's "disposable buddy" (as the cohort has been called) is going to rankle.

I suggest you get on with getting ahead, and let everyone else get on with getting ahead.

Hmm. Considering what you can get for a cohort, the odds are that it wont be a significant enough advantage for the whole party, to warrant the cost to the whole party.

You get a character who doesn't care about spotlight time, won't whinge about kill stealing, doesn't complain about XP, and is happy to act as a mobile hospital, utility caster or damage sponge, as dictated by the needs of the party. Sounds like a pretty good deal to me!

Alternatively, if you have a cohort that does add significantly to combat power, then effectively you have another PC, allowing you to face tougher challenges or survive existing challenges more easily than otherwise. Thus you should be perfectly willing to divvy out the XP accordingly.

Especially when you look at the alternate ways to GET a cohort. The feat Dragon Cohort, for example, gives you a dragon cohort (with a special 3-point discount on ECL) - that's in the Draconomicon, mind.

Tell me again why I should give a damn about the Draconomicon.

And you can look at some alternate ways to USE one's cohort. A paladin, for example, might profit greatly by having their Cohort also be their mount. A Paladin(15) with an ECL(11) mount ... well, that paladin is obviously going to be much happier with his mount, and likely to be very happy with the benefit he gained.

Tell me again what that specific example has to do with PCs who are not paladins, which happens to be the great majority of PCs out there.

But other than making the paladin more capable in and out of combat, that particular cohort isn't going to benefit the party, now, is it?

What?

So why should anyone else be amortising the level advancement of the Paladin's Cohort?

Because anything the paladin's cohort kills is therefore not killing the rest of you?