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Message: <blockquote data-quote="hong" data-source="post: 1464269" data-attributes="member: 537">Just admit that I pwnz you and life will become much easier. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f60e.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":cool:" title="Cool    :cool:"  data-smilie="6"data-shortname=":cool:" /> 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. 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. Canonical means "generally accepted" as well. Learn the lingo. Far be it from me to give you chapter and verse regarding precedent.  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. 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. 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. Are you finished choking your strawman yet? See comment about "teamwork" above. 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. 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.  I suggest you get on with getting ahead, and let everyone else get on with getting ahead. 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. Tell me again why I should give a damn about the Draconomicon. 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. What? Because anything the paladin's cohort kills is therefore not killing the rest of you?</blockquote>

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