Revisiting Leadership.

[IcyCool]

True, but often the Cohort is more of a supliment than an alternate character, so it's likely you won't get much spotlight seeking time from the pool boy.

It's entirely possible that changing the status quo won't have any negative impact.

But if it does, trying to put things back the way they were is harder than leaving them as-is.

*shrug*

Edit - That's probably enough doom and gloom out of me on this topic.

 

[Rae ArdGaoth]

I think the most important point that's come up is the incentive for Leaders to abandon cohorts and take on new ones if the old cohort falls behind in level. That's a real problem, and it deserves a fix.

The ability point increase has less of an argument, I think. Cohorts are meant to be less powerful, and having a few mediocre abilities doesn't ruin a monk, it just makes him less effective than a PC monk of the same level, which I think is fair. In a campaign where the PCs roll for ability scores, it's entirely possible for someone to get relatively low abilities, certainly much lower than 25, and they get along just fine. I could be persuaded to increase to 26, I think, because that's a nice even number and the cohort won't have to have any odd scores.

 

[Rystil Arden]

The trouble, as I hear Bront calling it, is that the lower points wouldn't be a problem at all except that the cohort is also two levels down, so d4 HD classes will die by accident from AoE, Rogues will die with their lower d6 HD and lower stats as soon they enter melee to try a Sneak Attack, and the tank classes can't effectively tank with their far lower HP (and usually lower AC from inferior equipment). Throw in Monks and Paladins with the MAD and the two level hit, and really the main viable choices are Cleric, Druid, and maybe Bard.

 

[Bront]

The trouble, as I hear Bront calling it, is that the lower points wouldn't be a problem at all except that the cohort is also two levels down, so d4 HD classes will die by accident from AoE, Rogues will die with their lower d6 HD and lower stats as soon they enter melee to try a Sneak Attack, and the tank classes can't effectively tank with their far lower HP (and usually lower AC from inferior equipment). Throw in Monks and Paladins with the MAD and the two level hit, and really the main viable choices are Cleric, Druid, and maybe Bard.

Exactly.

It's not just "effectiveness", though there's that too for Arcane Casters, it's survivability, with lower Dex and Con, they're more susceptable to save failure, being hit, and taking damage. If they are forced to dump Wisdom, Will save suffers greatly.

Clerics and Druids have good saves, can cast heal spells, and have high HD. Bards stay back and motivate, and again cast healing spells, so can be fairly survivable. Beyond that, every other class is seriously nerfed by 25 atribute points. Heck, it's lower than the "Outstanding NPC" array as far as point buy is concerned.

At the moment, we're relegating the only effective cohort to be a healer and buffer, which isn't fair, nor fun.

 

[Rae ArdGaoth]

At the moment, we're relegating the only effective cohort to be a healer and buffer, which isn't fair, nor fun.

I agree with the "fun" part. Above all, I want everybody to have the most fun possible. Incidentally, I have a lot of fun discussing and debating rules. =D

I don't entirely disagree with your statement. I think you're right: healers and buffers, or more broadly, support characters, are what our cohorts are apparently geared towards. I don't think that's a bad thing. The cohort shouldn't steal the show, the PCs should steal the show, be they the Leader or the other PCs in the group.

I guess what I'm saying is that Leadership isn't there so you can have a two Leaders. It's there so you can have a Leader, who runs the show, and followers, who bask in the Leader's glory, who idolize him and want to help him, but are definitely a cut below the Leader in awesomeness. Leadership is for Batman and Robin, not Merlin and Arthur.

Maybe that's an awful example.

 

[Rystil Arden]

I agree with the "fun" part. Above all, I want everybody to have the most fun possible. Incidentally, I have a lot of fun discussing and debating rules. =D

I don't entirely disagree with your statement. I think you're right: healers and buffers, or more broadly, support characters, are what our cohorts are apparently geared towards. I don't think that's a bad thing. The cohort shouldn't steal the show, the PCs should steal the show, be they the Leader or the other PCs in the group.

I guess what I'm saying is that Leadership isn't there so you can have a two Leaders. It's there so you can have a Leader, who runs the show, and followers, who bask in the Leader's glory, who idolize him and want to help him, but are definitely a cut below the Leader in awesomeness. Leadership is for Batman and Robin, not Merlin and Arthur.

Maybe that's an awful example.

I agree with your sentiment, but I think that the two level drop serves to achieve that. The Point Buy cut just makes the cohort less survivable.

Let's take a concrete example.

Bob the Level 6 Fighter takes Leadership. Bob wants to have a support cohort, not a showstealer, and he really wants to have a Wizard NPC he met in one of his adventures join up. The Wizard NPC, named Anne, mainly focuses on buffs and support spells. She also only has level 2 spells, so she's not really going to grab the spotlight even if she did throw an Evocation or two.

Here's the trouble, though--Bob has 59 HP. Crappy run-of-the-mill level 6 Wizards (a fight between a level 6 party and a level 6 enemy Wizard alone should be a cakewalk) will be tossing around 6d6 Fireballs that hit the whole party, but Bob is fine, since that only deals 21 Damage to him, or less if he saves. Let's look at Anne, though. To make the comparison in PB simple, I'll assume that the 5 PB loss (between 30 PB and 25 PB) means 5 less Con for Anne, going up to the point where Con starts costing extra. Thus, Anne has 9 HP at 25 PB, 17 HP at 28 PB, and 21 HP at 30 PB. Even with the maximum PB, Anne still is disabled by the casual Fireball of a crappy easy enemy Wizard. At 25 PB, she's not just unconscious--she's dead! And even if she makes the Ref save by some miracle, she's still knocked out.

As you can see, the main goal of the increased PB is survivability of the cohort, which is already fragile by virtue of being two levels below.

 

[SlagMortar]

I think your example is exaggerated.

A 25 point buy adventuring wizard should probably have about:
Str 9, Dex 14, Con 14, Int 15, Wis 10, Cha 10
That is, unless the idea is to have a frail wizard companion in which case they should die easily. At level 4 then, this character has 4 + 3*3 + 2*4 = 21 HP, the same as you propose for a 30 point buy. I thought the idea of the lower point buy was for there to be some difference between a cohort of 4th level and a PC of 4th level. A wizard with the stats above has about the same survivability as a 4th level PC wizard. The saves and hit points are the same, but the spells have a little lower DCs, so is less potent offensively. I think that's a good thing.

On a side note, if Vantiri wants to start a Freefolk caravan, perhaps most of the caravan should be other PCs. We could even make some exceptions to the normal character rules to allow a player to have an extra character if they belong to an organization established by another PC. The potential for organizations composed of players is one of the things that makes LEW cool for me. We are just now getting to a point where some characters are high enough level to make things like that happen.

 

[Rystil Arden]

And she still gets disabled or knocked out by accident in the AoE by a trivial challenge. With 5 more points, she could have 16 Con (and then maybe 10 Str) which would put her up to 25 HP. That's the first point where she survives the trivial 6d6 Fireball.

 

[Bront]

I think your example is exaggerated.

A 25 point buy adventuring wizard should probably have about:
Str 9, Dex 14, Con 14, Int 15, Wis 10, Cha 10
That is, unless the idea is to have a frail wizard companion in which case they should die easily. At level 4 then, this character has 4 + 3*3 + 2*4 = 21 HP, the same as you propose for a 30 point buy. I thought the idea of the lower point buy was for there to be some difference between a cohort of 4th level and a PC of 4th level. A wizard with the stats above has about the same survivability as a 4th level PC wizard. The saves and hit points are the same, but the spells have a little lower DCs, so is less potent offensively. I think that's a good thing.

On a side note, if Vantiri wants to start a Freefolk caravan, perhaps most of the caravan should be other PCs. We could even make some exceptions to the normal character rules to allow a player to have an extra character if they belong to an organization established by another PC. The potential for organizations composed of players is one of the things that makes LEW cool for me. We are just now getting to a point where some characters are high enough level to make things like that happen.

That example dumps all non-esental stats though, so there's no real flavor in the Cohort either. And, as a wizard, that caster's marginal direct effectiveness is negligable (DC14 save on a 2nd level spell isn't that exciting vs 6th level opponents). The 28 point buy turns that into 10,14,14,16,10,10, which isn't that much better, but the cohort can at least carry something, and cast a bit more effectively. Of course, you could be a bit more flexable and go 8,14,14,16,12,10 or even the odd 8,14,14,16,8,14.

The 28 point buy affords you a bit more flexability on already limited survivability.

As for the PC caravan thing, I'm not against that, but other than his "sister", I don't know of any other freefolk PCs. And he has 2 specific NPCs in mind as potential cohorts. I just thought it would be kinda cool for him to go full circle from leaving to save one, to starting his own, more as a background thing. He also hopes to travel into the desert at some point.

 

[Rae ArdGaoth]

DC 14 isn't great, but L4 characters have magic items too, even cohorts. More points would definitely make the character better/more effective/more survivable, I obviously agree there. The question is should they be? It's not fair to compare a L4 cohort's effectiveness/survivability against a L6 challenge to a L6 leader's effectiveness/survivability against that same challenge. Of course the cohort will fare worse, I mean, technically the cohort's supposed to be kind of like a player controlled NPC, right? He's two levels lower and he's got worse stats, so yeah, he'll get blown away. That's why, hopefully, the wizard cohort is staying in the back, away from the fighter Leader, like any smart wizard would do when faced with a particularly challenging or dangerous encounter. (My own wizard, Fimble, is not staying in the back, which is probably going to bite him in the rear soon. =P)