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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hackenslash" data-source="post: 1074103" data-attributes="member: 11770">Cohorts are a Blagg !!!Hello All,I posted a similar thread to this a couple of months ago and I still feel the same way about Cohorts. They are a hinderance to a well balanced campaign, in my opinion and are really not required. In my experience with several gaming groups, the Leadership Feat that gives you a whole PC at only a level or two below yours is way too overpowered for a feat. It also tends to get abused as a Player will deliberately choose the opposite character type so that he/she gets the most benefit from the cohort and gets most of the lime light at the gaming table. For instance a spell caster choosing a figher as a cohort, so when the game shifts towards a more melee type encounter they end up getting as equally involved in that as the other player warrior types whilst still getting to fling spells in the background. OR. if the character has to spend a while in game researching spells at a Library or academy, and possbily maybe a bit of roleplaying getting said spells etc.. then they can still get involved, via their cohorts, in the other encounter for the melee types who don't have to research spells or whatever. Sorry, but any ability that takes the lime light away from legitimate PC's is unfair in my book. However if the cohort was more of a back bencher and was basically played like any other hireling or follower and was really a support agent that obeyed the PC controling it and did not have a say in party decisions then fair enough but I would feel more comfortable without another high level NPC in the group. I don't think I will be allowing the Leadership feat but I will let the characters attract followers based on their Charisma and Class Level. A bit like they did in 1st edition. I beleave that if you have a cohort, follower etc...then the PC should expect the cohort to risk life and limb for the character and should not have a free will during game time as it just puts too much control over what is essentially a Follower, otherwise how did this cohort come to be attracted to the PC in the first place. I am sorry if my views on Cohorts seem a little extreme but I have had very bad experiences with them and they have ended up disrupting games and causing arguements if they are given the same consideration as the Player characters. We had one instance for example where the Cohort voted opposite to the Player Character during a party vote, what a nightmare that was and it really slowed down the gaming session. If I do allow followers I will mostly control their actions as an NPC but during encounters and combat I will let the PC control them. Well that was my 2 cents. Cheers All <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /></blockquote>

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