Wild Cohort feat [WotC website]

[jgsugden]

You're right; the rules never do state that you can only have one cohort. In fact, the Leadership feat itself, minus special and animal cohorts, never mentions itself that you can only have one cohort. If you want to play by the letter of the rules and not the spirit of them, I suppose you could say an 11th level PC could have ten 8th level NPC cohorts, because the Leadership feat never says "one and only one" cohort. This interpretation of the rules, however, is not what I think WotC had in mind.

So, let's say that the 3.0 DMG and 3.5 PHB Leadership feats intend only one "normal" cohort per person, and we use that interpretation. In the 3.0 DotF, we see rules laid out for acquiring a dragon cohort. It's not laid out explicitly that the dragon cohort replaces the "normal" cohort you have by virtue of the Leadership feat, but any other interpretation is rules-lawyering munchkinizing. Note that is never says "in addition to your Leadership cohort."

Any other interpretation is rules lawyering munchkinizing? No, it is reading the rules as they seem to be intended. In point of fact, I hate how they are written, but it seems clear to me that the rules allow a cohort from leadership, from wild animal cohort and from dragon cohort. It also seems clear that they did not think that extra cohorts from different sources was a problem.

You make issuance that the wild animal and dragon cohort feats do not mention "in addition to your Leadership cohort." I think it is more important that they do not say that you may only have one total cohort, regardless of the source. Your argument would be akin to arguing that the government doesn't want you to have a passport and a driver's license because their is nothing in the laws governing either of those documents that states that you may have both.

Either way, it is not clearly stated that you are not allowed to have multiple cohorts from different sources. That is enough to cause the problems I mentioned earlier: where players will want to have them and their presence will slow down the game, unbalance the parties and create a more chaotic environment where the PCs are more likely to get offed in an accidental TPK - or - the DM must tell his players that they can't have multiple cohorts and then has to deal with the ramifications of placing that ramification.

 

[Gez]

Or the DM simply tell them he don't want more than, say, 2 meaningful non-player creatures in the game, because it would be a pain in the equus asinus for him to manage that and that would make him angry. And when he's angry, he send a squad of half-dragon tarrasque archmage with laser blasters to make a TPK, just to unwind.

That way, they won't adventure with more than two of their cohorts.

And it makes sense. At these levels, they're bound to have a headquarter full of wealth. That can attract the greed of people while they're out adventuring. So manning their HQ with a flock of followers and most of their cohorts seem both a sane in-character thing to do and a reasonnable compromise.

That said, I really doubt to see every one in a group taking Leadership, Dragon Cohort, and Wild Cohort.

 

[Klaus]

What this feat really shows is that the ranger STILL got the shaft!

In my campaign, the Ranger 10 has (had) a wolf animal companion. Since the wolf would be equivalent to a Druid 5's companion, it had 4d8 HD, +2 natural armor, Str 14 and Dex 16, IIRC. That's suicidal for a creature that's supposed to be facing CR10 foes alongside its master. The same wolf, as per the Wild Cohort table, would have 7d8 HD!

A previous post mentioned giving rangers a "level-3" adjustment in the Companion table. That would give a Ranger 10 a wolf with 6d8 HD, +4 natural armor, 15 Str and 17 Dex, IIRC. This is an idea I like a lot.