Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 4131245" data-attributes="member: 2067">It becomes a DM Fiat thing, not part and parcel of my character's abilities. I don't have to jump through a DM's hoops to cast Fireball. As a DM, I don't have to give my players little side-missions to gain weapon specialization. I can always drape it in world-junk all I want, but it is part and parcel of the character's power whether I do so or not. A follower that I spend resources for is similar to Fireball and Weapon Specialization. Adding world detail to it is great, but it needs to be part of my character sheet, not a pure role-playing excercise in jumping through DM hoops. That's not very satisfying, because it feels more like it's the DM's power and the DM's permission than it feels like part of my own character's authority and might.It's not an "instead of," the two are not at odds, but in the same way that you can add "you study under the ancient firemage Alcesistic" in order to have the PC learn Fireball, you could have "you impress the king's squire!" in order to have the PC gain a follower.The key is spending resources. In 3e, I'd expect to be able to get a magic item I wanted to get with enough gold, too, because they are part and parcel of a PC's power in 3e.In 4e, I wouldn't expect that except for the basic two or three items. But a follower who is part and parcel of my PC's power, yeah, I'd expect to be able to get it in the same way that the fighter gets his whirlwind attack and the rogue gets his sneak attack. You can add some fluff around it, but you get it, even if you don't fluff it upIf some sort of companion is part of my character's power, in the same way that fireball is part of a wizard's power, having a DM control him in the background is not going to do it for me. I might be able to stomach abstraction, as long as it still felt like I was empowered by my ally.</blockquote>

Verification