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Message: <blockquote data-quote="KidSnide" data-source="post: 4138578" data-attributes="member: 54710">No doubt we all agree on Leadership in particular.  And, that is a perfectly reasonable way to handle the desire for a sidekick without resorting to the extremely unbalanced leadership mechanic.But the OP's point extends beyond Leadership, which is just a partuclarly egregious example of the fact that extra actions are extremely powerful.  One of the things I hated the most about 3.X combat was the proliferation of pre-combat buff spells.  Even if you ignore the game-spotting effect of a 30-minute planning session to figure out who casts spells on whom, it is just really powerful to have all of these actions performed before the start of combat.  It may be an interesting question whether to cast Haste or Fireball, but if you cast Haste right before the teleport/ambush/opening-the-next-door, you get all the benefits of doing both.  The 3rd level spell resource is used, but you're effectively getting a free action by casting the buff before battle.Similarly, pre-summoned creatures, animal companions and cohorts (through the leadership or not) are just powerful.  Even if the weak creature or level-4 fighter isn't going to be able to take out an enemy monster on its own, an ally can still hold an enemy off while the party proper concentrates fire on the primary target.  It's like a free action that combines immobilize with DoT.  This can be fun - I enjoy combats where the PCs have to balance fighting the most dangerous enemies with supporting their low-level allied troops that are protecting the flanks and rear.  But, when balanced against other abilities, an ability that grants you free actions by summoning, recruiting or attracting an ally is either very powerful, or involves an ally that is so wussy that it hardly matters.  That's why Rodney was speculating about creating allied creatures that "use up" their master's actions in some way or otherwise manifest as bonuses instead of actions.</blockquote>

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