I have two players in the game I'm running. One player is taking leadership and will have his cohort following him around. The second player is a paladin who chose the weapon bond but really wanted a mount... I've considered it and am considering offering the option to take a feat allowing her to have both a mount bond AND weapon bond... my thinking being that a mount doesn't differ that much from the cohort that the other player chose with his feat.
My worry. I have never played with a Druid, Ranger, or Paladin before so I've never experienced a player pet. Is this feat too much would it overpower the paladin?
If I do allow the feat can a paladin have a pegasus as a mount? Are there rules for that? Does it change the pet progression in any way?
Thank you for your help,
Oscar
That part that says you cannot change what divine bond you use? As a GM, you can ignore that if you want. See if your paladin wants to visit the appropriate church, pay for an atonement spell, and transfer the celestial spirit from the sword to a stead (I would not charge the 2,500 gp for a deliberate 'misdeed', just the base and cost for casting services.) Or just have her take the Leadership feat and make the cohort a horse, using the cohort level for its HD. That mount would be a bit weaker than a divine bond horse, and not summonable, but you are getting a scaling mount with a feat.
Why not just allow the paladin take leadership and get a monstrous cohort?
He could start of with a Pegasus if his leadership score is at least a 9. The pegasus would then gain class levels (fighter, most likely).
The paladin would have to be 8th level, at least, to attract a Pegasus cohort.
The paladin would have to be 9th level, at least, to attract a Pegasus cohort.
Pegasus have an effective cohort level of 6, he could take it at 7th level. Look here.
I have two players in the game I'm running. One player is taking leadership and will have his cohort following him around. The second player is a paladin who chose the weapon bond but really wanted a mount... I've considered it and am considering offering the option to take a feat allowing her to have both a mount bond AND weapon bond... my thinking being that a mount doesn't differ that much from the cohort that the other player chose with his feat.
My worry. I have never played with a Druid, Ranger, or Paladin before so I've never experienced a player pet. Is this feat too much would it overpower the paladin?
If I do allow the feat can a paladin have a pegasus as a mount? Are there rules for that? Does it change the pet progression in any way?
Thank you for your help,
Oscar
That mount functions like a druid animal companion by advancement, but then again the leadership feat is pretty powerful itself.
How many people are in the group? I try to avoid to many characters at the table. I don't think it will overpower the paladin. Most of that will depend on how good the player is and your DM'ing style though. As a rule the paladin can not get a pegasus. I would make him take the actual leadership feat for that.
In 3.5 the pegasus was a cohort with an ECL, but pathfinder got rid of ECL. I would judge it to be about as effective as a level 5 character meaning the player should be able to get it when his leadership score is high enough. If you allow him to use a homebrew feat to take a mount I would just allow it to use the regular companion rules.
A pegasus has decent mental stats, and is better than some people. It looks like a horse, but it is intelligent enough to not just be someone's pet.
edit:I did forgot about the cohort chart. The previous poster is correct.
It's hard to say because balancing PC's is all about levels of optimization. If the paladin is optimized and the others aren't, granting him more power will unbalance things even further. If the paladin player doesn't optimize and the others do, he could probably get it.
EDIT: Realized what we've been house ruling, there's rules for in the bestiary *facepalm*.
I linked to the monstrous cohort rules in the PRD in my previous post. According to it, a pegasus is a 6th level cohort (equivalent to getting a 6th level human cohort). According to that page, monstrous cohorts advance as character, usually in fighter or barbarian.
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It sounds like you are a relatively inexperienced DM, in that case I strongly recommend simply not allowing Leadership. It makes a party more unwieldly puts action economy advantage even more firmly upon the PCs side and ensures that those players who don't take leadership end up taking only half as much screen time as those who do.
To my mind leadership is generally only useful if you do not have enough players, otherwise it is a problem rather than a solution imo.
I linked to the monstrous cohort rules in the PRD in my previous post. According to it, a pegasus is a 6th level cohort (equivalent to getting a 6th level human cohort). According to that page, monstrous cohorts advance as character, usually in fighter or barbarian.
Cohort Level: You can attract a cohort of up to this level. Regardless of your Leadership score, you can only recruit a cohort who is two or more levels lower than yourself. The cohort should be equipped with gear appropriate for its level (see Creating NPCs). A cohort can be of any race or class. The cohort's alignment may not be opposed to your alignment on either the law/chaos or good/evil axis, and you take a –1 penalty to your Leadership score if you recruit a cohort of an alignment different from your own.
As the bolded section points out. He would need to be 8th level at least to get a pegasus, regardless of his leadership score.
I linked to the monstrous cohort rules in the PRD in my previous post. According to it, a pegasus is a 6th level cohort (equivalent to getting a 6th level human cohort). According to that page, monstrous cohorts advance as character, usually in fighter or barbarian.Cohort Level: You can attract a cohort of up to this level. Regardless of your Leadership score, you can only recruit a cohort who is two or more levels lower than yourself. The cohort should be equipped with gear appropriate for its level (see Creating NPCs). A cohort can be of any race or class. The cohort's alignment may not be opposed to your alignment on either the law/chaos or good/evil axis, and you take a –1 penalty to your Leadership score if you recruit a cohort of an alignment different from your own.As the bolded section points out. He would need to be 8th level at least to get a pegasus, regardless of his leadership score.
Ah, sorry. I thought the cohort had to be one level lower...
well, i think i will break up your question into two parts.
First, should you allow the paladin to get a feat to obtain a mount through is divine bond feature. To this i would simply say no, its that easy. The druids animal companion is actually better than the cohort you will have running around. If you take into consideration there already is a feat that grants a class +3 levels for his animal companion, and that is it, alowing him a feat that is several times more powerfull than the other feat, would probably be unbalancing.
Secondly should u allow leadership. I must say im with verrik on this one, leadership is the single most OP feat in the entire game, screws game balance a mile, but it does give something the PC cant normaly get, ie like a pegasus mount. If i was the GM i wouldnt have let the druid get leadership in the first place, and i would resolve the paladin problem with alowing him to change his divine weapon to a mount, if you really think its necesarry. That does mean he cant have a pegasus though, or atleast cant till he can find one, train it, and then it wont advance with him.
To me it sounds like you are a bit inexperienced GM, and becouse of that i would offer u these two advises, and you can use them or not. First dont allow leadership, the feat is just wrongly build, not even the optimising thread use it, becouse its just to good. Secondly, you dont have to always cater to what the PCs want, ofcourse you should accomodate them, but allowing them to have everything they want, is not good for them, or for you, if you are interested in balance.
thats my 2 cent atleast
well, i think i will break up your question into two parts.
First, should you allow the paladin to get a feat to obtain a mount through is divine bond feature. To this i would simply say no, its that easy. The druids animal companion is actually better than the cohort you will have running around. If you take into consideration there already is a feat that grants a class +3 levels for his animal companion, and that is it, alowing him a feat that is several times more powerfull than the other feat, would probably be unbalancing.
Secondly should u allow leadership. I must say im with verrik on this one, leadership is the single most OP feat in the entire game, screws game balance a mile, but it does give something the PC cant normaly get, ie like a pegasus mount. If i was the GM i wouldnt have let the druid get leadership in the first place, and i would resolve the paladin problem with alowing him to change his divine weapon to a mount, if you really think its necesarry. That does mean he cant have a pegasus though, or atleast cant till he can find one, train it, and then it wont advance with him.
To me it sounds like you are a bit inexperienced GM, and becouse of that i would offer u these two advises, and you can use them or not. First dont allow leadership, the feat is just wrongly build, not even the optimising thread use it, becouse its just to good. Secondly, you dont have to always cater to what the PCs want, ofcourse you should accomodate them, but allowing them to have everything they want, is not good for them, or for you, if you are interested in balance.
thats my 2 cent atleast
Whether the cohort or the animal companion is better depends on how each one is built. The leadership ability is about equal to an animal companion most of the time.
I do agree that allowing the player to change his choice is the best answer though. ]@ the OP: You may have answered this, but is the player taking leadership because the party needs it or because he wants it.
Secondly should u allow leadership. I must say im with verrik on this one, leadership is the single most OP feat in the entire game, screws game balance a mile, but it does give something the PC cant normaly get, ie like a pegasus mount. If i was the GM i wouldnt have let the druid get leadership in the first place, and i would resolve the paladin problem with alowing him to change his divine weapon to a mount, if you really think its necesarry. That does mean he cant have a pegasus though, or atleast cant till he can find one, train it, and then it wont advance with him.
To me it sounds like you are a bit inexperienced GM, and becouse of that i would offer u these two advises, and you can use them or not. First dont allow leadership, the feat is just wrongly build, not even the optimising thread use it, becouse its just to good. Secondly, you dont have to always cater to what the PCs want, ofcourse you should accomodate them, but allowing them to have everything they want, is not good for them, or for you, if you are interested in balance.
thats my 2 cent atleast
I'm allowing leadership because it's only the two players playing. Leadership means that I can reliably run my players through modules that assume 3 to 4 players or monsters with CRs that assume same safely. It is the "lack" of players in our group that has me considering allowing the "feat" in the first place. I guess I should have stated this as my thinking initially.
I have been running and playing D&D off and on for over 20 years. I guess it is odd that in that time I have had no one play with a pet before... My groups simply favored the classic Wizards, Fighters, and Clerics or the odd Warlock. I embrace the idea of brainstorming with other DMs on these boards, and I admittedly lack faith in some of my decisions like a newbie DM which is probably why you get the inexperienced vibe. I'm sorry if it seem I mislead you. Thank you for your advice one and all I will incorporate it : )
I'm allowing leadership because it's only the two players playing. Leadership means that I can reliably run my players through modules that assume 3 to 4 players or monsters with CRs that assume same safely. It is the "lack" of players in our group that has me considering allowing the "feat" in the first place. I guess I should have stated this as my thinking initially.
You could simply have both players play 2 characters instead. The cohorts from leadership won't be sufficiently powerful to offset the additional PCs.
I'm allowing leadership because it's only the two players playing. Leadership means that I can reliably run my players through modules that assume 3 to 4 players or monsters with CRs that assume same safely. It is the "lack" of players in our group that has me considering allowing the "feat" in the first place. I guess I should have stated this as my thinking initially.
You could simply have both players play 2 characters instead. The cohorts from leadership won't be sufficiently powerful to offset the additional PCs.
This is what I would do also.
@ op
im sorry i took you for a more inexperienced DM, but i had a hard time picturing a DM with more than a year under his belt, that hadnt experienced animal companions yet. But as you stated that happened, and im sorry if you took any offence by my assumption.
Now moving on to the question at hand. As i see it you have 2 options if you want to continue with only two players, and it might not be a choice not too. You can either do what the others sugest and simply let them play more characters. I would personally not do this, simply becouse i feel it would be wierd with multiple chars per player. What i would do, and what i have done before, is allow them to use leadership for cohorts, as you suggested, or let the paladin use a feat for the mount, also your suggestion. I would require my players to pick a monstrous cohort, as to avoid more "real" characters in the party.
I think you will need to do some of the above, if you expect a party of two to handle encounters equivalent to a party of 3-4 people. I would also suggest that you remind your players that running is always an option, and to remember that they probably cant handle everything thrown at them, without being clever about the encounters. That is ofcourse also necesarry in a normal party, but probably a lot less so.