Aerodude's page

Darkholme wrote:

Such a ruling quickly makes cohorts stop being cohorts and they become "stay in town" followers.

Not necessarily, though one has to be increasingly careful with them, yes...not unlike familiars.

How are the players able to be increasingly careful with them, if you control the cohorts in and out of combat?

If the cohorts (run by you) are easy pickings by the clever villains (also run by you), wouldn't that just mean that the cohorts end up being left behind, as the only available option by the players to keep them alive?

Hey, at least you're considering taking a feat that justifies getting a Cohort/mount.

You could have a GM that awakens the original Ranger pet on the GMPC (the GM's PC, as it is definitely not being played as an NPC), completely rebuilds the GMPC as a hunter (without downtime, GP cost, etc), and decides that the new build Hunter gets a new pet... and the original still follows the group around like normal. No leadership feat taken there.

Or the spouse-of-said-GM's character having a brother that makes magic items for him (without leadership feat), or said spouse having an alternate character that essentially has taken over a major city, crafts magic items, and generally interferes with the main group.

In any game, there is such a thing as too many characters. It just depends on how big of a role they play in the game.

At the very least, taking the Leadership feat is a token gesture I can wholly appreciate. Beyond that, having the common courtesy for your players to tone your cohort down if it rides shotgun, or better yet, have your cohort run your affairs the majority of the time back at "base", and occasionally accompany the party.

Personally, I would have no problem with every single person in a party of 4 taking Leadership, if the Cohorts weren't abused.

P.S. Pardon the rant.