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If a character has the Leadership feat, can it take a monstrous race as a cohort? And if so, if the monster she is wanting to cohort has both racial HD and class levels, should the racial HD count toward it's level for determining whether the PC is high enough level to attract it as a cohort?
Specifically, one of my players is playing a nymph with the druid abilities stripped away and a shadow template applied (we decided on a total level adjustment of +4). Stripping away all the druid training, we reduced her to a 1 HD creature, then she advanced as a nymph for one level, resulting in 2 racial hit die, and advanced in Rogue for four levels and is moving on to the Shadowdancer PrC. Altogether, she has five class levels (six if you count her Nymph level as a class level), so she's effectively a 10th level character, counting the level adjustment. Though I'm not really sure if she should count the level adjustment when determing her level for attracting a cohort, I don't think so.
Now, what she wants to do is take the Leadership feat when she gains her next class level, and try to attract a Greater Shadow, the unadvanced version of which is a 9 HD creature, which would make it ineligible if its racial HD are included, but eligible if they are not. Her nymph is neutral evil, so the alignment restrictions are not an issue. The only things I'm not sure about is the racial HD thing, and whether a monster (especially an undead) can become a cohort.
If a character has the Leadership feat, can it take a monstrous race as a cohort? And if so, if the monster she is wanting to cohort has both racial HD and class levels, should the racial HD count toward it's level for determining whether the PC is high enough level to attract it as a cohort?
Specifically, one of my players is playing a nymph with the druid abilities stripped away and a shadow template applied (we decided on a total level adjustment of +4). Stripping away all the druid training, we reduced her to a 1 HD creature, then she advanced as a nymph for one level, resulting in 2 racial hit die, and advanced in Rogue for four levels and is moving on to the Shadowdancer PrC. Altogether, she has five class levels (six if you count her Nymph level as a class level), so she's effectively a 10th level character, counting the level adjustment. Though I'm not really sure if she should count the level adjustment when determing her level for attracting a cohort, I don't think so.
Now, what she wants to do is take the Leadership feat when she gains her next class level, and try to attract a Greater Shadow, the unadvanced version of which is a 9 HD creature, which would make it ineligible if its racial HD are included, but eligible if they are not. Her nymph is neutral evil, so the alignment restrictions are not an issue. The only things I'm not sure about is the racial HD thing, and whether a monster (especially an undead) can become a cohort.
I would count it as it's CR+1 for the purpose of measuring its level against the cohort chart. Its up the dm wether or not they wish to allow a monster as a cohort.
If you go the Pathfinder SRD, they have some information on this.
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Yeah, it seems that normally if its a pretty straight forward creature you are looking at CR+3 or 4, but the difference comes with creatures that have a fair amount of unusual resistances or spell-like abilities. Thats when it gets bumped up a fair amount since those have a way of giving characters abilities they wouldn't normally have access to(or at least not have access to in the same volume) at the level creatures often get them.
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There's also some exceedingly generic (and quite broken) guidelines for monstrous PCs in the back of the besitary.
It boils down to Effective Character Level=Challenge Rating of base creature+Class Levels (with the caveat, that every 4 class levels only count for a 3 effective level boost, until the extra HD reach some fraction of the creature's original HD)
Which of course means that there's never any reason to not play as a monstrous race, mechanically speaking. (Even casters can find critters with spellcasting ability nearly equivalent to their CR, and you end up bypassing normal casters with the free extra levels).
That reminds me of another concern - I've never seen a really good formula for translating CR into LA. Of course, I think part of the reason for that is that LA is kind of amorphous, depending in large part on the power level of the game in question (a monstrous character in a game using epic point buys and Monty Hall treasure placement would have a lower LA than in a more conservative game, for instance). What I usually do to assign LA is weigh the strengths against the weaknesses, and for whatever comes out on the plus side, I ask myself, "Could a 1st level character emulate these abilities with either normal class features or clever feat selection? Would the character have to be 2nd level? 3rd level? And so on. So if a monster has spell-like abilities comparable to the spells or features available to a 1st level wizard, for instance, and that monster chooses to take wizard levels, there would be no point in giving it a LA, because it wouldn't gain anything significant from the template. If he chose to advance as a fighter, instead, though, then I'd give it a +1 LA, because it would be the rough equivalent of a multiclass.
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A player of mine asked if he could get a headband of charisma +2 (for the sole purpose of boosting his Leadership score in order to start out with a higher level cohort at the next session: 10th-level), wear it for 24 hours, get the higher level cohort, and then take off the item (which drops Charisma) to wear his usual headband of intelligence +2 again.
Honestly, RAW, I think this works. It's cheese, but the feat only "checks" at the start of a level. Of course you can give him the aloofness penalty if he dismissed his old cohort simply because he was slightly less good.
I'd allow it for followers, but once you've got a cohort, you've got that cohort until he dies. That's my understanding. You do not gain a new cohort every level.
Someone could still put the headband on before taking the feat initially, though. RAW it works just fine. I don't like it, and I'll never allow that kind of cheese, but it's legit RAW as far as I can tell
I am not going to allow this (the quick headband switch mentioned in the first paragraph) because it seems like too much of a cheap and easy way to circumvent the rules... but by RAW, it seems like someone could do this. Doesn't that seem odd? It'd be fine for something like Power Attack where you lose use of the feat whenever the item is removed, but Leadership doesn't seem to have that issue.
How is that the case? Fail to maintain the modifier, fail to maintain the cohort.
I dont see anywhere in RAW that suggests the player can do this.
You are right to tell the player no.
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Developer
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How is that the case? Fail to maintain the modifier, fail to maintain the cohort.
I dont see anywhere in RAW that suggests the player can do this.
You are right to tell the player no.
Not true, sadly. Though I won't allow it, the RAW do. Leadership changes only happen when you gain a level. Further, once you have a cohort, that cohort sticks with you until she dies. She gains exp, levels, and can even exceed what is allowed by your leadership score, as long as her level stays a specific number from yours.
While followers come and go, they do so when you gain a level. This cheese works in the RAW.