The first step to understanding recursion is to understand recursion.
For starters, this be very finite. The highest level cohort you could have (right now) is 5th level and he is insufficient level to take the Leadership feat.
When you get to 9th level, then your cohort might be 7th level (if he has gained enough XP, or if you wait to take the feat at 9th level in the first place). When he reaches 7th level he is eligible to take the feat and get his own cohort, but that cohort has am aximum of 5th level so is ineligible for the feat.
Etc. Ad inifinitum.
At some point, it becomes moot. You could be 19th level with a 17th level cohort who has a 15th level cohort who has a 13th level cohort who has an 11th level cohort who has a 9th level cohort who has a 7th level cohort who has a 5th level cohort.
That's you + 7 recursive cohorts, hardly earth-shattering. And that assumes that everyone in the convergent series has a good leadership score and is capable of a max-level cohort, which may not always be the case.
But when your Cohort-ified party goes up against the Pit Fiends, how many of them are just going to die in the first round anyway, and how many of them will actually make a real difference?
So, send the wimpy ones to your castle to manage the place while you're away. If you're clever, have them be wizards who make magical items while you adventure (but they won't do it for free - they're cohorts, not slaves). This way at least they'll contribute something for all those feats that were recursively spent acquiring them.
I've pondered the thought of parties where everyone has a dedicated cleric or druid cohort. Actually, the thought of an npc party of all paladins or paladins/sorcerors/bards with cleric cohorts for healing has me most curious about its efficacy in game play.
Good point, my cohort will have the leadership feat and has enough con to be near to my PC in hp and ac score, so he is as safe as me incombat ( squishy wizard)
but he will mostly be buffing and not directly attacking the enemy
his main feats are crafting, mostly to make up for him not getting a share of the loot, other than what I give him. Since I am " generous" he will get 1/4 to 1/3 of my loot
depending on our needs, but likewise I get a percentage of the profit of his magic store he runs out of my safe house.All well and good, but I assume when you say "your cohort will have the leadership feat" you mean later, right? Because right when you get him, you're 7th level so he is only 5th level (or less) so it will be a shile before he has enough levels to actually take the Leadership feat himeself.
But the followers will turn into a small "army" in a few renditions too
alothough too weak to fight
I assume they too stay and run the fort and help craft etc and become a small village on their ownI assume they will need health insurance, water treatemnt plant and a hopsital with a meternity ward
I am gonna need a cleric!
And an accountantThis is one way that villages get started.
That cleric and accountant might actually be some of your (recursive) cohorts).
I've pondered the thought of parties where everyone has a dedicated cleric or druid cohort. Actually, the thought of an npc party of all paladins or paladins/sorcerors/bards with cleric cohorts for healing has me most curious about its efficacy in game play.
When it comes to NPCs, you don't need the Leadership feat. You can just say "This NPC has another NPC as a friend." Or employee. Or ally. Or whatever. They don't need feats to get their friends because they don't need game mechanics to (theoretically) keep them balanced against PCs.
This thread talks about it somewhat, and James Jacobs chimes in on this point as well.
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i had an ebberon group with 6 people. 3 people took leadership and another took dragon cohort. Plus the ranger had the feats to get a pet displacer beast...
it gets monotonous. i had to start splitting the cohorts into their own group, so when the battle is happening on the ship, the group is raiding the dragons den.
dont get me wrong, it can be fun, but it can drag the game to a crawl
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Good point, my cohort will have the leadership feat and has enough con to be near to my PC in hp and ac score, so he is as safe as me incombat ( squishy wizard)
but he will mostly be buffing and not directly attacking the enemy
his main feats are crafting, mostly to make up for him not getting a share of the loot, other than what I give him. Since I am " generous" he will get 1/4 to 1/3 of my loot
depending on our needs, but likewise I get a percentage of the profit of his magic store he runs out of my safe house.But the followers will turn into a small "army" in a few renditions too
alothough too weak to fight
I assume they too stay and run the fort and help craft etc and become a small village on their ownI assume they will need health insurance, water treatemnt plant and a hopsital with a meternity ward
I am gonna need a cleric!
And an accountant
Don't forget about paying them a salary.
Just because they are followers and cohorts doesn't mean they work for free.
i dont see why you need to pay a cohort or a follower. it seems to my reading the feat that they follow you out of thier own free will because of your leadership not because you pay them. if you pay them they are not cohorts but hirelings.
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It's not too broken as the players are responsible for arming and equipping the cohort so they don't die with the first blast of dragonbreath. Keep adding to the number of NPCs you want to bring on the trail that require gear to survive and that's less cash you have to properly equip yourself.
Still, I've got 2/5 players with cohorts. I shudder to think what happens if all go with cohorts to compliment animal companions and improved familiars....
i dont see why you need to pay a cohort or a follower. it seems to my reading the feat that they follow you out of thier own free will because of your leadership not because you pay them. if you pay them they are not cohorts but hirelings.
You pay them in order that they are not underequipped. The Leadership feat is clear... the cohort comes into your influence equipped as an appropriate NPC for its level. Thereafter it gets no additional cash except that which you give it. It's not that big a deal when you first start the Leadership game, but down the road as you (both) advance in level, you'll need to equip them with better goodies if only to keep them alive.
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This makes me think of the summoner I am playing at the moment. I already have my big stack of summoned creatures as well as my eidolon, so I have way too many character sheets as is. I was telling the DM that both myself and my eidolon were going to take leadership.
Of course he told me that something would probably happen to lower my leadership score so my eidolon would have a better cohort than I do and thus have another way to be a more productive member of the team than I am. Hurtful.
If I were to do the "pyramid scheme of cohorts" thing I would put them to work. Running ye-ole magic shop chain, thieves guild, quarry workers, something. That way they would make their own money and support themselves.
You'll need a theme of course. I like the magic school set up.
In most campaigns that my friends and I play in someone ends up taking Leadership, I am not quite sure why but there is always a character that it makes sense for. Because we see the feat so often we have a couple of house rules that we live by.
1st - No cohort can ever take Leadership as a feat. Too many numbers.
2nd - Only one party member can take the feat, after that, its off limits. Too many cohorts change the balance of the game and make everything run too slow.
3rd - It needs to make sense. The character has to have a very good role playing reason to take it. (To give an example, my Runelords a character, a high charisma rogue/chevalier of CC started up a group of freedom fighters at level 9 called Cayden's Keys. In Second Darkness we had a player with a exiled Khorvosan wizard who took it just so he could hire on Bradicar Faije (spelling?)as a body guard)
4th - (not so much a rule as a rule of thumb) The best cohort is a bard.
I'm not saying these are rules to live by but they are descent guide lines. My group loves leadership but only as long as it makes sense.
Just remember . . .
A cohort is generally an NPC with class levels, while followers are typically lower level NPCs.
and
Nonplayer Character (NPC): These are characters controlled by the GM.
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Only a few rule I use with the leadership feet. I make the NPCs and a cohort is a npc. Just rember its a NPC not a PC the DM can take over and run the NPC at any time they feal a need to. You might have the character sheat for the NPC but that dose not mean the DM can't rule they wold do somthing difrent then what you want them to.
If I were to do the "pyramid scheme of cohorts" thing I would put them to work. Running ye-ole magic shop chain, thieves guild, quarry workers, something. That way they would make their own money and support themselves.
You'll need a theme of course. I like the magic school set up.
We had a player who wanted to make his cohort a mage, and give him magic item creation feats. Set up a shop, and start selling stuff. Player would bring back money and extras to keep the shop going. It was a crazy plan.
Another player had a cohort and a nice collection of followers. He used them as a network of spies and information gatherers for our city campaign.
You can get crazy with classes and things if you really want to bend/break the system. It is the job of the GM to try and keep things from going too crazy.
To my understanding, at least back during 3.5, there is mention that your Cohort cannot take the Leadership feat. I know in the two groups I've played the Lts cannot ever take Leadership, as that leads to millions of people under control of one person... and each person would remain loyal to the first person who took Leadership. A whole nation's worth of people all loyal without fault to one person... that's near impossible even for a fantasy game.
The major point about Leadership is that you get a large number of followers -- so many that it would be insane to provide details about them all -- but only the top 1 or 2 cohorts are of sufficient level to be useful as adventuring companions. The rest are basically useful as laborers -- if you have a task that requires hard work but no fighting, then you can usually commit an arbitrarily large amount of manpower to that task.
I seem to recall there being a feat that lets you advance a cohort to your level - 1 instead of the default -2, but only with that feat would you be able to recruit a potentially abusive number of combat effective adventuring companions -- and then only if every cohort in the chain has a high charisma, takes the Leadership feat, and takes this other feat as well. The feat in question is Improved Cohort, from the D&D 3.5 supplement Heroes of Battle.
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Cohorts are willing to be subordinates, i.e., not Leadership material. If a given NPC is the type to have followers, they aren't going to be following a PC's orders, they're going to be out doing their own thing. A cohort with a cohort is not reasonable.
Why, oh, why doesn't Pathfinder have a Jasper Fforde-type ban on cheese?
Cohorts and followers are NPCs. They are created and played by the DM.
Which, of course, assumes the DM wants to create and run the cohort. Provided the DM approves the overall concept for the cohort, there is no reason at all why the player cannot create and run the cohort.
As with all things, the DM has the final say so they can make sure there is no cheese or that the cohort does not behave like a mindless automaton. In my group the players always create and run the cohort and we have never had any problems.
On occasions the DM takes over the running of the cohort for particular things and then hands it back to the player.
I reckon the majority of DMs who want to create and run a cohort are sub-conciously crying out that they want to be a player and not the DM :)
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The Way of the Wicked Campaign has a rather good idea in Book Two: Call Forth Darkness. Essentially instead of having a vast ream of statted NPC's you instead have an organisation with stats based on your Leadership score and can perform a number of actions on your behalf.
I am planning on taking the leadership feat at lvl 7
my GM is cool with it, mainly because no one he has every played with has ever used itmy question/statement/rant is about how " broken" the feat seems to be
I am not planning on abusing the feat but it appears there is no mention that the cohort could not also take the leadership feat , etc, etcthis would cause number crunching breakdown if only one player took it and if everyone in a 4 player game did would be uggggghhhh
maybe in a 2 player game?
it is as bad as making your third wish from the genie being for three more wishes, over and over again
I am not going to even try this, but has this been brought up before, or am I missing seeing that line in the feat description
Some dms don't allow you to make any your followers or your main moderate level follower. The people that follow you come from the world and are not made by you, they are npcs and aren't your character either, hence the argument you don't have control.
So you might be able to get what you want, some clerics, e.g, and maybe you won't. Say you took it and said you wanted ten of them to be paladins. Dm might say it isn't a region high in paladins, and no, you can't have them or make them/won't follow due to alignment, etc etc etc.
Or, you want to form a thieves guild, so that you can net profits, but you aren't a renowned thief (you are say, a sorcerer). Well sure some might come that are rogues, but what about the guilds in the region? Are they doing well? Will they respond negatively? Will npcs with leadership try to get your new members back?
Big, complex feat, just play the damn game is my opinion sometimes. Want to raise 200 men or get clerics, fork out the cash and make the infrastructure, then get them in with carrots.
It sure can slow a game down, I prefer to make recruitment and gathering npcs more a roleplaying thing than a numbers and genning thing done by the player.
Cohorts are willing to be subordinates, i.e., not Leadership material. If a given NPC is the type to have followers, they aren't going to be following a PC's orders, they're going to be out doing their own thing. A cohort with a cohort is not reasonable.
Why, oh, why doesn't Pathfinder have a Jasper Fforde-type ban on cheese?
That is entirely possible. That for years after the pc takes the feat, the followers will be followers, not leaders. They cannot take the feat, it isn't a matter of level, it is a matter of character. Now it is said you must learn to lead by following, but the idea of cohorts leadership stacking is ridiculous and cheesy. If someone tried it, I'd make it like a leftist political movement--they fragment, no longer under your control and you lose a lot of guys, including no. 2.
I am a new GM running a home game, and I am sure its not RAW but what my house rule is doing with leadership.
I allow players with leadership to recruit cohorts (each cohort has its own back story and their own requirements to keep them happy and in service.)
cohorts generally are gained via in game actions with people met along the way. NPC that were rescued, or assisted or such. and have reason to favor the PC.
The PC is limited by his ranks in leadership, as to how many active cohorts (with him in the party), and inactive cohorts (back at camp/house/castle etc) generally 1 cohort active at a time.
When the PC has surplus XP that could be used to lvl up, any portion of that XP can be given to the cohorts to lvl them up according to what the PC desires.
Then the PC can choose, to leave his character safe in the castle and send his cohorts to battle in his place, or on "missions" according to the PC needs in the campaign world.
This allows me to play other modules, with disposable characters, where nobody gets to upset when character dies.
For instance my party was charged with recovering an ancient relic from a magical land they have never been to or heard much of before.
My players response.
I send my spy to gather recon for me.
I will send my barbarian comrade, for the glory of my clan.
I will go myself because I have no followers guess that makes me team leader :)
I am going to go ask that adventurer bard, I have been trying to recruit if he is interested in exploring a wild new land.
When (IF) the cohorts make it back alive, with loot, information, and or XP. The PC can spend that XP however he likes, across his followers or his own advancement.
This also allows me to do 1 on 1 adventures with my players, when we have time between game sessions. With out disrupting the main group's adventure. Adds a level of immersion to the campaign world, since most cohort adventures are related to PC goals. Some cohorts might have a special quest line as a requirement for keeping them happy. Such as an assassin that has to go perform wet work occasionally for his guild.
And last but not least, its not impossible for a chort to either turn on the PC if not cared for right, or to even be a spy from a rival (NPC) faction, or have other nefarious reasons for being with the PC. Sense motive, diplomacy, leadership, detect lies, etc etc all help when building that relation ship with possible cohorts.
This works well for my campaign world, where the players have aspirations of kingdom building.