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I have a player who's playing a Magus, and he plans on taking Leadership at 9th level. He has already taken the Familiar arcana to gain a familiar and Improved Familiar to attract a Cassisian Angel (Bestiary 2) as his familiar. Now he's wondering if he can select his Angel familiar as his cohort in order to grant it levels and other cohort benefits.
Is this legal under the rules of Leadership? Would you allow or prohibit this?
Nope. A familiar and a cohort follow completely seperate rules for advancement, and whether or not leadership is even allowed to work, or to what extent is up to the DM.
Short version:They do not work together the way your player wants them too.
I would not allow it. I think he is trying to double up on benefits. If he wants a cohort he can get another NPC to tag along.
Concerro is correct that the rules don't support what your player wants to do.
The rules in this book are here to help you breathe life into your characters and the world they explore. While they are designed to make your game easy and exciting, you might find that some of them do not suit the style of play that your gaming group enjoys. Remember that these rules are yours. You can change them to fit your needs. Most Game Masters have a number of “house rules” that they use in their games. The Game Master and players should always discuss any rules changes to make sure that everyone understands how the game will be played. Although the Game Master is the final arbiter of the rules, the Pathfinder RPG is a shared experience, and all of the players should contribute their thoughts when the rules are in doubt.
I played a long running D&D 3.5 game in which the players all decided to take leadership at 9th level. (We'd just taken care of an orc invasion on the frontier of a kingdom, and the king granted us all titles and started talking about how he'd need to settle those lands before they could really be secured, and it just seemed appropriate to the campaign. Everyone, the GM included, liked the idea of the party having a home base, some followers, etc.) But we already had 5-6 players and didn't want half a dozen cohorts following us around, so we worked with what we already had:
- The Wizard got PC levels for his familiar.
- The Paladin got PC levels for his mount.
- The Cleric and Barbarian got four-legged cohorts who were mostly mounts.
- I forget the other two:)
If you do decide to write a house rule allowing a familiar/cohort, work with the player to make sure you're not allowing any broken exploits. Provided you're giving out a power increase that's 50-120% as much as a regular cohort would grant, go for it!
I have a player who's playing a Magus, and he plans on taking Leadership at 9th level. He has already taken the Familiar arcana to gain a familiar and Improved Familiar to attract a Cassisian Angel (Bestiary 2) as his familiar. Now he's wondering if he can select his Angel familiar as his cohort in order to grant it levels and other cohort benefits.
Is this legal under the rules of Leadership? Would you allow or prohibit this?
the thing you need to remember is familiars are not supposed to be strong at combat. even the improved ones. that's really the realm the animal companion.
that said if he could get it as a cohort, it just would not be a familiar or ave any if the benefits.
Familiars
Hit Dice: For the purpose of effects related to number of Hit Dice, use the master’s character level or the familiar’s normal HD total, whichever is higher.
Cohort
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.
So now we find ourselves trying to crossbreed these into some sort of co-miliar, so that it has levels as a character class in addition to its racial powers and powers granted it by being a familiar? If this is the case then no. However, feel free to give him a second Cassisian Angel as his cohort. It heard how awesome the character is through its brother and came to render aid, just remember to use the -2 to the leadership score caused by a familiar. Combining the two effects into a co-miliar would not work as it is unable to gain levels since as the caster advances in level the familiar automatically advances its HD to match.
That is my two copper pieces.
But if he insists, then... turn about is fair play.
You know... that might make for a decent story arc. A familiar that became as powerful or more than its "master" and has been using him as a puppet for the greater glories of Asmodeus.
But no... do not let this happen. Just give him a new angel as a cohort and let his familiar be happy serving as it is and do not permit the spawning of epic co-miliars.