I ended up with the leadership feat.
Regardless I took Leadership at level 7 and build a Sword and board tower shield wielding fighter with cool stuff like Stand still feat and combat reflexes. All was good! Well we had a near TKP in which i lost the Cohort. After that the DM asked me not to recreate him or something like him (I know I made his life hard with my awesomeness). Also I didn’t think we needed a front liner anymore. I had come into my own with my spells and we picked up a ranger that helps share some of that responsibility.
Thinking it would be fun to make a Diviner, I tried one out as my new cohort.
I even asked for Advice on how to properly play one cause I felt I was failing at it.
As just a wizard, I'm doing fine. So far he has made me feel like we are unstoppable. I don't even use him a lot. Most battles, he just cast haste and sits back. But I have dispelled Key BBEG buffs, saved allies with Wall of stone, Neutralized Battle field control of enemy wizards. Placing Displacement on the ranger or me makes us a bastion of defense. With all this greatness, I still feel like he is boring and brings nothing to the table in a group dynamic as for as roll play goes. The back story was engineered to make him more of a stand offish guy, let others do the work, don’t stress himself mentality. This was intestinal so he wouldn’t marginalize other group members by stealing the show. I feel like I carrying around a buff bot. I would like to try and make him more interesting.
Now my DM is really cool, and when the APH came out he allow us to pick up an archtype or swap out few feats that we wanted (approved by him first). His main request is not to change who or how your character is. So I was thinking of taking Ultimate magic and seeing if I can make my cohort more fun to play. More interesting in the roll play dynamics. I was thinking of things like Eldritch Heritage Feat line. Any advice or ideas?
Feats: Improved Initiative, Silent Spell, Craft wondrous Items, Extend spell, Iron will, Improved Iron will, Craft Magic weapons and Armor, Craft Rod, Quicken Spell
Specialized school: Divination
Prohibited Schools: Necromancy and Evocation.
Has a weakness for Women and Gambling, keeps him from setting in one place to long.
Only feats I can not give up are Craft Wondrous & Improved Initiative. Truth is I have never even used the Silent, Extend, or Quicken feats.
Go for the Eldritch Heritage feats, sure, but it sounds to me like you'd get more fun out of changing your Specialization from Divination to Evocation.
Go for the Eldritch Heritage feats, sure, but it sounds to me like you'd get more fun out of changing your Specialization from Divination to Evocation.
Im not going for blowing stuff up. As stated before, I dont want to marginalize the rest of the part. I will ask about a Specialization change though. Not sure what were i would go with it.
Im trying to make the character more fun. ummm, this is hard to explain. I want to make him useful but not out shadow everyone. I think there is more potential there than just casting haste at start of every combat.
Anyone else have a suggestion?
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Take toughness, and feats to boost saves
At around level 12 my cohorts started to become paste from aoe spells and save or suck spells. She, followed by he, would sit next to the cleric, who was a stand back and cast kind of cleric, so never in harms way directly, and proceed to get dead every week.
I hear words of power are interesting and versitile, but generally not as strong as the spells they can replicate. Maybe make him a hedge wizard kind of guy? cobbling together words of power because he doesn't get that fancy city magics.
my cohorts started to become paste from aoe spells and save or suck spells
I got him Improved Iron Will, Hoping to keep him away from other effects.
I hear words of power are interesting and versitile, but generally not as strong as the spells they can replicate. Maybe make him a hedge wizard kind of guy? cobbling together words of power because he doesn't get that fancy city magics.
That could be interesting, and i will look into it. But he is a cohort and i don't want to slow down the game, and I have no clue how those words work.
I have been looking around and my best bet seems to be the Eldritch Heritage feats. Has anyone had a lot of success with these? Which ones did you like? Which have cool role-play options or just fun to play?
It sounds like your mostly looking for crunch, and I'm not much halp there, but I always like to treat cohorts a little like squires or apprentices or something, which is to say that you can take good care of them, you can be friends, but ultimately they do fill a servile role. Consider investing a few ranks in skills to reflect that. Craft and Professions are both good choices. Maybe your cohort is expected to cook meals, polish your armor, take care of your horse, or sort spell components.
Take toughness, and feats to boost saves
At around level 12 my cohorts started to become paste from aoe spells and save or suck spells. She, followed by he, would sit next to the cleric, who was a stand back and cast kind of cleric, so never in harms way directly, and proceed to get dead every week.
Really? Ideally (and in my experience), Cohorts are 2 levels back from the group they're with. They shouldn't be THAT fragile. Saves 1-2 points lower, maybe 10 fewer hit points?
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Really? Ideally (and in my experience), Cohorts are 2 levels back from the group they're with. They shouldn't be THAT fragile. Saves 1-2 points lower, maybe 10 fewer hit points?
Well it depends on how you build them. By Raw your building an npc, which means a lower star array 10 points, or 15 if your GM is nice (we do 10 point for 15 point PCs and 15 for 25 point PCs)
Then you do gear, which for an NPC is much lower then pc wealth by level.
As you adventure, you get more gear, but in our group cohorts come last, so while everyone else is rocking a cloak of resistance +3 poor cohort has only a +1.
So by the time your ina high at tier like level 10, the cohort probably has one good save if he is playing a class who benefits from high dex/wis but otherwise low saves and low hp as compared to the heroes. So when coupled with a d6 based class it is exasperated.
For that matter, I'd say I almost always give my characters toughness, with the exception of my 300hp barbarian.
It sounds like your mostly looking for crunch, and I'm not much help there, but I always like to treat cohorts a little like squires or apprentices or something, which is to say that you can take good care of them, you can be friends, but ultimately they do fill a servile role. Consider investing a few ranks in skills to reflect that. Craft and Professions are both good choices.
Crunch? Or Crutch? If it’s Crutch then I don't think I'm explaining my point. I enjoy what my wizard cohort brings to the table. If I play him to his full potential then I feel like I would marginalize other members. So I tried to cast buff spells and battlefield control and not steal the lime light. Problem is most of the time he cast Haste and just sits back rest of combat (unless needed to save someone). I was thinking of a minor rework (which even if ended in loss of power I'm ok with) that would allow him to be more involved with lesser effect. Eldritch Heritage feats would allow me to get 1st level powers that might be fun to use.
So my original Request for Advice was something along the lines of "What Eldritch Heritage would be fun, or anyone know of another way I could go to make 12 level wizard cohort fun while not stealing the show."
Sorry if I wasn’t really clear.
Also on the Crutch thing, my group has horrible combat tactics. Every session we have someone with a near death experience. I think I’m the only exception to this. My war cleric never has come close. Two good saves, lots of HP, Heal spells if needed, wearing plate, he is just beastly.