When the low templar makes his damnation/redemption choice, he gains a planar cohort appropriate to his actual alignment, gained as if he had taken the Leadership feat. This planar cohort appears to him and pledges her loyalty to the low templar immediately. If the cohort perishes, the low templar must wait a week before calling upon a replacement. If the low templar has the Leadership feat, he gains a +1 bonus to his Leadership score. If he replaces his cohort gained from the leadership feat with the planar cohort, the maximum level equivalent for his planar cohort equals the templar’s class level –1, rather than –2.
Okay, so this sounds neat but it's vague as hell. What exactly is a planar cohort? Are the talking about an extraplanar creature? Is it a creature from any plane other than the material as long as it matches alignment?
Also, very few of the examples of monstrous cohorts are extraplanar. How do I judge what the planar cohort's appropriate level equivalent is? Neither CR nor HD are appropriate measures going by the example monstrous cohorts.
Has anyone played this PrC? Any examples of cohorts picked or how this was handled?
Anyone have a better way of judging monstrous cohort level?
I have posed the question myself before. I am still wondering...
It means you can pick a cohort, who is some sort of outer plannar being.
So if you are say ranger 5/low templar 10 (for lvl 15) Say you can then ask for an extra planar creature to serve you as a cohort. So if your Chaotic Evil You could have a succubus with class levels as your follower.
What the exact power level is is up to your Dm really, the rules for deciding the CR of monsters with class levels and applying them an appropriate PC power level is not an exact science.
But It is supposed to be the CR of the monster. So if your level 15 and would get a Cohort at character level -2 Your Cohort would be character level 13.
What a character level 13 plannar cohort is is up to your Dm because what class levels you apply to them affects their power level alot. a Succubus with 7 levels of wizard as an evokation specialist is alot weaker than one with 7 levels of the Fae bloodline or antipaladin.
So in sort, If you have a char who is lvl 10 low templar, work it out with your Dm.
You can check the Monster Cohorts section of the PRD for a list, and simply select an appropriate one. It can advance with class levels, or 'evolve' I suppose.