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I don't generally find that cohorts work well as action economy powerhouses. Unless the PC in question pumped the snot out of their Leadership score, cohorts tend to be a lot squishier than their heroes. Their stats are lower--often much lower--and the PC often can't afford to keep the cohort's gear up to the standards of CR-relevant combats. The monstrous cohorts are often even sadder, as most don't come with any equipment at all and are treated as much higher level for score requirements than one would expect from a glance at their stat block. (Remember the thread complaining about how a unicorn cohort wasn't worth the feat?) And once cohorts start getting killed because the PC threw them too far into the deep end of the combat pool, their Leadership score drops, and suddenly those feat retraining rules are looking pretty good.
No, I'd rather recruit a cohort who knows how to keep out of the crossfire than a cohort who gives me extra actions. Gimme a craft monkey any day. Wealth by level concerns? Hand out less loot until it balances out. Mostly, I'd want a helper so that at higher levels, maybe we could actually craft something worthwhile without it taking months or even years. Alternately, it's nice to have a sidekick or an apprentice for roleplaying and general utility purposes.
The problem I have with it is that it usually increases complexity for little reward. Hear me out, please. No matter what you do, your cohort is going to be at least two levels beneath you. If you're 7th, it will be 5th. 14, it will be 12. It may not sound like much of a difference, but it's quite significant in play. As soon as the opposition is above your party level, it will have at least three levels/CRs on your cohort. That is right at the limit for where they really don't have much power to influence the encounter. And that's without counting the extra equipment your cohort is going to need to be effective. Note that this is quite intentional: The power gained from taking the feat should match that of taking some other feat.
So, you really have three options for your cohort (if you get to build it): You can make it über-specialized for some facet of combat, like a damage-dealing barbarian or something. Or, you can make it a character focusing on doing something that generally improves combat, in particular buffing or healing. Or, finally, you can make a character that doesn't even enter combat, but crafts items or contributes to your character's spellbook with the spells it gains from leveling.
Neither of these is satisfactory. The first will be a character that can contribute to combat in some few situations, mostly against weaker enemies that you could ROFLSTOMP anyway. The second will be dead the second an enemy focuses on them. The third is pure, unadulterated munchkinism.
If you also add in mythic rules or in some other way raise the power level of the group, you are leaving what cohorts can do far behind in the dust.
I don't have an easy solution. It seems to me that Leadership SHOULD be able to work, and contribute to the experience, but that doesn't seem to be the case as it stands.
Is that based on personal experience? It sounds like the OP has been doing this for a while and making it work. A level 12 buffing cleric cohort isn't going to be much easier to kill than a level 14 character.
But healing and buffing can be done by anyone. There is no save DCs involved, no SR to beat, nothing. It feels like you're bringing someone who really shouldn't be in the fights you intend to pick, just to free up spell slots for the leader. I think that's a sorry way to handle something that should (and could) be so much more. YMMV, of course.
One of the problems with Leadership is that you can just blow your nose when you reach Level 7 and get it. It should have some prerequisites that are actually logically and thematically related, and the fix proposed in a couple of posts earlier to have the Cohort come from the NPC pool rather than being conjured seems reasonable.
Question for those of you who DON'T allow it: What do you do with Classes/Prestige Classes that award Leadership as a Class Feature, or have a Class Feature that modifies Leadership? I'm thinking of Cleric with the Leadership or Nobility Domain or Noble Scion for the former, and Battle Herald for the latter.
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Question for those of you who DON'T allow it: What do you do with Classes/Prestige Classes that award Leadership as a Class Feature, or have a Class Feature that modifies Leadership? I'm thinking of Cleric with the Leadership or Nobility Domain or Noble Scion for the former, and Battle Herald for the latter.
If it came up, I would say pick a different, thematically-appropriate feat.
But I don't see it as a problem that would come up, since the examples there would generally be regarded as NPC class options, by most players.GMs are banning Leadership in their games due to bad experiences, with players who only want a pet crafter to sit crouched in the dark, chained to a bench, making them magic items, or a docile slave to take a beating for them.
Very few players are interested in taking responsibility for a unit of level 1 or 2 warriors, most of whom are utterly unsuited for the kind of activities that PCs of level 7+ are expected to complete.
The name 'Battle Herald' pretty much implies you will be stood around for hours, on the open plain, waiting for an order to march to another spot, and sit staring at your opposite numbers, in an interminable game of chicken, until one side cracks.
That would be a complete waste of a PC's time.
PCs don't take part in large-scale land battles; they are the SWAT teams, the Special Ops, the Seal Team Six, of their nation or faction, and it's their job to delve into places normal soldiers couldn't survive, and take down threats few people dare face.
"Why have we been saddled with a dozen losers, who can't sneak, can't spot, can't heal, can't buff, can't fly, can't hit anything, can't deal damage even if they do hit,...who are these waste of skin, these oxygen thieves, why are they here, why do they even exist? Why are we being forced to babysit them?"
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I'd almost like to see Leadership baked into the class progressions, like in 1st edition. That way you could give martials nice things, while denying same to the wizards and sorcerers. I mean, familiars and animal companions and eidolons are already hard-wired into the classes, so why not heralds and armies, too?
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That would work even better, if there were a separation of the gold economy and the magical crafting economy.
Players want to see piles of gold, and GMs want to give it out, because it's a major trope of the genre.
The dragon making a bed on his horde, the heist of the enemy army's pay chest...
But it's a problem, when that gold isn't channeled back into civilisation, but is locked into portable murder gear.
NPCs are constantly shown spending their money on mansions, keeps, lairs (which inevitably fail to protect them), buying public favour with libraries, universities, aqueducts, and other public works, blowing it on frivolities such as paintings and statuary...
PCs? "Mmmnuuuuh. Me want magic kill-stick."
Players begin with honest goals, but these are trampled in the dust as the campaign goes on, and anyone who doesn't spend every last copper on death-dealing or invulnerability is seen as a chump who can't do the math.
"Sure, we started this campaign, to help the orphans of Cauldron, but now? F*** 'em. I need another plus."
When I was a kid, playing B/X, then AD&D 1st Ed, there was no assumption that PCs could buy any magical gear. What you found was what you got. End of.
As a result, we would plan how to spend our gold on establishing our legacy. Calculating how many bricks and labourer-hours we'd need, to complete the walls of the new town we'd carved out of a wilderness hex.
Debating which buildings should take priority in this monument to our badassness. Figuring out the sweet spot of hireling wages vs typical monthly loot we could shake out of the nearby orcs.
It was a better game, for having this change of focus, and I miss it.
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How are the players able to be increasingly careful with them, if you control the cohorts in and out of combat?
If the cohorts (run by you) are easy pickings by the clever villains (also run by you), wouldn't that just mean that the cohorts end up being left behind, as the only available option by the players to keep them alive?
That cohorts are not directly controlled by the PCs does not mean they won't follow orders to the best of their ability. I don't run mindless and/or suicidal cohorts just like I don't run those kinds of villains (unless the situation calls for it). Cohorts with sensible orders can keep themselves alive most of the time. Cohorts who expose themselves in combat are fair targets, same as familiars, pets and all other manner of assorted entourage.
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My dissatisfaction with leadership is not all encompassing and prohibitive. But I do have some specific issues with it depending upon the group.
1) Time in combat. We already have several players that have difficulty keeping track of what their PC can do and what the effects are. Ok, I've got a +1 from his bless, then blessing of fervor with the +1 to hit, I drank a potion of bulls strength but it only gives me a +1 to hit and +2 to damage because I have the belt, etc... I already get to spend way too much time watching people do math. I don't want to double it.
2) Party size. We sometimes have 6 players with PC's at the table. Especially indoors or underground we have issues with some not being able to get into the fight. You make it 12 characters and a lot of people may spend time doing nothing.
3) Fragility. Sometimes I find it difficult to make an encounter that will challenge 12 characters that are up to level 10 without just wiping out the characters that might be as low 6-7.
4) Nonsensical builds. Some of the builds that players want only make sense within the context of it being his particular follower. The character is very nearly non-functional otherwise. It doesn't make sense that someone would go into an incredibly lethal profession the only work on skills that are useful to one particular teacher. With anyone else he will die in his profession.
5) Magic item factory. This one kinda bugs me. I was at a group for a short while where 3 of the 5 cohorts were basically sweatshop slave workers.
On the other hand I do allow them sometimes. When the group was small because people moved, they got a front line tank cohort.
The group currently has a cohort samurai/expert that is their ship captain (with a secondary skill set of lawyer). They wanted that so they could have someone they trust taking care of that rather key post. But the cohort does not normally adventure with them.
That would work even better, if there were a separation of the gold economy and the magical crafting economy.
Players want to see piles of gold, and GMs want to give it out, because it's a major trope of the genre.
The dragon making a bed on his horde, the heist of the enemy army's pay chest...
But it's a problem, when that gold isn't channeled back into civilisation, but is locked into portable murder gear.NPCs are constantly shown spending their money on mansions, keeps, lairs (which inevitably fail to protect them), buying public favour with libraries, universities, aqueducts, and other public works, blowing it on frivolities such as paintings and statuary...
PCs? "Mmmnuuuuh. Me want magic kill-stick."
Players begin with honest goals, but these are trampled in the dust as the campaign goes on, and anyone who doesn't spend every last copper on death-dealing or invulnerability is seen as a chump who can't do the math.
"Sure, we started this campaign, to help the orphans of Cauldron, but now? F*** 'em. I need another plus."
When I was a kid, playing B/X, then AD&D 1st Ed, there was no assumption that PCs could buy any magical gear. What you found was what you got. End of.
As a result, we would plan how to spend our gold on establishing our legacy. Calculating how many bricks and labourer-hours we'd need, to complete the walls of the new town we'd carved out of a wilderness hex.
Debating which buildings should take priority in this monument to our badassness. Figuring out the sweet spot of hireling wages vs typical monthly loot we could shake out of the nearby orcs.It was a better game, for having this change of focus, and I miss it.
Word.
All of which is why going back to the times when PCs couldn't make or buy magic items is a good idea. This also strips a huge amount of "build"-style character optimization out of the game (although this can have unintended consequences; I've had to remove Overland Flight, for example, because if I didn't arcane casters would be the only ones who could fly on command).
That would work even better, if there were a separation of the gold economy and the magical crafting economy.
Players want to see piles of gold, and GMs want to give it out, because it's a major trope of the genre.
The dragon making a bed on his horde, the heist of the enemy army's pay chest...
But it's a problem, when that gold isn't channeled back into civilisation, but is locked into portable murder gear.NPCs are constantly shown spending their money on mansions, keeps, lairs (which inevitably fail to protect them), buying public favour with libraries, universities, aqueducts, and other public works, blowing it on frivolities such as paintings and statuary...
PCs? "Mmmnuuuuh. Me want magic kill-stick."
Players begin with honest goals, but these are trampled in the dust as the campaign goes on, and anyone who doesn't spend every last copper on death-dealing or invulnerability is seen as a chump who can't do the math.
"Sure, we started this campaign, to help the orphans of Cauldron, but now? F*** 'em. I need another plus."
When I was a kid, playing B/X, then AD&D 1st Ed, there was no assumption that PCs could buy any magical gear. What you found was what you got. End of.
As a result, we would plan how to spend our gold on establishing our legacy. Calculating how many bricks and labourer-hours we'd need, to complete the walls of the new town we'd carved out of a wilderness hex.
Debating which buildings should take priority in this monument to our badassness. Figuring out the sweet spot of hireling wages vs typical monthly loot we could shake out of the nearby orcs.It was a better game, for having this change of focus, and I miss it.
It's sad, really. Ever crafter character I've ever played has always used their crafting for the opposite.
Again, I can easily see how it comes out this way for other people.
It also strikes me as hilariously backwards.
But I do like that folk can play the game their way.
(Incidentally, the number of times it's been suggested that I'm a communist, when, in fact, I know first hand how horridly that worked out for everyone, is pretty hilarious. Communalist... maybe. To an extent. You still better do your daggum work, though, son, because, free food or not, your life will waste away otherwise.)
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I'd almost like to see Leadership baked into the class progressions, like in 1st edition. That way you could give martials nice things, while denying same to the wizards and sorcerers. I mean, familiars and animal companions and eidolons are already hard-wired into the classes, so why not heralds and armies, too?
I think something like that would work great for an MMO, but adding too many people to combats just tends to slow things to a crawl for tabletop.
(I do think it'd be awesome for an MMO style gameplay. Let the magic users be more powerful starting mid levels, but the martials gain an elite squadren of followers. It'd also allow more obvious rock-scissors-paper. AOE wiz trumps martial groups, melee magic users trump AOE wiz, and martial groups trump melee magic users by overwhelmning them.)
I think something like that would work great for an MMO, but adding too many people to combats just tends to slow things to a crawl for tabletop.
It seemed to work out pretty well in AD&D. Fighter 9th level class feature: you get an entire army.
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I think something like that would work great for an MMO, but adding too many people to combats just tends to slow things to a crawl for tabletop.It seemed to work out pretty well in AD&D. Fighter 9th level class feature: you get an entire army.
*shrug* I'll take your word on it - before my time.
However, I'm guessing that you didn't usually have said entire army fighting with you at any given time.
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 8
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I know this complaint is old hat, but it's been true for me:
I work and go to school full time. I run Paizo APs/modules for groups of 4-5 because I can run them straight out of the book with very little adjustment. I have to make tweaks here and there, sure, but for the most part the adventures just work.
Doubling the number of characters via leadership makes extra work for me. I have to re-balance encounters, which eats up my limited time. Sure, sometimes it's as simple as adding more of the same monster, but that doesn't always work (plus, I usually end up needing more pawns of a monster than I have, and that annoys me :D).
So unless we're short players, I say no to leadership.
It seemed to work out pretty well in AD&D. Fighter 9th level class feature: you get an entire army.
Did it work out well, though? I don't remember anyone ever bringing an entire army into the dungeon with him.
Did it work out well, though? I don't remember anyone ever bringing an entire army into the dungeon with him.
That's how Robilar got through the Tomb of Horrors. Before MY time, even.
I think something like that would work great for an MMO, but adding too many people to combats just tends to slow things to a crawl for tabletop.It seemed to work out pretty well in AD&D. Fighter 9th level class feature: you get an entire army.*shrug* I'll take your word on it - before my time.
However, I'm guessing that you didn't usually have said entire army fighting with you at any given time.
Rarely. Some players would try to take the couple highest level guys with them. If you were very careful you could keep them alive. But if you're that careful with them, are they really contributing all that much? Not sure.
But there were times when you could make use of them. I remember once where we had 3 separate small armies from 3 characters. We had some rings that gave easy communication. Then the wizard would teleport us to whichever army the opposition started to mass against.
We would then charge the leadership of said opposition army or attack the anti-party that was set against them. So our armies were substantially more effective than expected since we could risk them a bit more and save them when in legit danger. And sometimes we would be fighting alongside to save one of the army groups.
Other GM's would just say things like your city has a much lower crime rate, few bandits in the surrounding countryside, and is less likely to be on an invasion path since your followers just quadrupled the number of armed locals. So it will grow from immigrants a bit faster since it is known to be safer. But unless you supplement the income, taxes will have to be raised a bunch to pay for that many armed retainers.
Other groups wouldn't make much direct use of their army, but would use it for things like guarding the camp site and entrance when in a dungeon so as to not be surprised/trapped by other returning creatures.
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I'd always make sure my army had carrier pigeons, and/or a lieutenant with a fast horse and horseshoes of the zephyr. Then I could set up various posts, and use them to do other stuff all over the place while I was adventuring. Yeah, it's still not as good as sending and teleport, but having a hundred or so guys with horses and/or ships can really give you reach beyond an immediate bowshot, which is what the fighter really needs. In short, I'd use the army so that, when we weren't fighting, I could still do useful stuff and not have to defer everything to the casters. The cool thing about it was that the wizard could only hire part-time mercenaries with no particular loyalty, and the ranger would only get some random bears and stuff. Only the fighter would have a mobile field-ready army (the cleric would get troops, too, but they'd mostly be religious guys attached to his church).
Similarly, the thief would eventually get a thieves guild, so he could collect revenue and information from all over town -- that also gave him something to do when he wasn't on trap patrol in a dungeon.
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Did it work out well, though? I don't remember anyone ever bringing an entire army into the dungeon with him.That's how Robilar got through the Tomb of Horrors. Before MY time, even.
The minimal research I did suggests he had an 'army' of five hirelings, had to kill one to motivate the others to proceed, and the remaining four all died in the first corridor.
The minimal research I did suggests he had an 'army' of five hirelings, had to kill one to motivate the others to proceed, and the remaining four all died in the first corridor.
I'd been led to understand he brought in more orcs and just kept prodding them ahead until the traps were cleared. Dunno; I wasn't there.
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Trust me, Leadership under my rules is still a powerful feat. Having a 7th level cohort as an 11th level character is still worth a feat because 7th level characters are really powerful, but it is no longer a game/action economy-breaking feat.
I guess the big difference is I don't see it as a broken feat so much as part of character advancement which has a token feat ost attached. I have a hard time imagining why people would want to play without cohorts (unless they would bring your party size above 10-12 and you're concerned with how long combat would take - in which case I would still probably suggest steps besides banning it or nerfing it, such as time limits on turns).
It does nip the super-pets in the bud, which is intended, though Paladins can still get their über mounts the old fashioned way, through Divine Bond. Do you really think the privilege of riding a dragon into combat should be available for purchase through a single feat? If your answer to that question is "yes", then we have serious philosophical differences, and should just leave it at that.
Well, if you're going to ride a dragon into combat, you're likely also taking the mounted combat feats, but yeah, I'm fine with only having a token cost that tells me as GM says "Hey, I'd like to have a second character, who is less effective than my main character, either to round out party weaknesses or to do cool stuff like ride a dragon." They're adding an additional (weaker) party member, but without adding another voice to try to talk over when I need to get their attention. It's like adding another player, except less game derailing and noise.
This thread has shown me just how generous I am with Leadership. I go out of my way to give max benefit of it for the PCs and then some.
Unless the PC in question pumped the snot out of their Leadership score, cohorts tend to be a lot squishier than their heroes.
Yeah, I tend to be generous with the leadership modifiers. They usually end up getting basically all of the reputation bonuses, and they usually have a base of operations early on which they keep coming back to. I run many games centered on a single interesting location (like Waterdeep). It's true that you definitely want to keep your Cohort's level up to par. If you can hit all of the circumstance modifiers for it (or you're a CHA based class) it's not so hard to keep up.
Their stats are lower--often much lower--and the PC often can't afford to keep the cohort's gear up to the standards of CR-relevant combats.
The NPC is a party member right? not just an animal companion? I count it as another character when I make encounters, so I think it should have player WBL and get an even share of treasure.
The monstrous cohorts are often even sadder, as most don't come with any equipment at all and are treated as much higher level for score requirements than one would expect from a glance at their stat block. (Remember the thread complaining about how a unicorn cohort wasn't worth the feat?)
I've never paid much attention to that list, and pay more attention to the monster's CR (with some attention given to "is this monster only designed to withstand a single fight, or could it contribute its level to the 4-6 a day I'll be throwing at them?" and "does this monster have any highly abusable abilities I should keep out of the hands of players?".
And once cohorts start getting killed because the PC threw them too far into the deep end of the combat pool, their Leadership score drops, and suddenly those feat retraining rules are looking pretty good.
I can see that if your leadership score wasn't very good, ouch.
No, I'd rather recruit a cohort who knows how to keep out of the crossfire than a cohort who gives me extra actions. Gimme a craft monkey any day. Wealth by level concerns? Hand out less loot until it balances out. Mostly, I'd want a helper so that at higher levels, maybe we could actually craft something worthwhile without it taking months or even years. Alternately, it's nice to have a sidekick or an apprentice for roleplaying and general utility purposes.
With the experiences you've described, I can see why.
The problem I have with it is that it usually increases complexity for little reward. Hear me out, please. No matter what you do, your cohort is going to be at least two levels beneath you. If you're 7th, it will be 5th. 14, it will be 12. It may not sound like much of a difference, but it's quite significant in play. As soon as the opposition is above your party level, it will have at least three levels/CRs on your cohort. That is right at the limit for where they really don't have much power to influence the encounter. And that's without counting the extra equipment your cohort is going to need to be effective. Note that this is quite intentional: The power gained from taking the feat should match that of taking some other feat.
Hmm.
So, you really have three options for your cohort (if you get to build it): You can make it über-specialized for some facet of combat, like a damage-dealing barbarian or something. Or, you can make it a character focusing on doing something that generally improves combat, in particular buffing or healing. Or, finally, you can make a character that doesn't even enter combat, but crafts items or contributes to your character's spellbook with the spells it gains from leveling.
Hmmm.
Neither of these is satisfactory. The first will be a character that can contribute to combat in some few situations, mostly against weaker enemies that you could ROFLSTOMP anyway. The second will be dead the second an enemy focuses on them. The third is pure, unadulterated munchkinism.
Hmmmm.
If you also add in mythic rules or in some other way raise the power level of the group, you are leaving what cohorts can do far behind in the dust.
If I were using Mythic Rules, I'd be giving those cohorts mythic ranks as well, but I see your point. If someone didn't do that, and were using mythic rules (I've not yet had the chance to see mythic rules in play), that would make cohorts rather a waste of space, wouldn't it.
I don't have an easy solution. It seems to me that Leadership SHOULD be able to work, and contribute to the experience, but that doesn't seem to be the case as it stands.
Yeah, I'm convinced that leadership could use some adjustments; and up until recent comments I hadn't realized just how much better leadership tends to be in our games than most, and a houserule that I use that I had forgotten was even a houserule.
1. Leadership score will be based on your level +6, not your CHA.
2. Your leadership score will only affect followers, your cohort will just always be your level -1.
3. You build your own cohort, subject to GM approval.
4. You control your cohort in combat, but the GM can veto/commandeer control if the cohort starts acting "out of character" while under your control.
5. The cohort has PC WBL, not NPC WBL.
6. Leadership adds another party member to the party. As I will be adding more monsters (and treasure) to encounters, the new party member will take its own share of that treasure just like any PC would.
5. If awarding mythic ranks to the PCs, award them to the cohorts as well.
6. Monstrous cohorts (who will also have PC WBL) will have their level based on their CR. And the GM may have to veto some monsters or replace some abilities if he is not okay with them being regularly accessible to PCs *(Such as an Efreet's WISH ability)
That would work even better, if there were a separation of the gold economy and the magical crafting economy.
Players want to see piles of gold, and GMs want to give it out, because it's a major trope of the genre.
The dragon making a bed on his horde, the heist of the enemy army's pay chest...
But it's a problem, when that gold isn't channeled back into civilisation, but is locked into portable murder gear.NPCs are constantly shown spending their money on mansions, keeps, lairs (which inevitably fail to protect them), buying public favour with libraries, universities, aqueducts, and other public works, blowing it on frivolities such as paintings and statuary...
PCs? "Mmmnuuuuh. Me want magic kill-stick."
True. I played with this situation mostly houseruled away in my last campaign. The game was definitely better for it. The PCs still paid gold for potions and wands (disposable items) though, but they spent much of their wealth on other stuff.
"Sure, we started this campaign, to help the orphans of Cauldron, but now? F*** 'em. I need another plus."
It is currently the nature of the game.
When I was a kid, playing B/X, then AD&D 1st Ed, there was no assumption that PCs could buy any magical gear. What you found was what you got. End of.
As a result, we would plan how to spend our gold on establishing our legacy. Calculating how many bricks and labourer-hours we'd need, to complete the walls of the new town we'd carved out of a wilderness hex.
Debating which buildings should take priority in this monument to our badassness. Figuring out the sweet spot of hireling wages vs typical monthly loot we could shake out of the nearby orcs.It was a better game, for having this change of focus, and I miss it.
I agree, that works out to be more fun, but if the monsters are designed around the you having +X weapons this level, most players are going to want those +X weapons. If you want them to spend their money elsewhere, disconnect character power from "How Much Money Have I Poured Into Equipment". It also won't be nearly as big a deal if the fighter loses his sword. He can always just buy a new masterwork sword for a couple hundred gold. A drop in the bucket.
so, leadership is hotly contested (as far as i can see).
but what of feats like torchbearer or squire? and what of animal ally? are they in a similar boat?
also personally: i find that leadership isn't broken if managed properly--keep your hordes of mooks elsewhere for support/information/use in mass combat, and your cohorts used to fill in party gaps and such.
as for crafters, i allow them for the sake of party headache removal (should i spend this money on getting a better weapon or helping rebuild this monastery?), a well as giving players various moneysinks that they can get peripheral benefits from--up-and-coming businesses that need investment to start up, experimental scientists/engineers who provide the party with prototypes of useful tings (airships being a nice one), building/maintaining your own keep/guild base/obsidian doomfortress/etc.
spending money on the world gets them more fame, information networks, and people generally more willing to aid the party.
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I have a hard time imagining why people would want to play without cohorts
Maybe they enjoy the comparatively fast pace of a three or four character party. Maybe they like the dynamics of trying to cope with every possible situation without having so many characters that every useful skill and power is available at all times. Maybe they have poor system mastery and can barely keep track of one character, let alone two. Maybe their role-playing style requires them to get into the mindset of their PC's personality as they play, and doing that for more than one character is confusing.
(This question makes me think of the tactical multi-character roguelike Windows RPG I've been writing. I can never decide how many characters I should let the player control at any one time. I'm currently trying 'varying, but up to 8'.)
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I've never had a problem with animal ally (add in boon companion to bring it's level up.)
I also allow the "Acquire Familiar", a homebrewed feat based on obtain familiar(3.5), but counting your chaacter level instead of your class level (like Animal Ally does) and improved familiar feats, and have had no problem with either of those.
Torchbearer and Squire don't look terribly useful on their own. I like them as a way to get leadership a couple levels early and grow into the leadership feat, but that's about all they're good for. Maybe to give up a feat before you qualify for something you actually qualify for a feat you actually want.
Giving the players stuff besides gear to spend money on is good, so long as you're not taking away their WBL. If you give cheap crafters/gear to shore up that difference, I can see that working out okay. They could theoretically spend 2/3 of their WBL on those story things, which is also good.
And of course, who doesn't love when the party has an airship.
Probably the strongest feat or one them anyway.
The only 2 issues i can see with are:
1) Too many party members already.
I find that in groups of 5 or more it can already become tricky , but deppends on the players you have also. Also one must consider that in those 5 atleast one will probably have a familiar/AC/Eidolon. Then again , i quite enjoy taking time doing things that are not related to the plot sometimes which ofc becomes a bigger issue the more players there are.
2) Min-max shenanigan
Being such a powerful and open feat it allows for some "questionable" uses. Which leads to so many of the experiences people describe here on this thread.
As long as the table isnt overflowing with players/if the players know the game well and thus dont take forever to take their actions/decisions and so on, which would become far worse giving them a second char to care about and the players use the feat in a reasonable manner , it is should be fine really.
As an aside, the reason you would take Monstrous Mount over Leadership is that you want said animal to actually progress as an animal companion / cavalier mount. Generally speaking, advancing monsters as cohorts is a little bit murky and more difficult for new / intermediate players than simply taking a feat that adds options to a well-understood class feature.
Plus there are spells, abilities, and special effects that specifically work with animal companions and mounts. A good example is the hunter class's hunter tactics, which allows the hunter grant her animal companion all of her teamwork feats. If took a griffon or whatever as a cohort, she wouldn't be able to share her teamwork feats with her mount, and riding your teamwork buddy is SO convenient for a martial character.
I agree completely. I was laughing at the idea that action economy was only an advantage if it was an "5-minute workday" tool. I reject that notion on its face.Except that because of those cohorts, you should have improved action economy to contend with from your enemies as well.Action economy only matters if your PCs can shoot through resources like crazy without having to worry about running out of them (either in that day's events because they're apparently sleeping after every fight, or in general because their expensive wands of haste and whatnot can be replaced).
But I do end up in a lot of wealth-starved games.
Ha, hahaha. No, action economy matters if you want to be able to buff and fight or just fight. Action economy matters if you want to move or full attack. Action economy matters if you want to kill the bad guy before he kills you or if you want to let you friend bleed out.
Cohorts can help with all of those without burning extra resources.
Buff and fight: costs money or burns up all my spells in fight 1, leaving nothing for fights 2-7. Move or full attack...how does Imp. familiar or cohort do that? Mounts which don't fit in the dungeon? Kill the baddie before he kills me? This is a general question of which action economy is only one specific part.
I mean maybe I and the party and the GM are all just playing the game completely wrong, but that's my personal experience.
edit: Also, appeals to nostalgia are a trigger.
Edit 2: The game isn't too bad for power disparity, because what treasure we do find is always geared for martials. We have soooo many magic axes. We could start our own metal band.
Because if you are 7th level then your cohort is 5th level, so they get resources too. Bardic performance is something that would cost you a standard action or otherwise go unused all day. Not for a cohort. Haste as a spell will cost you a standard action or go unused all day. Not for a cohort.
As for move/full attack, I assume wizards and clerics still cast spells in your games? Cohorts can cast BF control spells allowing party members time to move in and full-round next turn. Time bought is the same as time gained in the action economy. Even if they just stand infront of you and read an action to trip anything that approaches you they buy you action economy, and possibly a nice prone bonus.
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The NPC is a party member right? not just an animal companion? I count it as another character when I make encounters...
Are you modifying your encounters after a PC takes Leadership by adding creatures? If so, it sounds like you're balancing Leadership by having enemies also take Leadership (indirectly, not necessarily through a feat). If everyone needs to take the same option to stay on par with the power level, I think there are issues with game design around said option. I think that's a 'big deal' as per the thread title.
I am adding creatures, though as I've also determined/realized/stated in this thread; the way I run Leadership (houserules I've used so long I forgot it was houserules) makes it notably more powerful than RAW (and is much closer to straight up adding an additional player to the group) - (and I actually intend to make it *CLOSER* to just adding an additional player to the group, rather than farther from it). If I were running it RAW, I might not need to modify said encounters, because as some others have pointed out, RAW, it's really hard to have said NPC actually keep up enough in level such that they can be much help any time you actually need it.
I think a single feat choice should not force the GM to alter their encounters. I've had players with Leadership in my games. That one feat forced me to alter my encounters.
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Personally i only allow NPC classes and listed monsters with racial hit dice for leadership. I has worked really well
The potential is silly, from crafting to getting a summoner with a summoner cohort... how silly would that be?
Are unlisted monsters ALL that bad? Or do you just not want to run the risk of missing some totally broken combo/critter?
/idly curious
My experience has been that when I allow unlisted monsters, (without the arbitrary level increases that Leadership usually takes), aside from if they have something crazy broken like wish, AND give them the same WBL I'd give a humanoid, they tend to be around the same power level as a PC of that same level (or less). I used to be concerned that they would be too powerful, but these days, I tend to be more on the lookout for them not having enough X/day abilities to have a meaningful number of choices for several fights/day than I am concerned that they will be too powerful.
That said, if you allow access to high DPR monstrous races at lower levels, sometimes they outshine the PCs when given appropriate gear. For instance, a minotaur with a greatsword can be pretty impressive, particularly at low levels.
I also frequently have allowed monsters to be played as PCs, and in many cases that hasn't been a problem either. Of course, in that case, you can't simply allow the Minotaur with several HD to be played along a group of 1st level adventurers and expect it to work out well. That might take some clever GM houseruling.
But to allow a CR 8 monster as a level 8 cohort? More often than not it runs fine (read: about the same as an NPC with the same number of levels and WBL) right out of the box.
The way I see it, around level 7, the PCs get to build/recruit a bunch of supporting characters to round out the cast, so to speak, and cover any obvious weaknesses the party has, and I as GM, just take into account that the party now consists of 4 level 7 characters and 4 level 5 characters when I determine the difficulty of the encounters to throw at them.
I've not had it break my campaigns, or anything like that, it's not like they're getting unlimited wishes or any such shenanigans, they've just recruited a few more PCs. So now I get to throw scarier crap at them. Maybe they get to take on a dragon at a lower level. Maybe a small group of enemies is now a large group. Maybe I raise the levels of some badass NPCs, to make them extra scary, because now the players won't all just die.
So why does leadership seem to be so upsetting to some people?
The problem is in your OP: more headache for the GM and generally slower game play. If your group plays 1/week or more, this is not such a big loss. When you play once, maybe twice a month slow campaign progression is a real pain in the rear. Adding 5 to your group's EPL is not often welcomed for GMs that lack an overabundance of spare time, especially if they weren't expecting a quartet of cohorts.
Now cohorts that are HackMaster toadies ... good times for GMs with the patience. ^____^
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Hmm;
My experience gaming is either that we game 1/week for 8-10 hours, or we game 1/month, in a 3 day period (with most players running a game and playing in several), for 40 hours.
I'm going to go ahead and assume a marathon weekend 1/month is not something most people manage. :P
Of course, in our current gaming group we play several different games (it's been on a small hiatus) and at the moment none of those games are pathfinder. We had 2 pathfinder games, but one got dropped for Mutants and Masterminds 3, and one got dropped for Edge of the Empire. Then there's a Rolemaster Game, a Shadowrun 5 Game, and a Pokemon Tabletop United Game. We use Magic the Gathering to fill any holes in the gaming weekend.
My current game is once every two weeks for about five hours. And there are seven PCs if everyone turns up. Probably a good example of a game where Leadership should be banned.
My current game is once every two weeks for about five hours. And there are seven PCs if everyone turns up. Probably a good example of a game where Leadership should be banned.
Ayup. :)
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The cohort was a human Alchemist. Just vanilla Alchemist. Two levels lower than the PCs, as per Leadership rules. But man, did the cohort contribute in battle. Cohort was Alchemist, so could buff himself to competency (Very good AC and saves, comparable to other PCs), and since his attack-method was bombs (read: touch attacks), he would reliably do meaningful damage every encounter. He would hit when other PCs would miss. Once he got Fast Bombs, he would really dish out damage every round. He stopped contributing only when he ran out of bombs, and that was usually after a few encounters meant for the PCs were destroyed by the cohort.
Alchemist with touch attacks was the reason why.
Touch AC doesn't scale. There are occasional outliers that have high touch ACs (the highest I've seen is 26), but basically, if you use touch attacks and can reliably hit a touch AC of 13, you can reliably hit the vast majority of monsters all the way up to CR 25.
Attacking touch AC is a good way to make you numbers relatively unimportant. Once you can reliably hit that AC of 13, you're good for the rest of the game, then it's just a matter of increasing your damage output.
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My current game is once every two weeks for about five hours. And there are seven PCs if everyone turns up. Probably a good example of a game where Leadership should be banned.
In such a scenario I might even ban cohorts.
But seriously man, you should try to game more often, or longer, or both. Your life will be much better for it. :D
Two different 10 hour games a week are what I've grown accustomed to; one as GM and one as the player. I haven't had that in a year, but believe me, getting it again is definitely a goal.
Schedules are what they are. I could rearrange my life to make more room for a game, but getting seven other people to do it?
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@voideternal: I don't think said lower-level cohort is all that likely to die in the first round. That said, I wouldn't be all that surprised if they missed far more often due to lower BAB and lower weapon enhancements, and got hit more often due to lower armor enhancements. Maybe not so much in the average difficulty fights, but any time you come up against tough opponents, for sure. They're already going to be above your CR, which means they will be harder to hit, and their saves will be higher. Meanwhile, your cohort is missing them more often/ his save DCs are more often not good enough to get through and hit the enemy. As a result, his contributions are greatly diminished.
And if he's up in front (like a barbarian) that lower AC and lower hit point pool is definitely going to increase his odds of dying. Likely not the first round; but still.
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The potential is silly, from crafting to getting a summoner with a summoner cohort... how silly would that be?
A Summoner, with an eidolon and Summoner cohort, with an eidolon and Summoner cohort, with an eidolon and Summoner cohort, with an eidolon and Summoner cohort, with an eidolon and Summoner cohort, with an eidolon and Summoner cohort,....
...and they all fly around in an animated matryoshka doll.
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Cohorts present two major problems. First of all in the hands of a badly organised player they will drastically slow down the game because players like this get bogged down when they run two characters. Secondly a reasonably optimised cohort will push many DMs towards upgrading the encounters and many DMs simply do not have the time to rewrite adventures on a regular basis (things like work and family life get in the way). So they get a bit upset when every party member has a cohort.
Cohorts work when they are run by players who are very well organised, or they are very easy to run (e.g. brainless fighters who just hit things and grunt). But a badly organised player who has a cohort with many options (especially full spellcasters) is guaranteed to make your game slow down dramatically. From many years of experience this type of player is much more likely to argue and very badly rules lawyer which further disrupts the game.
I once DMed a group containing one of these players, in D&D 3.5, who ran a summoning focused Druid with a cohort who was also a summoning focused Druid (and both had the usual super-pets). Naturally he insisted on keeping all character information on a two-sided standard character sheet. He refused to keep any notes off the sheet, such as noting what your spells and magic items actually did rather than relying on an increasingly bad memory. This meant that he was forever referring to a rulebook whenever he acted which further wasted everyone else’s time.
Starting the game was bad enough; he wasted 30 minutes preparing two sets of spells. Then when the summoning started the game seized up as he then had to go back to the books because he didn’t make notes.
He also believed that you were only allowed to write down your combat bonuses on the character sheet and that you had to recalculate them every time you acted, rather than working out your bonuses at the start of the fight and writing them down on a notepad (like the rest of us did) where we added situational bonuses as they arose.
Needless to say he was quickly given an ultimatum (not just by me but also by everyone else) - improve your playing style or we will throw you out of the group because you are ruining the game for everyone else (i.e. make notes, don’t run time-wasting over-complicated characters, prepare your spells beforehand rather than waste our time at the start and don’t use single page character sheets for non-fighters).
He was kicked out and was not missed at all. Bad gaming is worse than no gaming.
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Ouch.
That player sounds like a nightmare.
I explicitly have a rule regarding summons that you are not allowed to reference the rulebook on your turn.
You should know what your abilities do.If you don't know what they do off the top of your head (accurately), and don't have them printed out next to your character sheet/on a cue card or something, you don't have them. This was the reason my previous girlfriend was no longer allowed to play druids. She was as bad at her spells/summons as what you described.
Likewise for prepared spells. Also, if you're not leveled up when you arrive for game, we're not waiting for you. If you drag the party down because of your bad behavior (not showing up to game with your character finished/ready is rude and inconsiderate to everyone), well, my players have voted to kick someone before.
But yeah, bad gaming is worse than no gaming.