| ScaeSayre |
One of my player is considering taking Leadership. He is playing a kinetic knight and has had a hard time deciding what feats to take since level 13. He proposed an idea and I need some advice and additional perspective. For context, the party is just gaining level 16 and consists of the kinetic knight, a paladin, and a rogue. They've been getting by without an arcane caster since about level 7 but the enemies are starting to hit them with greater invisibility and other high-level spells. We're very far into this campaign arc that we starting back in 2020 and don't really want to add another player to the mix.
The kineticist had an idea and I'm having trepidations, but I also think it could be a decent idea. He suggested that he take Leadership, but forgo the Followers and only take the cohort as a wizard. He has a Earth Wysp familiar currently and suggested having the Wysp become the cohort, applying class levels and dropping the familiar package. Though the wizard could take a familiar of its own so that's not going to make a big difference.
Since the wysp it tiny, his idea is that wysp could continue to "ride" his person as it currently does (he describes the familiar as being the power core of hide Kinetic Form like an "Iron Man" suit), to avoid adding more complexity to combat and only give it actions when it's casting spells. This is part of where I start to get concerned. This just feels like he's getting free levels in wizard for the price of a feat, plus extra actions.
I do feel the party could use the arcane caster as they go into the last arc of this campaign, and I'd rather not add a NPC (the campaign already has a lot that get situationally added to the party) or another player (as mentioned above). Your advice and suggestions on how to handle this are appreciated. I think it could be a neat idea but I'm not sure how to balance that.
TLDR: Player wants to take Leadership for a tiny wizard cohort (forgoing the Followers) that would ride on his character and cast spells. Party needs an arcane caster and we don't want to add any more players to the group or any NPCs. How could this be ran and balanced?
| Azothath |
Leadership should not affect a party APL or CR. It's not really meant to be effective in combat.
NPC spellcasting is pretty cheap. They don't adventure.
I would fill the 4th seat with a iconic pregenerated character, Ezren at APL-1 or a support build like a conjurer with abjurations. No feat needed as he sucks off 25% treasure. The iconics come at Lvl 1. 4. 7 and can be downloaded for free from Paizo. You'll have to tweak him a bit and add PC equiv equipment or (0.5 to 1.0)*PC_WBL.
If you need an effective/survival build you can try my mage-killer build or the recently posted Clr1 WizN build. A Mystic Theruge makes a great support NPC. NPC level should lag by 1 except for the MystcThrg as he's already hobbled.
| Mysterious Stranger |
You say you would rather not add an NPC to the game but are considering using leadership to do just that. Other than it costing one of the players a feat what is the difference between adding an NPC and using leadership? A Cohort is an NPC even if the player has a little more control over them than normal.
| Lelomenia |
The challenges/concerns you describe (mini me riding on PC, taking extra actions each turn to cast spells) are more or less the same as you could face without Leadership, just with any Improved Familiar that gets UMD high enough for scrolls and wands. If that’s not your cup of tea, that’s fine, but I wouldn’t worry that it represents some game altering power level or cheese.
Note that as a Monstrous Cohort, what he’s proposing would probably end up with ~10 levels of wizards (after the ~4 levels as a Wysp). A lot of utility, but unlikely to be problematic among 16th level PCs.
| ScaeSayre |
You say you would rather not add an NPC to the game but are considering using leadership to do just that. Other than it costing one of the players a feat what is the difference between adding an NPC and using leadership? A Cohort is an NPC even if the player has a little more control over them than normal.
I don't disagree, though the cohort being controlled by the player is the biggest factor here. I already manage frequent NPC additions based on the story and had originally included a static NPC that we stopped bringing along because it was getting to be too much to manage. This same player actually had to take over that NPC for me on occasion. It was actually his suggestion to stop bringing the NPC to make things easier for DMing and managing combat. He didn't like taking liberties with an NPC and we would keep forgetting about him. Eventually he just became an item crafter for the group, so I agreed with him leaving to start his own shop in the town.
Since this is the player's familiar that would be "ascending" to a cohort he would be more comfortable taking ownership of it and I can still use him for the occasional plot element as I currently do from time to time.
The challenges/concerns you describe (mini me riding on PC, taking extra actions each turn to cast spells) are more or less the same as you could face without Leadership, just with any Improved Familiar that gets UMD high enough for scrolls and wands.
That is a very good point! His familiar wysp could already do that if her chose for it to and it has the Sage archetype already. This really help me put it into perspective. I can respect the player's decision more considering this.
Note that as a Monstrous Cohort, what he’s proposing would probably end up with ~10 levels of wizards (after the ~4 levels as a Wysp). A lot of utility, but unlikely to be problematic among 16th level PCs.
Personally I dislike the amount of penalty the "effective cohort levels" seems to give in the monstrous cohort feat (for MOST of them). The Blink Dog is the closest I equate it too and 4 levels just seems too much (especially for a 3HD monster with less utility than the blink dog). I'm thinking that I'll allow his idea, and I'll modify the Earth Wysp to be more like a standard low point (1-10RP) race like the oread, and dropping the racial HD. Maybe I'll put put a 1 or 2 ECL if I feel like it's too strong.
Suggestions for the Earth Wysp as a race w/o racial HD would help. I'll likely drop Living Battery but keep the Servitor ability. Elemental Affinity makes sense as a replacement for Resonance IMO. Thoughts?