Leadership feat and monstruous cohorts

[meumeujeu]

Hello,

I was wondering what would be the level a character whith the leadership feat would need to have to get either a troll or a harpy as a cohort, both with class levels.

To develop things a bit : I am the DM, and the two possibles cohort have both a "defect" that, as far as i'm concerned, would lower their effectual CR by 1.

-The harpy had her throat slashed a long time ago, and the hit destroyed her throat so bad that she can't use her captivating song anymore. She also speak in a raspy voice, but that is a thing that has no concern with the rules, so ...

Other than that, she his a 2nd level alchemist.

-The troll is very old, so his regeneration isn't what its used to be, and he only get 2 hp back per round, instead of the usual 5. He is a 4th level oracle. He also has all the usual stats adjustments for an old character.

I was thinking it would be right to have the harpy available at level 9, and the troll at level 11, but it is more gut feeling than rules study on my part, so ...

Thanks in advance.

[Diego Rossi]

The harpy "defect" can be easily cured with Regeneration, and the player having her as a cohort will surely try it.
It all depends on how accessible magical cures are, but having a "defect" that can be cured simply by spending money makes it almost irrelevant.

[meumeujeu]

Maybe, but that is not the concern here - as the DM, i can deal with that if need be. And i'm not even sure my player would think about that anyway. Not to mention the campaign we are playing is Ironfang Invasion, an AP where it is quite hard to access merchants and the like.

The question is more about what would be the right level to autorize my player to get either of those monsters as a cohort.

[Lelomenia]

From the Monstrous Cohort list, CR3 creatures are generally around Level 7.

I am going with CR3 because Harpies and certain common trolls are CR4, and you propose to count your Monstrous as 1 CR lower.

Level 7 + 2 class levels = Level 9, so i propose Level 9 as the most RAW answer. That said, the Monstrous Cohort level list is bad. Edit: i see 4 levels for the troll, so possibly 11, but would need to know what kind of troll to determine.

[Bjørn Røyrvik]

Lelomenia wrote:

From the Monstrous Cohort list, CR3 creatures are generally around Level 7.

I am going with CR3 because Harpies and certain common trolls are CR4, and you propose to count your Monstrous as 1 CR lower.

Level 7 + 2 class levels = Level 9, so i propose Level 9 as the most RAW answer. That said, the Monstrous Cohort level list is bad. Edit: i see 4 levels for the troll, so possibly 11, but would need to know what kind of troll to determine.

This is how I handled it in my game, at least. It worked for us.

[meumeujeu]

The troll is the "basic" troll from the bestiary 1, the one who is CR5. Thanks everyone for the answers. That player take the Leadership in every AP we play, but this is the first time he try to take a monster as a cohort.

[Pizza Lord]

It's three halflings/kobolds in a troll coat with a really good disguise check. When the 'troll' is hit, damage is randomly assigned to one, and one of the others uses a healing item on them during their next actions.