Cohort Madness

[terminusdrop321]

Can someone list all of the ways to gain cohort as well as the variants of leadership along with their source?
I need this for a school project of all things.
thanks in advance playground :smallsmile::smallbiggrin::smallsmile:

[missmvicious]

Can someone list all of the ways to gain cohort as well as the variants of leadership along with their source?


Uhh... probably not, but I might be able to steer you in the right direction or at least bump the thread so that you get a better chance at someone who knows more about variants to read this. Here's all I know:

Special Cohorts can be found in the DMG, page 199 as well as the core rules on how to get one. The main thing is, you have to have Leadership to get one, but that's a very flexible rule to begin with. If a DM thinks of D&D as a "real" world, then you could probably gain a follower at a much earlier level and without the feat if you role-play well enough, and score high on Diplomacy, Bluff, or Handle Animal (depending on what kind of cohort you want), and within reasonable boundaries. (A level one Bard is not going to talk a venerable Brass Dragon into traveling with them even if she rolls a 20 on Diplomacy.

As far as I know, the DMG seems to define a cohort as not much different from an Animal Companion or a Hireling (that you don't seem to pay) or, basically, a DMPC. This isn't what the term cohort actually means though (from an etymological sense), so I don't usually take that feat.

Variants probably exist out there, but there are likely too many to list, since this concept was made nebular and open to interpretation for house-rules by design.

[terminusdrop321]

Ah okay thank you very much.
just as a quick question where do you find the Wild Cohort feat?
I see it on a few threads every now and again.

[TroubleBrewing]

It's a web article. (http://lmgtfy.com/?q=wild+cohort+feat)

[sreservoir]

enchanter variant, undead leadership, thrallherd, there should be others.

[hydroplatypus]

Isn't there undead leadership too?

[Flickerdart]

There's Dragon Cohort in Draconomicon, too.

[Coidzor]

A character that starts with Apprentice feat at character creation trades it out for Mentor feat at 5th level and gets an apprentice that turns into a cohort after it hits 5th level & becomes a mentor in turn, basically being a RAW form of cohort daisy-chaining.

This is from DMG II, IIRC.

[kulosle]

their are a few prestige classes that give you cohorts, thuamagistic, mind bender, seducer (if you're silly), and more.
there is a tyranny version somewhere, which is based on how much people fear you instead of respect. animal leadership is out there somewhere as well (my personal favorite). you should be able to handle animal your way into a cohort (talk to your DM) techsmith from one of the fareun books gives you a construct friend. there are really too many to list. almost every book came out with a new one so look into it.
just promise you wont become the Bee mancer. A member of our party took vermin lord along with a lot of cheese ways of getting more bees, once he got hiveminded with them he was a better caster then the sorcerer. and there were soooo many beees!!! i don't have the number on me at the moment but if you let his bees fly just next to each other he covered like a 1/4 square mile with bees. don't do it.

[terminusdrop321]

i love you playground!
thank u for all of the help!
thanks to this i got 91% on my human studies project.
and picked up a few things to use in game too. :smallamused:

[kulosle]

do you mind if i ask how this is school related?

[terminusdrop321]

i had to do a human studies project on whether or not a group of people would help someone with an absurd problem.
i picked a topic that i thought would be relatively hard for the playground to do.
you all suprised me however:smalltongue:

[missmvicious]

Isn't that what a job is? Helping people with absurd problems?

My boss has an absurd problem for me to deal with every time I cross his path. All I do is help him with his most recent whim, no matter how likely it is that he will have me or someone else undo it later and blame me for it being done in the first place.

Bills have to get paid, though. So I help him with his absurd problems, then take the blame for doing it, then run off to solve another one of his absurd problems (probably undoing something he had someone else do)... sigh. I hate my job.

At least here, all the problems (absurd or otherwise) are at least fun to solve.

[terminusdrop321]

now that i think about it your right....
sorry for any and all bad memories brought up via my ranting. *sadface*

[Dimers]

For different values of "cohort", there's also paladin special mount, shadowdancer's shadow companion (DMG), Obtain Familiar feat (C.Arc) or familiar class feature, Psicrystal Affinity (XPH) and Elemental Envoy(C.Psi) feats, Item Familiar (UA) feat, Effigy Master (C.Arc) prestige class, and animal companion class feature. Animal companion was different in 3.0; check out Masters of the Wild for various improvements to uses of the animal friendship spell, including Tamer Of Beasts prestige class. The various forms of rebuking can give you minions, too -- undead for evil clerics, elementals for elemental priests, creatures with the cold subtype for clerics with that domain, and OA shaman can also gain domains that let them rebuke spirits and animals/plants. I assume spells like planar ally (PHB) and call faithful servants (BoED) don't count ...

[missmvicious]

now that i think about it your right....
sorry for any and all bad memories brought up via my ranting. *sadface*

Don't be. I enjoy contributing where I can on this board. I'm not a hardcore technician when it comes to 3.5 and I never really step out of the PHBs, DMGs and MMs, so there aren't a lot of posts I can help out with. It's fun to have a topic I can be of some use in, so I enjoyed it.

But you can definitely add my point about work to your SS report. In the end, we all become mercenaries in someone else's war.

[terminusdrop321]

Thank you playground for all over your help.
as a quick question: if i were to apply this knowledge to my new lvl 5 incarnate(LN) what feat would be best to take at lvl 6, that is not Flat Leadership?

[Flickerdart]

An Incarnate is ridiculously versatile, so a straight meatshield type of cohort will suit you well enough - Wild Cohort is probably your best bet.