Interesting character idea.

[molten_dragon]

I had an idea for a character the other day. I thought it might be fun to play a bumbling son of a nobleman who wants to be an adventurer. He'd more than likely be a single-classed aristocrat with a high charisma, and not much else.

Sound useless? He is. However his retinue that the king sent with him to keep him from getting horribly killed isn't.

He'd have leadership, wild cohort, and dragon cohort.

My question is, how would such a character (or group of characters really) keep up with a standard party. Too weak? Too powerful?

And are there any other feats that would help to make the character? Anything else that gives you another character to control like the ones above?

[Hirax]

It raises an interesting question about whether you could have close cohort apply to all your cohorts. I believe all other things specify that the cohort you attract is of a level as you could attract with leadership, meaning they could work off the close cohort feat as well. 10 levels of dreadmaster (Faiths and Pantheons) would get you 2 additional cohorts.

Otherwise you'd be as powerful as your DM would be willing to build and play the characters. If he lets you build and play them, then home run.

[OracleofSilence]

Basically what Hirax said.

However, leadership is incredibly broken, so it would not be hard to rule over a semi-optimized party. Also, just as an idea, it seems tha flavor wise, luck feats might actually be really good with this class. Consider, whenever this type of person shows up in some story or other, he always doesn't die, but fr no good reason. He is just lucky.

[molten_dragon]

Basically what Hirax said.

However, leadership is incredibly broken, so it would not be hard to rule over a semi-optimized party. Also, just as an idea, it seems tha flavor wise, luck feats might actually be really good with this class. Consider, whenever this type of person shows up in some story or other, he always doesn't die, but fr no good reason. He is just lucky.

Luck feats could be interesting. I'll have to look into that.

I know leadership is extremely powerful, but when the character who has it is mostly wasted space, then a cohort who is 2 levels behind is a lot less of an issue.

[Toliudar]

Mechanically, it might be more useful for the aristocrat to BE the cohort, and have the leader of the retinue be the main character. If the aristocrat is truly of limited use in most situations, it'll be less frustrating for you, and for all concerned, but you can still RP him as being in charge.

[Talionis]

There is even a luck based prestige class.

[Slipperychicken]

Mechanically, it might be more useful for the aristocrat to BE the cohort, and have the leader of the retinue be the main character. If the aristocrat is truly of limited use in most situations, it'll be less frustrating for you, and for all concerned, but you can still RP him as being in charge.

Seconded. You're going to end up playing as Captain Useful anyway, might as well get all your levels, WBL, etc. Also, it'll wind up being even more ironic when the noble is higher level than the master.

[molten_dragon]

Seconded. You're going to end up playing as Captain Useful anyway, might as well get all your levels, WBL, etc. Also, it'll wind up being even more ironic when the noble is higher level than the master.

Yeah, but what I was thinking was that if the cohorts are the characters that are actually contributing, then it would be less overpowered if there were three of them.

[Toliudar]

But if your shtick is that there's this hapless nobleman who has hired lots of people to take care of him, shouldn't those people be...people? Wild cohort gets you an animal, and dragon cohort a dragon. One of the problems will be that by the time you get, say, a wyrmling black dragon, you're travelling with 9th level characters and facing opponents with commensurate power. The 'competent' cohorts may not seem so very competent.

Whereas if you have the chief cohort be the 'main' character, a kind of sergeant, you can easily hire a few extra servants to act as your driver, porter, butler, whatever. Expert/warrior/commoner 1's that stay out of the way when you do anything remotely dangerous. Fairly easily replaced if eaten by wandering monsters, and no eating up additional feats. Plus, at higher levels, there are followers from leadership, and they can be used to bolster the retinue.

[Socratov]

There is even a luck based prestige class.
quoted for truth, it woudl certainly open up interesting RP aspects, and mechanically not that bad too...