Leadership vs Animal Companions

[killem2]

Currently, I'm working with a Goliath Barbarian. My DM said Leadership is ok to take, but I have seriously been drooling over the concept of the beastmaster prestige class.

From what I can see, animal companions tend to help combat for everything, with out stealing XP and treasure, yet both seem pretty centralized around me over all.

What are the advantages to loading up on animal companions vs loading up on cohorts?

[Ranting Fool]

Currently, I'm working with a Goliath Barbarian. My DM said Leadership is ok to take, but I have seriously been drooling over the concept of the beastmaster prestige class.

From what I can see, animal companions tend to help combat for everything, with out stealing XP and treasure, yet both seem pretty centralized around me over all.

What are the advantages to loading up on animal companions vs loading up on cohorts?

Animals for the most part tend to be Int 2. Unless beastermaster alows you to take smarter pets. Meaning they are very good at "Stay here" "Attack" "Follow" and tend to be either Scounts (which doesn't work well if you can't talk to them) or Melee (Which does work well as a lot of animals can be very useful)

Cohorts can be any class just two levels lower then you, they take up 1/2 share of loot but don't take up XP (Not since 3.5) so you can have a Healer/buffer Cohort. Or a Skillmonkey/trapfinder Cohort.

That and Leadership alows you to have a whole army of Mooks to do some useful things. Even if it is, all my Mooks will be sailors and i'll buy a boat, the level 2 will be first mate and the level 3 the captain and I'll never have to worry much about sea travel again. Or "Don't worry scared town, my followers will stand around and guard you while I go off to the temple of X and slay evil type things"

Also Leadership is a lot more paperwork, and Pets can be cool :smallbiggrin:

[Elric VIII]

You could go for the best of both worlds and take Leadership for a cohort who uses the stats of an Anthropomorphic Animal from Savage Species. Reflavored as an intelligent animal companion. You can even give it levels in Barbarian, so you can rage together.

Also, cohorts do not steal your exp, instead they gain [exp you gain]*[Cohort ECL]/[Your ECL] separately.

[Malachei]

Leadership, of course, allows for a much higher level of abuse. Whether you want to head in this direction is another matter, but generally, the higher the character level, the more powerful leadership gets in comparison to animal companions. If you have a cohort, he can fill the weak spots of your character, complement the party and generate resources (item creation feats, for instance).