How devoted are cohorts

[Iliumin]

It was recommended over in the simple Q&A thread that I open a new thread to discuss this. The question is purely a matter of curiosity and not something I was able to find with a quick google search.

So...How devoted are cohorts? Would they die for the character that attracted them? Would they die for a different party member if asked? Would they break the law or go against their personal moral system?

As a side question, can I divide my leadership score up and voluntarily take a lower one? If so, can I divide the difference into having TWO cohorts?

Any link to an actual rule on this would be great, but if not, we can hash it out :P

[Matticussama]

Cohorts are loyal companions, usually of the same alignment as the PC. Thus, some of those questions depend upon their alignment and the alignment of the PC with Leadership. Cohorts do have personalities and aren't mindless servants; that is what Undead Leadership and Thrallherder is for. So it should vary just as much as any character's action does. Most of these answers are thus only an inference or assumption based upon the information given in the feat.

1) Would they die for the character? Probably, so long as the death served a purpose. After all, "Caused the death of a cohort" is a modifier in the attracting a cohort table so we can infer that a loyal companion - usually some form of bodyguard or trusted ally - would risk possible death. However, these aren't mind controlled slaves; they wouldn't risk their life for no reason.

2) Would they die for a different party member if asked? It would depend upon the circumstances, but it should largely come down to personality; how much would any party member be willing to die for another party member? If the Cohort is a Lawful Good Paladin who is buying time for the party to escape a powerful devil, then probably. If the Cohort is a Chaotic Neutral Rogue who is Craven and is mainly in it for the money, then probably not.

3) Would they break the law or go against their personal moral system? Again, it partially depends upon alignment and personality. If the Cohort is a Lawful Good Paladin, then they would need extreme circumstances to break the law (unless it is an evil law). Even then, they aren't going to sacrifice an innocent or act completely out of character. However, a Chaotic Neutral Rogue who values gold more than life might be willing to go to extreme ends if they are given good reason.


4) Dividing leadership score: No, you cannot do this. The feat only gives you a single Cohort, and makes absolutely no provisions for splitting up cohort levels for multiples. That would require DM fiat or homebrew. However, you can take feats like Wild Cohort, Undead Leadership, etc to gain a second (or third, etc) cohort.

[ArcturusV]

Generally the phrases I've seen used for it amounts to "reasonable". The problem with Reasonable is that it's based on a lot of particulars, as the post above me mentioned. Alignment is one. Cultural is another.

Generally you're going to get a "Not without great reason" for the breaking of their personal moral code. Alignment doesn't really matter in this. Moral codes are just that... moral codes. People tend not to break them unless they have some ulterior motive for it. Anything from "Because I'm a teenager and it'll annoy my parents" to "... well that IS a lot of money...".

Other than that it mostly comes down to Player-DM style and relations. As a DM I can say most players I've had run Cohorts like they run a Horse. Which is basically like how V's raven familiar was earlier in Order of the Stick. It's there when they absolutely need it. Otherwise it's ignored. And they presume that it will do exactly what they tell them, even sacrifice their life if need be, give away every last coin they have, etc, with no free will or personality of their own.

Not ALWAYS the case. But often in my experience.

I'd say the proper guidelines to look to are under the vagueness of effects like Charm spells. After all, a Cohort typically "likes" you like a Charmed person would. You probably can't talk a Cohort into a suicide mission. Even Charmed people balk at that and get another Will Save. You can probably talk them into things like "Distract that dragon for just a minute while I set up the kill/save the Orion Princess/Trigger the MacGuffin". Sure, likely to work.

Course, if you bother to characterize it out a little more, there could be exceptions. Though typically it's not something I've run into. Most Players have preferred, or defaulted to, their Cohorts and Followers basically just people attracted by Hero Worship, Fantasy Groupies.

Now if it was framed up as something like... your "Leadership" feat was gained as part of a Commission in the Imperial Army, then it might actually make sense that you could command your Sergeant to lead a suicide mission. All for King and Country, etc, rather than "Hey, because you think I'm really cool, go fall on that sword for me!"

[Iliumin]

Thank you for your answer Matt! Sadly, answers beget more questions...

Let's say a True Neutral Leader attracted an Evil Cohort. Would the evil cohort be willing to die for the leader? This could been seen as going grossly out of character for the cohort (at least, in my mind).

Is "Causing the death of a cohort" the same thing as "A cohort dying in your service"? Does this penalty apply to dying followers as well? (The feat doesn't ay it does, so I would guess not, but as a matter of clarification...)

The leadership feat (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Leadership) strictly says followers are "rarely effective in combat", but does not say they cannot participate in combat. So...can they?

How devoted are followers? I'm guessing that they aren't as "Diehard" as a cohort, but would they still be willing to sacrifice their lives if a good reason presented itself?

Probably be considered home brew, but could someone take the Leadership feat twice to attract another cohort?


And thank you Arc for the response! This sounds mostly like bad role-playing, though something I probably would have done without this post >.>...

[ArcturusV]

Well, lets break down "Causes the death of a Cohort" and "A Cohort dies in your service".

The former could be done through a situation like the following:

You, the player's character, knows something is wrong with the area up ahead, deathtraps, possible gargoyle attack, whatever. You look to your Cohort and say "Hey, go scout down there, I'll be here and watch your back", knowing that he's probably going to die since there is obvious danger you picked up down there, and didn't warn him about.

He runs into the trap/monster and dies horribly. You just caused his death by NOT issuing a warning and sending him out unprepared to his death.

The latter however could come about easily in situations like this:

Leader and Cohort and entering battle against a rampaging giant. You are fighting together to take the giant down, and in the course of the battle the Giant gets a Lucky, or Unlucky depending on your view, hit and just splatters your Cohort like goo. He's dead. But it's not something where you "Caused" his death. There was reasonable risk, you were fighting, with presumably a reasonable plan and his death was pretty much out of your control.

Reason it says Followers are rarely effective in combat is because they are level 1. About the time you can get followers, starting at level 6, the ability for a level 1 character appropriately equipped to really impact a battle directly (Against things you'd face logically) is pretty much nill.

There are exceptions. Circle Magic is one of them obviously, where a horde of level 1 characters can end up casting level 9 magics. Arrow Volleys are another where you end up having your 40 followers throwing out 8d8 damage a round, auto hit but Reflex for half.

But typically the level 1 Warrior Follower you attracted just isn't going to do much for you when you start throwing down with the dread lich at the end of your adventure. Might be able to help you toss some drunks out of a town you're protecting, or fight off animals and vermin. But you're not clearing a dungeon with that level 1 guy with a crossbow and a dream.

[Matticussama]

Neutral Leader with an Evil cohort: Evil can be loyal; Lawful Evil is very hierarchial and if a leader orders you into an almost certain death situation you will follow if you're committed to the cause. Look at the Nazi SS as an example of this; they are a good example of Lawful Evil (by most people's views of alignment) but they were also fanatical soldiers and would sacrifice their life for their cause.

Neutral Evil might be more difficult to convince to sacrifice their life, but again it would depend upon circumstances and personality. If they think there is some reward in it they might risk it, for example if a Neutral Cleric of an Evil god asks their Evil Cohort (follower of that god, for sake of example) to sacrifice themselves for some major deity-related cause. If the Neutral Evil Cohort thought it would cause some significant gain for them in the afterlife to die in that cause for their god (even Evil gods can reward good service) they might do so.

Chaotic Evil would have to be bullied into it, but that can be done. That is how the legions of the Abyss seem to function, at least: they follow orders of certain death, because refusing can result in even worse torture and punishment by their demonic superiors.


As to followers not being effective, generally speaking they can't do much. Like Arcturus said however, they can be somewhat effective in combat when using the Heroes of Battle rules. You can use arrow volleys to help protect a keep under siege, for example, firing into mass formations of enemy troops. It might not do a whole lot against major threats, but they can plink away for some damage to help in combat. Of course, all it takes is a well placed fireball and those forces are gone unless they have some decent protection.

For the most part though followers are better for background tasks than direct combat. They can serve as basic town watch, tax collectors, etc for a PC who controls a settlement or has some sort of feif.

[Iliumin]

That makes sense actually...appeal to the personal gain of the evil person, which may outweigh death.

Do followers have a class? Having 100 or so level one wizards firing off magic missile like there's no tomorrow could be decimating...

And should I be equipping followers (and for that matter, my cohort) with gear? I believe leadership said that cohorts start with gear "equivalent to their level", but does that increase over time as their level goes up?

[ArcturusV]

Yeah, followers have classes. Though you're probably going to get NPC classes if your DM is more moderate. So instead of Wizards you'd get level 1 Warriors and Experts. He might make an exception if there's particulars. Like if you were a thief establishing some crime syndicate when you got Leadership you might end up with level 1 Rogues, maybe a few Warriors as Enforcers. So that's always a reasonable avenue to approach.

But Fighter McBeatstick probably isn't going to gather a horde of 100 Wizards, logically speaking. Nor is Black Mage McWizardton going to end up with a grunch of musclebound thugs hanging on his every word.

Typically? You'd give your cohort a share of the loot from your adventures and they'd upgrade that way. You don't have to. But I doubt most DMs would just let your Cohorts magically "level up" their gear as the Cohort levels. Some might. Just none that I know of.

Equipping Followers could get prohibitively expensive unless you got some Infinite Wealth Cheese going on. So I wouldn't suggest it. But it might be worth it for a small subsection of it. Pick out say, 10 Warriors out of your 40 Warriors, make them an "Honor Guard" and give them slightly better equipment, +1 items, etc. But when you start getting to things like that 120 followers (Keeping in mind they are pretty much always going to be level 1), not only does it get expensive.... it kinda gets pointless. There's just, in my experience, a diminishing returns point where no matter how many shinies you throw at a level 1, it's still a level 1 and just doesn't get any better.

[Iliumin]

Thank you again for your responses!

I like the idea of having an honor guard, and could probably pitch the idea to my DM that the honor guard has an actual class (as long as the subset stays very small).

As far as equipping the followers, I wasn't even thinking magical equipment (EGAD that's expensive!), just mundane equipment and maybe a potion or two of cure light wounds (for a few thousand gold you can double the life expectancy of the average peon) or maybe an unlimited use command word trinket of cure light or somesuch for the "medic tent" (which is still relatively cheap considering what it gives you).

[ArcturusV]

Might just save the coin at all, if you can get your DM to give you an appropriate split of followers.

So lets say I had, Reman Valarius, a Warrior type who was looking to forge an Empire (And was a champion of one Kingdom already) who took Leadership.

As he's a warrior type, he's probably going to attract similarly minded followers. Say I have 120 followers due to me.

I could get a split like 70 Warriors, 20 Experts, 5 Warmages, 5 Clerics, 10 Rogues, 10 Commoners.

Which seems like a rough "Logical" split. As I'm a Warrior and War Leader I attract mostly Warriors. A few experts who want to be part of the "Army" experience and have skill sets that make sense for a military group, Bowyers, Weaponsmiths, Armorers, etc. A few mages who are seeking the war life in the Warmages, a few Clerics, maybe wanting to be Battlefield Medics or the like. A cadre of capable scouts, and then just some guys who really weren't fit for service but wanted to join anyway. Probably make them something like Cooks and Latrine Diggers.

And with a split like that, you gotta figure the Clerics, between Ranks in Heal and a few Cure Light Wounds/Cure Minor Wounds can take care of your medical needs.

[Cirrylius]

It was recommended over in the simple Q&A thread that I open a new thread to discuss this.
Heh. I was just there, myself, on something else. Since we're discussing cohort motivations... how loyal would your Cohort's Cohort be to you?:smallbiggrin:


Yeah, followers have classes. Though you're probably going to get NPC classes if your DM is more moderate. So instead of Wizards you'd get level 1 Warriors and Experts.

Please tell me that's not RAW; level 1-5 followers are useless enough as is without gimping them with NPC classes:smalleek:

[Iliumin]

Since we're discussing cohort motivations... how loyal would your Cohort's Cohort be to you?

I would imagine this situation like "A friend of a friend". Would they help get you a job if the mutual friend asked them to? Probably, yes. Would they do something that put themselves in a detrimental, but not harmful position? In my opinion, only if asked to do so by the mutual friend, and only to the extent to which the mutual friend required of them.

Think of an apocalypse-type situation. The friend of a friend leads a compound of which the mutual friend is a part. The mutual friend tells the friend of friend to let you into the compound, despite the fact that you have no useful skills to bring to the table, but will still consume the food and resources of the compound. This puts the friend of friend in a detrimental situation, that is not directly harmful to themselves. I would say they would let you in, but then would keep a close eye on you until you proved yourself.


Quick sidenote: Is your leadership score only affected by your BASE charisma? Or would wearing an item that increased this score also affect your leadership score?

[ArcturusV]

Bonuses would count. But not things that said something like "Plus 2 Bonus to Charisma Checks".

And it's not really RAW. Possibly RAI. There's nothing I've seen that requires them to be NPC classes. But they are after all NPCs, so nothing bars them from being NPC classes. As Leadership is entirely up to DMs, it depends on the game.

My own experience? You're likely to draw mostly NPC class Followers unless there's some specific hook you can call on that demands non-NPC classes. Thus a Rogue with Leadership who's setting up a Thief's Guild, or Spy School, etc, is probably going to get Rogues rather than Warriors and Experts. A cleric setting up a new temple might get Cleric followers. But your DM might also throw Adepts at you instead.

[unseenmage]

You could burn your first level feat on Apprentice and gain yourself an Cohort-like Apprentice when you hit level 5 and graduate from your own Apprenticeship and your Apprentice feat becomes the Mentor feat.

Wild Cohort will give you an Animal Companion-like minion as well.

Apprentice/Mentor is in PHB2? And the Wild Cohort feat is in a web supplement.

Edit: You seemed interested in having more than one subordinate that's why I mention these feats.