Cohorts without Leadership feat?

[FishBonePendant]

A party member for a campaign I'm currently running (Standard plot to destroy the world/What? The world! That's where all my stuff is!) has taken a fancy to a Socerer NPC they'd rescued earlier in the campaign and wants to make her a cohort so she can travel with the party (I think he plans to marry her at some point in the campaign).

Now, every single person I've even talked about D&D with agrees that leadership is way to much trouble to deal with, so I've been trying to find a ruling for cohorts w/o taking Leadership and haven't found anything that doesn't require Leadership.

Would letting him make a diplomacy check to convince the NPC to travel with them be enough? I'm afraid letting these guys make diplomacy checks will end with every PC owning an army by the end of the next session :smallannoyed: . Or does it just make more sense to make him use a feat?

[Blackhawk748]

Honestly? Let them have the Sorcerer hang out with them, NPC allies are a fairly common thing.

And while Leadership can be a royal pain, if they are using it only to get a cohort it isnt to bad.

[FishBonePendant]

You don't understand my players, I give an inch, they beat goblins to death with dual wielded castles.

Not even joking, I didn't put a limit on strength modifiers one old campaign and one player finished with a Goliath that literally carried enemy corpses with him, tied them together, and beat enemies with for 20d6 damage by weight + STR and a half.

I've gotta have a rule for this if I don't want exploits all game long.

[Blackhawk748]

Wow, reminds me of a group i was with once. Would the player be willing to take Leadership with the understanding that they wont attract followers? Its a fairly easy thing to explain.

[Coidzor]

Have them woo the NPC and once they're wed they either have to take an [Adventuring Spouse] homebrew feat which is just Leadership sans anything but the cohort-NPC and the ability for that NPC to gain XP tied to the PC's XP gains or get it as a bonus feat as a reward for sticking it out successfully.

Until then she may or may not tag along occasionally (especially if they make it worth her while) but won't level or at least won't level any faster than any other NPC henchmen they might have acquired.


Would letting him make a diplomacy check to convince the NPC to travel with them be enough? I'm afraid letting these guys make diplomacy checks will end with every PC owning an army by the end of the next session :smallannoyed: . Or does it just make more sense to make him use a feat?

You could, say, require a series of successful diplomacy checks(edit: drawn out across more than one session, preferably multiple sessions) that are modified by how well he's treated her, how well things have gone with her as a henchwoman, and so on, where it's drawn out sufficiently for it to be unfeasible but once, maybe twice a game, at least after he successfully negotiates to get her to come along as a henchwoman in the first place. Might borrow Rich's Diplomacy fix in order to help make the shift more gradual.

With that, I'd say you wouldn't necessarily have to spend a feat on it, but you still might anyway.

[FishBonePendant]

I'd considered just requiring a feat like that to discourage trying to raise an army of everyone they meet but it seems like a waste of a feat to just bring a girlfriend along.

I understand this all seems convoluted and whiny but I don't wanna get bullcrap for too heavy of a price for the cohort OR deal with a cameleon who ALSO carries and army everywhere he goes.

The adventuring spouse thing looks interesting.
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And in response to your signature, my last three campaigns started at a circus, a roadside altar of Fharlanghn, and underneath a pile of burning bodies. Your move mother****er.

[Blackhawk748]

Hell let them have an army, they need to feed it, clothe it, keep it from biting people......... its a freakin pain

Also my most recent campaign started with me crashing out of the sky on the tail of a rift to the Plane of Fried Chicken into a tavern in a town populated with crazy halfling pie thieves, and we found an astral diamond puking hyena. Oh and all this happened in the first five minutes of the campaign.

[FishBonePendant]

Well, I've been beaten with campaign starters, that's for sure.

Thanks for he help guys, I figure I'll make it a feat for him to take one or a small pool of Cohorts like pets.

That "letting them have an army thing" though, that'll end with "I instruct everyone to forage in the woods for berries, cut down as many trees as the can, and sell the wood. In a week I'll pay to have then all polymorphed into ants so they can all fit in my pocket and aid me to increase my AC to 4000 for the rest of the campaign."

Please kill me.

[Erik Vale]

What's wrong with letting them create a bigger band of heroes? It means they get smaller shares of loot, xp, and glory.

[Blackhawk748]

I would love to hear how an ant is gonna aid them to increase their AC, im sure it would be a fascinating discussion

[FishBonePendant]

Cohorts don't get shares of XP, and he can always just order his army to craft merchandise or (god forbid) if he plays a chaotic character, command then to help him take over a city and collect taxes.

Won't have enough cohorts to take over a city? "They aid each other in wild empathy checks to bring 6000 worg allies"

The main villain in this campaign is actually a PC from a very old campaign (before i started playing) who was an artificer that made a coat out of golems which aided his AC or attack rolls. Apparently the old DM couldn't think of a way to MAKE HIM DIE (apparently the player happily failed to let anyone find out aid another was a standard action so he couldn't apply it to every roll he ever made) so he was sucked into another dimension.

Huh... Why do I DM for these people?...

[Blackhawk748]

You are aware that you are well within your rights to say no right?

Also getting that many Worgs would take a ridiculously long time

Also (again) Cohorts do get a share of XP, may want to reread the section on cohorts in the DMG

[FishBonePendant]

Flat out saying "no" is one of the worst things you can do as a DM, I try to stay away from that. My first ever campaign I played ended tragically because the DM said everyone had to play one of the 7 starting races. He said it was so he wouldn't have to deal with bull****, but it pissed everyone else off. All I'm really doing is hiding behind the rules to avoid both problems.

The DMG says Cohorts can't level up, I can see how the increase they party level and lower XP but they technically never gain any.

[Coidzor]

Well, I've been beaten with campaign starters, that's for sure.

Thanks for he help guys, I figure I'll make it a feat for him to take one or a small pool of Cohorts like pets.

That "letting them have an army thing" though, that'll end with "I instruct everyone to forage in the woods for berries, cut down as many trees as the can, and sell the wood. In a week I'll pay to have then all polymorphed into ants so they can all fit in my pocket and aid me to increase my AC to 4000 for the rest of the campaign."

Please kill me.

I think you may need to start another, separate thread dealing with how to rein in your players and also how to talk to them and establish some table rules and guidelines so everyone can enjoy the game without having to butt heads or outsmart one another OOC.


Won't have enough cohorts to take over a city? "They aid each other in wild empathy checks to bring 6000 worg allies"

The main villain in this campaign is actually a PC from a very old campaign (before i started playing) who was an artificer that made a coat out of golems which aided his AC or attack rolls. Apparently the old DM couldn't think of a way to MAKE HIM DIE (apparently the player happily failed to let anyone find out aid another was a standard action so he couldn't apply it to every roll he ever made) so he was sucked into another dimension.

That's easy. :smalltongue: Only one cohort per PC, two if they really work to get a dragon thrown in there, and three if you count the quasi-cohort/quasi-animal companion that is Wild Cohort. Bam, problem solved. Followers are typically fairly weak and easily opposed by the mundane defenses any city that current is surviving would have.

Sounds like rules enforcement is important here, and also that you need to just go ahead and limit nanomachines. There's a Dirty Tricks handbook (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=8909.0) out there somewhere along with suggested houserules and rules tweaks in order to curtail or fix them.

Definitely sounds like you need to take some actions to get to the place where you can even have a gentleman's agreement and expect some level of abiding by it.

[FishBonePendant]

I've been doing well so far by limiting whats available to the PCs by the area they're in.

For example, the current city they're "in" they don't have access to most of it yet. Most quests or jobs they do are entirely just to get themselves access to things they want for their characters.

"I want a +3 keen Scimitar!"
Okay, how is someone like you gonna get out of peasant town to visit a reputable Blacksmith?
"I CLIMB THE WALL!"
You don't have a good climb skill and there are guards at the top with crossbows and good sense motive skills.
"Damn, maybe I can follow some rich guy into the center."
How are you gonna look like you fit in with him?
"Okay guys, we need to trick a rich person into being friends with us."

(They refuse to dress like normal people because it means taking off their equipment)
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Dirty tricks?

Ooooooh baby, I'm rubbing my hands together like an evil king right now.

[Erik Vale]

The DMG says Cohorts can't level up, I can see how the increase they party level and lower XP but they technically never gain any.

That's followers :smallbiggrin:
They don't get XP from the Party Share, correct [they have their own separate pool based on how they help out], however how their presence reduces the XP the players game.

Also, don't have them as cohorts unless the players take the relevent feat. Treat them as party members when it comes time for XP share, and GP/Loot share have her/others picked up demand a [fair] share. If a fair share isn't given despite them helping in life threatening situations, they won't tag along in any form veeeery quickly [and not because they die].

[Yogibear41]

Not even joking, I didn't put a limit on strength modifiers one old campaign and one player finished with a Goliath that literally carried enemy corpses with him, tied them together, and beat enemies with for 20d6 damage by weight + STR and a half.


Even if the character had the strength to carry something like that there is no way he could wield "tied together corpses" as a weapon.

[NightbringerGGZ]

So the problem is that your players will take any opening to bring in cheese and now one of the players wants to bring an NPC along. Is there anyway you can make the NPC just be an important NPC for the story? Somebody they just run into on a frequent basis, giving your player plenty of chances to RP. This would let you avoid the mess that Leadership can be (in the hands of power gamers) but still provide your player with the game experience he wants. Since you control the NPC you can make sure she doesn't let the party power through content with a free extra character.

Alternatively, I would suggest crafting a custom feat for this situation. I'd actually point out the Pathfinder Story Feats (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/story-feats) as a pretty good example of mechanics. These feats have a condition for entry (usually a background / story event) and provide an immediate bonus. Next they have a goal to accomplish, and finishing that goal grants a new bonus. This could give your player something to work towards while justifying having the NPC around.

[FishBonePendant]

He tied the corpses together with chains from a chain demon (supposedly unbreakable?:smallconfused:)
And the rules for improvised weapon say otherwise. You can use anything as a weapon at -4 on the attack roll, luckily I've implemented a scaling penalty to attack rolls with my campaigns from now on.
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I'm not too familiar with pathfinder, but it sounds like a real nice way to handle this, thanks man!

[Coidzor]

He tied the corpses together with chains from a chain demon (supposedly unbreakable?:smallconfused:)

That's... That's not right. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/devil.htm#chainDevilKyton)


And the rules for improvised weapon say otherwise. You can use anything as a weapon at -4 on the attack roll, luckily I've implemented a scaling penalty to attack rolls with my campaigns from now on.

Not quite. (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/equipment/weapons.htm#improvisedWeapons) Something that big, even for a creature with Powerful Build, would not be reasonable to wield as a weapon. Now a hulking hurler could throw the darn thing as a weapon, but that's different.

[Ashtagon]

As an NPC, she can tag along or not as she chooses. However, as an NPC, she is also entitled to her share of the XP and the loot.

PCs are less likely to want an army of pseudo-henchmen when the XP and loot gets divided a hundred ways.

[Erik Vale]

Exactly! C min

[SinsI]

Girlfriends cost money. A typical feat is worth 25000 gold, so if you make her ask for a 25k wedding ring it'd serve as a "homebrew" cohort bonus feat.

[Segev]

I'm with the people who advise you, in your situation, to have this be a role-play thing. NPCs can choose to hang out with PCs they like without being mechanically bought and paid for. As NPCs, they remain under the DM's control, and can give exactly as many favors of whatever kind as the DM likes. If you feel like letting him invest in Diplomacy (or just role play his little heart out) to woo the girl, and have the girl respond favorably with IC-appropriate benefits (maybe she'll travel with the party and preferentially buff him, or maybe she'll decide to hang out in town and be a good friend when he's around, or whatever works best), but also remember that she's an NPC with her own personal wants and needs. If she needs a favor, he should be willing to do for her what she does for him.

"Cohorts" are servants, or at least subservient. By keeping her an NPC for which he didn't have to expend mechanical resources (or upon whom he's only had to spend money because girlfriends are pricey), you keep her his "equal." She's not a minion or a follower; she's not a cohort to do his bidding. She's a fellow adventurer and party member if she's in the party at all. (Which means, yes, equal shares of loot, though if she and this PC have a good relationship, she might be more inclined to weigh her voice in party decisions in his favor...but expect him to do likewise for her.)


Make her a role-playing reward, and I think everybody will be happiest. Including you, since you can decide she won't help in a particular way and you can control her build.