Close Cohort Feat

[schreier]

I am guessing this is just an overly literal interpretation of a feat that was created with imprecise language in Dragon Magazine .... but here is the question.

The Close Cohort feat (Dragon 346) says:

Prerequisite: Leadership, character level 6th, leadership score 2 higher than your level.
Benefit: Your cohort may be one level lower than you.
Normal: Regardless of your leadership score, you can only recruit a cohort who is two or more levels lower than you. Your cohort cannot gain levels to bring him within one level of you.

It references the leadership score in the "Normal," but not in the Benefit section. I am guessing that the leadership score should be a factor, but it isn't stated in the Benefit. A plain language interpretation in this case would seem to allow this feat to work with basic leadership, but giving you an unrestricted cohort (other than the "one level lower than you"

This is different than Improved Cohort (Heroes of Battle) that says:

Prerequisite: Cha 15, leadership.
Benefit: The maximum level of the cohort you gain from the leadership feat is one lower than your character level.
Normal: Without this feat, a cohort's maximum level is two levels below the associated PC's level.

This limits the "maximum level," while also referencing the normal "maximum level," so seems to clearly just give you +1 level compared to normal.

Close cohort, based on these readings, is clearly better - but does have higher prereqs (leadership score 2 higher than level)

[Hackulator]

It says "may be one level lower than you" not "is". It does the exact same thing, it lifts a restriction. You still need the necessary leadership score.

[schreier]

I was just rereading the leadership feat, which has a section on cohorts:

The character can attract a cohort of up to this level. Regardless of a character’s Leadership score, he can only recruit a cohort who is two or more levels lower than himself. The cohort should be equipped with gear appropriate for its level. A character can try to attract a cohort of a particular race, class, and alignment. The cohort’s alignment may not be opposed to the leader’s alignment on either the law-vs-chaos or good-vs-evil axis, and the leader takes a Leadership penalty if he recruits a cohort of an alignment different from his own.
Cohorts earn XP as follows:
The cohort does not count as a party member when determining the party’s XP.
Divide the cohort’s level by the level of the PC with whom he or she is associated (the character with the Leadership feat who attracted the cohort).
Multiply this result by the total XP awarded to the PC and add that number of experience points to the cohort’s total.
If a cohort gains enough XP to bring it to a level one lower than the associated PC’s character level, the cohort does not gain the new level—its new XP total is 1 less than the amount needed attain the next level.


It doesn't seem to restrict cohort level to the leadership score "cohort level" - just that you can't attract one higher than that level. Can a cohort rise in levels above your cohort level on the table, as long as it is at least 2 levels lower than the character's level (or 1 with the improved cohort feat).

I've seen other places list the "max" level - but not sure what source that is based on