Indirect thrallherd question [Archive] - Wizards Community

Indirect thrallherd question [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
teshen
03-26-08, 02:30 AM If you have a thrall or believer who uses a lot of experience to use abilities, such as an erudite to learn powers or an artificier to craft items... but your believers and thralls levels are based on your level, do you have to keep changing out thralls and believers as they lose experience or does the experience they use not really count against them?
JulesCARV
03-26-08, 03:11 AM Thrallherd inherits the rules from leadership unless stated otherwise, and the rule from leadership is that cohorts maintain an independent experience pool, but that experience gains come exclusively from experience gains by the leader, at a rate of leader's XP gain * (cohort's level/leader's level). Thus, not only might a thrall fall behind in level from spending experience on item creation and the like, but falling behind in level reduces the amount of experience gained, meaning that there's no real potential to catch up to the previous level relative to the thrallherd, even if the thrall never spends another experience point.

Depending on how obedient a thrall is to the thrallherd, a high-level thrallherd might as well get a high-level psion (wizard, sorcerer, or whatever) thrall, have him spend all experience on expensive wishes, reality revisions, etc, creating gold and such for the thrallherd, keeping the thrall near the minimum level of experience for that level, then, when the thrall gains a level, trading the old one out for a new one onf a level higher. All that experience expenditure is no skin off the thrallherd's back, although some thralls, in spite of their loyalty, might find it to be too much of a sacrifice even if their thrallherd asks them to do it.

I think this is something of a flawed system. I'm not sure how, but I'm thinking that maybe some form of houseruling might work. Maybe the following, for both leadership and thrallherd:

"A cohort does not have an independent experience pool while in cohort status. Instead, whenever the leader gains a level, the cohort's level is changed to whatever cohort level is indicated on the leadership table for the leaders' current leadership score, subject to the restriction of cohorts to an ECL two levels lower than the leader's hit dice. A cohort who loses cohort status retains whatever level he had immediately prior to losing cohort status and gains an experience pool equal to the minimum necessary for his current level. If a cohort engages in any activity requiring expenditure of experience -- such as item creation, or casting spells with an experience component -- such experience costs are paid for by the leader instead."
CrimsonDeath
03-26-08, 03:12 AM Your believers' level is based on your level. However, your believers don't gain XP; they join up at a particular level and are stuck there, and it's impossible to spend enough XP to drop to a lower level.

Your thralls, like cohorts, have their own XP total. If you and your thrall never spend XP, your thrall will gain levels whenever you do (assuming you pick them up exactly when you level up) because of the rate that thralls and cohorts gain XP relative to their masters. If you spend XP, your thralls will gradually catch up with you; if your thralls spend XP, you'll gradually pull ahead. I could go into more depth, but it works exactly like Leadership, so that's probably more of a question for the Feats board.
DracoPhoenix
03-26-08, 07:01 AM While you're crafting items left right and centre, give a thought to the (quite broken) Thought Bottle....

With the right feat, you can craft that thing (or the psi equivilant - you got to love transparency) for ~7500g
teshen
03-26-08, 01:09 PM Your believers' level is based on your level. However, your believers don't gain XP; they join up at a particular level and are stuck there, and it's impossible to spend enough XP to drop to a lower level.

Your thralls, like cohorts, have their own XP total. If you and your thrall never spend XP, your thrall will gain levels whenever you do (assuming you pick them up exactly when you level up) because of the rate that thralls and cohorts gain XP relative to their masters. If you spend XP, your thralls will gradually catch up with you; if your thralls spend XP, you'll gradually pull ahead. Wait... since they're technically a class feature whose level is one less than yours I didn't think they could lap you... but if they can it creates a problem if you're spending xp and they're not since a thrall's level can never be more than one less than your level... You'd lose them and have to pick a lower level thrall?

I could go into more depth, but it works exactly like Leadership, so that's probably more of a question for the Feats board.Ah... I apologize then. I was thinking since it's for a psionic prc, and I will most likely pick up an erudite so I can borrow his powers, that this would be an appropriate place... but I take your point. Looks like I have to look into leadership a little deeper.

Thank you for the help, JulesCARV, CrimsonDeath, and... to a lesser extent, DracoPhoenix.
CrimsonDeath
03-26-08, 07:08 PM Wait... since they're technically a class feature whose level is one less than yours I didn't think they could lap you... but if they can it creates a problem if you're spending xp and they're not since a thrall's level can never be more than one less than your level... You'd lose them and have to pick a lower level thrall?
They can't lap you. Even if you do burn enough XP for them to catch up, the Thrall's level is still limited by yours. A cruel DM would make you dismiss a Thrall that got to be too high a level, but generally the Thrall just sits on his current level, 1 XP short of levelling up, until you level.

Note that the level of Thrall you can recruit (according to the Leadership table) has no bearing on what level your Thrall can reach through gaining levels. The latter is spelled out in the Thrallherd class feature-- the first Thrall is limited to your level -1, the second to your level -2.

Ah... I apologize then. I was thinking since it's for a psionic prc, and I will most likely pick up an erudite so I can borrow his powers, that this would be an appropriate place... but I take your point. Looks like I have to look into leadership a little deeper.
No apologies necessary. This is a great place to ask the question. It's just that the minutiae of the ability depend on the Leadership feat.

And an Erudite is a good choice for a Thrall, for the reason you pointed out. However, there are some ambiguities in the way the Erudite is written that you should hammer out with your DM before you actually introduce him.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
teshen 03-26-08, 02:30 AM	If you have a thrall or believer who uses a lot of experience to use abilities, such as an erudite to learn powers or an artificier to craft items... but your believers and thralls levels are based on your level, do you have to keep changing out thralls and believers as they lose experience or does the experience they use not really count against them?
JulesCARV 03-26-08, 03:11 AM	Thrallherd inherits the rules from leadership unless stated otherwise, and the rule from leadership is that cohorts maintain an independent experience pool, but that experience gains come exclusively from experience gains by the leader, at a rate of leader's XP gain * (cohort's level/leader's level). Thus, not only might a thrall fall behind in level from spending experience on item creation and the like, but falling behind in level reduces the amount of experience gained, meaning that there's no real potential to catch up to the previous level relative to the thrallherd, even if the thrall never spends another experience point. Depending on how obedient a thrall is to the thrallherd, a high-level thrallherd might as well get a high-level psion (wizard, sorcerer, or whatever) thrall, have him spend all experience on expensive wishes, reality revisions, etc, creating gold and such for the thrallherd, keeping the thrall near the minimum level of experience for that level, then, when the thrall gains a level, trading the old one out for a new one onf a level higher. All that experience expenditure is no skin off the thrallherd's back, although some thralls, in spite of their loyalty, might find it to be too much of a sacrifice even if their thrallherd asks them to do it. I think this is something of a flawed system. I'm not sure how, but I'm thinking that maybe some form of houseruling might work. Maybe the following, for both leadership and thrallherd: "A cohort does not have an independent experience pool while in cohort status. Instead, whenever the leader gains a level, the cohort's level is changed to whatever cohort level is indicated on the leadership table for the leaders' current leadership score, subject to the restriction of cohorts to an ECL two levels lower than the leader's hit dice. A cohort who loses cohort status retains whatever level he had immediately prior to losing cohort status and gains an experience pool equal to the minimum necessary for his current level. If a cohort engages in any activity requiring expenditure of experience -- such as item creation, or casting spells with an experience component -- such experience costs are paid for by the leader instead."
CrimsonDeath 03-26-08, 03:12 AM	Your believers' level is based on your level. However, your believers don't gain XP; they join up at a particular level and are stuck there, and it's impossible to spend enough XP to drop to a lower level. Your thralls, like cohorts, have their own XP total. If you and your thrall never spend XP, your thrall will gain levels whenever you do (assuming you pick them up exactly when you level up) because of the rate that thralls and cohorts gain XP relative to their masters. If you spend XP, your thralls will gradually catch up with you; if your thralls spend XP, you'll gradually pull ahead. I could go into more depth, but it works exactly like Leadership, so that's probably more of a question for the Feats board.
DracoPhoenix 03-26-08, 07:01 AM	While you're crafting items left right and centre, give a thought to the (quite broken) Thought Bottle.... With the right feat, you can craft that thing (or the psi equivilant - you got to love transparency) for ~7500g
teshen 03-26-08, 01:09 PM	Your believers' level is based on your level. However, your believers don't gain XP; they join up at a particular level and are stuck there, and it's impossible to spend enough XP to drop to a lower level. Your thralls, like cohorts, have their own XP total. If you and your thrall never spend XP, your thrall will gain levels whenever you do (assuming you pick them up exactly when you level up) because of the rate that thralls and cohorts gain XP relative to their masters. If you spend XP, your thralls will gradually catch up with you; if your thralls spend XP, you'll gradually pull ahead. Wait... since they're technically a class feature whose level is one less than yours I didn't think they could lap you... but if they can it creates a problem if you're spending xp and they're not since a thrall's level can never be more than one less than your level... You'd lose them and have to pick a lower level thrall? I could go into more depth, but it works exactly like Leadership, so that's probably more of a question for the Feats board.Ah... I apologize then. I was thinking since it's for a psionic prc, and I will most likely pick up an erudite so I can borrow his powers, that this would be an appropriate place... but I take your point. Looks like I have to look into leadership a little deeper. Thank you for the help, JulesCARV, CrimsonDeath, and... to a lesser extent, DracoPhoenix.
CrimsonDeath 03-26-08, 07:08 PM	Wait... since they're technically a class feature whose level is one less than yours I didn't think they could lap you... but if they can it creates a problem if you're spending xp and they're not since a thrall's level can never be more than one less than your level... You'd lose them and have to pick a lower level thrall? They can't lap you. Even if you do burn enough XP for them to catch up, the Thrall's level is still limited by yours. A cruel DM would make you dismiss a Thrall that got to be too high a level, but generally the Thrall just sits on his current level, 1 XP short of levelling up, until you level. Note that the level of Thrall you can recruit (according to the Leadership table) has no bearing on what level your Thrall can reach through gaining levels. The latter is spelled out in the Thrallherd class feature-- the first Thrall is limited to your level -1, the second to your level -2. Ah... I apologize then. I was thinking since it's for a psionic prc, and I will most likely pick up an erudite so I can borrow his powers, that this would be an appropriate place... but I take your point. Looks like I have to look into leadership a little deeper. No apologies necessary. This is a great place to ask the question. It's just that the minutiae of the ability depend on the Leadership feat. And an Erudite is a good choice for a Thrall, for the reason you pointed out. However, there are some ambiguities in the way the Erudite is written that you should hammer out with your DM before you actually introduce him.