Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Kukamunga 05-07-06, 10:43 PM	heh... soooo i have 5 players in my group and they have all hit the infamus leadership level ... level 6... so they go out and as none of us have played characters with levels this high... we are all in uncharted waters they attract cohorts and what not... this was fun.. and made for some really awesome story and plot hooks... after everything was finished and all the dust settled.. i realized what i had done we have in the party of 5 players and me the DM: 1 Paladin 1 Griffon Mount 1 Fighter Cohort 1 Druid 1 Wolf Companion 1 Ranger Cohort 1 Wizard 1 Cat Familiar 1 Sorcerer Cohort 1 Ranger 1 Eagle Companion 1 Ranger Cohort 1 Rogue 1 Rogue Cohort Soooo tallying the numbers up that makes for 14 characters.. and we havnt even started looking at the followers... Now my question is how do you deal with that... usually when i ask how to tailor an encounter for a group of more than 4 ppl.. is you add monsters... soooo for an encounter that is fitting.. i need 7 CR 4 creatures to put up a fight against the party... which means that there will be 21 creatures that need to be micromanaged and delt with.. in order by 6 people.. even if we split up the monsters it still means 4-5 creatures per human to deal with.. which radically slows down ... well everything... so what do you guys do?
Archmage_Vall 05-07-06, 11:06 PM	I'd rule that if a PC already has an animal companion/special paladin mount, then they can't have another cohort in addition to it, even with the Leadership feat. Or, at least that the cohort won't travel with the party. Then, have each player control their PC and cohort/companion/special mount, and the DM controls the bad guys like normal.
Bloodtide_the_Red 05-08-06, 12:17 AM	Looks like you have a typical party. Keep in mind that the mount, animal companions and Familiar don't count as seperate for determining the 'level' of the group. They are PART of each characters level. For that matter, Cohorts are also part of that level, as it does take a feat to get them and they are bound by special rules(it's not like the player now has two characters). Having each player be ready and know all about thier sub groups is very helpful. So they don't sit there and say, 'um what spell can my cohort cast' or 'how fast can my tiger move'. You want to get it more to the point....'both me and the cohort cast magic missles at the target' A chort can be quite more useful as a buff. Someone to cast, say Bull's Strgenth during a fight. or even just use Aid Another action. This lets them help, but they stay out of the spotlight. A ranger cohort that hangs back from the melee battle and picks off straglers is always a good idea. At about 6th to 10th level, it does start to become dangerous to toss your ainmals or mounts at monsters...they will almost never hit the monster and will be taken out in one or two hits. A simple way to do it is to simply up the CR of each monster, not add more monsters. Templates or Levels is a good way to do this. You can be sneaky and send them up against harmful monsters. The griffon would not be wise to attack a Ooze or fire elemental. In the end, you'll all be rolling lots of dice though.....but that's part of the game BT
KJW 05-08-06, 08:25 AM	You are missing the real issue, its not the number of monsters you need to throw at them, but the management of this army of NPCs that is your biggest problem as well as giving the PCs a chance to meet their goals. The first issue is who runs the cohorts in combat, this is probably easy, it is the PCs. The second issue is who roleplays the cohort, I usually give my players the choice if they want me or they want to do it themselves, but you have new players so it will fall to you to roleplay them. Yes, they are loyal to the PC, but they are not an extension of the PC they are a separate NPC. FOr example, how are the cohorts being paid? With my group the only cohort is treated as an equal party member with equal shares of the treasure, if a cohort is performing as well as a PC he probably should complain to his 'master' that the situation is unfair. Also what about the followers? That will really increase the size of the party. :D Seriously, what are the PCs doing about their army of followers? They don't need to pay them (though they should), but they do need to feed them (unless they have some other means of sustenance). If a follower gets arrested for a barfight it falls to the PC to deal with the situation. The problem here is that you are all new players and see Leadership as a cool feat, but it is more than that. These PCs are now responsible for their cohort and their followers, additionally the PCs are now leaders in the world. I am really surprised they all took the feat to be honest, I have never seen that before, I am lucky to have one or two players who take the Leadership feat. It entails more responsibility than most players want to deal with. Now for some ideas... The paladin obviously is building a fighting force, but he probably needs permission from his church, order, or lord. Maybe he will be given a small shrine-keep to defend, thus using his new army of devoted followers as a shield against some savage or evil enemy. The druid better be careful with his army of followers, and that of the party, so they do not devastate the environment. Also where is he going to settle with this congregation, maybe his followers want him to start a community which will embrace nature. The wizard is likely to run afoul of wizard guilds and societies if he is organizing something along those lines, plus what is he doing with all those followers are they scribes and herbalists? Still he could possibly intend to start a town with him as the magical lord. The ranger looks to be starting some ranger or hunting society, which is probably good because his followers will need to forage for the followers of the other PCs. You could have a tremendous scouting force, but in dangerous lands the ranger will likely be losing followers. As for the rogue, what alignment is he. If he is CN or even CG then it is possible some of his followers will end up on the wrong side of the law really quickly. Maybe his goal is to build a thieves' guild, but right now he has an army of thieves following him around. Regardless of how you run this you need to make sure everyone is organized and has all their combat statistics in order. Let the player's deal with their minions in combat with time limits, this is another reason I rarely see players take Leadership, managing a cohort and PC in a fast paced game can be hard, but your players will learn. Throw big things at them and look for roleplaying opportunities to exploit. Yeah, its tough, but I doubt you will see this happen again.
Kukamunga 05-09-06, 05:19 PM	thanks yeah it was mostly the fact that the organization of the game took much longer...
Hochiu 05-09-06, 07:05 PM	Eh. Most of the time, especially at 6th level, your lower end followers aren't going to amount to anything but jack. The best attribute they have is to sit back at whatever you're using for a base of operations and either set about staying there and protecting it, or running courtier duty or some other thing. They're simply not useful to be used in any real application unless you're going to ride with them into a mass combat situation. I agree with the above opinon of giving the player the opportunity or choice to roleplay their cohorts. They're really the only ones that matter out of everyone who follows the PCs, as they are somewhat comparable in power and scope to the actual higher level characters. I had a 17th level cleric/ranger who attracted a half-vampire rogue/sorcerer as a lower level chohort. We never got around to actually using her in any battle, as the campaign ended and we broke apart the college semester came to a close. Also, if you look at the Leadership feat, everyone who has an animal companion or a familiar automatically gains a -2 modifier concerning gathering cohorts. So the cohorts are even further behind them, which can significantly alter their effectiveness in battle. Added to that the Cohort doesn't gain experience in any way similar to the players, it's harder to make up for that gap in abilities. Adventurers also generally move around a lot more than most other organizations, which will incure yet another negative modifier. And if you ended up killing any of them, there goes more negative points in your favor. Basically...all your players (save the rogue) are starting out with a -3 modifier to your cohort level due to pure mechanical considerations. How those PCs act as leader may or may not increase or decrease this number. It depends on how the PCs want to use their cohorts. If they use them like general travelling companions, then the CRs of the encounters should be higher than previously, as there are more bodies to take into account. If the Cohorts stay outside dungeons, for instance, and guard the mounts and carts for whatever they find, then there's no problem there. Another idea is to offer them the chance to take up fulltime roleplaying of their cohorts if their PCs die. The cohort could take it upon his/herself to raise her former leader from the dead. Of course, they couldn't become a cohort again as they would probably gain levels regularly, depending on how you ruled it. -- My personal idea that I've used for a long time is that everything in the leadership can be used as a general guideline. The feat gets greatly overshadowed by excellent roleplay. There's no reason to waste a slot if you know what you're doing. An example of this is my buddy's samurai character in an Oriental Adventures game. He became a leader of a small family clan, numbering now 500+ members, with three or four of them high ranking samurai who could be cohorts in their own right. He has not taken the leadership feat. Seems to me, its just one of those feats that makes the game force roleplay, instead of it actually being done on its own accord.