Following In Footsteps

Thoughts on Cohorts

This week on one of the Pathfinder Facebook pages there was an interesting question that got me thinking: A poster’s GM had apparently let him kind of adopt a young goblin. The player wanted to figure out what he could do, mechanics-wise, to make this goblin a pet. Now, I’ve never been a huge fan of extra characters granted by the leadership, which is odd because I love animal companions and familiars. So today I’m gonna talk about cohorts and as both a mechanic and a roleplay opportunity.

As I mentioned love animal companions and I’ve written about them before so I’m going to skip talking about that for a second time. But there are a few ways to get a cohort in Pathfinder, so let’s talk about those.

The leadership feat is the most common way to gain a cohort. The thing about the actual leadership feat is that it also gives you followers and some GMs, myself included, feel like this can get a little unbalancing. One player wandering the countryside with a small cadre of low-level NPCs can become quite daunting.  I try and push for followers to be left at home, in a keep, castle, or organization’s headquarters, as I’ve seen GMs lose their minds keeping track of all these people on the road.

Leadership can’t be taken till seventh level, and the poster mentioned was looking to take his goblin as a companion-of-sorts fairly early on. I pointed out to him one way of doing this and in researching for this article I’ve found two others. All of these methods give you just a cohort, which is handy, although one of them allows you to switch to leadership at seventh level and the other automatically switches, gaining you the noted followers.

The one I brought up – and I think the one I like best – is the squire feat. This is available at third level but only to martial-based characters, as you must have proficiency with all martial weapons. The squire himself must also be a martial class with proficiency in all martial weapons, although it does not need to be whatever your class is. The fighter class has two archetypes which are not really what I would call optimal but they could be fun for your squire. The weapon bearer squire and the pack mule could both make for an interesting hanger-on.

Much like the squire feat, the imperial knight feat requires martial weapon proficiency but also heavy armor proficiency. The base attack bonus of plus six means that at best you could take it at sixth level – only one level lower than leadership – if you were a full BAB class with a bonus feat available at sixth level. The one problem with this feat is that you can only take a human or a Halfling with one of a handful of NPC classes. This is offset by an initiative and armor class bonus because the cohort automatically gets the feat, imperial squire.

The last feat that gains you a cohort is interesting in that it allows you to have more than one cohort in the amount equal to have your character level. This is balanced by the fact that unlike a regular cohort from leadership, which can be at highest two levels behind you, and the squire from the squire feat (three), your recruits can only at most be up to four levels behind you. Although you do gain multiple minions, only one can follow you on an adventure -- which leaves the other ones back at home doing your chores, like crafting things for you.

Since these all count as leadership for the purpose of qualifying for other feats, you could also take the practiced leadership feat to give your cohorts and yourself some extra bonuses. The plus to your cohort’s will saves against enchantment is nice. The real benefit for you, however, is that they count as having all your teamwork feats to determine whether or not you would get the bonus from said feats.

So now that you’ve figured out how you are going to be gaining the services of a cohort it’s time to figure out how you interact with said underling. In the same thread as the one that sparked this idea, someone brought up the idea of playing it along the lines of Don Quixote. The squire would be a Sancho-like character who centers the over-the-top deeds of his master. This may work best with the imperial knight feat seeing as Sancho was a peasant farmer and that feat gives a commoner as a cohort.

You could also play it as student learning from the master. This would probably mean your cohort is the same class as you are, which may seem counterproductive to having a second character in the first place. Still, the idea does have some merit as a pupil learns to be a samurai – or whatever class you are – as you pass down the knowledge that your master had once imparted to you. The dynamic here could be very amusing as you give instructions during combat or other inappropriate time. The Student could also be a sidekick a la Batman and Robin.

One of my favorite ideas for a cohort is a chronicler. Your minion follows you around and writes the story of your adventures for you. This works best for bards, but rogues or investigators might work as well. A support class that can do party buffs or maybe debuff the bad guys but doesn’t really get into the mix of combat makes the dynamic of recorder-of-deeds make sense. This dynamic is best suited to a self-centered character.

So there you have it, ideas on how to gain and use cohorts. How often do you take a cohort of some type? What path do you use to gain your follower? What roleplay dynamic do you use for you hanger-on?

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