Monstrous Cohorts, Companions and Leadership

2 years ago
Admin
7 minutes

Or how to make the Monstrous Mounts and Monstrous Companions not suck.

Because they are narrow in scope, do not allow for any variance or options outside of the tables, the “effective cohort/companion/etc level” is arbitrary and has no bearing on the actual hit dice, challenge rating or even how good of a companion it is, all of the following are removed from our rules:

  • Beast Speaker + Beast Speaker Mastery
  • Elder Voice + Elder Voice Mastery.
  • Monstrous Mount
  • Monstrous Companion + Monstrous Mount Mastery and their mechanics
  • The Monstrous Companions table and example list
  • Monstrous Mounts list
  • The Special Cohorts and Companions subtext from the Leadership feat

Replacing all of these with the following:

When a character with a companion or mount feature — such as a druid, paladin, cavalier, or various archetypes — reaches 7th level, they can opt to gain a nonstandard (monstrous, intelligent, etc) companion, be it by attracting a new companion, awakening the existing companion, etc. They can hence treat their companion class feature as the Leadership feat — treating their companion as their cohort — and can opt to forego the additional followers from the Leadership feat (besides the cohort) in exchange for continuing to use the druid’s animal companion table to gain features and abilities, and determine the strength and level of their companion vs. their effective druid level.

Alternately, a character may trade off their companion ability for the Leadership feat, and gain all of the feat’s attendant followers, but the cohort companion no longer gains the benefits of the companion table in this case (and forfeits the progression that it already had). In effect, it’s no longer a companion, and instead the creature is a cohort and bound solely by cohort rules.

Either election can be reversed if at any point the character’s cohort dies, is dismissed etc., and the character chooses to gain a normal companion once more.

To know what actual kind of monstrous companion or cohort you can actually have in substitution of your companion feature and its effective cohort level:

  • Determine the effective cohort level of your companion/cohort by using the desired creature’s CR +2 if less than 10 base HD or CR +3 if 10 base HD or more.
  • If the creature has spellcasting or spell-like or supernatural abilities, add +1 (+2 if 10 base HD or more). If the creature has more than one of these, add this adjustment again.
  • Apply any augmentation or template CR adjustments (if hit dice increase will eventually make a template’s CR adjustment higher, then add the higher value) to get the final adjusted effective cohort level of the companion.
  • Refer to the cohort column in the Leadership feat’s followers table for your leadership score (your leadership score is equal to your effective druid level* + Charisma modifier), to determine the effective cohort level companion you may have, ignoring all modifier tables (companions, unlike humanoid cohorts, don’t give two shits about reputation, having a stronghold, etc), If your desired companion falls under these numbers, and its effective CR is at least two below your actual character level, congrats you got it! You can advance the companion from that point to the maximum effective cohort level it should be in the Leadership cohort level column using the steps below.

Advancing an exotic companion/cohort

  • If the companion/cohort is Intelligence 2 or less, after calculating the CR adjustment above, further advance the creature using monster levels of the base type of the creature up to the maximum cohort level per the cohort table. Creatures at this intelligence can only train in the skills of their race type (typically only getting 1 rank per level), and gain only monster/companion feats.
  • If the companion/cohort is Intelligence 3 to 6, after calculating the CR adjustment above, further advance the creature using monster levels of the base type of the creature up to the maximum cohort level per the cohort table. Creatures at this intelligence can train any skill or feat they could feasibly make use of, given their anatomy.
  • If the companion/cohort is Intelligence 7+, atop of any template CR adjustments made above, the creature can be advanced using either racial levels or class levels, barring obvious physical limitations of the creature, up to the maximum cohort level per the cohort table. The cohort can train any skill or feat and in whatever classes they may feasibly make use of.
  • Awakened companions add the two animal hit dice granted from the awakening spell description, along with any animal hit dice gained up to the point they were awakened, then they may advance as a 7+ Intelligence cohort up to their maximum level per the cohort table.
  • If you’re using your companion feature in lieu of the Leadership feat, the creature gains the STR/DEX increases, natural AC increases and the special abilities from the companion table creature’s number of racial hit dice. For class levels, apply the table for companion features only. Class levels use their own ability, saves, hit point, skill point and feat increases as if the companion were an NPC of the commensurate class level. The two-thirds total creature hit dice for Automatic Bonus Progression still applies, and the creature has no wealth of its own.
    • Example A: A celestial dragon horse is CR 9 (effective level 9) + 3 (10+ HD) + 2 (supernatural abilities) for a total effective cohort level of 14, requiring an effective druid level of 20 to become a cohort. The dragon horse has 10 companion hit dice with all stats determined by the companion table, and four class levels with the class determining the the remainder of its stats. It’s special ability progression is gained according to the master’s effective druid level. It has the ABP of a 10th level companion with the companion’s limitations speficied in the ABP page.
  • If you gained your special cohort from (or traded for) the Leadership feat, the creature does not gain (or loses) any features or bonuses from the companion table, uses the hit die, saves and BAB from its normal type (which is usually higher than animal) gains its own character level Automatic Bonus Progression and NPC starting wealth, geared as needed, and its skills and feats are selected from those made available to player characters or monster feats as appropriate.
    • Example B: A celestial dragon horse is CR 9 (effective level 9) + 3 (10+ HD) + 2 (supernatural abilities) for a total effective cohort level of 14, requiring an effective druid level of 20 to become a cohort. As a normal cohort, the dragon horse has 10 magical beast hit dice, BAB, saves and skill points (resulting in higher hit points and BAB), plus the 4 class levels determining the rest of its stats. It has the wealth by level and all the ABP bonuses of a 14th level NPC.

Important stipulations to this new mechanic:

  • No combination of feats, abilities, class features etc. can ever raise your effective druid level higher than your character level for calculating your leadership score.
  • Intelligent (3+) companions with any alignment other than true neutral should only be within one alignment step of their master on either axis.
  • Tricks no longer matter at Intelligence 3+ since the creature is fully sentient and can at the least understand being conversed to. Handle Animal at that point can be treated as the Diplomacy skill between the player character and an exotic animal/magical beast companion.
  • You can only ever have one exceptional companion, even if you have a class feature or combination of classes that cause you to gain an additional companion.
  • A character with a companion feature who trades off for Leadership can have other non-humanoid followers per the followers table, but they will all be non exceptional animals and treat the max follower levels as their CR limit. (So, a druid with a leadership score of 20 could have her exceptional companion of 14 hit dice, plus one CR5 animal, and up to two CR4 animals, three CR3 animals, five CR2 animals and fifty CR1 animals.
  • Druids will not have an outsider, undead or aberration cohort, or any creature with a template related to any of these (with the exception of the celestial [good only], fiendish [evil only] or feytouched templates).
  • Cohorts and companions cannot gain their own additional companion or summon other creatures, regardless of their class or racial ability to do so otherwise.