Monstrous Cohorts, Companions and Leadership

2 years ago
Admin
5 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 the rules:

  • 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, 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 abilities, add +1 (+2 if 10 base HD or more). If the creature has both, 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, to determine the effective cohort level companion you may have. If your companion falls under these numbers, congrats you got it! You can advance it 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 adding any desired template CR adjustment made above, further advance the creature using monster levels of the base type of the creature up to the maximum effective cohort level (determined above) of your cohort. 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 adding any desired template CR adjustment made above, further advance the creature using monster levels of the base type of the creature up to the maximum effective cohort level (determined above) of your cohort. 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 effective cohort level (determined above); they can train any skill or feat and in what classes they may feasibly make use of.
  • Awakened companions add the two animal hit dice granted from the awakening spell description to their effective cohort level, along with any animal hit dice gained up to the point they were awakened, then may advance as a 7+ Intelligence cohort up to their maximum effective cohort level.
  • If you’re using your companion feature in lieu of the Leadership feat, continue to advance the creature per the companion table for companion features, ability, saves and natural AC increases. The two-thirds creature hit dice for Automatic Bonus Progression applies.
  • If you gained your cohort from the Leadership feat, it does not gain features or bonuses from the companion advancement table, 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.
  • 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.
  • Druids will not have an outsider, undead or aberration cohort, or any creature with a template related to any of these.
  • Cohorts and companions cannot gain their own additional companion or summon other creatures, regardless of their class or racial ability to do so otherwise.