Leadership Revisions

orsal said:

I'm not sure I get what you mean by "standard people". 28-29 PB is the average for characters generated by the 4d6 method, a method deliberately chosen to produce above average results for PCs.

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15,14,13,12,11,10 array, which is an above average NPC, but not PC level.

That's 4 yes votes for the XP change.

Aye, and I waited for that and gave the cohort XP accordingly in my most recent XP award. Hurray for "catching" up to be two levels behind.

So, it just came to my attention that 3.5 snuck in a horrible revision to Followers that allow them to have PC classes instead of just Commoner/Expert/Warrior. Erekose said

I've always felt that Cohorts should be standard people not up to being heroes in their own right.

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I don't really agree--the talented apprentice is a great cohort, or the eager young squire. I've seen cohorts in games who later part ways with their mentor and become heroes in their own right, start their own NPC adventuring groups, and make the world a richer place.

Now, the followers? Those should definitely be standard people. But if we don't increase the Point Buy on the cohort, since we're using the foolishly-buffed Followers from 3.5, we risk Followers who are equally strong to the cohort, leading to a head-scratching moment of "Why did he bring the cohort and not the follower" (the answer being that rules disallow bringing the follower).

I mean, Robin has been tossed around as an example--I contend that Robin is not an inherently inferior hero to Batman, but he's a sidekick because he's inexperienced (2 levels below Batman, say), and he's learning from the master. Later, he goes off to become Nightwing, a hero in his own right. The most interesting and engaging cohorts are not the dull, uninspiring, and ordinary people--they're the apprentice who sits at the foot of the master (any number of examples), the young squire-in-training who follows a great wizard at the hint of a future destiny (early Arthur, before he becomes his own hero), and other NPCs who engage with the PCs--who seem like someone with untapped potential.

Now, it doesn't have to be any specific number of Point Buy for that to happen--I'm more trying to raise a discussion against the sentiment expressed in Erekose's point than I am trying to lobby for mechanical specifics. On the mechanical side, the whole "double-penalised with level penalty and stat penalty leading to multiple deaths" issue is, I think, the strongest argument for a PB increase. We haven't seen it as a problem yet because we only have one cohort, and it's a cleric, one of the two or three classes that can deal because it has a very large hit dice and doesn't have to go toe-to-toe (and he still died).

Rystil Arden said:

I read 17, which you get at level 6 with 20 Charisma and the circumstance bonuses (I mentioned them in my previous post and then edited out)--I may have misread the chart though and it could be 18, but I'm still seeing 17.

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The LEW version of Leadership already omits all modifiers to the leadership score that affect followers.

Xael said:

The LEW version of Leadership already omits all modifiers to the leadership score that affect followers.

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Ah, didn't catch that--that mollifies the problem of the uber-follower considerably!

Actually, it's more than that--it's perfect...and very sneaky, bravo! We've apparently accidentally instated the -2 level rule by virtue of disallowing easily-achieved modifiers that the rules expect you to have (effectively, we've given people who take Leadership a -6 to Leadership for followers, which generally results in a maximum follower of 3 levels lower than usual.

Rystil said:

I mean, Robin has been tossed around as an example--I contend that Robin is not an inherently inferior hero to Batman, but he's a sidekick because he's inexperienced (2 levels below Batman, say), and he's learning from the master. Later, he goes off to become Nightwing, a hero in his own right. The most interesting and engaging cohorts are not the dull, uninspiring, and ordinary people--they're the apprentice who sits at the foot of the master (any number of examples), the young squire-in-training who follows a great wizard at the hint of a future destiny (early Arthur, before he becomes his own hero), and other NPCs who engage with the PCs--who seem like someone with untapped potential.

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I would say in a normal game that you are exactly right. However, in LEW, I think those characters you describe should be PC's who just happen to be adventuring with higher level PCs.

SlagMortar said:

I would say in a normal game that you are exactly right. However, in LEW, I think those characters you describe should be PC's who just happen to be adventuring with higher level PCs.

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There are several reasons that doesn't work. First, LEW's unique aspects make that difficult--there is not really a better than random continuity between adventures for characters adventuring together beyond the factor of old adventures dumping the PCs out at the same time, so it's very hard to run an apprentice sort. Second, 3.5's XP system ensures that the level gap is bridged (though admittedly our time XP system actually counteracts that and may reverse it if the game is terribly slow moving) Beyond that, it's the sort of relationship that is fun to roleplay in total, but if both are PCs can be extremely unfun and patronising for the weaker PC. I know that formy 1st-level Cleric Aletheia, while she certainly respects and admires the skill of her level 4 companions, she would be highly offended if they treated her as a lesser apprentice--she wants to be considered an equal (and she is, so it works well).

Nars, my dwarven rogue with 8 charisma, definitely looked up to Ishmael in a somewhat cohort/apprentice type way. When Nars tumbled passed an elemental only to trigger a trap releasing two more elemental that thrashed him within an inch of his life, he definitely felt like an apprentice. The relationship spanned 3 adventures and levels 1-5. In the same party, Gorefoot and Percy have a relationship that could almost certainly described as leader/cohort. Of course not every PC has that type of personality. Neither of my other characters would feel like a cohort even if they were adventuring with level 15 characters.

If that is too hard to recreate, then maybe we should change the rules to make it easier. For example, we could allow players to create a 4th character as long as it was designated as a cohort. I'd be happy to play a Freefolk cohort for Vantiri, assuming Bront wanted me to. I'd be happy to work with him to find a build and personality that he liked and continue to work with him throughout the game, as long as he was also receptive to my ideas for the character. I'd even take the cohort XP and a smaller share of treasure.

I may be the only one who would be interested in playing that type of character. If there are more characters wanting cohorts who one day grow into real heros than players willing to play them, then maybe a change to the leadership rules is in order.

My point is, I think leadership in general is a hack to allow the common fantasy archetype of Leader and followers into the game. I think LEW is sufficiently different from a normal game to implement these archetypes in a more interesting and inclusive way.

Now that's a novel idea! I like it a lot. Perhaps the cohort PC could be upgraded to "normal PC", as long as there are a maximum of 3 "normal PCs". Then a normal PC could retire (or die) and make way for the cohort PC.

It's a very community-oriented version of Leadership, and I think it would be good for LEW.

However, I think it may take away from the allure of Leadership for the players of the Leader character. They don't get to control their cohort as much, and the cohort becomes less of a complement and more of an apprentice.

Also, it blatantly eliminates the "3 characters per player" limit. Leadership does that too, but in a more subtle manner.