Leadership Revisions

[Rae ArdGaoth]

When LEW allowed Leadership as a feat, the judges passed it in a slightly less powerful form. I propose to restore Leadership's original power to some extent, according to these new rules...

*Cohorts will be created with a 30 point buy, as normal for a PC.
*A cohort receives XP like a normal character for their level. This XP is in addition to the XP awarded to the party; it is not subtracted from the party total. This method, created by Rystil Arden, will be instated to discourage the "cycling" of cohorts.

And this important guideline...

*A cohort in an adventure is ultimately and absolutely controlled by the DM. If a cohort seems to be taking up too much stage time, it is the DM's right and duty to request the player to tone the cohort's actions down and/or take DM control of the cohort. Other Players should also feel comfortable in requesting such action of the DM or the player who is controlling the cohort.

I propose that we give these new rules a one year time limit and reassess the situation then. The point buy change is retroactive, so any active cohorts will have a stat increase.

Much discussion on this issue has already taken place in this thread.

[sblock=Removed Text: ]At the start of this trial, any PCs who were eligible to take Leadership but chose not to may immediately exchange a feat for Leadership. At the end of the trial, PCs will again have the chance to exchange Leadership for another feat if they so desire. [/sblock]

 

[Rystil Arden]

As mentioned earlier, I can definitely get behind this--it puts the power in the hands of the GM, where it belongs. I vote YES

 

[Bront]

I'll vote YES to this

 

[orsal]

While I'm undecided on this change in general, there is one part I disagree with:

At the start of this trial, any PCs who were eligible to take Leadership but chose not to may immediately exchange a feat for Leadership. At the end of the trial, PCs will again have the chance to exchange Leadership for another feat if they so desire.

In some cases where new options were created, PCs who had already done something similar have been allowed, on a case-by-case basis, to retroactively change it to the new option. For example, when the Academy Graduate feat was proposed, we allowed it to be substituted for (IIRC) Skill Focus (Spellcraft) or Skill Focus (Knowledge (Arcana)) by characters who had previously taken one of those feats. That made sense: those were the previously-available feats offering the build most like Academy Graduate. Besides, Academy Graduate couldn't be taken any time, so without the retroactivity provision a character who had missed the chance at creation wouldn't get another opportunity.

In the case under consideration, the only feat offering anything close to any version of Leadership is... any other version of Leadership. I don't like the idea of letting characters change their builds retroactively except in minor ways. Substituting Leadership for, say, Alertness or Craft Wondrous Item really doesn't make sense to me. If you've previously developed the talent for creating magic objects, it doesn't make sense that you suddenly lose it by virtue of gaining a close friend and associate at the same time.

 

[Rae ArdGaoth]

I put that in there for Vanitri, Bront's character. Vanitri considered taking Leadership but decided against it because Bront decided it was too nerfed. It'll be 3 levels now until Vanitri again has the opportunity to take Leadership.

Also, since this is a trial period, I think it would be good to have several PCs with Leadership, so we can see how well the rules work.

I completely understand your sentiment, though. It's completely meta-game and makes no sense in-character. What would you suggest? Disallowing the chance to switch? Making an exception just for Vanitri?

 

[Rystil Arden]

I put that in there for Vanitri, Bront's character. Vanitri considered taking Leadership but decided against it because Bront decided it was too nerfed. It'll be 3 levels now until Vanitri again has the opportunity to take Leadership.

Also, since this is a trial period, I think it would be good to have several PCs with Leadership, so we can see how well the rules work.

I completely understand your sentiment, though. It's completely meta-game and makes no sense in-character. What would you suggest? Disallowing the chance to switch? Making an exception just for Vanitri?

The good news is that Vanitri's going to be level 8 after this most recent encounter, so it's likely that he would reach level 9 and get a chance to grab a cohort before the year is up. Yeah, this last encounter may have killed Ashnar and stole Hogarth the cohort's soul, but it sure is worth a lot of XP!

Based on one fairly likely outcome of this stage of the adventure, he may be indisposed to pick up a cohort until level 9 anyway, though I won't mention any more details, thus leaving it mysterious .

 

[Bront]

You can remove that addendum if you want. I took a feat I'm happy with, and think it's more likely to happen at Level 9 anyway.

Oh, and do I get XP for killing Ashnar?

 

[IcyCool]

As I stated in the earlier thread, I think this is a mistake. I also think that placing the burden of balance on the GM's is also potentially a mistake.

We should strive for the rules of Living ENWorld to be balanced in and of themselves, and not just leave it up to the GM to have to balance it. That's fine in a table top game, but when your character could be playing under a dozen different DM's, a consistent ruleset is important. Granted, the Leadership rules already broke that, but making them worse and claiming it's ok because the GM can always fix it is making the problem worse, not better.

My $0.02

 

[Velmont]

As the only character with leadership, here what I have to tells.

*Cohorts will be created with a 30 point buy, as normal for a PC.

I don't care much about that change. Most likely, the extra 5 will NOT go in INT or CHA (which are at 9 and 8)... Hogarth is just too shy and too dumb and that's one big reason why he has stayed in ths shadow most of the game. It's part of the roleplay of that character.

*A cohort receives XP like a normal character for their level. This XP is in addition to the XP awarded to the party; it is not subtracted from the party total. This method, created by Rystil Arden, will be instated to discourage the "cycling" of cohorts.

I like that change. It is the only one I want to change. XP, as it is, is problematic and that would solve it.

*A cohort in an adventure is ultimately and absolutely controlled by the DM. If a cohort seems to be taking up too much stage time, it is the DM's right and duty to request the player to tone the cohort's actions down and/or take DM control of the cohort. Other Players should also feel comfortable in requesting such action of the DM or the player who is controlling the cohort.

I think that's just fair.

 

[Manzanita]

I vote No.

I don't have any opposition to the XP changes.

I do oppose increasing the point buy to over 25. This has been discussed extensively in the other thread, so I don't want to start an argument. I simply feel cohorts need to be inherently less competent than PCs.