Sultans of Smack

[Burne]

Leadership Rogue Cheese or "You and What Army?!"
Assumptions: Cohorts will be of the maximum allowable lvl. No hoarding feats. No Leadership modifiers.
Books Required: PHB, DMG

Character: 18 Cha + Rogue levels. All advancement points except for your 20th level point go into CHA. Extra Charisma from items or race gives you more followers sooner, but the final tally remains the same as this character maxes the chart without any magical help required. All feats 6th and above are used to buy Leadership, Rogue Special abilities are used to buy Leadership.

Legend:
Lvl: Main characters Level
CHA: Main Characters Charisma
LS: Leadership Score: See page 45-46 DMG for the tables and description. Leadership Score is equal to character level + Charisma modifier +/- other factors which don't much matter.
CH1 - CH9: The current level of each of your Cohorts numbered 1 through 9.
Followers: Number of Followers of each level. Followers can only be Warriors, Experts, or Commoners
M: Multiplier or the number of times the Leadership feat has been taken.

[color=white]
                                                      Followers
Lvl|CHA|LS|CH1|CH2|CH3|CH4|CH5|CH6|CH7|CH8|CH9| 1st/2nd/3rd/4th/5th/6th|M
1  | 18|--| - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |  - / - / - / - / - / - |0
4  | 19|--| - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |  - / - / - / - / - / - |0
6  | 19|10| 5 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |   5/ - / - / - / - / - |1
7  | 19|11| 5 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |   6/ - / - / - / - / - |1
8  | 20|13| 6 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |  10/  1/ - / - / - / - |1
9  | 20|14| 6 | 8 | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |  30/  2/ - / - / - / - |2
10 | 20|15| 7 | 8 | 9 | - | - | - | - | - | - |  60/  6/  3/ - / - / - |3
11 | 20|16| 8 | 9 | 9 | - | - | - | - | - | - |  75/  6/  3/ - / - / - |3
12 | 21|17| 8 | 9 | 10| 11| - | - | - | - | - | 120/ 12/  4/  4/ - / - |4
13 | 21|18| 9 | 10| 10| 11| 12| - | - | - | - | 175/ 15/  5/  5/ - / - |5
14 | 21|19| 10| 11| 11| 12| 12| - | - | - | - | 200/ 20/ 10/  5/  5/ - |5
15 | 21|20| 11| 11| 12| 12| 13| 14| - | - | - | 300/ 30/ 18/ 12/  6/ - |6
16 | 22|22| 11| 12| 12| 13| 14| 14| 15| - | - | 525/ 49/ 28/ 14/ 14/ 7 |7
17 | 22|23| 12| 13| 13| 13| 14| 15| 15| - | - | 630/ 63/ 35/ 21/ 14/ 7 |7
18 | 22|24| 13| 13| 14| 14| 15| 15| 16| 17| - | 880/ 88/ 48/ 24/ 16/ 8 |8
19 | 22|25| 13| 14| 14| 15| 16| 16| 16| 17| 17|1215/117/ 63/ 36/ 18/18 |9
20 | 22|26| 14| 15| 15| 15| 16| 16| 17| 18| 17|1215/117/ 63/ 36/ 18/18 |9
[/color]

Total at 20th level: 9 Cohorts, 1467 Followers, 2024 Levels worth of people.

Neat huh.

Now.... The Smackdown!

Assuming that all of your followers are Human Warriors with Point Blank Shot, Rapid-shot and average stats, then...

Composite Longbows for 1467 Followers: 146,700 gp
10 rounds worth of Arrows: 1476 gp
591 Scrolls of Greater Magic Weapon(5th lvl caster) 221,625 gp
Total Spent: 369,801 gp
Money Left to spend: 390,199 gp
Finding a way to use all the GMW scrolls on 29,550 arrows making them +2 (which adds 324.72 damage): Priceless

Surprise Round: Main Character Shouts "Get `em" as Free action. Sits down in Lawnchair with Cohorts as a partial action.
Round 1:
2952 Follower attacks (All followers take 2 attacks, and your 18 6th lvl warriors take 3)
147.6 Autohits of which 7.38 are crits
140.22 * 4.5 (Longbows: d8) + 7.38 * 13.5
630.99+99.63 = 730.62 damage per round. More damage if the target requires less than a natural 20 to hit.

Real World: The average damage would likely be more than that as I'm sure at least some of the followers would have magic bows or above average strengths which could be taken advantage of. Of course if the target has damage reduction then we lose, but I'm sure that at that point a Cohort or two could be convinced to get out of the lawnchair and deal with the menace. "Hurry up and kill the Balor, Buffy; Arnold will be over at sundown, and then I have to inspire the troops again. You, Ms. Number 594, could you be a dear and freshen up my martini, its gone all warm on me."

Of course, there are a bunch of ways to increase that damage, but I can't think of any method to easily effect all 1467 followers at once. If anyone knows a way, speak up!

Comments: You can increase the level of that first cohort by killing him off and using Charisma magic items to offset the -2 Leadership Score penalty. This lets you replace him with a higher level cohort.

It costs you 440 gp per day to feed your Horde a good meal. Roughly another 293 gp to house them (based on poor lodging). Which means that as a 20th lvl character, spend the rest of your Average Character loot, you can only support your Horde for a mere 532 days or 1 year 5 and a half months. Should be just enough time to conquer that small duchy you had your eye on, and get the real dough flowing in

By spending 72,500 gp of your 150,000 gp, you can max the follower chart out at 14th level.
72,500 buys you +6 Enhancement item (36k), +1 Armor of Command (9k), and +1 inherent book (27.5k) which takes your Charisma to 32, which makes your leadership score 25 exactly. Doing this, you can have 1141 followers at 16th lvl reducing the damage to only 568.22 per round.

My good roommates, being disgusted with the lack of 18th lvl Wizard Cohorts pointed out that by taking 16 Rogue levels and 4 Guild Thief prestige levels, you can take Leadership one more time, and massage the numbers in such a way as to get another 18th lvl Cohort. Of course that gives you another 163 followers, which is another 81.18 damage a round. But that would be cheesy.

Hopefully, the Epic Level Handbook will have a revised Leadership chart that accounts for Leadership Scores above 25. My minions and I look forward to such a development.

Edit: Fixed math error (Thanks CRGreathouse) and added text to Guild Thief.

 

[CRGreathouse]

2952 Follower attacks (All followers take 2 attacks, and your 18 6th lvl warriors take 3)
147.6 Autohits of which 7.38 are crits
140.22 * 4.5 (Longbows: d8) + 7.38 * 13.5
630.99+199.26 = 830.25 damage per round. More damage if the target requires less than a natural 20 to hit.

7.38*13.5 is 20.88, not 199.26... they're not dealing 27 damage per hit!

The total damage is just over 650, which isn't bad... if you roll up the followers with the 3d6 method and equip the stronger ones with mighty composite longbows (total bow cost: 238,100 gp), the damage increases by over 100* - even the Str 3 archers have a minimum of 1 point of damage (and an average of 1.75).

Note that an average of 1400 arrows can be retrived and reused after each volley, reducing the actual cost of arrows to 78 gp per volley, or 30 gp if the warriors all have the appropriate Craft skill and make their arrows.

* 101 points of extra damage. This assumes a typical distribution of stats and all warriors of level 4+ increasing their Str by a point.

 

[Burne]

Hmmm...

13.5 X 7.38 = 99.63

Earth's planar traits may have fluxed some. Math doesn't seem to work right any more. That's it....yeah.

Thanks for the math on the followers stats. I knew that it would only increase the damage, but I didn't have any method of calculating it on hand.

 

[CRGreathouse]

Thanks for the math on the followers stats. I knew that it would only increase the damage, but I didn't have any method of calculating it on hand.

Yeah, I'm the calculation guru here. A favorite pasttime of mine is over-analyzing D&D with math. I use a MS Excel, IE, and custom JavaScripts to solve these problems (see page 1, "MR. Ginsu").

In short: "Don't try this at home."

Hmmm...

13.5 X 7.38 = 99.63

Earth's planar traits may have fluxed some. Math doesn't seem to work right any more. That's it....yeah.

Now that's the kind of smackdown I'd like to see.

1. Wish to change the way math works
2. Cast a 5-bolt magic missile for and average of 3.5 damage per bolt
3. Total damage: 5 * 3.5 = 200 ---> Just enough for a smackdown!

How cool would that be?

 

[Velenne]

Nobody has anything at all to say about my psion at the end of page 4? <pouts>

 

[DM with a vengence]

In reply to the Leadership Smackdown.

Make either yourself or one of your cohorts a bard, then get the musical instrament from Song & Silence (not sure, I think its an Alpenhorn) which allows you to use Bardic Music on all creatures within 1d10 miles, this covers your troops.

The bard at the horn inspires courage, increasing damage by 147.6

 

[Victim]

Now that's the kind of smackdown I'd like to see.

1. Wish to change the way math works
2. Cast a 5-bolt magic missile for and average of 3.5 damage per bolt
3. Total damage: 5 * 3.5 = 200 ---> Just enough for a smackdown!

How cool would that be?

That would be cool until you bought a one copper drink with GP, and, instead of getting change, needed to pay 13000 more GP.

 

[Glaurung]

Arcane Smackdown Modified

Don't know if this is allowed, but I'm going to try building on another's smackdown. If this doesn't qualify as a submission, well who cares...its fun

OK, so 1st you need the boosted evocation DC modifiers from Jeremy's initial post (see page one). This pumps up the DC to around 33 I think. Also, he forgot an important spell called Greater Flow Enhancement (Book of Eldritch Might), which adds an additional +2 to DC.

This uses mostly spells from Relics and Rituals and BoEM

Round 1) (Partial) Haste, (Haste partial) Two Minds, (quick spell) renewed focus.

I noticed the initial post had two quick spells during the 1st round, note that this is not allowed even with automatically quickened spells like renewed focus, so I dropped the quicked mirror image instead of replacing it.

Round 2) (Quickened) Iron Storm (R&R), (standard) cross of lightning (BoEM), (partial action) cross of lightning, (two minds) cross of lightning --all of which should oc course be empowered (then a level 7 spell).

All 12 lightning bolts (15d6, empowered) would be drawn into the iron storm (in addition to hitting those outside the storm they were aimed at) doing an average of

3.5 x 15 (dice) x 1.5 (empowered) x 4 (cross) x 3 (spells) = 948 avg dmg

I did the math by hand, so it may be a little off. Your enemies are immune to lightning you say? Worry not! Add energy substitution and flavor to taste (though I guess its a DM's call whther a substituted lightning bolt is still drawn into an Iron Storm, I would say yes, but whatever).

BTW, if you're a rune mage from Burok Torn (PrC), you can throw in another Cross of Lightning as a move-equivalent action.

I can't wait to see what can be done with Relics and Rituals 2

-Michael Gill

 

[Skwave]

Thanks!

I would like to thank you guys here for giving me the ideas for my local tournament match.

My Ftr8/Kishi Charger 4 was able to wipe the floor with the rest of the characters in the tourney using the item and feat sets that were suggested in this thread.

His final Smackdown attack
(1d8+27) x7

1d8 lance
+12 power attack
+2 spec
+3 lance bonus
+10 str bonus (belt, and 2 hand use)
x3 power critical (just in case)
x4 kishi deadly charge
x2 rhino hide

a high attack bonus was gained by a Ioun stone with true strike spells; and a buckler of speed granted some decent armor and extra partial action.

So, don't think that this is for nothing, since some of us out there use the 'loopholes' that are exploited here!!

 

[Jeremy]