limits on leadership?

[prospero63]

Indeed. The selectable parameters are race, class and alignment, not spells, domains, skills, feats and gear. The NPCs should be competent, but cherry picked splat should not be on the menu.

+1. This is IMO one of the biggest abuses of leadership. DM's get lazy and tell the player to make their cohort. Further, being 2 levels behind can put a cohort at serious risk.

I'm not sure if this is RAW, but I also don't allow cohorts to have the leadership feat. By definition they aren't leaders, no one wants to follow them.

I also don't allow cohorts to "sit at home" churning out magic items and such. The whole reason a character gains a cohort is that the character is so charismatic as to cause people to want to follow them. The cohort wants to follow and learn from the character, not sit around making magic items, etc. If the character is never around (because they are off adventuring), the cohort eventually gets bored and finds someone else to follow.

With regards to followers, they don't go adventuring because they will get killed. Pretty cut and dry. Characters that get a reputation as someone who puts their cohorts and followers at risk quickly become someone who no one wants to follow...

 

[prospero63]

Again, that's pretty meaningless, but it's just an example of what can be done. There's a great article in the latest Knights of the Dinner Table (#146, I think) about maximizing character profit, and reselling is a big part of that. With several NPCs doing it for you, it can quickly get cumbersome for the DM.

IMO this can be remedied with a simple application of "supply and demand". If the player floods the market with a certain item it quickly becomes something that is no longer profitable to make.

 

[Shin Okada]

Rather than limiting the number of leadership feat taken, I ONLY allow players to take leadership feat when the party needs certain number of extra characters with certain role (like healer, melee combatant, arcane caster, trap finder, etc.) or when PC paladin and a like wants a special cohort mount. And only when the players can handle that NPC without slowing down the game sessions.

When those conditions are met, Usually, I co-operate with players to build an interesting and yet efficient cohort. And let players control that NPC.

As a DM, I am too busy controlling villains and monsters, and judging. So I have no time to control extra party members.

 

[krupintupple]

fascinating stuff guys - very informative!

also, currently, we play 'followers' as a throwback to our 2e days: you don't get 'em, unless you've established a base of power somewhere. this, we argue, is what attracts them to you, and even then, they're your 'in town' representation, and are additionally strictly NPC classes. i do however, include adept, so as to act as a 'wise woman' or 'village healer' or 'midwife of the mannor' type.

 

[aboyd]

Well, there's some problems there (beyond that fact that, as experts, they shouldn't be able to make alchemist's fire at all, since crafting that item requires that you be a spellcaster).

You're right, they should be adepts. My mistake.

As Runestar noted, there's nothing in the Leadership description saying that your characters have the non-elite array, or NPC class levels.

Wow, you're right. I just re-read the Leadership stuff in the DMG, and all the discussion about NPC classes & commoner stats arrays is missing. That apparently is a house rule from my DM that I've been playing with for so long that I've assumed it for my own campaigns.

Moreover, they don't need to take a "standard distribution" of rolls, since they can take 10 on a Craft check.

Wow, you're right again. That makes crafting far better, I think. My 3 gnomes should churn out 6 flasks a week at that rate, which is suddenly way-the-hell worthwhile. That's still only 18 gold a week if they sell them all. Nobody's getting rich. However, that would pay their living expenses and cover the cost of the alchemist's lab.

They had been so crappy that I had just left them at my stronghold and gone off adventuring for a few weeks. If I come back, my cohort (who is a potion-chucker) could load up on 20 or so free flasks. That's sorely needed, as she's down to 3 flasks and she's bought out the entire stock in the town we're in.

OK, point conceded -- followers are better than expected. They only suck in the game I play because of house rules & my failure to understand taking 10 for craft. Now that I've reviewed it, I'm going to have to make some decisions about my own campaigns. I think I'm going to stick with npc classes, but bump up the stats to elite array, and no cohort-leadership-pyramid-schemes.

 

[roguerouge]

Number of Followers by Level
The character can lead up to the indicated number of characters of each level. Followers are similar to cohorts, except they’re generally low-level NPCs. Because they’re generally five or more levels behind the character they follow, they’re rarely effective in combat.

Followers don’t earn experience and thus don’t gain levels. However, when a character with Leadership attains a new level, the player consults the table above to determine if she has acquired more followers, some of which may be higher level than the existing followers. (You don’t consult the table to see if your cohort gains levels, however, because cohorts earn experience on their own.)

Feats :: d20srd.org

Sorry, guys, but it's NPCs "generally."

 

[rgard]

I would never tell the players their characters couldn't take a feat they qualified for, assuming the feat was already part of the campaign. Double so after other players have taken the feat.

If you think managing the game would be too difficult with all the pcs & npcs, you can work this out with the players ahead of time telling them that certain adventures are limited to the original pcs or possibly the original pcs plus one cohort. You can even gear an encounter for each player to adventure with his/her highest level cohort.

I can't see (as others have noted above) the players wanting to take all the low level plebes with them adventuring as they'll all eventually die.

As for what cohorts are gained when taking the feat, if you let the first two players role up their own, then you need to let the next two role up their own. But that is me...I tend to be strict with my DMing when it comes to treating each player the same. If this gets abused...

Once all have had their shot at rolling up their cohorts, let them know that any future cohorts will be rolled up by you.

Thanks,
Rich

 

[Set]

Rather than limiting the number of leadership feat taken, I ONLY allow players to take leadership feat when the party needs certain number of extra characters with certain role (like healer, melee combatant, arcane caster, trap finder, etc.) or when PC paladin and a like wants a special cohort mount. And only when the players can handle that NPC without slowing down the game sessions.

I pretty much only allow Leadership when I'm running a game with two or less players. We came up with that ruling actually because of Mutants & Masterminds, where powers like Duplication and Feats like Minions and Sidekick (basically leadership - followers only and leadership - cohort only) could become problematic in a larger group.

There might be special exceptions, but it would depend on the game, the character and, most importantly, the other players. If Bob the Attention Hog is going to spend 30 minutes planning out his turn, thanks to his cohorts, animal companions, improved familiars, pets, special mounts, summoned minions, homonculi, bound outsiders and / or rebuked undead (or rebuked fire, air, earth, water, plant, construct, scalykind, spider creatures), then those options will quickly fall under DM control, to speed things up and allow the rest of the players to get a word in edgewise.

 

[irdeggman]

Sorry, guys, but it's NPCs "generally."

Actually it can be read as generally low level too with the NPCs being the absolute portion.

The actual text being

Followers are similar to cohorts, except they're generally low-level NPCs.

The text on being NPCs can be absolute or not and it does not necessarily mean limited to NPC classes (it did specify that in the 3.0 version though).

The text on cohorts specifies that they are under the player's control, the text on followers does not.

I do not allow my players to generate their cohorts or followers, I do. They do get to "ask" for a type for their cohorts but followers will be more thematic and based on their personal actions.

Also note that the leader is responsible for upkeep on all of his followers since they do not get a share of the treasure. This can be rather limiting finacially if the DM pays strict attention to how much it costs to house and feed characters.

I do allow the player to level up his cohort as desired when the cohort levels up. I do not allow them to role-play their cohorts though, I run them as NPCs as far as interactions go but the player gets to control (as in specify) their actions.

Also note that no where does it specify that the leadership feat may be taken more than once. Any feat that can be taken multiple times specifies so, having a feat gives the benefits specified no matter how many times you would have it (unless the feat specifies otherwise). So having leadership feat 3 times gives you exactly what it says on the table not 3 x what it says on the table.

There have been posts by authors that have stated in their opinion you should be able to take leaderhip more than one time and each time yielding another cohort - but that is not in the RAW anywhere.

Note that it would be impossible to have a follower craft a magic item since they earn no xp and you can't spend xp on crafting that would lower you a level.

 

[Kask]

would you, as a DM limit the number of times that a group could take the 'leadership' feat?

Group? It's a feat taken by an individual PC.