arguing with my DM: The Leadership feat(and a wizard)

[Dzyu]

Hi guys,

I recently mentioned for my DM that I'm considering getting the Leadership feat so I can have an apprentice and some followers.

I'm playing a human lvl 7 wizard with 25 int, 7 wis and 7 cha.
Eccentric, different, not good with people but a genious. A pretty standard wizard really. I've explained this statline with my wizard being a bit differently wired than most, spending most of his life studying instead of socializing. I even got a special feat from the DM called "savant mind"(he likes a bit of house rules) giving me my int bonus to will saves since my wizard is "wired" differently.

His instantaneous argument was that this was a stupid idea as there's no way a wizard such as mine would attract followers, and that the Leadership feat should have a cha requirement.

We have a paladin in the group who's taken the leadership feat on lvl 7 so he doesn't have any problem with the feat in itself. It's just that he thinks it's stupid with a wizard so unattentive and uncharismatic to be a leader and attract a cohort(read: apprentice) and followers.

Any comments on this?

IMO what my DM says is ridiculous. A wizard could take the leadership feat and attract followers. Not because he's a good leader(he does get a penalty for low cha to his leadership score so I have no idea what the DM is on about, really!), but because he's powerful, knowledgeable and very intelligent, he would attract followers and a cohort different than a paladin would. Do you guys agree?


Oh and what exactly does "special power" mean? Ability to cast spells?

 

[jmucchiello]

Some people use pre-defined shapes to cut dough into cookies. Some people shape cookies by hand or with a knife. If you don't like the way your DM shapes cookies, you either explain/show him your way and hope he finds your way palatable or you find a new DM.

No one here is going to say "you're right, your DM's wrong." We're only going to explain that people are different and that if you can't get past those differences, then find new people.

That's the way the cookie crumbles.

 

[Dragonbait]

you're right, your DM's wrong.







Sorry. I couldn't resist.

 

[pawsplay]

Actually, I'll say the DM is wrong. Leadership is already modified by Cha anyway. The idea that a character is completely incapable of attracting followers, of any kind, is just not logical. I can see excising the Leadership feat, but I can't see allowing it for the paladin but not the wizard. Why couldn't the wizard attract apprentices with a similar mindset to the master, or ambitious apprentices more interested in his magical secrets than his table manners? Or nonhuman ones? etc.

 

[Henry]

I would argue him to look at the Cult of Stephen Hawking. Here's a man who's not a charismatic leader, who's bound to a wheelchair due to a terrible disease, yet who has throngs of academia hanging on his every written or digitally spoken word. Is there any physics undergrad student who, say ten years ago, would pass up a chance to do work for Stephen Hawking if offered?

Charisma comes in many different forms - your wizard would just be the type would wouldn't get many followers (low charisma, penalties possibly for neglect depending on your roleplaying style) but the ones who did would be real die-hards who would defend and hang on your every word.

 

[Celebrim]

Well, IMO the Leadership feat is ridiculous on several grounds:

1) It's the only feat I can think of which a person can defacto acquire through roleplay. In otherwords, what prevents someone who has fulfilled the requirements of getting retainers, followers, admirers, companions, and even worshipers by way of role play from effectively having the feat?
2) It's far and way the most powerful feat in the game. From an objective standpoint, no character should not take the Leadership feat since the NPC/followers that come with it are far more powerful than any other single feat.
3) The requirements for taking the feat are rather bizarre.
4) It introduces a huge burden on the DM and generally slows play. As a DM, I try to minimize the number of NPC's the players are interacting with at any one time, because I can only effectively portray one, maybe two, NPC's at a time. If everyone takes Leadership, suddenly the party is continually crawling with NPC's in addition to the ones they'd normally meet. This forces me to leave the NPC's in the hands of the players, which leads to problems (players start forgetting its an NPC, and get angry when I balk at what they say the NPC will do) and tends to make them non-entities when it comes to personality. Additionally, if the player is running the NPC, they essentially get two turns to every one of another player, which is a way of hogging the spotlight and it ruins the game pacing because players get input too irregularly and get bored.

IMO, the only reason the Leadership feat is in the game is to provide some back compatibility with the expectations of 1st edition AD&D where high level characters (here meaning 9th) acquired followers as a special benefit. It was probablimatic back in 1st edition, and its even more problimatic in 3rd.

I'm not going to get between you and your DM. This is something for you to work out on your own, and my opinion isn't intended to be a club for you to try to beat your DM over the head with.

If your DM says that Leadership has a Chr prerequisite, then it has a Chr prerequisite. You've already accepted his right to house rule the system when it is in your favor, you can't now back out and force him to adhere to the rules as written.

I personally wouldn't take that route because it already factors Chr into the feat (you get weaker followers), but even if I allowed Leadership at all I probably would require, "Necessary background" before taking the feat - meaning that you had to do something publicly which would tend to make you famous (or infamous) and would tend to attract followers to you. If your character is a a grungy adventurer that hasn't seen the light of day since 1st level, and you stumble into a tavern somewhere, I don't see how you can justify, "People want to come and serve me as lord and master." just because you say, "I take a feat that says that they do."

Maybe your DM hasn't handled the situation as best as he might (since you are obviously angry and coming over here to whip up a lynch mob), but I don't see anything unreasonable about ruling that your character doesn't qualify for a particular feat.

 

[MatthewJHanson]

The first thing that I thought when reading about your character was Paul Erdos. You might also want to check out this episode of Radio Lab about halfway through.

Basically Erdos was highly eccentric, but also brilliant. He's not well known outside of math circles, but he probably collaborated with more mathematicians than anybody else in history, and mathematicians have an "Erdos number" that describes how far work with Erdos they are.

I'd see if you could use that as your model. Your wizard isn't going to attract the standard followers through his strength of personality. He's going to attract nerds.

 

[The Ghost]

IMO what my DM says is ridiculous. A wizard could take the leadership feat and attract followers. Not because he's a good leader(he does get a penalty for low cha to his leadership score so I have no idea what the DM is on about, really!), but because he's powerful, knowledgeable and very intelligent, he would attract followers and a cohort different than a paladin would. Do you guys agree?

Well, if I were your DM here's how I would handle this situation:

You kind of painted yourself into a corner with your character's background. He (She?) is not the kind of person that people necessarily flock to; unlike the Paladin who attracts people just by strolling down the street. Becoming a leader will be a more difficult journey for you. The benefits of the feat will come at a slower progression for you. If you still want to continue with taking the feat here's how it will work.

Because of your great intellect and the contacts that you have made within the community of wizards you have managed to attract Horatio (Wizard X). He has come to learn from you. He is your cohort. Obviously, there would be more role-playing involved than this but, whatever, it works as an example. As for other followers - they will take time to acquire. You will need to do some role-playing to acquire them. Perhaps have your character take some time in game to develop a magic theorem or formula, write a paper, engage other wizards in Dragon Chess, debate philosophical ideas, etc.

You have already laid out the in-game background information as to why you should not attract followers - take some time to lay down some in-game background info as to why you should attract followers. It sounds like, from your post, that your DM is looking for justification. I may be wrong - but, that is my take on it.

 

[thatdarnedbob]

You're playing a level 7 wizard with 25 Int. Stop complaining about things being unfair. Hope that helps!

 

[Snoweel]

His instantaneous argument was that this was a stupid idea as there's no way a wizard such as mine would attract followers, and that the Leadership feat should have a cha requirement.

I've spent a lot of my life in team environments (who hasn't right?), particularly in team sports and especially my time as a soldier, so I've seen a lot of wannabe leaders both good and bad.

In my experience, leadership has little to do with charisma.

Charisma, imo, is most useful when dealing with people you don't know, or rather, people who don't know you.

Once people get to know each other, charisma only continues to impress the insecure. And members of the opposite sex.

Effective leadership is about self-belief and strength of character. It's about values and the example you set.

I have met effective leaders who lacked charisma and ineffective leaders who exuded personal magnetism. Obviously, the opposite is also true.

I'd almost go as far as to say there's no direct correlation between charisma and leadership but that's not entirely true; given the significant percentage of insecure members of the population who respond well to charisma, the effective leader with charisma edges the effective leader without.

I'd also say that effective leaders are generally more charismatic than the average person, since charismatic individuals will tend to have more self-belief, due to a lifetime of being able to easily impress the weak-willed.