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

[The Ghost]

I'm with Oryan here. You build up a character concept that is obviously weighted towards being antisocial...

And now, there really is no IN CHARACTER reason your character would want followers. Would ever think of attracting them.

I am going to disregard the power level portion of your comment as, I guess, I don't really have any disagreement with your point of view. However, this part of the post I do disagree with. At least, I disagree that his character concept cannot include Leadership.

Character concepts are not necessarily static elements - they can and, in my opinion, should change as a character levels up. Grows, if you will. His character began as someone who is anti-social. That much is true. Now he wants his character to grow out of that mold. To become a leader. That's cool. He just needs to find a connection that makes sense. I think the Steven Hawking example works quite well for him.

 

[Nebten]

I would think the DM & the player should take a step back at seriously look at what at what is being delivered.
The 7th level wizard is getting a 3rd level cohort that could be of the DM's choosing. If the player's Cha stays the same, he won't get followers until level 12 when he has a 7th level cohort.
Honestly, how unbalancing is this? The party has to try to keep at NPC alive that is -5 their average party level. Think of that in terms of HPs and Saves. That will suck up some party resources. Once the cohort dies, they he'll get another negative modifier to his next cohort.
Plus how effective will he be at higher levels. Even if its another spellcaster, he's still going to have to push through SR to get spells through.

I don't see it being that big of a deal and if anything the DM is helping you out.

 

[Celebrim]

Obviously there's something leaderlike about him, else no one would follow.

House has an extremely high charisma: he usually employs it to be insult, taunt, irritate, dominate, and belittle people. Nothing requires a person with high charisma to be likeable, tactful, or diplomatic. The latter traits are personality traits which one might have if you employ charisma in a certain way, but they are not the attribute charisma.

 

[Jasperak]

I have always viewed charisma from the "personal magnetism" perspective. In this way Dr. House would have a fairly high charisma for reasons already articulated.

Regarding the OP's specific request, I would follow the advice of many here and allow the feat. There seem to be so many RP reasons for allowing it.

And if Raistlin can get a follower/student...

 

[AllisterH]

With his low CHA score, doesn't leadership kind of NOT lend itself to powergaming?

 

[yesnomu]

Let's look at it this way.

Leadership can be a bad feat for the game, if every character in the five person party has it. If even half the party has it, in fact. But if just one guy has the feat, it actually helps the game - there are suddenly extra NPCs to do the dirty work, freeing up the PCs for all the fun, heroic stuff.

So, one guy in the group having leadership isn't really a bad thing. In such a situation, who would you want to have it? The paladin who has been built around that sort of thing... or the PC who was, since the beginning of the campaign, described as a misanthropic loner?

Here's another reason why I'd bar it. The paladin is gonna attract fighters, paladins, things like that - NPCs that can basically make attacks, and that's it.

The Wizard is gonna attract... more wizards. VASTLY expanding the level of spells available to the party. Think about it - you could make sure you always have that useful 2nd level spell memorized, without having to carry a buttload of scrolls. Not to mention that spells tend to take more time to resolve than attacks... a wizard with followers is REALLY gonna slow down play, especially if he's not the only one WITH followers.

Why should anyone need to take a feat to make sure they do fun and heroic things?

And if a game can become vastly more complicated and difficult due to one character taking one feat, that just goes to show that the feat is bad for the game. Wizards being more versatile and powerful than Paladins isn't news, but arbitrarily restricting the feat from one player and not from another isn't the way you balance a game.

 

[Chris Knapp]

I would think the DM & the player should take a step back at seriously look at what at what is being delivered.
The 7th level wizard is getting a 3rd level cohort that could be of the DM's choosing. If the player's Cha stays the same, he won't get followers until level 12 when he has a 7th level cohort.
Honestly, how unbalancing is this? The party has to try to keep at NPC alive that is -5 their average party level. Think of that in terms of HPs and Saves. That will suck up some party resources. Once the cohort dies, they he'll get another negative modifier to his next cohort.
Plus how effective will he be at higher levels. Even if its another spellcaster, he's still going to have to push through SR to get spells through.

I don't see it being that big of a deal and if anything the DM is helping you out.

This!

Really, a 3rd level apprentice wizard, who will most likely get killed, further lowering the PC's leadership score. I say allow it. RP it as the PC is so darn smart that students flock to him but soon regret it due to his abrasiveness. The DM can make it something like part of a wizards school training program where the apprentices have to suffer through a "work-study semester" with the insanely smart but socially retarded wizard. Swap a new apprentice out every few weeks with their own social motivations. Could be fun, for the DM at least. . .

 

[pawsplay]

But it doesn't seem like "fairness" is the issue to me. The DM is basing his decision on roleplaying aspects. He doesn't think it makes sense for the wizard PC to have leadership based on the character concept the player went with. To me, it seems like the player is using "roleplaying" and "character concept" as an excuse to get to powergame.

My concern is that the GM is essentially telling the player what his character concept is. The GM is not basing his decision on roleplaying aspects, he is dictating roleplaying aspects to the player based on his own preconceptions. It is fine for the GM to make rulings based on in-game situations, but in this case, the very thing under discussion is the in-game situation. The GM says this PC would never attract followers, the player says he would like to. The rules say that if you want followers, if you take the Leadership feat, you succeed.

The GM does not really have the prerogative to say,

"This character is not that combat-oriented, you cannot take Weapon Focus."

"This character is not that diplomatic, you cannot take Skill Focus (Diplomacy)."

"This character prefers wands to staves, he would never spend that much on a staff."

"This characters is not that sneaky, he can't take a level of Rogue."

What, exactly, is the GM's basis for saying this character concept does not include followers? If there is a Cha minimum, does that imply dwarves as a race do not have as many leaders? If the GM does not like the idea of this strange wizard having a cohort, he is basically saying his concept of the character trumps the player's.

If the GM is literally claiming that Leadership is unrealistic without a high Cha, then A) he is wrong, as outlined above, and B) the leadership chart needs to be rewritten so that Cha 15 or whatever now nets you the lowest number of cohorts and followers rather than a fairly high number. Clearly, if Cha 11 is insufficient to have followers at all, Cha 12 should not get you a small army.

 

[Inyssius]

It's been said above already, multiple times, but this wizard isn't going to get "followers". He's going to get "follower". Just the one. A low-level one, at that.

In short, we are talking about an apprentice.

Is your DM really trying to tell you that it would strain his suspension of disbelief if your eccentric-yet-powerful wizard was somehow able to attract a single determined apprentice?

Really?

Seriously?

That's crazy talk.

I mean, wow, that's one of the oldest tropes in the book. Eccentric, antisocial masters of their art and naive yet determined farmboys with a spark of talent go together like prophecies and Chosen Ones, for crying out loud.

 

[vagabundo]

I mean, wow, that's one of the oldest tropes in the book. Eccentric, antisocial masters of their art and naive yet determined farmboys with a spark of talent go together like prophecies and Chosen Ones, for crying out loud.

But it always struck me as a little sordid. Not a reason not to allow it though.