A question of Leadership.

[STARP_Social_Officer]

If I have Leadership as a feat I can get myself a Cohort. Can this Cohort also have Leadership? His score will be lower, but is it possible for me to command a vast army of followers and cohorts simply through a chain? In short, is it possible for my cohort to have a cohort who has a cohort who has a cohort who has a cohort, each of them with followers of their own? Or can you only have one leader per 'team' - 'Always two, there are, a master an apprentice'? What's the ruling?

 

[Drowbane]

If I have Leadership as a feat I can get myself a Cohort. Can this Cohort also have Leadership? His score will be lower, but is it possible for me to command a vast army of followers and cohorts simply through a chain? In short, is it possible for my cohort to have a cohort who has a cohort who has a cohort who has a cohort, each of them with followers of their own? Or can you only have one leader per 'team' - 'Always two, there are, a master an apprentice'? What's the ruling?

Ruling? What ruling? It works precisely as written in the DMG... check with your DM on how he wishes to run Leadership. If you're the DM, its up to you man.

I've had DMs who wouldn't allow Leadership unless we were short on players, and other DMs who don't see a problem with it.

~~~

In an Epic campaign (set in a FR alternate timeline) one of the PCs, Nakuldacar the Black, was the Chosen of Bane. He took Leadership and Landlord (Stronghold Builder's Guidebook) to create Ironskull Keep, which housed his personal army and the local clergy of Bane.

Nakuldacar's Cohort (who was the local High Priest) had Leadership, who's cohort had leadership, who's cohort had leadership, who's cohort had leadership... all the way down the line till the cohorts were under 6th level.

His cohort/follower structure was pretty simple. All of the cohorts were Clerics of Bane. The followers were split up as Soldiers (warriors), Lay priests (Experts), and Workers/Servants (Experts and Commoners).

Granted, all this could've simply been handed out by the DM as the "fluff" that it really was... but it was cool how it the rules covered it.

 

[YourAssassin]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure you could pretty much have a big endless chain of cohorts, but that wouldn't really be all that useful. Unless you were far into the epic level's, you wouldn't be getting THAT big of an army, and by that time most of the cohorts would be pretty much useless anyway. If you were really that desperate to lead an army, look in the epic level handbook at the Epic Leadership feat, and its followup (dont remember exactly what it's called) that gives you 10 times the normal number of followers. Can you say instant 10,000 man army?

 

[Kieperr]

The one thing I see that disallows this is the statement on DMG pg 104 under Cohorts.
"Cohorts are people who take on a subserviant role. Cohorts are not leaders. They might voice an opinion now and again, but for the most part, they do as they're told."

Cohorts are people who follow. They are not leaders. Therefore, no Leadership feat. Besides, this is unnecessary as you can attract more than one cohort with the Leadership feat.

 

[Jacen]

The one thing I see that disallows this is the statement on DMG pg 104 under Cohorts.
"Cohorts are people who take on a subserviant role. Cohorts are not leaders. They might voice an opinion now and again, but for the most part, they do as they're told."

Cohorts are people who follow. They are not leaders. Therefore, no Leadership feat. Besides, this is unnecessary as you can attract more than one cohort with the Leadership feat.

From SRD 3.5
Benefits: Having this feat enables the character to attract loyal companions and devoted followers, subordinates who assist her. See the table below for what sort of cohort and how many followers the character can recruit.

FROM PHB 3.5
"You DM has information on what sort of COHORT and how many followers you can recruit."

What sort of COHORT... no cohorts. Besides what is the point of limiting followers but not cohorts. This has been fought over here every now and then. Just for summary there are two groups.
1) one cohort at a time. Old one dies or leaves and you can get a new one.
2) No limits.

Besides Leadership is optional rule. Fight with DM about it and there will be no leadership.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

DM judgement.

For PCs, I would be inclined to disallow the Leadership in a Cohort, unless the campaign were to settle down into a city-based politcal intrigure campaign.

For NPCs, I think it does make sense sometimes. You cannot make a big army, but it is a mechanically reasonable way of generating NPCs who have an especially competent and trustworthy assistant in an otherwise ruthlessly backstabbing evil organization.

 

[frankthedm]

I would actually allow it, though I would be up front about one thing:

The Cohort's loyal companions and devoted followers serve the Cohort and not the PC. They may follow the chain of command, but if they believe their leader’s best interests are put at risk, they will take whatever actions they deem necessary within their alignments to rectify the situation.

 

[Mistwell]

If I have Leadership as a feat I can get myself a Cohort. Can this Cohort also have Leadership? His score will be lower, but is it possible for me to command a vast army of followers and cohorts simply through a chain? In short, is it possible for my cohort to have a cohort who has a cohort who has a cohort who has a cohort, each of them with followers of their own? Or can you only have one leader per 'team' - 'Always two, there are, a master an apprentice'? What's the ruling?

According to Monte Cook, the feat was intended to allow for the player to take it more than once, with each additional time granting one extra cohort but no extra followers. It does not say that in the feat, but that is how he and the original writers and playtesters used it, and that is how he uses the feat in his personal campaign (which has a lot of the original designers playing in it). Apparently, it's a popular feat in his games.

That's different than the chaining idea you have. I would not personally allow that in my game, unless the main PC took the feat a second time. If you gain the benefit, then you pay the feat. That is, unless you want your cohort having a cohort who will NOT follow your orders, but just the orders of your cohort. Seems like a bad idea to me.

 

[Paraxis]

Under the section of cohorts in the dmg it says "There are no limitations on the class,race,or gender of a character's cohorts, nor limits to the NUMBER of cohorts who can be employed by a character." page 104. Also same section uses the term cohorts multiple times and on page 106 under leadership it says "A character of 6th level or higher can start attracting cohorts...." again the plural form. So why all this talk about cohorts needing other cohorts just keep getting more cohorts yourself.
A king has multiple advisors a few generals of army a wizard or two and a cleric as cohorts I would assume.
One of my characters has a flying ship (eberron game) and has 3 cohorts who are all his main crew members, the rest are his follows the followers might mutiny or get bribed but his top 3 guys are loyal to him no matter what, as long as he keeps up the role playing of the close relationship he has with them.

 

[Jacen]

Sigh. I think that this happen every time Leadership is brought up.

IMHO:

Under the section of cohorts in the dmg it says "There are no limitations on the class,race,or gender of a character's cohorts, nor limits to the NUMBER of cohorts who can be employed by a character."

You can have multiple cohorts during you caree, but only one at a time. So no limitation to the number.

page 104. Also same section uses the term cohorts multiple times and on page 106 under leadership it says "A character of 6th level or higher can start attracting cohorts...." again the plural form. So why all this talk about cohorts needing other cohorts just keep getting more cohorts yourself.

You can attract multiple cohorts, but have only one at a time. They just doesn't appear you have to attract them.

A king has multiple advisors a few generals of army a wizard or two and a cleric as cohorts I would assume.

Cohort is loyal for his master. So no backstabbing. Then why have kings IRL been betrayed every now and then by their "cohorts"?

One plural doesn't mean that it is plural always. Just like mathematics and proving someting. It doesn't prove all caes to be correct if you prove one to be true, but it proves that it is not always true to prove singe case untrue. And I think that (at lest in my mind) I proved some case to be untrue.

One of my characters has a flying ship (eberron game) and has 3 cohorts who are all his main crew members, the rest are his follows the followers might mutiny or get bribed but his top 3 guys are loyal to him no matter what, as long as he keeps up the role playing of the close relationship he has with them.

(Some more water to hot stones - I like sauna so what?) What role playing? The rules doesn't say that you have to be role playing to keep them loyal. They are loyal, might abandon you if treated badly, but not betray.

Were I a DM, I wouldn't ever allow multible cohorts with single take of Leadership. If someone does it, that is his problem. But I have to admit that it tickles the back of my mind to have ten cohorts from each class and PrC following me. If I remember correctly (no books at hand) cohorts doesn't affect CR, so having all those hundreds of cohorts doesn't affect the XP my character is earning.