Level Up (A5E) Followers Best Practices?

[Distracted DM]

For those of you that use A5E's followers, what are your best practices for making them be used and useful? Actually remembered?

I've used followers/companions/retainers etc. in many games- I think their most successful implementation in my games was using MCDM Strongholds & Followers' retainers in a long-running West Marches game. When I got A5E I was very interested in how they handled followers, but so far they've become a forgettable feature in a long list of character features
It seems like if a follower isn't participating in combat, they're not going to be notable by the players.
I'd love to hear how y'all use the A5E followers to positive effect!

 

[W'rkncacnter]

i've had a chance to use followers once, when i ran the crypta hereticarum (a zeitgeist dungeon) using a5e for some friends. the crypt puts the party at 6th level and one player went with a marshal. we'd decided the party were basically a squad of crisillyiri inquisitors being sent into the crypt after an oracle lucked out and received a vision of gold being found in the crypt (which could severely compromise the crypt's security - it's a whole thing with zeitgeist) in order to recover that gold and bring it back out. the marshal thus decided his follower would be a danoran tiefling torchbearer trying to make amends for...well, being a danoran tiefling, basically. the party wasn't exactly good aligned.

anyway, the party still remembers him because i decided there was no real way i could logically justify him not being in the first combat encounter, and so he died horribly to the berserker after most of the party got possessed and the herald got teleported out of the room.

 

[Micah Sweet]

For those of you that use A5E's followers, what are your best practices for making them be used and useful? Actually remembered?

I've used followers/companions/retainers etc. in many games- I think their most successful implementation in my games was using MCDM Strongholds & Followers' retainers in a long-running West Marches game. When I got A5E I was very interested in how they handled followers, but so far they've become a forgettable feature in a long list of character features
It seems like if a follower isn't participating in combat, they're not going to be notable by the players.
I'd love to hear how y'all use the A5E followers to positive effect!

As I said in the other thread, I would absolutely adapt a statblock for any and all followers, first of all. I also want to note that, like any NPC, followers need characterization and fun roleplay to come to life at the table.

 

[W'rkncacnter]

As I said in the other thread, I would absolutely adapt a statblock for any and all followers, first of all. I also want to note that, like any NPC, followers need characterization and fun roleplay to come to life at the table.

yeah, if YOU forget the followers exist, so will your players.

 

[Distracted DM]

As I said in the other thread, I would absolutely adapt a statblock for any and all followers, first of all. I also want to note that, like any NPC, followers need characterization and fun roleplay to come to life at the table.

Yeah, I liked that they included some tables to help generate the personality- so have they been used with frequency at your table?

My issue, I suppose, is that a couple of them provide combat benefits like bodyguard. They seemed designed to be intentionally abstract as far as combat goes- if the bodyguard is 60ft away in a fight, they're definitely not going to be able to shield their employer.

The vast majority are not combat-types... If they end up in an aoe they're toast.

They seem designed to be out of combat, out of the way, to avoid having them taking up time and space in a combat- specifically not given statblocks.

 

[Distracted DM]

i've had a chance to use followers once, when i ran the crypta hereticarum (a zeitgeist dungeon) using a5e for some friends. the crypt puts the party at 6th level and one player went with a marshal. we'd decided the party were basically a squad of crisillyiri inquisitors being sent into the crypt after an oracle lucked out and received a vision of gold being found in the crypt (which could severely compromise the crypt's security - it's a whole thing with zeitgeist) in order to recover that gold and bring it back out. the marshal thus decided his follower would be a danoran tiefling torchbearer trying to make amends for...well, being a danoran tiefling, basically. the party wasn't exactly good aligned.

anyway, the party still remembers him because i decided there was no real way i could logically justify him not being in the first combat encounter, and so he died horribly to the berserker after most of the party got possessed and the herald got teleported out of the room.

Yeah I can't imagine that many are going to survive if you put them in a combat- they're mostly not combat types. It seems like they're designed to be floating off-stage until they're called on. Outside of combat it's a little different, you can at least imagine a place for them there.

They just seem to be in a weird place in-between Feature and NPC. I'm trying to figure out how to make them work in my head!

 

[Selganor]

Maybe go full magic and let the cost for the follower be material for a ritual that binds a ghost/spirit/"pocket monster"/... to you that can just be called into existence if you need their services

 

[Micah Sweet]

Maybe go full magic and let the cost for the follower be material for a ritual that binds a ghost/spirit/"pocket monster"/... to you that can just be called into existence if you need their services

That would work, if all you want is a fantasy explanation of why you're getting the mechanical benefits. Personally, I prefer the mechanics fit the fiction, which means they have to be real NPCs, with all that entails.

 

[Morrus]

They just seem to be in a weird place in-between Feature and NPC. I'm trying to figure out how to make them work in my head!

They're basically follower-flavoured feats.

 

[Micah Sweet]

They're basically follower-flavoured feats.

Absolutely, but I always want the flavor to mean something mechanically, and that means for me they treated as NPCs.