How do you use the Leadership feat?

[Quartz]

Do you allow taking the Leadership feat more than once, to gain more than one cohort?

How do you handle the transition to Epic? Does the cohort stop advancing at L20 until the PC takes the Epic Leadership feat? If not, would you allow an epic PC to take the plain Leadership feat to gain a L20 cohort and then have them advance into Epic levels?

 

[Treacherous_B]

Cohorts stop advancing at level 17 according to the Leadership score table. Epic Leadership allows them to advance further than that indefinitely.

Allowing a character to take Leadership more than once seems against the spirit of the feat, as well as unbalancing/convoluted. At least that's my opinion.

 

[KarinsDad]

However, nothing stops the cohort or (some) followers from taking Leadership.

A PC could have a hierarachy of cohorts below him, however, each cohort (except the first) would be more loyal to their individual leader than to the PC.

 

[DungeonMaester]

Personally, I think that Leadership as a feat is something that people try to break the most.

As a simple house rule, when leadership is taken, the person gains coharts equal to thier CHA mod, at first level. The npc level as normal. Leadership cant be taken by Npc's, but the Pc can take the leadership feat again, but it overlaps. That is to say, if you have a +3 CHA when you take Leadership at 6th level, and take Leadership at 8th with a +4 CHA then you get one extra npc at first level.

---Rusty

 

[Quartz]

Cohorts stop advancing at level 17 according to the Leadership score table. Epic Leadership allows them to advance further than that indefinitely.

Are you sure about that? I thought it was just that when taking the Leadership feat you couldn't get a cohort of above L17. Nothing about the cohort not being able to advance above L17.

 

[Treacherous_B]

Well the leadership table stops listing progression of cohorts past level 17 based on your character's leadership score. As the cohort does gain xp, it would seem that eventually a cohort could hit 18+, although personally I'd rule against it as the progression (as tabled-out, so-to-speak) doesn't continue until a character takes Epic Leadership.

Ultimately I guess it's up to your particular GM (or, if you are the GM, you). But for my money, cohorts of level 18 or more should be counted as "epic cohorts" and should be unavailable until a character takes Epic Leadership.

 

[Legildur]

But for my money, cohorts of level 18 or more should be counted as "epic cohorts" and should be unavailable until a character takes Epic Leadership.

I'm ignorant on most things Epic, but I would have to agree that this makes sense to me.

I've yet to see Leadership abused in any of the games I play in. In fact, out of all the games (live and PbEM/PbP) that I'm involved in, I've only seen the feat taken once - by me - and mainly (but not solely) for flavour reasons (medium level paladin who gained a keep through a lucky draw of the Deck of Many things - needed troops to man it and hadn't (at that stage) called a paladin's mount, and so negotiated with the DM and got a bronze dragon cohort as the special mount - once again, mainly for flavour reasons as we are currently adventuring extensively in the underdark and the dragon wouldn't enter there, so neither aspect of the feat is providing a real game advantage at this point in a very combat heavy campaign).

 

[Infiniti2000]

Take Leadership more than once does no good. It would be like taking weapon proficiency more than once. Leadership gives you the following benefits:

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.

This does not give you a cohort, it enables you to attract one. Being able to attract one multiple times still lets you attract one. Now, if the feat said something like "grants the character a cohort" then you'd have a case that you could get multiple cohorts.

In any case, unless you have only 1 or 2 PCs, I recommend just not allowing the feat. It's a really bad feat, worse than any other IMO.

 

[Rystil Arden]

The cohort can indeed hit level 18 via XP gain. However, if this happens and the PC doesn't have Epic Leadership, the cohort is now too high level for the PC to have her as a cohort. This can happen pre-17 if the PC's Charisma is not high enough. Unless the PC somehow has the cohort choose not to level (which is allowable per the rules), the cohort leaves to strike out on her own and becomes an NPC--albeit an NPC that is likely highly well-disposed towards the party, and then the PC probably gets another cohort. It can be an interesting plot-point in its own right. I'm reminded of when Robin became Nightwing.

 

[Krafen]

I don't think that's what the Cohort Level column means. The explanation of "Cohort Level" says you can attract a cohort of up to that level, as long as the cohort is two or more levels lower than the PC. The only restriction on the cohort levelling is that he may never gain enough XP to bring him within one level of the PC.

As far as advancing into epic, I think that would depend on what epic means in the campaign. Is level 21 simply natural progression beyond 20, or is some significant event or quest required. If epic levels are particularly special in the campaign, I would think the cohort would stop at 20, unless he was able to somehow meet whatever the requirements are. If epic is simply progression beyond 20, I would think the cohort would continue to progress.

I do not believe the Leadership feat can be taken more than once. Feats which can be taken multiple times specify "This feat can be taken multiple times." and then detail the effects and restrictions of doing so.