Leadership... Some questions, concerns

[Dagger75]

2 of my players have the leadership feat. One already has a Cohort, level 6 fighter/rogue. The cleric has it too, now he has a con bonus and gets some followers. It says on the chart he gets 10 First level. Now my question..

1. Are all 10 of these like 1st level warriors, fighters, clerics commoners or what? Can they be a combination of any, and do they gain exp or just follow the PC around?

2. Any of you have some horror stories and/or good stories with the leadership feat?

Thanks

 

[Dalamar]

If you check the page after the leadership feat in DMG, you'll notice a section dealing with followers and cohorts. In short, followers can only be warriors, commoners and experts.
Sorry, don't have the book so can't give better info.

 

[Cloudgatherer]

Honestly, if someone takes the feat in my games, they have to roleplay/explain it well.

Where are the followers staying? Does the character have a base of operations? Issues like that have to be at least plausible.

To answer your questions....

The followers, I'm pretty sure, must be NPC classes.

The cohort can be a PC class, though.

I've only had one character take the feat. He was a bard, and the backstory was his brother was his cohort (a fighter type). Worked out well, since the bard played mostly a support role (I sing this round, and next round, and...). So it was a good experience for me.

In general, I would discourage allowing players to take the feat unless they had good reason. It gives the players more to worry about, slows the game down a bit, and can be harder for the DM to plan an encounter.

Later!

 

[Hejdun]

Followers can only be warriors, commoners, or experts. Nothing else. I believe that the Epic Level Handbook has expanded rules for PC classed followers. Cohorts can be whatever you want.

 

[Cergorach]

Hmm...

I have the Leadership Feat for a couple of levels now, it's mostly used as a story/background tool that we use. Although i could technically take my 'cohort' with me on each and every adventure, i have yet to take the 'cohort' on adventure (i don't see this happening). The 1st level followers are rogues that help guard the town we've taken over. In short non of the cohorts or followers in our party go on the adventure unless the DM decides that it's appropriate for the adventure and then only for a very short time...

 

[Hejdun]

My paladin also has the Leadership feat, his cohort comes along with us on adventures, because our party is only 3 people. The rest of my followers, roughly 50 of them, are defending and running the church that my paladin has established.

 

[Dagger75]

My group does have base of operations, so far the Cohort has been pretty fun. He is the only rogue in the group so they send him out to gather information and such. The cleric is going to pick up the feat next. How much say does the DM have in what the cohort is?

 

[James McMurray]

Given the fact that he is the DM, I'd say he has as mch say in it as he wants.

 

[Privateer]

Dagger, in your post you seemed to infer that followers follow the character around. They don't; they're just loyal people. You can do what you want with them, to a degree (defend your castle, yes; use that cliff over there like lemmings do, no).

 

[Tonguez]

the use of Leadership really depends on the type of game you run and indeed it can have a big effect on how they game runs.

In a PCs wander around exploring dungeons type game it can become burdensome for the DM. However a cohort can be a boon for a small party.

In a PCs are leaders in their community and run churches, guilds, schools, businesses type game then leadership is a perfect fit.

For anything in between you will need to determine how the PCs are 'tied' to their followers and the role of the Cohort (extra party member, Lieutenant (Manager), Family member)

I tend to play PCs are part of the community type games or else have followers be either members of the PCs family or organisation eg Brothers in the monastary the PC Cleric came from)