Leadership TWICE?

[Vlos]

Well, I would ask about your campaign?

How many players do you have? Do they show up consistantly? Is the party weaker than they should be? Are they lacking a particular area (healing for example).

Depending on the answers above I would say yes. In our campaigns we allow it, but the player can only have one cohort with him, unless its a super adventure where we probably need a little extra help. Most of the time the other cohort is off doing things like keeping his lessor minions in place. Or running smaller errons.

Having two cohorts in one party that is a large size can really start to slow things down as the player now needs to basically run three characters, but on the other hand, only allowing one at a time and allowing him to switch cohorts between adventures is nice as that allows him to more specialize his characters, plus it helps if other players miss a lot of games to help balance out the party.

As for allowing a player to advance his cohort past the non-EPIC table without taking the EPIC feat seems unfair for those that do take the EPIC feat. In out game we do allow it, but we put a cap on it that the cohort is at least 6 levels behind the player, unless they have the EPIC feat. That way they still do advance, but not like EPIC leadership cohort. (Mainly we allowed this because most of our players had leadership, but few could every qualify for EPIC leadership, and we are playing an EPIC level game. Thus cohorts would of quickly became totally useless, where now they are just very weak characters).

 

[Deset Gled]

If he's a high enough level to have 25 followers, his cohort must be of a fairly decent level as well. Why not just have the cohort take the leadership feat?

 

[rrealm]

Honestly, if he is up to that point and is well loved within your campaign, I'd give it to him... And then make him regret it by twisting the screws of lordship tighter and tighter. Make it SOOOO unappealing that he will ahve wished that he never took it in the first place.

It's DMs like this that make the game harder than it really is and really take away from the enjoyment of the game. Tis a shame that not every DM can handle PCs with high level powers and abilities.

 

[Achan hiArusa]

Leadership more than once

The Sage stated in a Dragon that it could be bought more than once, I will have to find the sage advice article.

 

[Taloras]

What type of character is this? In the Quintessential Rogue book, there is the Guildmaster feat. I dont recall the exact prerequisite, but it lets you create a guild/trading company and gives you a second cohort. The only thing is, your cohorts have to run the guild, or it falls apart. If its a fighter, I see no reason why you couldnt make it a mercenary company or similar thing....or for a cleric, make it a religious feat....you create a temple. Make sure there are in game requirements.....must keep the guild/company/temple running, etc. Gives the character something to believe in. Gets them more involved in the world.

 

[Li Shenron]

The Sage stated in a Dragon that it could be bought more than once, I will have to find the sage advice article.

It specified that if you take Leadership more than once, the first one gives you a cohort and many followers, the following ones give you one extra cohort each, but not more followers.

 

[silentspace]

blah

 

[Piratecat]

It specified that if you take Leadership more than once, the first one gives you a cohort and many followers, the following ones give you one extra cohort each, but not more followers.

Lordy, I hate rulings like this that don't reflect the rules as written in any way, shape or form.

I personally see no problem taking the feat twice. If one of my players wanted to, though, I'd encourage them to make the second cohort an "offstage" character -- someone who provides an advantage in information gathering (a spy or info broker), potion creation (an alchemist or prominent, stay-at-home wizard), public fame (a bard cohort to make the group famous), or the like. I'd want the cohort to provide a significant social and mechanical benefit, but unless the PC group was quite small I wouldn't want the second cohort to fight for them. It would slow combat up too much.

 

[Henry]

I dislike the feat itself mainly on the basis of problems that I've seen arise when players play more than one character. Not only have I rarely seen a player able to play multiple characters as separate, rather than as a gestalt, but if a player is playing more than one character, it means that they are getting more than one action in a combat, which tends to hog the spotlight from other players.

I don't mind it when it happens occasionally (when a player is out for a critical game, and someone needs to play his character for the session), but if someone takes the leadership feat, I prefer for the NPCs to be off camera when in the thick of adventure.

 

[irdeggman]

It specified that if you take Leadership more than once, the first one gives you a cohort and many followers, the following ones give you one extra cohort each, but not more followers.

To my knowledge no one has produced such an article yet. People have quoted/paraphrased some designer's opinion on the feat, but that was in regard to 3.0 version and not the 3.5 one. I have gone over in detail the 3.0 and 3.5 FAQs and have found nothing on this, and since the FAQs reproduce the Sage Advice articles in total, I don't think that this comes from Sage Advice.

In 3.5 it is very clear that there is no limit to the number of cohorts a character can have. That is what is says in the DMG.

It is, however, a common house-rule to limit this to 1 cohort at a time.

Also the ELH is a 3.0 book and not a 3.5 one, so be careful on how you would incorporate it's information into a 3.5 campaign.