What do you use the Leadership Feat For?

[Kapture]

Hi.

I'm thinking about how to use Leadership in my game, since one of my PCs has taken the feat. I'm thinking about how it could be used in the game.

The two ways I've seen it used are as follows:

A tenth level mage used it to gain a baby dragon cohort. Not RAW, but I figured the dragon wouldn't add that much firepower to her own.

I've seen it used as an extra body to fill out a table in Living Greyhawk. My current player is going to use it pretty much the same way, having come up with a very PC-like character that will accompany PCs on their adventures.

That said, he's also using it to start an organization. For that, he's using the follwers that come with leadership. I see them as glorified skill checks when he's in the area:

Maxwell, go check in the library and see if there' s any mention of this "Derth Vorder" character of which our guest speaks."

Or

"Q, whip up a batch of alchemists fire, would you?"

I can't imagine the followers being used in combat, because I can't see a character's leadership score surviving very long when he is leading 1st-6th level warriors into combat (-2 for death of a follower).

That said, I'm looking for interesting ideas about how to run leadership.

How has it been used in your games?
I'm looking for interesting perspectives, however.

 

[Crothian]

How has it been used in your games?
I'm looking for interesting perspectives, however.

In my game I tend to run a complex series of plots. Leadership is used to have trustworthy NPCs that can go do some of the time consuming things the players don't want to do. It is rare that we use leadership to increase the size of the adventuring party. For instance one charcter got a keep so he used Leadership to get a cohort to run the day to day operations and plenty of followers to employ. he still had to pay them of course.

Other things we've done is have everyone take the leadership and then the cohorts from that become a secondary adventure group. We played the PCs but every now and again the other group would meet up and they would tell tales and figure out what to do next to find what they were looking for.

Sometimes Cohorts have been crafters to build items for the PCs and do research and invent spells. We called them Muppets Lab because it did not always work outr just right, but the PCs were able to get plenty of cool items from them.

 

[Stalker0]

I currently have a character whose a religious leader, and he took leadership to gain a congregation.

 

[Beckett]

I think I'm the only one in my group to use it, and both times I've used it to support my character.

First time was a Warforged Paladin, who gained an Artificer cohort. Now, instead of sucking up the party healing resources at 2 for 1, I had someone who was very apt at repairing me, as well as having a dedicated buffer. Eventually, I would have had the Artificer craft some magic items for me, but he was killed when a giant cleaved off of the paladin.

My replacement character for the game, a Bone Knight, also has Leadership. Since he's a military leader, the followers represented my troops. The cohort in this case was a Fighter- the group had a warmage, a warmage/favored soul, an archer, and a hit&run mounted character, making me the only front line fighter. I decided I really needed someone else to stand up with me and take some hits.

 

[Kapture]

I currently have a character whose a religious leader, and he took leadership to gain a congregation.

What actions do his congregation take in game?

 

[Kapture]

I think I'm the only one in my group to use it, and both times I've used it to support my character.

First time was a Warforged Paladin, who gained an Artificer cohort. Now, instead of sucking up the party healing resources at 2 for 1, I had someone who was very apt at repairing me, as well as having a dedicated buffer. Eventually, I would have had the Artificer craft some magic items for me, but he was killed when a giant cleaved off of the paladin.

My replacement character for the game, a Bone Knight, also has Leadership. Since he's a military leader, the followers represented my troops. The cohort in this case was a Fighter- the group had a warmage, a warmage/favored soul, an archer, and a hit&run mounted character, making me the only front line fighter. I decided I really needed someone else to stand up with me and take some hits.

What do you use the rest of his follower troops for? Do they actually enter combat at all?

 

[Kapture]

In my game I tend to run a complex series of plots. Leadership is used to have trustworthy NPCs that can go do some of the time consuming things the players don't want to do. It is rare that we use leadership to increase the size of the adventuring party. For instance one charcter got a keep so he used Leadership to get a cohort to run the day to day operations and plenty of followers to employ. he still had to pay them of course.

Other things we've done is have everyone take the leadership and then the cohorts from that become a secondary adventure group. We played the PCs but every now and again the other group would meet up and they would tell tales and figure out what to do next to find what they were looking for.

Sometimes Cohorts have been crafters to build items for the PCs and do research and invent spells. We called them Muppets Lab because it did not always work outr just right, but the PCs were able to get plenty of cool items from them.

What kind of in-game benefits did the keep offer?

 

[Stalker0]

What actions do his congregation take in game?

Mainly they help gather resources and keep up the castle which has become our home and the home of many refugees in our game. They also help keep watch, and there a source of good roleplaying for me.

My cohort travels with the group on special occasions (he's a paladin). But most of the time, he stays back and guards the castle while we are gone.

Throughout the campaign the feat has been up and down. Sometimes its heavily used, we actually needed my followers and cohort to stand up against an attack. Lately, many of the adventures have been away from the castle, and so it hasn't seen any use. It varies.

 

[Crothian]

What kind of in-game benefits did the keep offer?

It was a base of operations, a safe place to teleport and word of recall back to. It gave a PC a title which aided in diplomacy and getting to see other import people of state. It offered them a growing work force a place to invest their adventure loot into. And it was a good source of plots for the DM. Being landed is a big and important thing.

 

[Voadam]

The 16th level paladin character in my group is planning on taking it at 18th level to get a dragon cohort (or whatever the leadership variant feat from Draconomicon is) as a mount. I'm laying the foundations for this to happen in game involving dragons, his patron god, and a quest to tie into the next module planned (its a shared DM campaign so I'm setting up a plot hook to the next DM's module while I'm running things).

Eventually I expect the party will do the quest, the paladin will spend his feat, and he will get his flying mount. Perhaps combined into his paladin pokemount, perhaps just following normal cohort type rules. We'll see how the campaign develops and how the then current DM handles the specifics with the player.

I'm not a fan of NPC tagalongs in general whether they are followers, familiars, or companions but I'm working with the player and other DM to make this happen in a way that will hopefully be cool and benefit the campaign for everybody with neat story elements.