What do you use the Leadership Feat For?

[Sejs]

The rogue in my current group uses her followers to represent friendly informants and contacts spread throughout the region. They're mostly low level rogues or experts, but it does a very good job of representing having eyes and ears all over the place.

 

[Beckett]

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

I have a 6th level expert that accompanies the party as a guide/sage. A 5th level Warforged warrior functions as my bodyguard- more flavor than an expectation that he'll save my life. Some of the other high level follower slots are filled with crossbowmen- they can keep out of direct danger, and maybe just come up with that 20 to add another D8 damage.

The rest of the numbers are filled up by warriors who are kept off-stage. They're my troops by right (and mechanics), but they're not much help against a dragon. If we enter a war, they'll be there for flavor, but they're more a liability than anything else on an adventure. Even then, I don't expect to make many rolls for them- "Your forces engage the hobgoblins, keeping them occupied while you attack the leaders" or something.

 

[frankthedm]

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

IMG Leadership is the first step to becoming Deified. Normaly my game is one of those "clerics must have a deity" settings and getting a cleric cohort is difficult since a cleric already has a 'leader' as it were.

Those who take leadership and Elect to be worshiped are able to chose their holy symbol, a small portfolio and two domains based on thier roleplay/alignment and may have thier cohort be their high cleric with thier followers as the congregation.

 

[Infiniti2000]

IMG Leadership is the first step to becoming Deified.

Same here, with the second and final step being to obtain a monk's belt. Just kidding, brehobit.

 

[Shayuri]

Two words: Spy Network.

I would scatter my army or rogues and experts in ordinary jobs throughout the nation...to feed me periodic reports on current events. My cohort is my spymaster, of course. Rogue or bard...nowadays I'd use a Beguiler.

 

[BlueBlackRed]

I took Leadership in my last campaign in order to have a walking band-aid.
We were in desperate need of a healer, and this guy was incredibly specialized for healing and healing only.

In fact he never did any damage to anything that wasn't undead.

 

[Nyeshet]

I've never really liked the feat. In reality, should you look to the middle ages the 'leaders' often would have been considered lower in level compared to their 'followers'. The only exception I can think of would be the PHB2 idea of Affiliations - where the head of the Affiliation is not necessarily a higher level than those a level or three below him. He just happens to have better connection or to have been involved in situations more useful to the affiliation than those of higher level who are a part of it.

The closest 'Leadership' - as a feat - comes to this is if the character is a 'leader' of a mercenary band, a pastor of a church (or bishop of a cathedral / diocese), or a leader of the band (in the case of a group of bards or other entertainers), etc. In each instance the group is composed of similar 'classes' (or conceptual classes - such as fighters, warriors, etc working together in a mercenary band).

The Leadership feat does not limit the group to such, despite the fact that - as I understand it - it is meant to substitute for the fact that in a prior edition the fighter (and some other classes?) would automatically attract a band of lower level cohorts, combatives, etc under his command upon reaching a certain level - and the band would grow automatically with his increased level. This is much the same as with Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization; they were automatic for the fighter upon a certain level in a prior edition but are feats in the current edition.

As it stands, the feat is in some respects flawed, in my opinion. Even the cohort - the highest level addition - is notably less likely to survive in a typical encounter. All those beneath him are mere fodder if they are brought along at all. In all honesty, I cannot imagine how this could have worked in prior editions. How did the followers survive? Did they have other rolls, and if so, what? Do those roles no longer exist in the current edition?

I'm of the opinion that a character should not have to have a feat for Leadership - or for owning land (the Landlord feat from the Stronghold Builder's Guide), etc. Instead, I tend to think that such gains should be determined by the DM. A dozen followers of 6-10 levels lower than than the PCs should not require a feat. Receiving a title or land-grant similarly should not require expending a feat.

Instead, perhaps the PCs could have two pools of wealth, one more symbolic than the second. The primary one would be for the requisite magic items, etc, while the second and more symbolic one would be used for dealing with more basic considerations - such as paying a cohort, upkeep for a keep, buying a ship (or even just passage on a ship), etc.

Actually, perhaps - since this second one is merely symbolic - it could be reduced the the Wealth check used in d20 modern. As they increase in level they gain a bonus to this - which in turn is used to determine whether the party (or a member of the party) can buy that boat, bribe that guard, pay that cohort, upkeep their keep, influence that noble, gain that patronage, etc. It could be interesting to add a Wealth check to the game that cannot be used to buy equipment - only for non-equipment usages (such as prior examples). This would prevent the oddity of a high level group traveling around with several kings' ransoms strapped to their body but not necessarily able to buy a ship or keep a keep - at least not without losing some of the wealth they need to remain par for their level (in terms of ability to survive level appropriate encounters).

 

[Kapture]

IMG Leadership is the first step to becoming Deified. Normaly my game is one of those "clerics must have a deity" settings and getting a cleric cohort is difficult since a cleric already has a 'leader' as it were.

Those who take leadership and Elect to be worshiped are able to chose their holy symbol, a small portfolio and two domains based on thier roleplay/alignment and may have thier cohort be their high cleric with thier followers as the congregation.

That's an interesting rules shim. Makes sense, too. I wonder what the rest of that progression would... I'd thought of doing a game where all the characters took levels in a "demigod" prestige class.

 

[Kapture]

I took Leadership in my last campaign in order to have a walking band-aid.
We were in desperate need of a healer, and this guy was incredibly specialized for healing and healing only.

In fact he never did any damage to anything that wasn't undead.

Cool blog.

 

[Kapture]

Instead, perhaps the PCs could have two pools of wealth, one more symbolic than the second. The primary one would be for the requisite magic items, etc, while the second and more symbolic one would be used for dealing with more basic considerations - such as paying a cohort, upkeep for a keep, buying a ship (or even just passage on a ship), etc.

I was actually going to use that kind of system to represent the "organization" part of the character's ambitions. In fact, another character in the group is setting up a spy organization, without taking the leadership feat, and I was figuring this would help with that, as well.

I'm mulling over how to represent/keep record of the symbolic wealth without it possibly bleeding into character wealth.