What's your take on the Leadership feat?

[Ahnehnois]

As a feat, Leadership is open to rampant abuse. Like all abuses of power, this can be corrected, but that's not really the point. A feat is about your character. A feat called "Leadership" could give you bonuses to rolls to attract followers (if such a system existed), but it shouldn't just give you followers.

 

[Arivendel]

best thing is this is all JUST in the core, past level 20 this becomes so hilariously broken that it really makes you wonder why you even try... i mean honestly past level 21 you may as well just keep the last citadel you conquered and make your own country and have all the level 1,2,3 minions run the town and give you endless supply of money... that plus the astral Deva or Pit Lord who decides to follow you forever and ever.

Yes Leadership is a beautiful feat... too bad it was solely designed to break the game and give those CHA based characters a reason not to whine over why they dont geat a lot of stuff

 

[Artoomis]

Indeed. The selectable parameters are race, class and alignment, not spells, domains, skills, feats and gear. The NPCs should be competent, but cherry picked splat should not be on the menu.

And even at that, the race, class and alignment are what you attempt to get, not necessarily what is avialable.

This feat is heavily DM-dependent. Without heavy DM involvement, it can, indeed, be horribly broken.

 

[Nifft]

This feat is heavily DM-dependent. Without heavy DM involvement, it can, indeed, be horribly broken.

Yes. Easily the most DM-dependent feat in any book.

I, uh, actually tend to do most of the optimization work on Cohorts... my players don't read up on optimization nearly so much as I do. (So in my game, it's quite explicitly with DM involvement that Cohorts are most broken... but that's the game I want to run, where Cohorts contribute, and non-Summoner PCs get bonus actions, too.)

Cheers, -- N

 

[roguerouge]

It's like this: http://www.llbbl.com/data/RPG-motivational/target269.html

 

[Kerrick]

Actually, it does not "break the game wide open" if run correctly - with heavy DM involvement.

Any feat (or anything else, for that matter) that requires "heavy DM involvement" to avoid breaking the game isn't properly designed, IMO. Having a DM say "yea" or "nay" as far as inclusion is normal; having the DM involved in every step of the process (choosing the cohort, writing up stats, etc. etc.) is just too much.

That said, I think there is a place for it in the game, I just don't think it should be a Feat slot. Rather, I think it should be a function of founding a keep, building an organization, captaining a pirate ship and so on, similar to how calling for followers worked in previous editions. If a cleric reaches a certain level of prominence and builds a temple, it seems odd that he should have to chose between staffing said temple and say, getting Extra Turning.

I agree. I also liked the idea of using Leadership as a booster - you can take the feat to get more/better followers. I think a combination of those two rules would work a lot better, if done properly.

Thanks for the comments and the ideas, folks. I'll see if I can hash out an alternate follower system (that was part of the reason I asked originally - I'm going over all the feats to fix them).

 

[Infiniti2000]

Any feat (or anything else, for that matter) that requires "heavy DM involvement" to avoid breaking the game isn't properly designed, IMO. Having a DM say "yea" or "nay" as far as inclusion is normal; having the DM involved in every step of the process (choosing the cohort, writing up stats, etc. etc.) is just too much.

The problem does not stop there, however; it gets worse, much worse. Now that the DM has invested so much of his personal time in the cohort, there's gonna be a chance of just a tiny bit of favoritism, no matter how small, towards the NPC. Dare I even call it a DMPC now? After all, if the DM spent an hour (e.g. for a high level game, or however long it takes a DM to create a full character) creating the character, does he really want to go through that all over again if the cohort dies?

And, then does he want to create 4 such NPCs, one for each party member? Oh wait, and there're the cohorts of the cohorts that picked up Leadership (that one always makes me laugh when I see it).

If you want to have cohorts and followers in your game, just plain have them. Don't fall into the Leadership trap. This feat should NOT exist at all. The rules might be useful as a general guideline, but should certainly not be a feat wherein the player might feel empowered over the characters that are generated -- which is the point I'm arguing against.

 

[billd91]

Any feat (or anything else, for that matter) that requires "heavy DM involvement" to avoid breaking the game isn't properly designed, IMO. Having a DM say "yea" or "nay" as far as inclusion is normal; having the DM involved in every step of the process (choosing the cohort, writing up stats, etc. etc.) is just too much.

I disagree. I enjoy making cohorts. I set them up so that their abilities fill the roles the party needs to fill - sometimes better than the players would on their own because I have a sense of what they will need. I also try to make them reasonably creative but easy to run. But I make sure I don't take more than 15-30 minutes doing it. HeroForge helps a lot in this case. Really, it doesn't take much more than that.

In general, I have no problem with the DM being involved a LOT in character generation and advancement, and not just of cohorts. It's part of my job as a referee to know what the PCs are, can do, and help the players have a good time. If this involves making some suggestions or helping the player make a workable character, i'll do it.

 

[billd91]

The problem does not stop there, however; it gets worse, much worse. Now that the DM has invested so much of his personal time in the cohort, there's gonna be a chance of just a tiny bit of favoritism, no matter how small, towards the NPC. Dare I even call it a DMPC now? After all, if the DM spent an hour (e.g. for a high level game, or however long it takes a DM to create a full character) creating the character, does he really want to go through that all over again if the cohort dies?

Sure! Killing the cohorts is a fun way to blow off steam in a rat-bastardly way if the defenses of the PCs are just a little too high. Plus, it makes them squirm.

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

I played in a long running 3e game which had a variety of cohorts in it. My first character was a Cleric with a Transmuter cohort - that worked out quite well but it was the Cleric who had all the spotlight time, as it were.

Also in the game was a Fighter with another Fighter as cohort - this cohort mostly spent his time looking after things off-camera.

The Wizard's Cleric cohort was very useful for healing and anti-undead stuff, too, and the other Fighter's Bard cohort (whilst not played to it's best) was also useful.

Overall it was a good game and the DM was happy with a large group - the game went well and everyone was able to keep things quick at the table. I like cohorts but it does rely on the group and the DM to keep an eye on them.

Wonder if it'd work for 4e? I mean, in a small group you could use the same table to give players a 'second' character at a useful level to back up their primary character in a small group.