What's your take on the Leadership feat?

[Stalker0]

The leadership feat is at the same time the strongest and weakest feat in the game, because it is heavily influenced by dm fiat.

 

[Kerrick]

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.

No argument there. But... a feat that pretty much requires the DM to do ALL the work is just badly designed - it should be a subsystem, if that much or the burden is on the DM's shoulders.

Has anyone ever had/seen a non-PC-class cohort? Like, say, a dragon, pixie, death knight, whatever? How did it work out?

 

[Nifft]

Has anyone ever had/seen a non-PC-class cohort? Like, say, a dragon, pixie, death knight, whatever? How did it work out?

Our game had a couple of hatchling dragons with mysterious templates on them. They worked fine. The templates enabled them to survive, and they were useful more as scouts & flankers than as main battle pieces.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Storm Raven]

I agree with consensus.

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.

Followers are a campaign consideration, not a feat.

Here's how I play it:

A PC can get followers and assistants by hiring them, joining an organization and rising into a position of power within it, founding an organization, building a castle and so on. These followers are normal NPCs, and may or may not be loyal and reliable. They will probably have their own agendas, and may or may not do what the PC wants them to do.

If you spend a feat to gain Leadership, you can ensure the loyalty of your Cohort (and followers). Essentially, they become dependable. As DM, I won't have them turn on you, refuse to help you out for some reason or another, or shirk a reasonable job you've given them. They won't cheat you, steal from you, or stick a knife in your back.

The campaign may give you followers. Leadership gives you reliability.

 

[Zil]

In the 6 or so years I've been playing 3E, I've never used it or seen it used in play, and I don't recall ever seeing it even discussed anywhere on the various forums I visit. Does anyone use it? Is it overpowered, underpowered, just plain useless, too much of a headache for the DM, or one of those feats that's just right and no one has any fault with it?

One player in my games would sometimes take the feat, but I would take the time to work the new NPC logically into the campaign. It never really caused any problems i my games. Now if everyone had taken the feat, that might have been a different story.

In another game, I allowed one character to acquire a cohort of sorts without spending a feat. Instead the cohort was acquired through some interesting role playing (the player in question was a proselytizing priest from a dying world cast out into the planes and the "cohort" was more like a confused disciple). That worked out really well even though I was effectively giving the player a free feat. The cohort was not making magic items or the like - he was a dwarven fighter who eventually started taking cleric levels. I also retained control of the disciple more so than I would if he had been a true cohort.

I think the Leadership feat is a fine feat for most campaigns.

 

[monboesen]

Has anyone ever had/seen a non-PC-class cohort? Like, say, a dragon, pixie, death knight, whatever? How did it work out?

I let one of my players have a heavy warhorse with some extra HD and the Celestial template as a cohort.

It worked out great.

The horse could survive the dangers of adventuring (like stray Fireballs) and could contribute to some effect in combat. But at the same time it wasn't really an active part of the game or let the player do anything beyond what a normal warhorse could (of course the cohort horse was numerically superior at attacking and the likes compared to a regular horse).

 

[taliesin15]

One comment first about the Leadership feat: the desciptive text in the 3.0/3.5 DMGs is pretty general and not very detailed as it was in the first edition DMG--that's a general criticism I have of the WoTC DMGs as they are relatively weak in terms of helping DMs flesh out a world.

Few PCs have tried to use this Feat in any of my games over the years, but it can be interesting to try. I let a PC in my game last year have a heal-bot Cleric be a cohort to his Ranger character, but made it much more interesting by having her have the personality of an overbearingly overmotherly nanny type, not just healing the Ranger character, but constantly nicely fixing his clothes, telling him to eat his veggies, etc. It worked really well with the flavor of the game (especially vis a vis the torrid affair he was having with a Barghest-dominated hot Rogue woman, but that's a long story).

One thing that this Feat is excellent for is bringing a bit of real world versimillitude to the game for DMs fleshing out major NPCs. As I've designed a number of mid level and high level NPCs throughout the main continent of my milieu, I think the one thing that could be relevant for other DMs to consider when PCs want to get followers, build a castle, etc., is that there's a lot of mundane considerations to keep in mind. Assuming they have a fortress, is it close to water, what about food, how do they relate to the local political powers, and so on. Mundane things like mice eating the grain stored in the silo for the winter, or weevils compromising everything made from hemp (rope) and cotton, or termites chewing away at wood--things such as these can become new threats to the PCs taking on Leadership, albeit they are not as fun as swords and sorcery.