Where's my HR manager? or "How Leadership nerfs Power Attack"

[Particle_Man]

100 Warlocks with Eldritch Spear would make a pretty good archery force.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

When selecting your cohort, don't go for the 'standard' back-up Fighter or (my personal favourite) Cleric. Instead, get a Bard, Paladin, or Expert with maxed Charisma.

Then delegate.

Or a marshal, and buff those troops up.

 

[jmucchiello]

I think you are undervaluing have 100 folks in the town guard who are less likely to turn on you and are harder to be bought by the local thieves' guild. Those 1st level followers are your recruits and beat guards. They take care of riffraff. The higher level followers are useful for middle management positions and of course the cohort should be your 2nd in command so that when you are out of town, you know the guard is in good hands.

 

[Agent Oracle]

1) Make sure your DM isn't going to pull a fast one on you.

2) accept your leadership position and allways, ALLWAYS treat your followers really nice.

3) You are 10th level, You already posses Great Renown (+2 modifier) and a base of operations (another +2) as long as you are fair and generous (another +1)... good grief, look at the number of cohorts and followers you could attract.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I don't think there are rules for loyalty, so it's up to you and your DM to work that out. Classic techniques: make them fear you, make them love you, or inspire in them a fanatical sense of duty.

-z

You could always get hold of a 1e DMG and use the morale rules in there

 

[Firedancer]

A reasonable course of actions here is to discuss things with your DM. See what his plans are. He might have rewarded you with rank and prestige but have no intention of leaving youu in situ.

Then the worry will have been for nothing.

If it is relevent then you can look to maximising the bonuses you get, plus look at items to boost chr.

For my group we've viewed it that the leadership feat gives you loyal followers who would need some hefty effort to be changed to an unfriendly view of you. As stated earlier, these are NCO's and the officers of the watch.

Hirelings (and hired by the city) form the rest of the guard, and treated right they will also be hard to convince to act against you.

 

[Storyteller01]

It'll get expensive, but one method is figuring out how much to pay via their Profession skill. Make one skill check for a given level, figure out the coinage earned, and multiply it by the number of folks in said level. Base pay gives a base loyalty. More pay equals greater loyalty. You don't have to just pay them more (ex: you can finance a recruits wedding or some such) but just about anything will cost you gold in the long run.

Your DM could throw in a one time bouns to saves based on how much more you do for them (ex: 500 gp beyond the usual pay gives a +1). Things that effect everyone can go into a type of pool (ex: that 3,000 gp victory party you threw gives a +6 bonus that any in the party can tap as needed). Say that a failed save from a hired hand that somehow involves loyalty to you gets as many bonus points out if the pool as is needed to pass. If there isn't enough, the bonus pool is depleted and you're in trouble.

Another good system is MGP's 'Game of Bones' found in the quintessential drow. Works best for evil characters, but it might give you some ideas.

 

[William drake]

Ok, so leadership doesn't really having anything to do with power attack. And in fact, this thread has almost nothing to do with rules at all, except that most people will realize what the feat Leadership does and what it can potentially mean to a character.

My character (fightery type) recently got named Captain of the Guard of a reasonably large city. The bard of our campaign became the lord of the city, another fighter type is leading the city's army, another is the court wizard, etc. You get the picture. We're the bigwigs. We're all around level 10, so we're definitely pretty powerful compared to the level 2-4 people we're leading (a few of the generals in the army are as high as level 7), but level means very little when what you're trying to do is keep a city's economy rolling, the people happy, and eventually save the world (it wouldn't be D&D if we weren't saving the world).

So... I'll be honest, most of my experience has been with typical hack and slash D&D. Sure, we roleplayed between fights, but I never had to plan guard rotations, benefits packages, or worry about how I can make sure the people guarding my bed aren't going to stab me in the back, or more likely, be drunk in a bar while someone else stabs me in the back.

So here's some thoughts - I have leadership (or rather will soon), these guys are by definition, pretty loyal to me, right? So I should be able to count on them to at least not turn on me without some hefty arm twisting. However, followers are like, vastly low level. I don't know that having 100 Level 1 guards around the palace is going to stop any kind of force from getting in, unless they physically pile their bodies in front of attackers.

I can hire higher level guys, but then they're not followers, and therefore only as loyal as money and the DM make them. My character's a fighter, not a paladin with 25 charisma (he does have 14 charisma, thankfully)... so how do I attract and keep loyal guardsmen?

Any and all suggestions welcome... I hope this is an interesting departure from the usual 4e speculation or rules lawyering thread.

-Nate

Start trying to upgrade your men...train them, turn them from fighters into prestige classes, give them the best equipment...and try and find prestige classed heros, or people in the area who can join or become apart of your army,guard: weapons masters, and so on. Make sure to UP PLAY the NPC's so that you know, in game, their names and their families well, that way, when something comes up, you can call them by name to you DM, you've built some kind of history. Think about taticts. If you haven't drawn out the guard posts, or the inside of the keep or castel, do so, and show the DM where your men are supposed to be, that way, when they're not, you can go "well, that's what I told them" and the DM will have to have a real reason as to why there not. Also, if you don't trust any of your men, its not above you to work with the local thieves guild to have them looked over, watched, and followed. Infact, you might want to hire some of them, in many old cultures, the two worked togethere since both were great parts of the local economy.

Think about it.
GAME ON

 

[hong]

Leadership does double duty. For the world builders, it's a way of gaining your very own community of followers (or the seed thereof); for the dungeoncrawlers, it's a way of supplementing the party's firepower. You don't have to use the bit you feel is superfluous to your gaming style.

 

[chitzk0i]

Remember: you're the captain of the guard, not head of the army. Your underlings are a police force, not the military.

Also, why, exactly, are you taking leadership? The GM is already, essentially, giving you the benefits of Leadership, which he is perfectly entitled to do.