well
in response to a lot of posts.
crothian.. i think wisdom and charisma would be more appropriate than intelligence and charisma for a competant leader. skills like sense motive, profession (general, whatever
), and spot would be very important on the battlefield.
canis.. i think aristocrat would more than likely be the general/leader types. honestly any "paladins" (i use the term losely since the reality of a "lawful good" existing in a medieval feudal society is ludicrious) would not be leading armies until they were high up in their respective social/heirarchtical structures and hence, could easily be treated as aristocrats. Also please dont limit your templar societies and pretend that even in a magical medieval society they would not be ruled by the lesser sons of powerful and influencial barons/nobles. The ruler of a templar order could easily well NOT be a paladin especially considering that the order would need to be large landowners to sustain themselves. the leader could just be an aristocrat that agrees with the tenants of the order. just my thoughts on that though, obviously this is very world specific.
to everyone talking about leadership feat.... remember that you have to be at least 6th level and with a +4 mod to charisma to attract a piddly 5 1st level folowers besides your single cohort. to get into the realms of a decent sized force for the period you'd need around 15th level with a +6 mod from charisma for 60 levels worth of followers. i think this feat is inappropriate for discussion concerning generalship or recruiting for large forces. maybe for a small mercenary company? you may get the tiered effect (cohort has leadership feat as well.. but.. hrm.. something within me thinks that not terribly approriate either)
to those discussing charisma... i think it would be the second most important aspect of leadership (the most i'll discuss in a bit so hold on
). charisma is the people manipulation stat. coupled with diplomacy, sense motive, bluff, intimidate you'd get a good leader. unfortunately you guys have to quickly recognize that fighter types are completly unsuited to leadership when that leadership is based upon skills as presented in 3E. fighters dont get enough skills to do anything but a rather poor job and when you look at the two best fighting races, half-orc and dwarf, they both have minuses to their charisma. the game is designed for very small unit combat.
a brief bit about education of the ruling classes in the medieval period... to put a bunch of misinformation to rest, at the time when the standard DnD world takes place.. (circa 1250-1450 the high middle ages) literacy was not uncommon for nobility and gentry. Let me quote The English Nobility in the Late Middle Ages by chris given-wilson, "by the middle of the thirteenth century, at the latest, the ability to read was pretty general among lay as well as clerical nobles, and by the fourteenth century it is far from uncommon to find noble authors.... the increasing use of the written word as a means of goverment and communication had by now made it a necessary skill."
for my main point, and what i think is the most important part of being a general, which i dont think anyone has really addressed yet is that these generals/leaders are not living in a vacuum. Historicaly you didnt have to be a good general to be a general, you just had to be a noble. period. from roman times, through the dark ages, through the middle ages, through the high middle ages.. and all the way up til the creation of large independant mercenary companies which were stong enough to demand that their leaders, and not the stupid nobles, take command of thier forces, the leaders of armies were aristocrats. I guess the renaisannce was the first real occurance of that outside of the italian situation
by not living in a vaccum these guys dont have to be particularly steller in the performance of their generalship job because everyone else is exactly like they are
. actually the main reason why they are generals and why no one else is is because they own lots and lots of land and you dont
leaders of armies are nobles. and to be an army leading noble you have to own lots and lots of land. people who own lots and lots of land, in general DnD terms, are usually NOT adventurer types. they are aristocrats. if ya'll take a gander at the aristocrat, you'll see they are are pretty well suited to the role of leading armies, as their class skills are bluff, diplomacy, intimidate, knowledge, ride, sense motive, spot and wilderness lore. everything a good leader needs and they get 1d8hp so their pretty tough and have a cleric BAB and get 4+int mod skill points per level. pretty ideal.
i guess my main point here is that nobody besides an aristocrat would really have the capablity to raise an army. of course, this is from a historical view and not from the DnD "the adventurers came back with 30k gold from slaying the dragon" view
And also remember that a noble would not give the reins of power to a more competent general unless the general could be utterly trusted and the situation was of utmost importance and there was no other option because during our period the rule of law was implicityly tied with the rule of might and cultural mores. ie. you dont arm anyone but yourself because your followers are the only guarantee of your athority. you dont want an army running around that YOU dont command, no matter if you aren't the best one to command it.
joe b.
edited to actually form a few complete sentances here and there...
