Getting lots of followers.

[Morithias]

So evil Prince wants to become a god, sadly the requirements to become a god via worship in my friend's campaign setting is a bit...higher than normal. Up from the mere 10,000, up into around 1 million.

The campaign will end around level 30, but I'm having trouble creating the leadership score required for that many followers. Even with my extra followers from the Master class (war of the lance), and the legendary commander feat, I'm still looking at needing a leadership score of around 400.

I know of the merchant bonuses to leadership from Power of Faerun, along with some nice feats like assemble the horde from dragon.

Does anyone know any good tricks?

Note: Due to house rules to avoid cheese, cohorts and followers CANNOT HAVE ANY FORM OF THE LEADERSHIP FEAT

We're looking at a leadership score of around 400, 200 if I get a third party class approved.

[Hirax]

The might makes right feat allows you to add your strength score to your leadership score in addition to your charisma modifier.

[The Gilded Duke]

Very interested in what you find with this. I vaguely remember two things that might help, let me see if I can find em.

Orc Warlord, Races of Faerun p. 184.

A nice five level class, gives you inspire courage, the ability to make others rage, and by third level the number of followers you get from leadership is multiplied by two.

Requires Orc or Half-orc and non good.

Dreadmaster, Faiths and Pantheon p. 188
Lots of requirements, including worshiping Bane. Get +6 to leadership score, no longer worry about penalties for losing followers or being cruel. Get two additional Cohorts.

[Namfuak]

What about thrallherd instead of leadership? Having a follower who is also a thrallherd isn't just allowed, it's a class feature!

[Little Brother]

Extra followers, HoB, doubles number of minions. Assemble the Horde, Dr34something, gives you one extra level 1 minion for every higher level minion. Legendary Commander, ELH, multiplies the number of minions by ten.

Using the above tricks, I've gotten thousands of minions by level six, several hundred by level 3, through abuse of bad wording.

[crazyhedgewizrd]

you have the extra followers feat from heros of battle, that doubles the number of followers you have. There is Legendary Commander feat form epic handbook which allows you to have 10 times the amount of followers.

dont know if these two stack, or leadership stacks with other types of leadership feats.

[The Gilded Duke]

Looks like legendary commander requires epic leadership, which is an epic feat.
Extra Followers on an Orc Warleader though would be nice.

[crazyhedgewizrd]

he is going to need epic leadership anyway or he can go above leadership score of 25 which has 163 followers.

I dont think the goal of a million followers can be meet.

[Little Brother]

Looks like legendary commander requires epic leadership, which is an epic feat.
Extra Followers on an Orc Warleader though would be nice.Martial Monk, my friend.

[The Gilded Duke]

Pretty sure if the DM is smacking down on nested leadership, they wouldn't approve martial monk or dragonwrought kobold to get epic feats. Also, you might try doing some diplomacy optimization. It only needs DC 50 to get helpful people fanatical instead.

[Diovid]

Dread Pirate, Orc Warlord, Legendary Captain and Legendary Leader are all good choices for prcs. Take the Extra Followers and Might makes Right feats and you're good to go. Note, being a Marshal helps, both in buffing your followers and in buffing your cha and str. I think there might also be some items which increase your leadership score. However any item which boosts your cha and str also boosts your leadership score.

There are also some more feats which increase your leadership score:
Improved Leadership (Dragon #317)
Noble Born (Dragon #333)
Natural Leader (Dragon #346)
Class Champion (Dragon #346)
Eye for Talent (Dragon #346)
Fanatical Devotion (Dragon #346)
Ruleship (Power of Faerun)
Ecclesiarch (Eberron Campaign Setting)

Also note that all [Leader] feats (those 4 or so feats from Heroes of Battle) also give a +1 bonus to your leadership score in addition to their described benefits and that your leadership bonus is also increased by things you do and abilities you have.

[Pilo]

Undead leadership (from Libris mortis), pick up vampires, wraiths, wights and shadows. Turn your former followers into undeads with their create spawn ability, rampage the lands with your undead army. Become the Evil God of Undeads with millions of undead followers under your direct or indirect control.

[Ashtagon]

I'm unclear why Leadership is even required here. Published game deities aren't stated with Leadership, which should mean by these standards they could never have become deities in the first place.

If I'm not mistaken, the benefits of high Leadership cap out at around 30 or so anyway, which suggests the Leadership rules have been houseruled to Tarterus and back.

[Gavinfoxx]

http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=8817.0

There's a handbook for the Leadership and similar feats...


http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=3065.0

There's a handbook for the mechanics that have to do with leadership as a generic concept.

Good luck!

[Bronk]

Perhaps, being an epic level character and all, you could use diplomacy to enact laws in the various countries of your game world to encourage the proper worship.... or just take over yourself. I'm sure that would add to your character's legend, as well.

[Pilo]

If what Bronk says is true, you can look for a jumplomancer build. Biggest diplomacy check ever.

[Morithias]

I'm unclear why Leadership is even required here. Published game deities aren't stated with Leadership, which should mean by these standards they could never have become deities in the first place.

If I'm not mistaken, the benefits of high Leadership cap out at around 30 or so anyway, which suggests the Leadership rules have been houseruled to Tarterus and back.

Well the whole point of the campaign is "take over the world". You can find the current log under "it's war".

This is sorta just an experiment. Me trying to see if I can mechanically get the followers needed to become a deity, or whether the "become a god thing" needs the DM to basically rule it as the end of the campaign.

Thanks for all the help people, I've found some great stuff thanks to you.

[Slipperychicken]

One way I found was to hit a DC50 (or 60 to do it as a full-round action) Perform or Diplomacy check to move people from Hostile to Helpful, then use the Harmonica (from Song and Silence) Bardic Music ability to bump listeners up to Fanatic. Only limit is that it's a Mind Affecting Enchantment, but it doesn't have a save (and isn't magical!) so you can still nail a lot of creatures with that. It also lasts for Charisma-mod days, so if you can juggle it right, you can keep a lot of people under control indefinitely.


No HD cap, no max level. Let N=[number of people you can Diplomance/Performomance simultaneously], B = [bardic musics per day], and C = [Charisma Modifier], then the max number of followers you can acquire this way is N*B*C (or N times B times C). Even with really conservative estimates on these figures (N=300, B =10, C =7), you can have upwards of 20,000 Fanatic followers for free, after the initial investment. Who are all willing to commit near-suicidal acts for you without payment.


Obviously, you will need a large charisma, lots of Bardic Musics per day (or if UMD can emulate that to activate a magic Harmonica...?), and to gather extremely large crowds together (have any fanatics you already have to help with this).

[Morithias]

Good news people! I actually managed to pull it off.

According to my spread sheet, with legendary commander, assemble the horde, and FIVE different sources for followers (Dread pirate, master, leadership, and connection x2) I need a leadership score of 100.

I got this as follows.

Level 30, Charisma 18 (base 18, spark 2, firesoul 4, stat boost 7, tomb 5, magic item 12). Inspiring leader +2, Leadership +6 for various bonuses like stronghold and kindness, rulership 4, noble birth 2, assemble the horde 1, admirals hat 5, breastplate of command 2, might makes right 10 (14, tomb 5, magic item 12), a shop that bring in 1500 gp for a +7 (Power of faerun), member in a guild +1, and self-suitaning empire, because I rule the material plane +12 (power of faerun).

It would be higher if I calculated the influence mod (also power of faerun, seriously that thing like a splatbook that revolves around one feat), but my brain hurts from all this work.

Thanks for the help people!

[GnomeGninjas]

So evil Prince wants to become a god, sadly the requirements to become a god via worship in my friend's campaign setting is a bit...higher than normal. Up from the mere 10,000, up into around 1 million.
.

Where does it say that you become a god if you lead enough people?

[Slipperychicken]

Where does it say that you become a god if you lead enough people?

There's no explicit number to become one IIRC, nor is it certain that you can become one even if you have so many worshipers. The SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/divine/divineRanksAndPowers.htm#divineRanks) gives figures for how many followers a god might have, but not how many it takes to become a god. The SRD hints that it may require Overdiety consent (they literally do not even respond to queries, so you can't really contact them). I have a strong feeling the OP is using houserules to do this.

[Morithias]

There's no explicit number to become one IIRC, nor is it certain that you can become one even if you have so many worshipers. The SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/divine/divineRanksAndPowers.htm#divineRanks) gives figures for how many followers a god might have, but not how many it takes to become a god. The SRD hints that it may require Overdiety consent (they literally do not even respond to queries, so you can't really contact them). I have a strong feeling the OP is using houserules to do this.

Well the thing is, here's kinda what happened.

"According to the SRD most deities only have around 10000 worshipers"
"Yeah you'll need more than that, like around 1 million. (heh, he'll never pull that off by the end of the campaign.)"

So I came here to get info, and bam, I pulled it off.

I have half a mind to calculate influence and see how low I can get my level (min 27 for obvious reasons, we need legendary commander) in order to keep the 1 million, but I'm far too tired after all this bookkeeping.

Thanks again people. I really owe all of you for your help for this experiment.

Btw, the closest I could find in deities and demigods was "earned power" which boiled down to "Dm sets a goal that can be repeated, player achieves goal, player is now a god." This goal just happened to be "1 million worshippers".

Of course as soon as I achieve it, he changes the goal from "1 million worshippers" to "conquer the whole material plane and turn it into your kingdom."

Which is easier, and loosens up what I can do with my character classes, so I'm not complaining.

Thanks for the help again people. I'm happy to know any time I want to introduce a new god, I just need to convince my friend to run a level 27+ game. XD

[Gavinfoxx]

You should tell him, "Okay, if you don't want my character to become a god, just say so. Don't keep changing the goalposts on me... Give me a set series of goals which will achieve it, and let me worry about achieving them."

[GnomeGninjas]

Does you leading them mean they worship you?

[Gavinfoxx]

Does you leading them mean they worship you?

It does if you are a thrallherd, I think! Or if you set yourself up as an immortal god-king, and the head of the imperial cult. And make a wondrous item of teleport without error at will, and set up the cult so you have to be present in each province for crops to grow, for regular rituals and stuff, and then teleport to the capital of each province regularly...


Also, you should read these things I wrote:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aG4P3dU6WP3pq8mW9l1qztFeNfqQHyI22oJe09i8KWw/edit

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Z9NJIs751Af3i0IEIJwCkIp9H9YFiZYZ7u-wmYVaheI/edit

[The Gilded Duke]

Or an alternate way to do it, write pamphlets.

"And thus a voice from the very heavens pronounced, I am Morithias, I am the god of Cabbages. Worship me and you will never face starvation, and your produce will be free from weevils and locusts! Copy this page and give it to ten friends to achieve eternal salvation! If you don't, your true love will perish from a cabbage related illness."

Then make a forgery skill check.
Since you have seen other similar holy books, you get +8 on the check.
Forgery can only be detected through use of the forgery skill roll, which is only really a rogue class skill. Familiarity with the type of document only gives the reader +2 on their roll. Even at a low level you can make some very convincing forgeries that the majority of people will not be able to detect. Then just make a bunch of copies and pass them out.

It is also important to note that most Gods do not have forgery as a trained skill. Although I believe gods always roll a natural 20 and add their divine rank to any skill checks. Still, with enough optimizing you can trick the majority of gods into thinking that you are a god.

The toughest one to beat though would be Garl Glittergold. Divine Rank 18, and a forgery skill of 53. You would need to get a forgery check of 92 to beat him.

Lets see how high we can get: (rogue 1/ Artificer 19, able learner)
23 Ranks
3 Skill Focus
9 Int (assuming 28 int)
2 Masterwork Tools
20 Guidance of the Avatar (Competence)
23 Item Familiar
10 Skill Item (Circumstance)
10 Skill Item (Dodge - Item Alteration)
10 Skill Item (Resistance - Item Alteration)
10 Skill Item (Enhancement - Item Alteration)
10 Skill Item (Insight - Item Alteration)
10 Skill Item (Luck - Item Alteration)
10 Skill Item (Morale - Item Alteration)
10 Skill Item (Alchemical - Item Alteration)
10 Skill Item (Racial - Item Alteration)
8 Familiarity
-------------------------------
168 with taking 10

Might also be a way to get a Profane and Sacred bonus but couldn't find one.

[Slipperychicken]

Well the thing is, here's kinda what happened.

"According to the SRD most deities only have around 10000 worshipers"
"Yeah you'll need more than that, like around 1 million. (heh, he'll never pull that off by the end of the campaign.)"


You should also let him know that doesn't imply in the slightest that you become a god when you get so many worshipers.

Dogs usually having two eyes does not mean that you become a dog because you have two eyes. Gods usually having 10,000 worshippers does not mean that having 10,000 worshipers makes you a god.

A Wizard can cast 0th and 1st level spells at first level, right? Does that mean that casting 0th and 1st level spells turns you into a first level Wizard? It does not.

(X therefore Y) does not mean (Y therefore X), and vice versa.


EDIT: It seems like your GM doesn't want you to be a god. I recommend letting it go, and finding a more conventional way of taking the world over.

[Morithias]

EDIT: It seems like your GM doesn't want you to be a god. I recommend letting it go, and finding a more conventional way of taking the world over.

No no no! That's not it! He just doesn't need me getting free templates before the campaign is over. Alex becoming a god is the whole POINT of the campaign. The First Evil wants to upset the balance, so he sends a harvester devil named Jebel to a war-torn material plane in order to find a tyrant who can take it over, while still playing up the "good-aligned prince" act in order to harvest enough worshippers to ascend and create a new lawful evil deity.

As I've stated, he told me that the 1 million was more just so I don't ascend mid-campaign, of course being the power gamer that I am, I took it as a challenge.

Then again, it's kinda pointless calculating it when I don't get legendary commander until 3 levels before it ends....but that's not the point.

I just want to see if I could do it. 1 million seemed like such a high number, one poster actually said he thought it was impossible.

It's like when someone gives you a math problem that no one else in the class can solve, but you and 4 friends get together and blow your lunch hour to solve it, then you hand it to the teacher who is amazed.

It's just that I managed to pull it off, and thanks to all your help, I did.