Why is Leadership OP?

[BasketOfPuppies]

From what I've seen, it just gives you some low-level NPC's following you. I'm probably missing something here, so what is it?

[The Glyphstone]

The cohort is what you missed. An NPC who is your level-2 (or level-1, or even =level with feat investments) and scales with you. It effectively gives you a second character for the price of a feat.

Very few people take Leadership for the mook followers, and those are usually specific builds/concepts. But everyone can benefit from a pocket buffer/healer/bodyguard/scout who is almost as powerful as you are.

[Seerow]

The cohort is what you missed. An NPC who is your level-2 (or level-1, or even =level with feat investments) and scales with you. It effectively gives you a second character for the price of a feat.

What feats let you get up to = level?

[The Glyphstone]

What feats let you get up to = level?

Can't remember off the top of my head, it might have been a 3rd party source. There are definitely ways to get Level-1, though....and then there's Thrallherd, aka Leadership The Class On Steroids with its Double Cohorts.

[Doc_Maynot]

Also, when it gets to epic levels you can use your ever expanding follower pool to mitigate epic spellcasting costs as you increase your CHA ever higher, granting you more followerss to mitigate costs even further.

[Red Fel]

The cohort is what you missed. An NPC who is your level-2 (or level-1, or even =level with feat investments) and scales with you. It effectively gives you a second character for the price of a feat.

Very much this, although it can be mitigated depending on how much control over the cohort the DM grants you.

Even if you can't control the cohort's actions, but are allowed to build it with character classes and feats, there is a substantial volume of cheese potential. Consider all the optimization you can perform on one character. Now imagine you had two characters with which to do that, and could synergize them together for additional dimensions of optimization.

Heck, even if the DM controlled the cohort's actions, you could design it in such a way that its very existence made you volumes more powerful. (Draconic Auras? Bardic music? Metaconcert?) And that's before you factor in its actions in combat.

[ZedarFlight]

It's mostly because of the cohort, and can depend on what your GM lets you get away with.

For example, someone could pick up a Wizard Cohort, and design he/she/it to pick up the various Craft feats for magical gear, and maybe Skill Focus(Spellcraft) letting you gear out yourself, and your cohort for half price, as well as most of your party (if given the time). Effectively you spent a feat to get the benefits of four or five other feats or double your wealth.

In addition, you're pretty close to increasing the party size by 1, without changing how much exp you get since the cohort gains a fraction of your exp.

[PsyBomb]

Even the low-level followers are highly useful. At even moderate leadership scores, you are talking about enough guys to crew a decent hold.

Even when you first take the feat, assuming minimum level and 14 CHA:

6 level
2 CHA
2 Stronghold
1 Fairness/Generosity
1 Special power

that's a score of 12, enough to get 8 followers that are all 1st level PC classes. Think of a decent keep with two adventuring parties defending it. Plus you add the Cohort, who is set to level all the way to 8th as you go. The characters can adventure and craft independently of you. A couple of levels later, you have the Great Renown bonus to add to it after your troops do some questing of their own. 25 1st-level followers, plus two 2nd and a 3rd. That is enough for a good city watch in a small town on its own, or a very active thieve's guild, or a forest keep that the goblins KNOW to stay away from.

Now for the sick part. When you hit a score of 21, you can have 6th-level followers (trivial score of 9 for a Cohort). Nothing in the rule stops THEM from taking Leadership, or any imitation thereof. Chaining these will get you a metropolis of devoted followers before long. All they give up is their 6th-level feat slot on each follower and cohort.

EDIT: mathiness

Assume you have 14 CHA, plus the Special Power, Fairness, Stronghold, and Renown modifiers for a total of +8. At level 17 you are capped, but we'll go to 18 for now. You have 164 total followers, inluding the following: a 16th level Sorc/Bard/Warlock/otherchabasedthing cohort, and 2 6th-level followers (same class). All three of these have a minimum of 18 Charisma, and the same modifiers, plus the Leadership feat. Your Cohort is maxxed, for another 164 followers (including a 14th-level Cohort and two 6th-level followers)). The 14th-level cohort is at a lowball of 22 score (92 people, including a 12th-level cohort and one 6th-level Follower). That 12th-level (62 people) includes a 10th (48 people) includes an 8th (29 people) includes a 6th (17 people), includes a 4th.

Each of the 6th-level followers also takes Leadership, for 17 people each times five such followers.

That is 661 people working ultimately for YOU directly. This includes (other than yourself) 11 Cha-based casters of 6th level or higher, who can conceivably be a threat to nearly anything coming by and can DEFINITELY craft well enough to serve.

[JellyPooga]

Don't underestimate the power of having a whole bunch of low-level NPC's following you around. Sure the Cohort is what rocks most peoples boats, but it's Followers that can really break the game, which is why it's a typically a GM-fiat Feat.

At 6th level, with an 18 Cha (assuming no other Leadership modifiers), you have yourself 5 1st level followers. What's the use of those guys? Let's make them Human Experts. Let's give them all 4 ranks in UMD, Skill Focus (UMD) and Magical Aptitude. Assuming a +0 in Cha, that gives each of them +9 in UMD (4 ranks +3 Skill Focus +2 Magical Aptitude). Now give them all a wand of your choice; let's suppose you got a handful of Wands of Magic Missile on the cheap (they fell off the back of a lorry guvn'a). They only need to roll a 6 on a d20 to activate those wands, so you're probably looking at 5d4+5 damage per round. Let's put them on Arcane Lockdown duty, to interrupt any mages trying to cast spells, shall we? Or perhaps just call them The Gun Line. That's with wands of a rather underrated spell. Imagine it was wands of Colour Spray instead? Or Cure Light Wounds, or Fireball. Take your pick.

Or perhaps we're playing a city-based political intrigue game. Rig your followers for Gather Information and Bluff and have 5+ guys running round behind the scenes both gathering and spreading rumours and information for you.

Or perhaps you have a mine or shop or other money making gig; sure you could pay hirelings, but wouldn't you rather trust your faithful Followers with the important jobs?

[Vhaidara]

Also, the followers are useful for massed things. For examples:
1. Mass Aid Another. IIRC, there is a way to get Warforged who are permanently Tiny. So you can have 4 of them per square. that's up to +8 per adjacent square to any skill, or to hit, or to AC.
2. Business. I belief it is DMG 2 that contains rules for a business. You have your followers run it, again using Aid Another to compensate for low levels. Boom, holla holla get dolla.
3. More Thrallherd specific, but direct money generation. They show up, you kill them, use mending to fix the holes in their clothes (Worth 1gp IIRC), then sell them along with the simple weapon they showed up with. Works better with thrallherd because your score is unaffected by excessive murdering of worshipers.

[T.G. Oskar]

Don't forget the Crusader or Warblade with stuff like Leading the Charge and the Charge-based maneuvers (particularly the 9th level White Raven Maneuver, War Master's Charge), with a bunch of followers around. Done carefully, you can deal damage in the easy hundreds, and that's just going with the added damage. The base damage also counts, and so does adding your Initiator level to the charge. Think about it: just with four followers, you can easily deal 200 damage: each follower deals 25 from the maneuver, 20 from the stance, only needs 5 to approach 50, and then they have a strong bonus to attack rolls aside from the charge bonus. None of them conflict with each other for the charge, and as long as you (most likely to hit) and someone else hits, the target is auto-stunned. Now, have your highest-leveled followers (and your Cohort, as well) charge. Worse: let your Cohort ALSO have Leading the Charge (it's an untyped bonus) or happen to be a Marshal (the auras aren't so bad). Lots of preparation, but you could easily reach 800 or 900 damage per charge, enough to one-shot the Tarrasque (if you can hit the darn bugger; the AC might be a problem even with the huge mass of followers around). Harder to do in Pathfinder, but a Holy Tactician Paladin can approach those levels of damage between Teamwork feats, multiple mounted allies and Weal's Wrath en masse.

The idea is: Leadership grants a cohort that is effectively another character that follows you (and that doesn't steal XP from your party!), and a bunch of followers that can do a lot of stuff, either in combat or outside of combat (and most likely outside of combat, being that most of your followers will be level 1 and NPC-classed). As mentioned: 5-15 Experts with UMD can be quite the headache, and so can several Adepts (or Magewrights, if you play Eberron). The fact that it's part of the SRD and, while the DM technically has control over it, its existence means you can be entitled to them, which is the big problem. The modifiers to cohorts and followers aren't that hard to meet (both positive and negative, but the positive modifiers doubly so), ending up with a bunch of cohorts and followers. Being that this replaced the Fighter's barony, the Wizard's tower, the Thief's self-created guild and the Cleric's self-made temple (and the Assassin's self-made guild, the Druid's grove and the Monk's temple), they underestimated the power of this feat.

[WeaselGuy]

Also, the followers are useful for massed things. For examples:
3. More Thrallherd specific, but direct money generation. They show up, you kill them, use mending to fix the holes in their clothes (Worth 1gp IIRC), then sell them along with the simple weapon they showed up with. Works better with thrallherd because your score is unaffected by excessive murdering of worshipers.

...well I'm impressed...

[Red Fel]

...well I'm impressed...

Yeah. Thrallherd takes the brokenness of Leadership and makes it a class feature. On steroids. With a license to print money.

[Hamste]

Don't forget the joys of combining warchief, warchanter and your followers together to make a group of massively strong and very accurate troops of soldiers. Just make sure you don't kill your followers with the tribal frenzy. Unfortunately, you just barely miss devoted body guards if you get inspire legion

[jedipotter]

You can do things like.......get a dozen low level warlocks. So a 60 foot ranged touch attack that does 1d6. Times twelve. So 12d6 (12-36) damage a round is not bad. And that is just the blast. Once you get to 2nd level followers you can have rogue1/warlock 1 for 2d6 sneak attacks ranged touch at 30 feet. Maybe even toss in craven for the +2 damage. Then you could have like 6 warlock/rogues doing 12d6+12 (24-48) and your first level ones for (12-36), for a good 36-84 damage. A round. And with ranged touch attacks they would hit a lot of foes...even more if you add in Point Blank Shot. And even if they ''only'' do like 20 damage in a round...that is still a good chunk.

[Seerow]

You can do things like.......get a dozen low level warlocks. So a 60 foot ranged touch attack that does 1d6. Times twelve. So 12d6 (12-36) damage a round is not bad. And that is just the blast. Once you get to 2nd level followers you can have rogue1/warlock 1 for 2d6 sneak attacks ranged touch at 30 feet. Maybe even toss in craven for the +2 damage. Then you could have like 6 warlock/rogues doing 12d6+12 (24-48) and your first level ones for (12-36), for a good 36-84 damage. A round. And with ranged touch attacks they would hit a lot of foes...even more if you add in Point Blank Shot. And even if they ''only'' do like 20 damage in a round...that is still a good chunk.

And then you run into a monster with decent touch AC and an AoE attack, who laughs at your group of warlocks and drops an aoe incinerating them all. And now you have a penalty to your leadership score for leading followers into a situation where they were sure to die.

Cohorts are awesome. I tend to think of followers as more loyal soldiers/servants. Officers in your army, estate managers, that sort of thing. Not so much people you try to bring to bear in your day to day adventuring.

[ArqArturo]

An Archivist with a Warlock cohort can be an interesting thing, indeed.

[Diarmuid]

I think the majority of the assumed power from Leadership is when the player assumed they can build every single cohort/follower as if they were bulding a character.

I'm probably in the minority but I consider this to be fairly heavily against the intended implementation of the feat in a game. That may be an unpopular opinion, but it's mine and I'm entitled to it.

[Sir Chuckles]

I think the majority of the assumed power from Leadership is when the player assumed they can build every single cohort/follower as if they were bulding a character.

I'm probably in the minority but I consider this to be fairly heavily against the intended implementation of the feat in a game. That may be an unpopular opinion, but it's mine and I'm entitled to it.

Since it reads as "you attract the cohort", I've always seen it as "You put up a poster with the qualifications, want-add style", and it'll pretty much give you whatever Fighter 7 with Power Attack you want. If you want an Awakened Desmodu Bat Druid 6 focusing on greenbound summoning, I'll probably prune some of those adjectives.

That said, a Human Druid 6 focusing on greenbound summoning is still a pretty darn good addition to an 8th level party.

[Doc_Maynot]

When I take leadership, I base it off of my character and will pretty much go from town to town with a sign up sheet.
"Eclectic Mage, willing to teach and foster a learning environment for the progression of magic."
"Have a skill? Need a job? Are you human? Join the Swords of Catan today?" (That one was an interesting one, it was actually for a Cult of Zarus/Demon Worshipers)
"Influential patron looking to hire want-to-be heroes to assist in daily adventuring life."

[Totema]

Don't mean to derail the topic, but what are some tried-and-true ways to neuter Leadership's power without outright banning it? I've played with it banned so far but I'm a little interested in introducing in my game, and yet I don't want to deal with any kind of ridiculous cheese.

[PsyBomb]

Nerfing Leadership without outright banning it requires a LOT of effort on the part of the DM, which is the other reason DMs hate it. It essentially requires that the DM make the decisions for the Cohort, taking into account a combination of factors that make him a full-on NPC rather than a PC-extension.

He has to Build the applicants
He has to play them in Combat, or else be willing to DM-Fiat circumstances that the NPC wouldn't be willing to follow through.
He has to maintain the Cohort's choices with regards to the above, and decide just how much in the way of loyalty they may feel towards the Leader.

The other main option is to limit it to T5-6 classes (assuming a T3 game balance) and whatever races are common in the area. While this is still a big help, you won't get Greenbound Summoner Druids or Batman Wizards assisting the party. A good, solid Fighter, custom-built to help you, though VERY useful, won't crush your game balance like that.

[Vhaidara]

I recommend just telling the player: don't abuse it, and I won't take it away. For example, I have a bard who is opening a college. I took Landlord to fund it, and I'm using Leadership to staff it.

[Necroticplague]

One of the big reasons I can think of is resource use. Simply put, Leadership gives you a tremendous amount of resources. Don't wanna spend your own XP by crafting? Get a minion to do it for you.Know a feat that's awesome under a very specific scenario, but is otherwise crap?Have some expendable sucker take it. Doing some out-of combat task with a really high DC? Pile on the Aid Other.

[OldTrees1]

I recommend just telling the player: don't abuse it, and I won't take it away. For example, I have a bard who is opening a college. I took Landlord to fund it, and I'm using Leadership to staff it.

^This

Whenever I make a Necromancer, I take the leadership feat. not to use on screen. Rather my necromancers usually are founding colleges/necropolises/countries. It ends up being a goal that the character works towards/supports and even has to defend at times.

[Urpriest]

I think the majority of the assumed power from Leadership is when the player assumed they can build every single cohort/follower as if they were bulding a character.

I'm probably in the minority but I consider this to be fairly heavily against the intended implementation of the feat in a game. That may be an unpopular opinion, but it's mine and I'm entitled to it.

Someone has to build it. Either you build it, or the DM does. While you and the DM will have differences of opinion at times, you probably won't disagree all that dramatically on the appropriate power level for the game, if your game is a healthy one anyway. So either way, you've got an extra, level-2 character at the same optimization level as every other NPC the DM makes and every other PC, which is not only worth more than a feat, it's just straight-up inappropriate. There's a way to add more people to the group, and it's adding more players. Doing it with Leadership just unbalances things.

Now, using Leadership for just the followers, and not pulling stupid tricks with them, that should be fine. So if I were to nerf Leadership, that's what I'd do with it. Of course, in general I'd just let the players build up any organization they can RP regardless of their feats as long as they don't bring them into the dungeon.

[Lightlawbliss]

when I allow leadership, I roll the class of the person you attract (table bellow) and let you build them with a 20 point build. If it takes a flaw, it doesn't gain the feat. 1d6 for alignment (no evil/good depending on campain)

1 6 Aristocrat
7 12 Warrior
13 18 commoner
19 23 Fighter
24 28 Monk
29 33 Healer
34 38 Expert
39 42 Rogue
43 46 Barbarian
47 50 Warlock
51 54 warmage
55 58 scout
59 62 ranger
63 66 hexblade
67 70 adept
71 73 Beguiler
74 76 crusader
77 79 bard
80 82 swordsage
83 85 binder
86 88 factotum
89 91 warblade
92 93 sorcerer
94 95 favoered soul
96 97 psion
98 cleric
99 druid
100 wizard

[VoxRationis]

Or perhaps we're playing a city-based political intrigue game. Rig your followers for Gather Information and Bluff and have 5+ guys running round behind the scenes both gathering and spreading rumours and information for you.

Or perhaps you have a mine or shop or other money making gig; sure you could pay hirelings, but wouldn't you rather trust your faithful Followers with the important jobs?

Those aren't really the OP uses of the feat; those are the purposes of the feat.

In any case, it's largely overpowered based on the idea that you get a suite of custom-built characters as soon as you get it. A large number of DMs will not interpret the feat that way (what are the odds that a person with those particular class features, feats, skills, and spells, of the bizarrely specific templated race you chose has heard of you and decides they REALLY like what they hear?), so it's less useful in those cases.

[ArqArturo]

Since it reads as "you attract the cohort", I've always seen it as "You put up a poster with the qualifications, want-add style", and it'll pretty much give you whatever Fighter 7 with Power Attack you want. If you want an Awakened Desmodu Bat Druid 6 focusing on greenbound summoning, I'll probably prune some of those adjectives.

That said, a Human Druid 6 focusing on greenbound summoning is still a pretty darn good addition to an 8th level party.

So Leadership is the Craigslist of feats, minus the creepy factor... Unless you're playing Vile character and it's into that sort of thing, to which I'll just stop thinking about... Why can't I stop thinking about it!? :smalleek:.

[Shining Wrath]

The one word answer is Artificer. You keep them in the back during combat - hell, you keep them in a Handy Haversack with the top open so air gets in there - and they craft all your toys for you at 50% of list price or less.

The other one word answer is Wizard. You have a cohort who knows all the Divination and utility spells for you. Someone who tells you every morning what sort of challenges you are going to face today, and memorizes the non-combat spells you'll need - Knock, Wall of Iron, what have you.

The other other one word answer is Druid. Your pet bear, who has a pet bear, and summons bears.

Then, as discussed above, give all your cohorts enough charisma to take Leadership on their own. Have a horde.

If you don't see "broke" yet, have a Wizard cohort who has an Artificer cohort.

EDIT


So Leadership is the Craigslist of feats, minus the creepy factor... Unless you're playing Vile character and it's into that sort of thing, to which I'll just stop thinking about... Why can't I stop thinking about it!? :smalleek:.

Because you have an extremely dirty mind, which is what we like about you? :smalltongue:

[JellyPooga]

Those aren't really the OP uses of the feat; those are the purposes of the feat.

Oh no, of course. I was just giving example of the possibilities of the Feat. It's OP for the same reason that Wizards are considered the most powerful Class; options. Poorly governed use of Leadership lets a character do pretty much whatever he wants without having to pay for it or rely on the GM to provide an NPC:

- Need a guy to play a mean trumpet for the Duke? Leadership has you covered.
- Can't be bothered to systematically strip the dungeon of all value once the monsters are all dead? Leadership's got your back.
- Want a dude to chill at your pad and brew some groovy potions whilst you're away? Yup, Leadership.

The list is endless.

[T.G. Oskar]

It's a reason why I ban the Leadership feat and make it an actual reward for the player. I still allow Wild Cohort, though, even if it can be pretty tough to deal with (male Kender Bard -> Fochlucan Lyrist + female Brown Bear with pink Full Plate Barding & fez hat = two party members).

Since most people will ignore the Cohort for the followers, I work Leadership in a different way. More often than not, I give the followers for free, but generally in a way that fits the character. Examples: a Warforged Barbarian gets a small tribe that he forms as a "horde", a Warforged Artificer rescues his kin from the worship of the Lord of Blades and offers them to work as his assistants, the same Kender Bard with the pink-armored Brown Bear wants to create a bardic college... In that way, I figure that the most likely followers will be warriors or barbarians for the Barbarian, experts and magewrights for the Artificer, and apprentice bards for the Bard (though, being a Fochlucan Lyrist, his school will probably also teach the PrC). Of the three, only one (the Barbarian) has a cohort, and the cohort is another Barbarian, who works as the horde "lieutenant" and second-in-command. The other two have essentially forfeited their cohorts by having their own pets, which I consider of equal power and utility as cohorts. None of them have to take the Leadership feat, but they earned their followers (and cohort) through roleplaying, doing actions that are worthwhile.

In that way, the Leadership feat could act as a "DM fiat" feat, one you can get as a bonus feat by good roleplaying, but the feat's bonus is acquired once you get the two benefits, so you don't immediately go send the word to get the cohort you like. Instead, by creating a bond with the cohort, you can end up with a more "reserved" cohort. More often than not, I also control them, but I consult with the party how they want to develop the character.

It's no way to "fix" Leadership, it's more of a houserule in my (already houserule-overloaded) table, but I find it a good way to work it out. The only real challenge I had, and one that sadly never reached to mid level, was a Gray Elf Wizard (played by a newbie player) who RPed an apprentice, who happened to be another Wizard with the Apprentice feat (getting UMD), which could have ended up in a serious power overload.

Fortunately I play always in the same world (Eberron), so the Wizard and the apprentice could appear again (the Wizard character and the Bard have a bit of bad blood between the two) at any moment, possibly even for combat. The Wizard was looking at me for optimizing clues, so it's not entirely optimized but it's no slouch either.