Leadership- when, where, and how?

[Deepbluediver]

It's not a new idea that the Leadership feat (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/feats.htm#leadership) in D&D 3.5 can be....a bit wonky.

The general complaints are about the cohort being imbalanced compared to the party, and depending on the choices available it varies from nigh-useless to outclassing certain party members.

The large horde of low-level followers tend to fill the same range of power, with the added problem that they are clunky and hard to deal with, since D&D's system was made to handle small groups, not battles set up Warhammer-style.

Determining your Leadership score can also be problematic depending on stacking stats, bonuses, and variable effects.


Here are some recent sentiments expressed about Leadership (taken mostly from the thread that inspired this one):


...Leadership and the feats that improve it are bad. Not in the sense of being weak - no, in the sense of them being poorly written and straight-up unbalanced. From the moment someone takes them, it changes the focus of the game from "a group of companions going on adventures" to "a group of companions going on adventures, and, oh, one of them has a massive army that will certainly be seen as a threat by any sovereign nation they pass through."

The main issue is that most of D&D's systems for modelling groups and civil infrastructure (such as the business rules, or the organization rules) were written after Leadership was. I mean, a feature that allowed you to design your own organization AND which tossed you Favored in Guild and the associated feats as you levelled would be cool. One that gave you the ability to muster a small group of peasants from a village and fashion them into a level-appropriate fighting force would be cool. A feature that hands you an army, through no effort of your own? Not cool, from a game design perspective.

...how much of a threat your army is depends on how powerful everyone else's army is. I know a lot of people run campaigns where the PC's are the only heroes in the land, and the NPC character-level curve isn't a pyramid so much as a flat plane with a spike in the middle.

I prefer a version of things where most adults average out at around 3rd-6th level (albeit mostly in NPC classes), but anyone up to 10 or with PC levels isn't super-uncommon, which would make a horde of 1st level followers dangerous but not in a world-conquering sort of way.

One of the things I have believe is that "leadership" should be the tool a martial player uses in order to shape the world around him.


I have a few of my own goals for how I would want to see Leadership used, but I don't want to preclude anyone else from joining in the discussion of have it focus soley on what I'd like to say, so I'm hoping some other people will respond first.

Thank you.

[Almarck]

So, here's an important question, what would the goal of Leadership be? While I get that getting followers to heed your command and help you out in combat is nice and all, its hardly should be the only thing that having authority and command over others should allow you to accomplish.

A few days ago, I forgot where, but it was on this forum, one thing I noticed was that brought up was in a sense a lack of "downtime things" for noncasters.

Casters had lots of personal power and magic to do things like conjure elementals or make magical defenses for their bases for instance.

Meanwhile, what do non-casters do? What do you swordsmen do, aside from making sure their muscles are in tip top shape, while waiting for their wizard buddies to complete their new staff?

One of the goals I think we should do in a total revision of leadership is to actually give non-casters the option to, if not get more personal power, get major political and military power.

And then, have said power be available and applicable to the adventurer who takes it.

Part of that be might actually removing the "Followers" or "numbers" system in place of the orignal leadership which defines how many people serve under you and their level (remove because such things are hardly worthwhile keeping track of and really need to depend on the situation and type of leadership you're going for). It should be replaced with some other mechanic to encourage martials to use it over casters, though I am not sure which.

Tell me, Deep Blue, what should be leadership's tangible effects in your idea?

[Deepbluediver]

A few days ago, I forgot where, but it was on this forum, one thing I noticed was that brought up was in a sense a lack of "downtime things" for noncasters.

Casters had lots of personal power and magic to do things like conjure elementals or make magical defenses for their bases for instance.

Meanwhile, what do non-casters do? What do you swordsmen do, aside from making sure their muscles are in tip top shape, while waiting for their wizard buddies to complete their new staff?

One of the goals I think we should do in a total revision of leadership is to actually give non-casters the option to, if not get more personal power, get major political and military power.
Yeah, this is a really good point IMO, but how do you keep casters from breaking it if they decide to go that route? One of the simplest things would seem to be to tie your Leadership score into BAB instead of character level, but that might feel clunky and be hard to balance.

Another way would be to limit the classes that have access to it through prerequisites. Either from roleplaying (which basically equates to getting DM approval) or with something mechanical like "BAB 10 or better".

Speaking of prerequisites, in the original feat "Has a stronghold, base of operations, guildhouse, or the like" would improve your leadership score, but I feel like that should be a requirement instead. That puts the focus more squarely on "I've got a base, now I need someone to staff it when I'm not here" instead of "I've got an army, what do I do with them?"


Tell me, Deep Blue, what should be leadership's tangible effects in your idea?
As I said, I really like your goal for it's ultimate aim of affecting the world around you on a more slow and long-term basis than you do as an adventurer; ultimately it's more about roleplaying than combat mechanics. If leadership was intended to be used a lot in your daily adventuring life then it should be something else altogether, more like the Marshal class-features we where discussing in Seerow's thread.

I mentioned in that other thread how I feel that the Cohort and lowbie minions should be split up into two (or more) separate feats. I've got to run a quick errand, but I'll expound more on that point when I get back.

[Almarck]

One I idea had thought up is that everyone might have a "leadership class features"

How this works is quite simple. In each and every class, we add in an extra "class feature" that exists only under the perveiw of Leadership.

So for instance, rogues and classes that follow it might have an ability "theives guild" gained at... level 3 for rogues, 7 for Spelltheives, ect.

This means that, by virtue of "leadership class features", some classes might inherently have better aptitude in leading than others.

The exact nature and distribution is undefined and for the most part, dependant on what the system might look like later on, but martials should get more than spellcasters. Fighter in particular would get one at every level he doesn't get a feat, for instance. Wizard would get one every six levels in this scenario.

And, think about it. Charisma is important for leadership sure, but so are wisdom, and intelligence. Casters would inherently have better ability to apply leadership through raw attributes and direct power, yes, but they get less "perks" because of all their emphasis is placed in personal power and learning instead of leading and command most of the time.

[Deepbluediver]

One I idea had thought up is that everyone might have a "leadership class features"

How this works is quite simple. In each and every class, we add in an extra "class feature" that exists only under the perveiw of Leadership.

So for instance, rogues and classes that follow it might have an ability "theives guild" gained at... level 3 for rogues, 7 for Spelltheives, ect.
That seems like it would take a lot of time and effort to work out, and if you want to start then be my guest, but I don't think all that is necessary to get something workable.


And, think about it. Charisma is important for leadership sure, but so are wisdom, and intelligence. Casters would inherently have better ability to apply leadership through raw attributes and direct power, yes, but they get less "perks" because of all their emphasis is placed in personal power and learning instead of leading and command most of the time.
Yes, but unless you're a certain type of caster Charisma doesn't do much heavy lifting in the standard set of things. All the other stats tend to impact the game more directly and much more frequently.
Also, from a fluff/lore standpoint, I see Charisma as being far and away the most relevant stat for how you relate to and are viewed by other people, which is what Leadership is all about.


There are a couple options here- if you want you could make it Charisma plus another stat, of you could have other stats be relevant to attracting a certian kind of follower (since Charisma affects overall numbers).
Or you could rescale the chart and have it go from 0 to 100 instead, and include everything except the kitchen sink, such as your character level, charisma score, your ranks in certain skills, your total net-worth, the size of your fortress, your alignment, and any other factors the DM wants to throw in.



COHORTS
I mentioned before that I wanted to split up the cohort and the rest of your horde. I thinks this will help to emphasize that your followers are, for the most part, not really suited for combat on your level. Not unless you want to get a lot of people killed really quickly. It doesn't even have to be against a high CR enemy like a dragon or demon or something. Largescale conflicts between two opposing forces of low-level characters could have a very high mortality rate.

In general I don't know exactly if or how I'd rescale the chart for followers- probably so that you had fewer, but higher level, followers, so you could actually set them to doing things that had a more definitive impact. If not individually then at least in small groups. Right now you'd have a few followers levels 4-6 doing everything important and 100+ guys carrying dirt or harvesting wheat or dying like rabbits against wolves if you sent them to fight anything larger than a housecat. Given their low stats and poor skills even spreading your name and message probably wouldn't get them very far- they'd be the guy on the corner with a sandwich board screaming about how the world's gonna end tomorrow. Not very attractive for potential converts.
Essentially there's to many of them and they aren't good enough to bother micro-managing.


As for the cohort, I'd make that come in 2 separate feats almost entirely unrelated to Leadership. For lack of a better name atm I'm just gonna call them Feat I and Feat II, and I suspect they will be light on the prerequisites.

Feat I gives you a minion, who is a Commoner NPC equal to 1/2 your level. The slightly derogative term "minion" was chosen intentionally, because even if you upgraded the HD on the Commoner a bit (which I think is perfectly fitting, given that a standard humanoid gets a D8 as a racial hit-dice) he is basically ****. He's dead if he gets anywhere near combat, and is really only good for minding the camp, running errands inside a city, and maybe helping put your armor on or sorting spell components. He/She exists primarily to be a spare set of hands and to do the things your adventurer is to important to handle himself, like cooking, digging ditches, or hell, even providing comfort and companionship on cold, lonely knights provided that doesn't grosh the rest of your group out.

Your minion draws a nominal salary, something like 10 times their level in gold pieces per month. Trivial for an adventurer but a very good wage for a commoner, which explains why there is are always fresh applicants despite the appallingly high mortality rate.

Feat II upgrades your minion into a cohort, who has PC-class levels and is equal to 2/3 of your level, which is about the point at which I'd set the HD for an animal companion, to make sure that people know it's a class feature. There are a couple different options here, and you can pick basically anything that you DM approves and fits your needs and theme.
Combat Medic- pocket Healer
Herald- Bard
Bodyguard- Fighter
Occult Researcher- Wizard/Archivist
Quartermaster- Rogue
etc etc etc.
*obviously using the RAW base classes would lead to some wild disparities in power here, but we already knew that; I'm working under the assumption that all options you are allowed are equally powerful and valid

The cohort is always 2/3 of your level, acts like a totally normal character under your control, and is equipped with 20% of your cut of any loot*.
*these values where pulled out of my arse, and can be modified as necessary; I just wanted there to be some drawbacks to this obviously very appealing pair of feats



So basically, for the cost of 2 feats and a gold-tax, you get a second character to play as, albeit one who is slightly squishier than normal.
The biggest benefit here is that it would allow smaller play-groups to fill in anything they might be missing from their normal roster. For example if their DM tells them they need a skillmonkey but no one wants to play a rogue as their primary character, they can still get one.

[Almarck]

Well, in order to make a system to quantify all of a character's assets, we'd need to set up and create a metric and mechanic that is balanced with the mechanic casters use to create items.

...Perhaps, as a general rule of thumb, maybe the mechanic should be about gathering more resources via investment, administration and property exploitation, whereas the wizard is utilizing mechanics to save existing resources.

Anyways, I see your point. Charisma is important and should be. Shame it's a dumpstat for most martial classes. Even pathfinder can't seem to have many non-magic classes that allow using mental ability scores to do much beyond resorting to 3rd party or specific archetypes.



I do like the idea of breaking away Leadership into distinct feats. There's different types of leadership and being a master at all of them is hard.

Say, perhaps instead of a single NPC, the feats bellow define a "Group", small but elite. You may only ever borrow the services of one member at a time, but atleast it means that if the guy dies it's less impactful.

[Deepbluediver]

Well, in order to make a system to quantify all of a character's assets, we'd need to set up and create a metric and mechanic that is balanced with the mechanic casters use to create items.

...Perhaps, as a general rule of thumb, maybe the mechanic should be about gathering more resources via investment, administration and property exploitation, whereas the wizard is utilizing mechanics to save existing resources.
One of the things that's hard about homebrewing is that it doesn't exist in a vacuum. Everything in D&D is tied together and most parts of 3.5 could use some tweaking for balance, or just to help them fit better together.

The crafting system is also in major need of revision, at the very least (IMO) to allow non-casters to be able to make some decent stuff. I also think it would be better if it where minimally tied to PC adventuring class-levels, though. I tried to start a conversation about the crafting system once before and no one seemed interested, so I put that on the back burner. If I take it up again I'll look for a way for lower-level characters to combine their efforts and make something a higher-level character could benefit from.


Anyways, I see your point. Charisma is important and should be. Shame it's a dumpstat for most martial classes. Even pathfinder can't seem to have many non-magic classes that allow using mental ability scores to do much beyond resorting to 3rd party or specific archetypes.
It's pretty much a dump stat for MANY classes, actually; I've seen Wizards and Rogues ignore it as well and rely on skill points or spells to make up the difference. That's why I was open to exploring different ways to calculate the leadership score. Depending on what other numbers go into it, the difference between and 8 and a 18 might be less noticeable than a +0 and +4.

If I have the time tomorrow I'll try to play around with some ideas and numbers and see what I can come up with.


I do like the idea of breaking away Leadership into distinct feats. There's different types of leadership and being a master at all of them is hard.

Say, perhaps instead of a single NPC, the feats bellow define a "Group", small but elite. You may only ever borrow the services of one member at a time, but atleast it means that if the guy dies it's less impactful.
However you want to fluff it go right ahead. Allowing you to swap them out in the middle of a dungeon would probably be a bit much, but hiring them on per-adventure basis would probably be perfectly fine.

[Almarck]

Considering major system revisions tend to be convoluted and headache inducing, it's not hard to see why.

I mean, I've tried to make technology using classes that have powers on par with casters, yet without having to use "spells" that sort of thing is actually quite hard and it becomes much more understandable why people never try to invent new sub systems all by themselves.

One major flaw about the crafting system as is is the need to make magical items better in every way... including the speed in which creating the base item in the first place works.

I mean, seriously. PF didn't even try to solve it and we're stuck doing algebra and multiplication to figure out how many silver peices an item is worth to create using thirds and then having to beat the DC... just to have "progress" on a weekly basis. It's a wonder that blacksmiths even have shops stocked full of equipment. I don't even think tempering swords or armor takes as long as D&D makes it out to be.

Anyways, the main advantage lower level characters have over high level ones is numbers. What they can't do in quality, they can do in quantity. Or barring that, in scale.

Maybe as part of the revision, we should distill the measure of how much people can work as "manpower"?

[Deepbluediver]

-major system revisions tend to be convoluted and headache inducing...
Orly? I had no idea. :smalltongue:


I mean, I've tried to make technology using classes that have powers on par with casters, yet without having to use "spells" that sort of thing is actually quite hard and it becomes much more understandable why people never try to invent new sub systems all by themselves.
I really just go for the "magic IS technology" version of things and build a world so that with widely available low-level magic things approach a late-industrial-revolution quality of life anyway. It resolves so many of the bjorked-economy/stupid-WBL-table issues.


One major flaw about the crafting system as is is the need to make magical items better in every way... including the speed in which creating the base item in the first place works.
That stems from 2 problems. The first is that you need to expend adventurer/PC-level resources to learn to craft things, which takes away from your adventuring ability. And the second is why would you want to make the effort when you can just point to the DMG or SourcebookX and say "I want one of those"?

The first problem is resolved by (mostly) decoupling crafting from PC levels, but the second takes a bit more effort. I've always disliked the magic-mart style of item-distribution; I prefer that the DM either gives the players specific items as they need them (that can't easily be resold for their full value) or roleplaying out the players tracking down exactly what they need. In any game world I have influence over things you'd need from level 1-4 are fairly common, 5-9 are uncommon, 10+ rare, and 15+ unheard of. So at some point around level 8ish you either start spending a lot of time tracking down specific stuff or you spend a lot of time learning how to make it yourself.


I don't even think tempering swords or armor takes as long as D&D makes it out to be.
"Realism" is always a tricky duck to deal with in games. Normally I try to use it for inspiration and not grossly violate common sense as we know it, but beyond that it's not really a priority.
I do know from watching reading and watching videos on youtube that making a high-quality sword in real life, between the smelting, forging, sharpening, polishing, and final assembly can take a skilled craftsmen and his apprentices several days.

As for the magic component there is no logical solution- the answer is basically "however long or short you want"


I mean, seriously. PF didn't even try to solve it and we're stuck doing algebra and multiplication to figure out how many silver peices an item is worth to create using thirds and then having to beat the DC... just to have "progress" on a weekly basis.
...
Maybe as part of the revision, we should distill the measure of how much people can work as "manpower"?
Yeah, without trying to get to off-topic, that's basically what I envisioned for my crafting system. It doesn't work on a DC failure/success chance at all, which I know is a bit of a departure from the way a normal D20 system runs, but after a lot of theoretical number crunching it was honestly the best idea I could come up with. Every item has a "crafting value" (or, hell, call it labor-units if you want) and every day you rolled your crafting dice to determine how much progress you had made. More complicated items had higher values, higher level craftsmen had more dice. When you had rolled enough units to match the value, the item was done.

Something like a sword might have 100 units, something like a sailing ship could have 1,000,000. It might take one person a lifetime, but lots of people making little checks each day could get it done in a much shorter time.

[Almarck]

I really just go for the "magic IS technology" version of things and build a world so that with widely available low-level magic things approach a late-industrial-revolution quality of life anyway. It resolves so many of the bjorked-economy/stupid-WBL-table issues.


No, no, I mean, tried to make a class that has a distinct subsystem from magic. I kinda failed, mostly because I made it well, too overly complicated, yet too overly focused. I mean, I wrote up like 20 different ways to flash forge grenades and guns of various sources....


That stems from 2 problems. The first is that you need to expend adventurer/PC-level resources to learn to craft things, which takes away from your adventuring ability. And the second is why would you want to make the effort when you can just point to the DMG or SourcebookX and say "I want one of those"?

The first problem is resolved by (mostly) decoupling crafting from PC levels, but the second takes a bit more effort. I've always disliked the magic-mart style of item-distribution; I prefer that the DM either gives the players specific items as they need them (that can't easily be resold for their full value) or roleplaying out the players tracking down exactly what they need. In any game world I have influence over things you'd need from level 1-4 are fairly common, 5-9 are uncommon, 10+ rare, and 15+ unheard of. So at some point around level 8ish you either start spending a lot of time tracking down specific stuff or you spend a lot of time learning how to make it yourself.

To be fair, I think this problem stems from the result of having to make items scale. Allowing PCs to buy items instead of RP everything is because most items, specifically, essential ones for the level, but easily obsoleted items.




"Realism" is always a tricky duck to deal with in games. Normally I try to use it for inspiration and not grossly violate common sense as we know it, but beyond that it's not really a priority.
I do know from watching reading and watching videos on youtube that making a high-quality sword in real life, between the smelting, forging, sharpening, polishing, and final assembly can take a skilled craft and his apprentices several days.

As for the magic component there is no logical solution- the answer is basically "however fecking long or short you want"
It depends on type of the item, sure. I know it at least takes a few hours for most things. But then again, multitasking allows smiths to produce multiple swords at the same time; D&D does not allow that.

It's still very disproportionate that the mundane crafting system is so cumbersome and requires multiple steps even for preexisting items even requiring multiple checks on occassion, while casters can just go look up an item and just have the crafting cost and requirements handed out to them as as single check.






Yeah, without trying to get to off-topic, that's basically what I envisioned for my crafting system. It doesn't work on a DC failure/success chance at all, which I know is a bit of a departure from the way a normal D20 system runs, but after a lot of theoretical number crunching it was honestly the best idea I could come up with. Every item has a "crafting value" (or, hell, call it labor-units if you want) and every day you rolled your crafting dice to determine how much progress you had made. More complicated items had higher values, higher level craftsmen had more dice. When you had rolled enough units to match the value, the item was done.

Something like a sword might have 100 units, something like a sailing ship could have 1,000,000. It might take one person a lifetime, but lots of people making little checks each day could get it done in a much shorter time.

Maybe we should make leadership have this as an extention of this. I mean, sure, maybe nonmagical people can't individually craft a holy sword each, but what if they gathered all of their belief together to make a single one?

I like the idea of people contributing labor together to make something done much faster.

[Deepbluediver]

No, no, I mean, tried to make a class that has a distinct subsystem from magic. I kinda failed, mostly because I made it well, too overly complicated, yet too overly focused. I mean, I wrote up like 20 different ways to flash forge grenades and guns of various sources....
Yeah, I know, I think I saw it (but didn't read the entire thing, sorry). But we've already got Vancian casting, psionics, Incarnum, ToB, *deep breath* Warlocks, Binders, Truenamers, Shadow Magic, and probabaly a few more I've forgotten. How many different ways does one system really need to accomplish the same thing?

When/if I wanted to make a technology-based class it would probably be mostly refluffing of an existing system for flavor. Especially since simply fixing/adapting several of the existing systems which don't work well are major projects all on their own.


To be fair, I think this problem stems from the result of having to make items scale. Allowing PCs to buy items instead of RP everything is because most items, specifically, essential ones for the level, but easily obsoleted items.
I'm not sure exactly what you're trying to say here. I already mentioned I don't like magic-mart style item acquisition. With better classes and decent planning, I'd think it would be less necessary to have a Christmas-tree item list and replacing everything every other level anyway just to stay relevant.


It's still very disproportionate that the mundane crafting system is so cumbersome and requires multiple steps even for preexisting items even requiring multiple checks on occassion, while casters can just go look up an item and just have the crafting cost and requirements handed out to them as as single check.
Yeah, the biggest part of my idea for a new system would be assigning a crafting-value/labor-cost to each and every item.
You could work out a simple formula to determine it from gold-value as a bandaid fix, but that relies on gold-values being fairly determined, which isn't always the case.


Maybe we should make leadership have this as an extention of this. I mean, sure, maybe nonmagical people can't individually craft a holy sword each, but what if they gathered all of their belief together to make a single one?
I actually really like that idea; designate one of your medium-level followers to be head craftsmen and have them coordinate the efforts of your hordes of lowbie-recruits. You might have to be satisfied with some basic guidelines and examples and let DMs work out more of it on a case-by-case basis, but it's totally the sort of thing I would allow.

[Almarck]

Yeah, I know, I think I saw it (but didn't read the entire thing, sorry). But we've already got Vancian casting, psionics, Incarnum, ToB, *deep breath* Warlocks, Binders, Truenamers, Shadow Magic, and probabaly a few more I've forgotten. How many different ways does one system really need to accomplish the same thing?

When/if I wanted to make a technology-based class it would probably be mostly refluffing of an existing system for flavor. Especially since simply fixing/adapting several of the existing systems which don't work well are major projects all on their own.

Which went against the project goal, which was to be a technology system that was not a refluffing of something that already existed. It's mostly that I just felt that it was kinda silly that every every sort of system I have seen was basically either a reskined wizard, magus (pathfinder), or initiator, and I've only really seen it attempted once outside of that.



I actually really like that idea; designate one of your medium-level followers to be head craftsmen and have them coordinate the efforts of your hordes of lowbie-recruits. You might have to be satisfied with some basic guidelines and examples and let DMs work out more of it on a case-by-case basis, but it's totally the sort of thing I would allow.

So, I had this idea.

Combining instead of defining a class and level for a crafter, we could define their rough capabilities of what they are able to create, put into simple numbers say +3 to crafting. They'd obviously have a character sheet and statistics... but their real power comes from "behind the scenes" using a different playbook, if you will.

Conversely, if we want someone killed or an other errand done, we can define roughly their purpose and how good they are.

I call these "contacts" a list of individuals (or organizations) with their rought capabilities at your beck and call. Either you bought them, or as part of "leadership" are loyal to you.

And for up to a number equal you (a part of me wants to say BAB, but I realize that's not smart) you can put as many contacts that you have together to work things out for you on a single task or multiple tasks. of a defined type.

Think of them like.... worker units in mot strategy games, but with some complexity and not all workers are equally efficient at the same task.

If we want to reduce complexity, maybe we can say that a character maybe can take up to 10 followers which are less hard population units and more like "groups of people" able to work on something.

So a given character might take 3 Miners, 3 Smiths, 4 Engineers and have them use their talents to construct a siege golem (Labor teams of each, that is)

Or maybe 3 Priests, 6 Warriors, and 1 team of researchers to help combat a plague of undeath.

In short, roughly defining what your followers are actually capable of doing in order to use those numbers in a meaningful way. We do not need to define the abilities of a medium level follower, though said follower might be a "contact" in of himself.

[redwizard007]

Crafting aside...

I like the idea of a commoner lackey.

What about leadership coming in tiers.
Feat 1: commoner lackey of half your level.
Feat 2: PC class cohort of your level -3.
Feat 3: minion npc adventerer group of your level -6.
Feat 4: hordes of level 1 commoners with level 3 warriors and a level 5 aristocrat acting as leadership.

The horde could be 10 guys per point of leadership ranking or some such.

4 feats before the army.

[Deepbluediver]

What about leadership coming in tiers.
Feat 1: commoner lackey of half your level.
Feat 2: PC class cohort of your level -3.
Feat 3: minion npc adventerer group of your level -6.
Feat 4: hordes of level 1 commoners with level 3 warriors and a level 5 aristocrat acting as leadership.

The horde could be 10 guys per point of leadership ranking or some such.

4 feats before the army.
That's kind of taking us back in the direction of the original feat though, and I really do want to split it into (at least) two parts. I feel that there are significant differences to gameplay between having 1 or a small group of psuedo-NPC minions and a much larger group of followers who are significantly below your level, and I don't really want to make them dependent on one another.


This brings me to something else I've been thinking about as I play around with the number- what exact combination of followers by-level do people want? I was moving in the fewer-but-higher-level direction, but depending on what a player's ultimate goals are, in terms of both mechanics and roleplay, you can end up with very different human-resources if you focus on different combinations.

I could come up with a few different charts to compare options like having-
2 level 5 followers
4 level 4 followers
7 level 3 followers
13 level 2 followers
23 level 1 followers

versus

1 level 4 follower
1 level 3 follower
9 level 2 followers
85 level 1 followers

Part of it depends of course on what the general world around you looks like in terms of NPC HD/levels, but do you see the difference I'm driving at?


Alternatively, we could use "Leadership Score" as the basis for a point-system that would let people effectively "buy" followers in whatever combination of levels that they wanted. It might not be less complicated but it would almost certainly be more flexible.

[Almarck]

I think flexibility should be encouraged, so, leadership "Points" sounds like a good idea. Followers of certain types cost points based on what they are (level x class?). So magic followers are harder to get than say fighters.

Hm, actually, I've got an idea about my earlier " leadership-class-perks" suggestion. If you can make a simple outline I'll get something basic to work with.

[redwizard007]

Has anyone considered just role-playing this rather than statting it? I haven't seen many rulers, cult leaders, guild masters, or chieftains with the leadership feat.