Leadership: opening Pandora's Box in a Kingmaker campaign

[Asteron]

In the Kingmaker campaign that I just started, several players voiced their desire to take leadership at level 7. I realize that Leadership is the most powerful feat in the game, but it makes sense to me to be used in this campaign. I'm also a very permissive DM who likes to allow the players to do pretty much whatever and then deal with it behind the screen.

One of my players has already asked for a Dwarven Warpriest with the Forgepriest archetype. One of the ways leadership is broken is to have the cohorts/followers do crafting to breat WBL. However, in a campaign with as much downtime as Kingmaker, this seems little different than the PC being the crafter and have the cohort be the melee fighter. Is this a bad assumption? One of the ideas that I had for mitigating the brokeness of a crafter cohort is to have the crafting make the kingdom/army building be more efficient, that way the party isn't overlooted. Is that a good approach?

I honestly don't know what I'm asking here, other than to have my ideas validated...

[BWR]

Leadership is a perfectly fine feat if you use it as it is intended - to give you followers for strongholds/domains that you got for free in earlier editions of the game. Just ask your players to not go overboard with the cohort and things should be fine. OK the cohort beforehand, alternatively build and play them yourself. Remember, cohorts are people, not soulless beings with not thought beyond serving their lord and master. Make them proper personalities and don't let them be used as nothing more than tools.

I let my players choose Leadership for their domains and it works just fine.

[Naez]

really leadership isn't broken at all if you get rid of the cohort part. Followers are still incredibly useful without that. my players use it to crew a ship and man their stronghold while also running a business. which saves a a lot of time figuring out logistics.

[Asteron]

I'll definitely be building and roleplaying the cohorts.