how far can you go with leadership before you're taking things to far?

[EastbySoutheast]

Okay so in a campaign of 6 20th-25th level players and at least four of them have taken leadership. Granted the group isn't overly aware of the potential when optimising their characters/cohorts but I'm still worried that the DM is going to have a hard time providing balance between a challenge and a TPK in extreme cases.
So yeah how far should leadership be allowed before the party is more of a legion and it breaks the fun of the game?

[atemu1234]

You're in epic levels. Literally, the leadership will not break this game, regardless of what you do.

[Tiri]

Well, the game may not break if they don't try to break it. It doesn't sound like they are.

[EastbySoutheast]

You're in epic levels. Literally, the leadership will not break this game, regardless of what you do.

Would epic Leadership though?
Or having chains of cohorts cause I can see that being stupid pretty quickly

[atemu1234]

Would epic Leadership though?
Or having chains of cohorts cause I can see that being stupid pretty quickly

It could. But it depends on the exact makeup of the party. A five-level gap is a pretty huge disparity, so I'd like to know the race and builds of each one.

[Bronk]

Well, the game may not break if they don't try to break it. It doesn't sound like they are.

I agree... those who take leadership will get one cohort and a slew of very low level followers.

If they try to use 100 or so level 1 followers into a fight, regardless of effectiveness that'll bog the game down quite a bit. If instead they leave the followers to take care of business at a stronghold or something similar, that would be a nice backdrop to the game.

Edit: If they go for cohort chains and things like that, that would also start bogging the game down.

[Necromancy]

You can turn follower armies into roving death dealers all depending on money investment.

Just use statistics and assume 5% hit with nat 20s and 5% of those crit

1000 level ones with basic bows will do 54d8 damage every round on a non DR mob

[Flickerdart]

You can turn follower armies into roving death dealers all depending on money investment.

Just use statistics and assume 5% hit with nat 20s and 5% of those crit

1000 level ones with basic bows will do 54d8 damage every round on a non DR mob
This is what the mass combat rules are for - all those arrows turn into an AoE volley which doesn't do much damage and then whatever they're shooting at wipes them out of existence by blinking. Good luck recruiting another 1000 guys.

[137beth]

You can turn follower armies into roving death dealers all depending on money investment.

Just use statistics and assume 5% hit with nat 20s and 5% of those crit

1000 level ones with basic bows will do 54d8 damage every round on a non DR mob

Except because it is epic levels, everything has DR which 1st level NPCs can't bypass. And 54d8 damage is insignificant. And they all die in less than a turn against an epic monster that was anything resembling a thread to the PCs.