[3.5] Leadership = 1 extra character? [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

WalkingTheShade

2015-09-01, 06:37 AM

So, there are currently two other (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?437750-My-player-s-suggestion-how-to-slightly-balance-Leadership) threads (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?437751-Explaining-why-Leadership-is-broken-to-my-DM) about that feat on the forum.

People seem to take for granted that Leadership gives you the possibility to have an "extra" character, enabling the player to control the cohort's build and actions in the same way as the character taking the leadership feat.

Having this feat enables the character to attract loyal companions and devoted followers, subordinates who assist her.
However, it's always been clear to me that a cohort stays an NPC, and falls under the control of the DM.

Now, even without this feat, in a fight, I usually let players take the control of NPCs who've been allies for long enough to teamwork seamlessly with the party. Moreover, it has the benefit of letting players whose character is not so useful in a fight (or is down or split from the party, etc.) to have interesting things to do. However, I might override the decisions of a player in such a situation, whenever I feel the decision is taken for purely tactical reasons and doesn't match an NPC's personality.

What Leadership gives to a player is ease of recruitment (i.e. no need to roleplay recruitment, poof, you have followers), loyalty and reliability. A cohort and followers might still make wrong decisions, be counterproductive, disagree with their leader, have a conflict of interest, etc.

I see no basis for playing them as mindless automatons under the dominion of the PC (and thus, the player).

The cohort should be equipped with gear appropriate for its level. A character can try to attract a cohort of a particular race, class, and alignment.
This means that players can't DECIDE what cohort their PC attracts. The PC may TRY to attract someone in particular, but the DM can adjudicate what kind of cohort and followers are available and make sense depending on story context.

Thus, I really don't see what the fuss about this feat being overpowered is...

Andreaz

2015-09-01, 06:40 AM

Thus, I really don't see what the fuss about this feat being overpowered is...It still gives you a second character of significant power.
Would you give your players a feat that reliably doubles the PC's actions and threatened area every round?

WalkingTheShade

2015-09-01, 06:49 AM

It still gives you a second character of significant power.
Would you give your players a feat that reliably doubles the PC's actions and threatened area every round?
... No, it doesn't.
Without the feat, PCs may be able to hire/convince/coerce an NPC into being their ally; how does that double a character's actions?
With the feat, it just ensures that one or more players can attract reliable NPC allies. That's not qualitatively different from the first case.

OldTrees1

2015-09-01, 07:00 AM

There are many ways for DMs to implement the Leadship feat based on the internal restrictions and the harsher DM approval requirement of a DMG feat vs a PHB feat.

One of those ways is the PC getting a customized 2nd PC
Another of those ways is the PC getting a non customized 2nd PC
Another of those ways is the PC getting a non customized non mount NPC that aids the PC in combat
Another of those ways is the PC getting a combat resilient mount
Another of those ways is the PC getting a non customized NPC that aids the PC via crafting
Another of those ways is the PC getting a non customized NPC that does not aide the PC in combat nor via crafting(Ex: an assistant headmaster of your PC's school of magic or a right hand helping run your guild).
Another of those ways is ...

Having a non customized non mount NPC that aids the PC in combat or via crafting will be a disproportionate benefit for a single feat (double action economy even with less powerful actions gets above a +50% increase in power). This doubled action economy is part of why people justifiably use the overgeneralized shorthand of "1 extra character".

Yet there are at least 2 ways (I listed 2) that do not have this great a power jump.

Andreaz

2015-09-01, 07:03 AM

Without the feat, PCs may be able to hire/convince/coerce an NPC into being their ally; how does that double a character's actions?Once you succeed, the aforementioned player now has a second character acting in his behalf, even if not exactly how he wants. A second set of actions towards pursuing the PC's goals. In combat, a whole second character sheet of almost your very level.

If you have no problem with that, then the SECOND problem with leadership becomes relevant: The feat makes no sense. Absolutely no sense. It tells the world you can ONLY have non-pc allies through hell and beyond if you burn a feat on it. Double annoyance.

Just let the player earn it and **** burning feats on this kind of crap.

Brova

2015-09-01, 07:07 AM

Grod_The_Giant

2015-09-01, 07:13 AM

... No, it doesn't.
Without the feat, PCs may be able to hire/convince/coerce an NPC into being their ally; how does that double a character's actions?
With the feat, it just ensures that one or more players can attract reliable NPC allies. That's not qualitatively different from the first case.

Hiring an NPC is trading money for temporary power, like buying a powerful scroll or two. That's okay.
Convincing/coercing an NPC (probably) takes a not insignificant investment in game time, making it a sort of in-game reward for in-game actions. It can also end at the DM's whim. That's okay.
Gaining an NPC with a feat is permanent, and the expectation is that you have access to their help whenever you want. (Otherwise the DM is essentially turning off character abilities).

So what is it about Leadership that makes it such a big issue for people?
It's class-independent and fairly broken right out of the box. Spells like planar ally are just icing on the cake for full casters-- you could cut them all out and a wizard could still trample over the entire campaign, no problem. Moreover, unlocking their full potential takes more work-- book-diving for proper SLAs and under-valued monsters and suchlike. But Leadership doesn't take any work to make overpowered.

Leadership is also a lot more inconvenient. Someone has to build your cohort. Mortal NPCs, following of their own free will, take more time and effort to role-play. If you take some of the DM-solutions that have been proposed, it means warping your entire campaign to compensate for one guy who decided he wanted minions.

Finally, there's the fact that planar ally is, essentially, an upper-level class ability-- it's the result of considerable investment in a casting class. Leadership is at least in the same ballpark, but takes nothing but your 6th level feat slot. And regardless of whether or not you think it breaks a character, it gives so, so much more power than any other feat that it's frankly absurd. Even things like Divine Metamagic and Uncanny Foresight don't offer the sort of power boost that Leadership does.

OldTrees1

2015-09-01, 07:14 AM

I honestly don't see what the fuss is. There are three threads about Leadership being OP right now, and I'm pretty sure I've seen at least a couple more in the six months or so I've been active on these forums. But I've seen zero threads about planar binding being OP (not counting ones about whether or not you can get wishes out of Efreet). And planar binding is better than Leadership. By a lot. Because it can be repeated for credit. And chained at full power. Same deal with ice assassin, simulacrum, and to a much lesser extent animate dead. I genuinely don't understand what makes Leadership so good in a world where those exist.

My cynical side suggests that it's because a Fighter could take a Leadership, and Fighters aren't supposed to get nice things. But I've seen enough of the arguments that I don't really think that's the case. So what is it about Leadership that makes it such a big issue for people?

Planar binding does not have a limit and thus it is trivial to prove it is strictly OP.

Leaderships has several potential limits that can change it from Skill Focus(Speak Languages) to OP or anywhere in between.

Thus there where their is no nuanced wisdom to correct/qualify/modify the oft repeated wisdom in the case of Planar Binding, there is such a nuanced wisdom to correct/qualify/modify the oft repeated wisdom when it comes to Leadership.

Thus we get the "Topic", "Oft repeated wisdom", "More nuanced addendum", "Argument between the 2nd and 3rd" thread style.

WalkingTheShade

2015-09-01, 07:31 AM

Once you succeed, the aforementioned player now has a second character acting in his behalf, even if not exactly how he wants. A second set of actions towards pursuing the PC's goals. In combat, a whole second character sheet of almost your very level.
And the DM plans encounters accordingly.

If you have no problem with that, then the SECOND problem with leadership becomes relevant: The feat makes no sense. Absolutely no sense. It tells the world you can ONLY have non-pc allies through hell and beyond if you burn a feat on it. Double annoyance.
Supreme Cleave makes a lot less sense to me. Or double weapons.

Just let the player earn it and **** burning feats on this kind of crap.
Taking the feat is just a way for a player to say: "I think it makes sense for my character and I want to have some followers that are more reliable and better organized than the rabble I've been convincing to follow me until now". Also, it gives a player the opportunity to flesh out an organization and have some larger effect on the setting.

Hiring an NPC is trading money for temporary power, like buying a powerful scroll or two. That's okay.
Convincing/coercing an NPC (probably) takes a not insignificant investment in game time, making it a sort of in-game reward for in-game actions. It can also end at the DM's whim. That's okay.
Gaining an NPC with a feat is permanent, and the expectation is that you have access to their help whenever you want. (Otherwise the DM is essentially turning off character abilities).

You could make the same kind of arguments for buying magic items, stealing them or crafting them.

It's class-independent and fairly broken right out of the box. Spells like planar ally are just icing on the cake for full casters-- you could cut them all out and a wizard could still trample over the entire campaign, no problem. Moreover, unlocking their full potential takes more work-- book-diving for proper SLAs and under-valued monsters and suchlike. But Leadership doesn't take any work to make overpowered.
No, it just takes a bad DM who can't read RAW and then use it in a way balanced with their campaign.

Leadership is also a lot more inconvenient. Someone has to build your cohort. Mortal NPCs, following of their own free will, take more time and effort to role-play. If you take some of the DM-solutions that have been proposed, it means warping your entire campaign to compensate for one guy who decided he wanted minions.
Or you now, things could happen off-screen or between adventures.

ExLibrisMortis

2015-09-01, 07:31 AM

Leadership can grant you planar binding. If planar binding is stronger than Leadership, Leadership is stronger than Leadership, which it isn't, so it isn't.

Milo v3

2015-09-01, 07:39 AM

Question, why do people consider it fine to get familiars and animal companions through feats, but cohorts are too powerful?

Curmudgeon

2015-09-01, 07:49 AM

Question, why do people consider it fine to get familiars and animal companions through feats, but cohorts are too powerful?
I don't have an answer for that, but when I'm DMing I have an answer which covers all of the above: you can't have them. I've arrived at the conclusion that extra characters of any sort (familiars, companions, cohorts, mounts, or whatever) steal game time away from players of unaccompanied PCs. It's just not fair. There are plenty of class variants, ACFs, and whatnot which can replace these extra characters with something else.

Amphetryon

2015-09-01, 07:55 AM

Question, why do people consider it fine to get familiars and animal companions through feats, but cohorts are too powerful?

Familiars and ACs rarely have Class levels in discussions comparing them to Cohorts.

Milo v3

2015-09-01, 07:55 AM

I don't have an answer for that, but when I'm DMing I have an answer which covers all of the above: you can't have them. I've arrived at the conclusion that extra characters of any sort (familiars, companions, cohorts, mounts, or whatever) steal game time away from players of unaccompanied PCs. It's just not fair. There are plenty of class variants, ACFs, and whatnot which can replace these extra characters with something else.

That's a rather drastic response from my view point but I can understand the underlining issue of potentially stealing game time away... though taking away mounts just sounds completely and utterly stupid, since without scaling mounts are near useless after a level or two from their fragile hit points. Mounts also aren't exactly known for stealing spotlight.

sovin_ndore

2015-09-01, 08:32 AM

My take on this is definitely in agreement that the feat is not balanced relative to other feats.

If I put a feat into play that read "You can make checks with a skill as if you had maximum ranks in the skill -2" no one would ever take Skill Focus. And that is just assuming that the NPC has one skill, with no effective class levels, never helps in combat, and performs no other actions on your behalf. If they even start running errands for you, that effectively means your character can do two things at once. If they ever enter combat with you, they should really affect the entire party's ECL but they don't because they are a part of your character sheet. The cohort is more powerful than 'Obtain Familiar' and 'Improved Familiar' together and Leadership also grants you the ability to gain an army of low levels to back you up. No other feat can do all that.

That said, I am not nearly as bothered about the strength of Leadership as some other people seem to be. It does use a portion of the most restricted resource in character design (feats). Often taking Leadership could delay PrC access or would be taken in lieu of other effectiveness multipliers. As such, I find PCs generally aren't driven to take the feat unless they really need backup. There are exceptions to this but I don't find it typically abused.

WalkingTheShade

2015-09-01, 08:45 AM

My take on this is definitely in agreement that the feat is not balanced relative to other feats.
But... but... you know that there are a lot of feats that are actually trap features? Feats like dodge, mobility, toughness, alertness...
Those feats are in now way balanced relative to other feats like power attack. And I'm not even bringing up crafting feats here...

If I put a feat into play that read "You can make checks with a skill as if you had maximum ranks in the skill -2" no one would ever take Skill Focus.
And, do you actually know people who take Skill focus outside of a requirement for something else? (Or UMD/Truespeak min-maxing, but in those cases leadership doesn't help much.)

The cohort is more powerful than 'Obtain Familiar' and 'Improved Familiar' together and Leadership also grants you the ability to gain an army of low levels to back you up. No other feat can do all that.
Leadership has a cap on the number of followers. Enchantment spells have no such limit. You don't need a feat, you need to either be a Bard, a Sorcerer, a Beguiler, a Wizard, etc. in order to be able to do strictly better with no feat tax nor interesting fluff.

That said, I am not nearly as bothered about the strength of Leadership as some other people seem to be. It does use a portion of the most restricted resource in character design (feats). Often taking Leadership could delay PrC access or would be taken in lieu of other effectiveness multipliers. As such, I find PCs generally aren't driven to take the feat unless they really need backup. There are exceptions to this but I don't find it typically abused.
Now I don't understand your point anymore. The feat is unbalanced except when the balancing constraints come into play?

Nifft

2015-09-01, 08:54 AM

Question, why do people consider it fine to get familiars and animal companions through feats, but cohorts are too powerful?

- All the tools to make Cohorts awesome are in obvious places in the PHB.

- The tools to make Familiars awesome are also in the PHB, mostly, but they're not as obvious, and they don't scale as well.

- Animal Companions are awesome, of course, but they don't scale up as well as a T1 character. Also, they're attached to a poor defenseless class which obviously needs some help with melee. (Not blue text because Archery Rangers. Obviously Druids don't need any help.)

Milo v3

2015-09-01, 09:04 AM

- All the tools to make Cohorts awesome are in obvious places in the PHB.

- The tools to make Familiars awesome are also in the PHB, mostly, but they're not as obvious, and they don't scale as well.

- Animal Companions are awesome, of course, but they don't scale up as well as a T1 character. Also, they're attached to a poor defenseless class which obviously needs some help with melee. (Not blue text because Archery Rangers. Obviously Druids don't need any help.)

All the tools to limit cohorts to any power level you require is in the DMG. What is your point?

Nifft

2015-09-01, 09:12 AM

All the tools to limit cohorts to any power level you require is in the DMG. What is your point?

My point is to explain to you the answer to your question.

Do you understand now, or do you need something else explained?

Milo v3

2015-09-01, 09:22 AM

My point is to explain to you the answer to your question.

Do you understand now, or do you need something else explained?

I'm disagreeing with your explanation. By RAW cohorts could be experts, adepts, rogues, fighters or even commoners technically. There is no reason for them to be more worry some than an animal companion. Yes all the tools exist in the book to make cohorts amazing, but their is nothing actually saying your cohort gets access to those tools. At most you can Try to attract a certain type of cohort, everything else is up to the GM.

sovin_ndore

2015-09-01, 09:24 AM

But... but... you know that there are a lot of feats that are actually trap features? Feats like dodge, mobility, toughness, alertness...
Those feats are in now way balanced relative to other feats like power attack. And I'm not even bringing up crafting feats here...
No argument there.

And, do you actually know people who take Skill focus outside of a requirement for something else? (Or UMD/Truespeak min-maxing, but in those cases leadership doesn't help much.)
I actually do know people like that, but I don't think that we are in disagreement that it is poor optimization.

Leadership has a cap on the number of followers. Enchantment spells have no such limit. You don't need a feat, you need to either be a Bard, a Sorcerer, a Beguiler, a Wizard, etc. in order to be able to do strictly better with no feat tax nor interesting fluff.
Creating a horde via spells is actually not as easily done as you might think, even the 'specialist' classes like Mindbender or Thrallherd do not really outscale a summoner in effectiveness... and if you are building a summoner, you are not a very good Batman/God/etc. The mention of followers was just pointing out that Leadership is more than just a cohort. As your party could probably take your entire horde of followers pretty readily, it is not a significant feature, just a side benefit.

Now I don't understand your point anymore. The feat is unbalanced except when the balancing constraints come into play?
I thought I was pretty clear. Leadership is strong, especially for a feat. This is a non-unique situation where balance has failed. Even though it is broken, it doesn't act as an effectiveness multiplier like some other feats. I am okay with it being broken.

In short, 3.5 has lots of things that are not well balanced and I rather like it that way. Leadership can be unbalancing, but there are alot of CO builds out there that no sane person would want in a game. I don't think Leadership is that sort of problem.

Telonius

2015-09-01, 09:27 AM

My take on it: Leadership is a feat that can be as powerful as the DM allows it to be. The problem is that feat has a built-in disincentive for the DM to manage it. Yes, you can make it into a completely DM-controlled NPC. That takes time and effort to manage - time and effort you could be using to run the rest of the encounter.

In my personal experience, most DMs I've had who have allowed the feat would build the NPC to start with, then hand it off to the player. It's still a very powerful feat, and should only be used for people who are capable of managing two characters at the same time without eating up way too much gametime. Balance issues aside, that time constraint is another reason that spellcaster cohorts are discouraged - we can't have one person taking 10 minutes to figure out what both of his characters are going to do.

In exactly one case - where we had two players unexpectedly leave the group - the DM allowed the players to build the NPCs from scratch. (We retired them and retrained the feats after we got replacement players).

Nifft

2015-09-01, 09:43 AM

everything else is up to the GM.
Everything is always up to the GM.

If your point is that an activist GM can fix Leadership, then your point is bad because there are better solutions which require less effort.

Specifically, house-ruling or banning Leadership requires the same degree of GM activism, but also provides better communication with the rest of the group, and sets player expectations appropriately.

Rules are not just about conflict. They're also about communication.

Milo v3

2015-09-01, 09:50 AM

Everything is always up to the GM.
Except by default, the player has only basic control over the cohort's statistics and abilities. This isn't just fiat a GM is doing at random to try and promote balance. That's the rules of the situation. Following that is not a house rule, it is not rule 0, or anything, it is the default rules.

Nifft

2015-09-01, 09:56 AM

Except by default, the player has only basic control over the cohort's statistics and abilities. This isn't just fiat a GM is doing at random to try and promote balance. That's the rules of the situation. Following that is not a house rule, it is not rule 0, or anything, it is the default rules.

Except you're forgetting something important: the Leadership feat is one of the PC's own abilities.

If the GM gives the player a crappy Cohort, the player can try to attract a new one -- and there's no limit to how many times that can happen, so long as the PC merely refrains from murdering each previous Cohort.

Trying to play a hardline GM against antagonistic players seems deeply counter-productive.

The alternative -- good communication -- is much better in my experience.

prufock

2015-09-01, 10:01 AM

WalkingTheShade

2015-09-01, 10:03 AM

Except you're forgetting something important: the Leadership feat is one of the PC's own abilities.

If the GM gives the player a crappy Cohort, the player can try to attract a new one -- and there's no limit to how many times that can happen, so long as the PC merely refrains from murdering each previous Cohort.

Trying to play a hardline GM against antagonistic players seems deeply counter-productive.

The alternative -- good communication -- is much better in my experience.
The same issue could arise with any build if a player has misread the rules or thinks he's found a loophole that doesn't exist.
What stops the DM from using the powers of good communication, whenever a player wants to pick the feat, making a quick check that the player is aware of RAW and has not misinterpreted them in some way?

I have built both of the cohorts for 2 PCs in my game that have taken leadership. We also have a familiar, animal companion, wild cohort, and two intelligent items. The PCs are at level 15. Basically, the PCs tell me what type of cohort they want to attract, and I build one that fits. My knight wanted a healer, I built one using the Healer class. My cleric wanted a team buffer, I built a bard.

Broken? Yeah, but it fits with our game just fine. I adjust encounters to fit.
Then, it's not broken. Wish is broken, you can never predict what a player might do with it and plan accordingly.

I've been thinking about changes to the leadership feat though. What if the cohort was 1/2 the PC's level, and cohorts and followers were separate feats?
Power wise, being two levels lower generally means being half as powerful in an encounter.

illyahr

2015-09-01, 10:05 AM

It all depends on what they plan to do with the extra hands. As stated upthread, it could be as useless as Skill Focus (speak language) or as powerful as planar binding, depending on how it's used.

I took it as a bard. My cohort? Another party support bard. My army of minions? All bards. Whenever you Gather Information, do you know who it is who has the info you need? Do you ever wonder why bards know everthing about everything? Bard network.

Amphetryon

2015-09-01, 10:05 AM

WalkingTheShade

2015-09-01, 10:09 AM

Is it your contention that a Player taking Leadership, and then expecting to be able to attract the sort of Cohort she desires with the Feat, has misread the rules? If so, please cite the rules that say that a Player may not use Leadership in this fashion.
No. My contention is that the player can choose race, class and alignment. If players believe they can choose the specific build optimized in some way or the personality and motivations of the cohort, they have misread the rules.

EDIT: an analogy. It's like running a business. Taking the feat is like creating a position for a new hire. You have the money to make the hire, you post a job offer requiring some prior experience or prior skills. You might have a good idea of the perfect candidate. However, you have no control on the work market. The guy you hire in the end is never the perfect fit, but the best one you can find to do the job.

Nifft

2015-09-01, 10:13 AM

The same issue could arise with any build if a player has misread the rules or thinks he's found a loophole that doesn't exist.
What stops the DM from using the powers of good communication, whenever a player wants to pick the feat, making a quick check that the player is aware of RAW and has not misinterpreted them in some way?

Ironically enough, the internet is often what interferes.

Imagine a player coming on here and saying: "Hey guys, my DM says we can use Leadership, what's the best cohort my Wizard can get?"

We'd helpfully show that poor unfortunate soul how deep the rabbit hole goes, and that will tend to set expectations which will (hopefully) not be met by his DM.

But the other answer is that most feats don't require DM negotiation or discussion. If a player takes Spell Focus (Enchantment), there's no expectation that the player won't try to cast a lot of Enchantment spells -- rather the opposite. The DM might even throw in some encounters which are especially vulnerable to Enchantment spells because a player has shown an interest in Enchantment spells.

Similarly, there's no expectation that a player will not try to make maximally good use of Power Attack or Improved Trip.

Leadership is different. It does not behave like other feats.

Treating it like other feats not good communication.

WalkingTheShade

2015-09-01, 10:26 AM

Ironically enough, the internet is often what interferes.

Imagine a player coming on here and saying: "Hey guys, my DM says we can use Leadership, what's the best cohort my Wizard can get?"

We'd helpfully show that poor unfortunate soul how deep the rabbit hole goes, and that will tend to set expectations which will (hopefully) not be met by his DM.
I never had that problem. Maybe I'm lucky, and thus I am wrong to think that such a player would have the same issues if someone showed him pun-pun or if that player stumbled onto any build based on contested interpretation of rules or varying amounts of cheese.

Leadership is different. It does not behave like other feats.

Treating it like other feats not good communication.
I agree with that. I'd be fine if that argument was used more often. Most people seem to think that it's flat out OP without any basis that I can understand.

Palanan

2015-09-01, 10:59 AM

Originally Posted by WalkingTheShade
If players believe they can choose the specific build optimized in some way or the personality and motivations of the cohort, they have misread the rules.

In fact, this is exactly how we used the feat in my first 3.5 campaign. Myself and another player each took the feat, and we built our cohorts ourselves. Since we were the two strongest roleplayers in the group, we each developed a detailed backstory for our respective cohorts, woven into the broader backstory of our primary characters.

Whether or not we "misread" the rules is irrelevant, since our DM allowed it and we enjoyed it. We were experienced players, we were capable of managing more than one character, and neither the DM nor any of the other players had a problem with it. Every group is different, and Leadership worked just fine for ours.

TheCrowing1432

2015-09-01, 12:03 PM

Leadership is seen as a problem because it adds resources to the player.

If they are a melee cohort, then it adds more damage and a body.
If they are a caster, it adds more spells.
if they are a crafter, it adds more items

And so on.

Other Feats/Spells/Whatever also grant extra resources, true but none of them quite approach the level that Leadership does.

Djinn_in_Tonic

2015-09-01, 01:32 PM

It's without a doubt the strongest feat in the game in theory, and still one of the strongest on average.

Let's assume that we're incredibly non-optimized. We're playing a Fighter, and our Cohort is also a Fighter. We'll even assume that we don't have full control of the cohort.

Would you allow a Fighter to take a single feat that gives him +75% hit points and a second full-round action each turn, albeit at a -3 penalty to hit with every attack and only 80% damage output for attacks made during that second round? Add, say, a 60% chance that the target struck isn't the biggest threat, but a random enemy in the same vicinity.

Because that's about our worst-case scenario.

Our BEST case scenario is allowing a single feat to purchase an ECL-2 level spellcaster, complete with optimal spell selection, feats, and items. For the cost of a SINGLE FEAT.

Leadership isn't necessarily game-breaking, but it's a power level above and beyond what is appropriate for a feat in almost all circumstances.

Brova

2015-09-01, 02:23 PM

@Communication: I'm not really sure what the point of the debate here is. Is it that your DM might decide to stealth nef/stealth buff Leadership, and you should make sure he hasn't done that? I'm not trying to be snide, I'm just not really sure how communication factors in any more here than in some other ambiguous case (i.e. is Touch a fixed range).

It's class-independent

But that means that (assuming it doesn't break the game) it is more balanced, not less. Imagine if the only people who could use magic swords were Barbarians. You could make a very reasonable case that having DR/Magic is overpowered in a world like that. But by allowing everyone to wield magic swords, the imbalance goes away.

Spells like planar ally are just icing on the cake for full casters-- you could cut them all out and a wizard could still trample over the entire campaign, no problem.

That's just saying that mundanes shouldn't get nice things, and rather perniciously so IMHO, as the justification is that because they don't have level appropriate power, the avenues that give it to them are closed off.

Planar binding does not have a limit and thus it is trivial to prove it is strictly OP.

But it's not. Casting planar binding once is basically fine. You get an extraplanar minion that is reasonably tough. Casting it some larger number of times is good, then overpowered, then broken. But the actual spell is totally okay in small doses.

Thus there where their is no nuanced wisdom to correct/qualify/modify the oft repeated wisdom in the case of Planar Binding, there is such a nuanced wisdom to correct/qualify/modify the oft repeated wisdom when it comes to Leadership.

The overwhelming consensus in every thread is "Leadership is too good". The place there isn't consensus is how to fix it, which is the same situation that exists for planar binding.

Leadership can grant you planar binding. If planar binding is stronger than Leadership, Leadership is stronger than Leadership, which it isn't, so it isn't.

This is not a good line of argument.

Consider the feat "Leadership and a Burrito". This feat is exactly like Leadership, except the DM also has to buy you a burrito. It's strictly better than Leadership, and obviously so. But your cohort could take it, which means that by the same logic you used, it is not better than Leadership.

The test to use in a situation like this is to ask what element is broken. If you take away Leadership, but allow planar binding, the game still breaks when the Wizard binds an infinite legion of demons. If you take away planar binding, but allow Leadership, the game is fine.

Other Feats/Spells/Whatever also grant extra resources, true but none of them quite approach the level that Leadership does.

Leadership is not even in the top five options specifically for adding extra tokens to your side of the field in core. gate, the planar binding line, the planar ally line, simulacrum, and dominate monster are all better.

Would you allow a Fighter to take a single feat that gives him +75% hit points and a second full-round action each turn, albeit at a -3 penalty to hit with every attack and only 80% damage output for attacks made during that second round? Add, say, a 60% chance that the target struck isn't the biggest threat, but a random enemy in the same vicinity.

I would absolutely allow a Fighter to do that, but that's more because Fighters suck than because such a thing is generally balanced. That said, I think my position that Leadership is balanced by accessibility is fairly clear.

Kantolin

2015-09-01, 02:31 PM

As an additional note, uh...

It is perfectly plausible that, under a given DM, leadership is useless. (Sorry, you only get cohorts I pick! Everyone who wants to come with you is a commoner! Or this wizard who likes to fireball himself and his friends!)

However, that's something that's true of a lot of things if not literally everything. I have played in games (plural!) where literally every enemy - even summoned ones - had elusive target since the DM didn't like the barbarian's damage output even though the paladin was hitting harder. I have played in games (also plural!) where there's just a blanket 'size increasing magic doesn't work' going on (Yes the roof is less than 10ft tall. This roof is also less than 10ft tall) until suddenly you're fighting a huge enemy, and it's like 'Wait how did he get in here?'.

I have played in games (yet again plural!) where half the spells in the game apparently have the subtext 'This spell doesn't actually do anything helpful'. Illusions (the goblins automatically disbelieve everything), enchantments (The enemy is now friendly to you! He stabs his friends!), and Necromancy (Ninja paladins! You summoned undead, suddenly holy smiting everywhere!) are the largest offenders.

So yes, if the DM is making leadership 'this feat you take that either doesn't do anything or is actively detrimental', then you definitely shouldn't take it.

That said, I've never seen a DM allow leadership and /not/ let the player build and run the cohort - the DM always has enough on his plate as it is, he doesn't need to run a cohort (or animal companion or special mount or familiar or whatever). Sometimes it's even an existent character, and they player is still allowed to rebuild the cohort if it's within reason to do so. I have indeed seen people (myself included!) ban the feat, though.

...I guess if people's use for leadership was 'use them to check for traps with their faces' or something that'd be a problem? I dunno, I've never seen that.

Djinn_in_Tonic

2015-09-01, 02:31 PM

I would absolutely allow a Fighter to do that, but that's more because Fighters suck than because such a thing is generally balanced. That said, I think my position that Leadership is balanced by accessibility is fairly clear.

This is kind of a false statement. When an option is so powerful that it eclipses all other options it isn't "balanced" in a game where player choice should reign supreme. Now, Leadership is a bit tricky since players often don't like the book-keeping, or DMs don't allow it.

It still, however, falls into the same area as full-casting Cleric or Wizard PrCs, or the Power Attack feat.

All of them are CLEARLY better than their alternatives (straight Cleric/Wizard, non-Power Attacking melee Fighter, any feat OTHER than Leadership in a non-feat-starved build), and, as such, they can't really be considered "balanced," as "balance" only exists when compared to other options in the same game design space.

Nifft

2015-09-01, 02:47 PM

Shackel

2015-09-01, 03:19 PM

I'm afraid I don't get how Leadership could ever be seen as balanced, as is. Sure, there's the argument that the DM could mutilate the feat and/or surprise nerf it to the point where you're only getting NPC classed people, but the DM can do that to any feat, so I don't think that applies(I feel like there was even a term/quote for "the DM can nerf it =/= the feat is balanced").

One feat can give you anything ranging from a big beatstick that sucks up aggro and damage to a T1 that gives you 50% off on items. The sheer amount of versatility and power in 90% of its options, even when you don't get what you want, makes it an extraordinarily powerful feat for a prereq of only being level 6.

Brova

2015-09-01, 03:24 PM

It still, however, falls into the same area as full-casting Cleric or Wizard PrCs, or the Power Attack feat.

All of them are CLEARLY better than their alternatives (straight Cleric/Wizard, non-Power Attacking melee Fighter, any feat OTHER than Leadership in a non-feat-starved build), and, as such, they can't really be considered "balanced," as "balance" only exists when compared to other options in the same game design space.

I don't think those things are unbalanced. Or rather, I don't think they're bad for the game. All Power Attack lets a Fighter do is output damage that is vaguely level appropriate, depending on other optimization. That's good for the game, although it does imply that Fighters in general are rather weak. Cleric and Wizard PrCs are better than straight Cleric or straight Wizard. But they also present a way to distinguish high level Wizards and Clerics from one another.

Basically, it comes down to the difference between things being balanced, level appropriate, and good design.

Something is balanced if it doesn't create power discrepancies between PCs. In this respect, Power Attack, Leadership, and Cleric or Wizard PrCs are all balanced. Power Attack doesn't make the Fighter better than the Wizard, it lets him compete on a vaguely even playing field, in combat, against enemies he can hit. Leadership doesn't make things unbalanced, because anyone can take it. Ditto Cleric and Wizard PrCs. They're better than straight Cleric or straight Wizard, but they aren't competing with that. They're competing with other PrCs.

Something is level appropriate if it lets people take on encounters that are level appropriate while expending however many resources they are supposed to in order to do that. So Power Attack is fine here. The Fighter's ability to kill people to death by murdering them until they die is fine and expected in a world of rocket launcher tag such as 3e D&D. Leadership is, in theory, not level appropriate as getting a second character of CR = Level - 2 is notionally equivalent to a +1 level boost. Most Cleric and Wizard PrCs are actually fine here too. A Wizard/Geometer is better than a Wizard, but not to any significant degree.

Good design is harder to define. Generally speaking, something should be balanced, level appropriate, and interesting to be good design. So Power Attack isn't good design, because you spend finite resources to numerically keep up with what you are supposed to be able to do. Leadership might or might not be good design, depending on how you feel about having extra characters. Cleric and Wizard PrCs are absolutely good design, because they let high level casters (particularly Clerics) feel distinct from each other.

I feel that is poor DM practice.

Oh, absolutely. If the DM doesn't want something to be an option, he should say that and move on. Not stealth nerf it. Though in a system as complex as 3.5 it is a good idea for players to bring issues up during character creation if they thing there's an ambiguous case or potential problem (i.e. I want to play a Beguiler, how are illusions going to be adjudicated?).

Hmm. I see where you're coming from, but I think the word you want is egalitarian, not balanced.

See my response to Djinn above.

If you let the player design his or her own Cohort, then the feat exacerbates player skill differences -- making the game less balanced -- and applies to each character equally -- making the game more egalitarian.

That's true. But it is also true that you can offset balance issues if people get cohorts that cover their weaknesses. For example, an Ubercharger is able to kill level appropriate enemies in a reasonable amount of time. But he sucks at doing anything that can't be reduced to "charge it very hard". A cohort can cover that.

Not the guy you were quoting, but his logic is correct.

If X ∈ Y, then X can't be greater than Y.

The problem isn't that he's logically wrong, it's that his methodology is unhelpful for identifying balance problems.

daremetoidareyo

2015-09-01, 03:51 PM

My fix as a DM for cohorts is to split the character creation. I roll stats and choose level 1s class. Pc chooses race up to LA 1, maximum 1 template, and assigns stats. PC chooses the class for even levels DM chooses odd. PC gets choice of level 1,6,12, feats. Dm gets the rest. We try to make a synergistic beast for a cohort. We figure out skills last.

The cohort comes out unique, but not custom designed on every front for the PC. I only had one player balk, but they wanted a spare Psion at near max power to be a semislave.

Fighter takes leadership, I come to the table with a beguiler or ardent or (Maybe)artificer (depends on magic level of setting). Wizard takes leadership, I show up with a ranger, swashbuckler or barbarian. I think this is how robin hood wound up with friar tuck. Cuz a carousing freedom fighting pudgy cleric was needed for campaign utility.

The lower level dudes we just split in half and design. This is where we tend to get the weird stuff. Hengeyokai dragonfire adepts and anthropomorphic camel psychic warrior squads.

AvatarVecna

2015-09-01, 03:56 PM

Let's assume the absolute bare minimum you'd get out of a cohort, assuming they accompany you on your adventurers: a Human Common 4 with 10s in everything.

That's 33 more pounds of unhindered carrying capacity, or up to 100 more lbs or hindered carrying capacity.

That's 3 skills on their class skill list maxed out; how about Spot, Listen, and Use Rope? That gets you another scout/night watchman and somebody to do the tying up prisoners thing. If nothing else, that's another pair of eyes and ears looking out for ambushes. Hell, instead of Use Rope, you could take Profession (Mapmaker) and have him keep track of what each area looks like.

That's one more attack going off every round that's potentially a hit...or even a crit. A light crossbow gives them good range without putting them at a huge risk, so they'll likely get lots of attacks off during the combat.

That's 12 more HP of damage the enemy has to deal with to take out the whole party; hell, that's one more target they've got to move to and attack.

...

And all that? That's with a Commoner 4. That's with a 10 in every attribute. That's not even taking the commoner's feats into account. An expert can be a walking textbook; an aristocrat can abuse diplomancy; a warrior could be actually useful in combat; an adept is a ****ing spellcaster with 2nd level spells (assuming they've got a 12 14 Wisdom). Having a Commoner 4 as your cohort is still a massive power boost, both in and out of combat, and that's the bare minimum.

Leadership is a feat where the absolute bare minimum is still a significant boost to your character's overall capabilities; it's also a feat where the absolute maximum you can get out of it is Pun-Pun. That cohort can be anywhere in between Commoner and Pun-Pun, and even a Commoner has some useful things they bring to the table. There are feats out there that are arguably more powerful than Leadership, if Leadership only gave you a commoner of level whatever. But Leadership doesn't have to give you a stock commoner, it could give you an elite fighter...or a bard documenting your travels...or a wise old wizard acting as your old mentor. There's so much potential power and versatility in this feat, that not taking it when you can is making a direct choice to be less effective than you could otherwise be.

Djinn_in_Tonic

2015-09-01, 04:03 PM

Something is balanced if it doesn't create power discrepancies between PCs. In this respect, Power Attack, Leadership, and Cleric or Wizard PrCs are all balanced. Power Attack doesn't make the Fighter better than the Wizard, it lets him compete on a vaguely even playing field, in combat, against enemies he can hit. Leadership doesn't make things unbalanced, because anyone can take it. Ditto Cleric and Wizard PrCs. They're better than straight Cleric or straight Wizard, but they aren't competing with that. They're competing with other PrCs.

Untrue. PrCs are directly competing with straight class levels: a Cleric 10 / Radiant Servant of Pelor 10 is strictly more powerful than a Cleric 20. A balanced PrC makes sure that the choice between "take straight class levels" and "take PrC levels" isn't "always take the PrC."

Remember...we could have two Fighters or two Wizards in the party. The difference between a Fighter with Power Attack and one without is huge. The difference between the Radiant Servant and the Cleric 20 is likewise pretty appreciable.

Good design is harder to define. Generally speaking, something should be balanced, level appropriate, and interesting to be good design. So Power Attack isn't good design, because you spend finite resources to numerically keep up with what you are supposed to be able to do. Leadership might or might not be good design, depending on how you feel about having extra characters. Cleric and Wizard PrCs are absolutely good design, because they let high level casters (particularly Clerics) feel distinct from each other.

I'll agree with the first point -- Power Attack should be a default option.

Leadership isn't good design because it's too open ended, too exploitable, too poorly defined, and too powerful -- if you CAN take it and you're trying to optimize even remotely you're severely disadvantaging yourself by NOT taking it. That's an issue.

Cleric and Wizard PrCs aren't really good design, save for those that have a cost of caster levels for their abilities. This is partly their fault, but more largely a fault of the exponentially scaling power of spells that makes sacrificing caster levels incredibly undesirable. Still doesn't make those classes well designed if they offer no appreciable downside for their power though.

Amphetryon

2015-09-01, 04:10 PM

No. My contention is that the player can choose race, class and alignment. If players believe they can choose the specific build optimized in some way or the personality and motivations of the cohort, they have misread the rules.

EDIT: an analogy. It's like running a business. Taking the feat is like creating a position for a new hire. You have the money to make the hire, you post a job offer requiring some prior experience or prior skills. You might have a good idea of the perfect candidate. However, you have no control on the work market. The guy you hire in the end is never the perfect fit, but the best one you can find to do the job.

Please cite the portion that says the Player (or Character) must accept only the first person to show up as a potential Cohort, rather than holding out for one more in keeping with the hoped-for Cohort.

Nifft

2015-09-01, 04:17 PM

That's true. But it is also true that you can offset balance issues if people get cohorts that cover their weaknesses. For example, an Ubercharger is able to kill level appropriate enemies in a reasonable amount of time. But he sucks at doing anything that can't be reduced to "charge it very hard". A cohort can cover that. A cohort can do anything.

That's kind of the problem.

Since they can do anything, and "do anything" also includes all responsible uses, then that means they can also be used responsibly.

So your argument is technically true, but practically unhelpful.

The problem isn't that he's logically wrong, it's that his methodology is unhelpful for identifying balance problems. He's pointing out a flaw in someone else's argument.

You're either targeting the wrong person -- perhaps you had intended to target the person who had made the (flawed) argument -- or you are currently arguing that logical consistency is unhelpful in identifying balance.

The latter is not a good argument to be making.

Brova

2015-09-01, 04:42 PM

Having a Commoner 4 as your cohort is still a massive power boost, both in and out of combat, and that's the bare minimum.

No, it's not. It's not even close. None of the character classes that are in any sense level appropriate are even going bat an eye at the prospect of recruiting a 4th level Commoner, for a feat, at 6th level. charm person has existed since level one. animate dead since somewhere between level one and level five. FFS, even a class like the Rogue would rather grab a combat feat like Rapid Shot, or a scouting feat like Darkstalker.

Untrue. PrCs are directly competing with straight class levels: a Cleric 10 / Radiant Servant of Pelor 10 is strictly more powerful than a Cleric 20. A balanced PrC makes sure that the choice between "take straight class levels" and "take PrC levels" isn't "always take the PrC."

Look, no caster PrC provides a bigger improvement than simply casting spells which are good rather than spells which are not. There isn't a single PrC that would be worth it if you told me I couldn't cast shapechange if I took it. Maybe Incantatrix, but it's a long shot. That means that from a power level perspective, caster PrCs are never going to provide any meaningful imbalance. The power swing between "casting good spells" and "not casting good spells" is simply so large that the inherent divergence within the class is larger than what a PrC provides.

That said, Cleric and Wizard are incredibly same-y without PrCs. They don't get any class features. The Cleric doesn't even have a unique spells known list. Except domains, which are less than twenty spells overall, often including options already on the Cleric list. It would be nice if Cleric 20 and Wizard 20 were viable builds, but the fact that there are Wizard builds that have even the marginal distinction that PrCs grant is better.

Remember...we could have two Fighters or two Wizards in the party. The difference between a Fighter with Power Attack and one without is huge. The difference between the Radiant Servant and the Cleric 20 is likewise pretty appreciable.

Yes, and the Fighter could choose to fight with a rapier and light armor because Pirates of the Caribbean is cool. And the Cleric could choose to prepare a bunch of healing spells "because that's what Clerics do". Within the system that exists, Power Attack and Radiant Servant are necessary for characters to be either interesting (Radiant Servant) or level appropriate (Power Attack). And they aren't actually unbalancing. Being a Radiant Servant isn't actually radically better than not doing that, and Power Attack doesn't actually make the Fighter better than the characters playing viable classes.

Leadership isn't good design because it's too open ended, too exploitable, too poorly defined, and too powerful -- if you CAN take it and you're trying to optimize even remotely you're severely disadvantaging yourself by NOT taking it. That's an issue.

Yes, but that's different from it being unbalanced or broken. Leadership provides the same advantage to anyone who takes it. By definition that is balanced. And that advantage doesn't make the game unplayable. It doesn't make a character with Leadership invincible. I'm willing to admit that it's not good design. I think that the system should work differently overall, and even within the system it's overcosted. But it's not unbalanced.

Cleric and Wizard PrCs aren't really good design, save for those that have a cost of caster levels for their abilities. This is partly their fault, but more largely a fault of the exponentially scaling power of spells that makes sacrificing caster levels incredibly undesirable. Still doesn't make those classes well designed if they offer no appreciable downside for their power though.

Which is worse, having all Clerics be the same (what happens with anything other than full casting PrCs) or having Clerics be slightly better than as written (what happens currently)? Obviously an ideal system wouldn't require Clerics to PrC out, but with the Cleric class as written, that makes Clerics more interesting and gives them better replay value. It's a locally optimal design choice.

So your argument is technically true, but practically unhelpful.

I don't think that's true. A cohort can do a second set of things. That means it benefits specialists more than generalists. Since casters are generalists and mundanes are specialists (with some exceptions), it helps mundanes more.

or you are currently arguing that logical consistency is unhelpful in identifying balance.

His position is:

1. A cohort can do anything.
2. All broken things are elements of the set anything.
3. A cohort can do all broken things.
4. Therefore all broken things are worse than Leadership.

That leads to the conclusion that we should remove Leadership from the game, because it allows you to do broken things. But that's not true. Leadership allows you to do broken things if there are broken things characters can do. If you remove Leadership, you haven't actually fixed anything. But if you fix the broken things, you've fixed Leadership.

Afgncaap5

2015-09-01, 05:12 PM

I've never had a problem with Leadership before, except as a player and then only from the one GM who won't let me take it because he never quite thinks it fits my player concept or his campaign concept. The one time I custom made a character *for* Leadership, we happened to play in Eberron and his reason for banning it that time was "Look, this is Eberron. Your Cohort will backstab you. I don't want to orchestrate that." And, well... he knew what he could handle. I was more fine with being betrayed than he was fine with betraying me.

I really think this is one of those things where a GM has to look at their own capabilities and their relationships with their players. I consider myself a good GM when it comes to handling tricky powergaming questions, but the flip side of that is that I've generally had really good players who know to ask me about odd character choices first so that we can work together to figure out a way for it to be fun for them without running over everyone else's fun. So, to me Leadership is always "You want to make your character weaker for flavor purposes so that you can have an extra NPC helping you? Wish GRANTED." I can sympathize that not everyone has easygoing players, though, and even if they do not everyone wants to worry about a potential complicating issue.

So... Leadership is *never* OP in my experience, but OP is in the eye of the beholder, I guess.

Nifft

2015-09-01, 05:40 PM

I don't think that's true. A cohort can do a second set of things. That means it benefits specialists more than generalists. Since casters are generalists and mundanes are specialists (with some exceptions), it helps mundanes more. I think your argument is basically:
- Mundanes can do very few things.
- Cohorts might be able to do anything.
- Adding a Cohort to a Mundane means a larger increase in options, since the Mundane gets very few options.

If so, that's a bit of a fallacy.

Let's call spellcasters 6 and mundanes 1.

1 + 6 is a larger relative increase than 6 + 6, but not a larger absolute increase, and at the end of the day, starting with a larger number (of options) still results in ending up with a larger number (of options).

But -- and here's the other major flaw in your argument -- if the player is the sort of person who thinks that a 1 and a 6 are basically the same, and that player chose to play a 1 intentionally, then that player is not as likely to roll a 6 when the Cohort bonus comes around. In contrast, the player who already had a 6 to start with -- that guy knows what a 6 looks like, and why it's not the same as a 1.

That leads to the conclusion that we should remove Leadership from the game, because it allows you to do broken things. But that's not true. Leadership allows you to do broken things if there are broken things characters can do. If you remove Leadership, you haven't actually fixed anything. But if you fix the broken things, you've fixed Leadership.

That does not follow.

But let's assume your main assumption right: let's assume that all broken content other than Leadership can be removed from D&D.

In this (hypothetical and unlikely) scenario, Leadership still disproportionately rewards a skilled player.

It still makes the game less balanced.

I've never had a problem with Leadership before (...)

So... Leadership is *never* OP in my experience, but OP is in the eye of the beholder, I guess.

I've never been injured by a car, a gun, a stick of dynamite, or a nuclear missile. That's my experience.

Is it because those things are safe? No, not really.

It's because everyone knows those things are dangerous, and that allows people to take reasonable precautions.

(As an aside: I've allowed Leadership in high-level games. With reasonable precautions.)

Afgncaap5

2015-09-01, 05:55 PM

I've never been injured by a car, a gun, a stick of dynamite, or a nuclear missile. That's my experience.

Is it because those things are safe? No, not really.

It's because everyone knows those things are dangerous, and that allows people to take reasonable precautions.

(As an aside: I've allowed Leadership in high-level games. With reasonable precautions.)

I... feel like we're agreeing with each other, but the tone doesn't quite fit that.

AvatarVecna

2015-09-01, 06:02 PM

I... feel like we're agreeing with each other, but the tone doesn't quite fit that.

What it seemed like you were saying was "I've never seen Leadership be played broken, so Leadership isn't broken", and they're saying "just because it wasn't broken in your experience doesn't mean it can't be broken in general". It's like wizards: mechanically, they're basically commoners with good will saves and spells; if they don't use their spells, they're only a slightly more capable commoner. A wizard who refuses to use their spells isn't broken at all, it's incredibly underpowered; a wizard who fully utilizes their magical might is an almost insurmountable foe.

ExLibrisMortis

2015-09-01, 06:19 PM

His position is:

1. A cohort can do anything.
2. All broken things are elements of the set anything.
3. A cohort can do all broken things.
4. Therefore all broken things are worse than Leadership.
That is, indeed, roughly my position - with the nuance that the cohort is lower-levelled, and can therefore not do everything the leader could, but that's obvious. However, 2 and 3, as well as the word 'broken' in 4, are irrelevant to my position.

Leadership is better than anything (any cohort) it can grant, whether that thing (cohort) is broken or not, because Leadership can grant you a different thing (cohort) at another time. Just like the ability to cast polymorph once per day is worse than having a single 4th-level spell slot and a spellbook, despite the obvious power in polymorph, the feat Leadership is better than having a cohort, because Leadership grants both the cohort and a way to get a different cohort. Incidentally, Leadership can grant polymorph as well as planar binding.

Would you use a feat to pick up planar binding as a spell known, or would you pick Leadership and attract a cohort with planar binding known?

My first statement (leadership > planar binding) was a shortened, slightly inaccurate version of the full idea. Technically, it should be 'leadership > loyal follower/cohort/ally who can cast planar binding'. However, planar binding is, in general, not an in-combat kind of spell. It's probably not too big a deal that the cohort casts it in downtime, instead of the leader. That's why I feel that planar binding is not quite as versatile/powerful as Leadership.

That leads to the conclusion that we should remove Leadership from the game, because it allows you to do broken things. But that's not true. Leadership allows you to do broken things if there are broken things characters can do. If you remove Leadership, you haven't actually fixed anything. But if you fix the broken things, you've fixed Leadership.
That does not follow. A cohort can do nothing a PC couldn't do, only copy tricks; it follows that removing Leadership does exactly nothing to prevent broken things existing. It does - probably - mean that fewer broken things happen: there are fewer characters controlled by the players, and PCs are the number one source of broken things. But the broken tricks are unaffected by the existence of Leadership, apart from some very specific ones (e.g. the nesting of thrallherd cohorts and whatnot).

Nifft

2015-09-01, 06:36 PM

What it seemed like you were saying was "I've never seen Leadership be played broken, so Leadership isn't broken", and they're saying "just because it wasn't broken in your experience doesn't mean it can't be broken in general".

This is an accurate interpretation of my position.

Brova

2015-09-01, 06:42 PM

If so, that's a bit of a fallacy.

Let's call spellcasters 6 and mundanes 1.

1 + 6 is a larger relative increase than 6 + 6, but not a larger absolute increase, and at the end of the day, starting with a larger number (of options) still results in ending up with a larger number (of options).

Diminishing returns. Your sixth level appropriate option is a lot less valuable than your first.

But -- and here's the other major flaw in your argument -- if the player is the sort of person who thinks that a 1 and a 6 are basically the same, and that player chose to play a 1 intentionally, then that player is not as likely to roll a 6 when the Cohort bonus comes around. In contrast, the player who already had a 6 to start with -- that guy knows what a 6 looks like, and why it's not the same as a 1.

That's just an argument against having power discrepancies. The fact that you can choose to be less powerful does not make it less true that you aren't forced to do so. Giving people more chances to make characters (particularly chances later in the game) increases the odds they will make a good character.

Leadership is better than anything (any cohort) it can grant, whether that thing (cohort) is broken or not, because Leadership can grant you a different thing (cohort) at another time. Just like the ability to cast polymorph once per day is worse than having a single 4th-level spell slot and a spellbook, despite the obvious power in polymorph, the feat Leadership is better than having a cohort, because Leadership grants both the cohort and a way to get a different cohort. Incidentally, Leadership can grant polymorph as well as planar binding.

That's meaningless from balancing perspective. Whether option X is too good or not is independent of whether things can grant X. Leadership is not inherently too good. planar binding is.

Nifft

2015-09-01, 06:48 PM

Diminishing returns. Your sixth level appropriate option is a lot less valuable than your first. So it's your opinion that having three Red Wizards in a party is less valuable than having only two?

That's just an argument against having power discrepancies. The fact that you can choose to be less powerful does not make it less true that you aren't forced to do so. Giving people more chances to make characters (particularly chances later in the game) increases the odds they will make a good character. What makes the odds better is increasing the player's system mastery, or changing the system and removing the need for system mastery (which is basically what 5e seems to have done).

I mean, unless you're actually killing PCs so fast that character generation must be done by genetic algorithms, I don't think it's safe to trust in statistics to save players from bad choices.

Djinn_in_Tonic

2015-09-01, 06:51 PM

Diminishing returns. Your sixth level appropriate option is a lot less valuable than your first.

Untrue (at least in the context of his example), due to the way D&D scales. A level 20 Fighter and a level 18 Wizard cohort can take on a LOT fewer challenges than a level 20 Wizard and a level 18 Wizard cohort. You actually net MORE power as a Wizard taking a Wizard cohort than you would taking the same cohort as a Fighter, because you can use their spell selection to shore up weaknesses in your OWN selection, instead of having to pick the best spells around a non-caster PC.

That's meaningless from balancing perspective. Whether option X is too good or not is independent of whether things can grant X. Leadership is not inherently too good. planar binding is.

Planar Binding is too good. But there exists a feat that can grant you multiple uses of planar binding, along with a dozen other "too strong" spells you care to name. THAT puts us past the "planar binding is too strong" argument: Leadership is getting you that AND more, after all.

Also, by that logic...independent of Leadership's existence, having TWO characters when everyone else has ONE is, purely numerically, too good. So, regardless of Leadership's existence, playing double the characters shouldn't be allowed. :smalltongue:

Brova

2015-09-01, 07:02 PM

So it's your opinion that having three Red Wizards in a party is less valuable than having only two?

My opinion is that the jump from two to three is much less significant than the jump from one to two, which is in turn less significant than they jump from zero to one.

Planar Binding is too good. But there exists a feat that can grant you multiple uses of planar binding, along with a dozen other "too strong" spells you care to name. THAT puts us past the "planar binding is too strong" argument: Leadership is getting you that AND more, after all.

It only gives you that because planar binding exists. Leadership will never be broken unless something else is already broken.

SkipSandwich

2015-09-01, 07:03 PM

In my experience, the cheesiest abuses of Leadership come from spellcaster cohorts plus a potential army of low-level spellcrafter followers crafting magic items on demand.

My solution has been to limit all cohorts to NPC classes only, and make it clear that followers have to be paid a fair wage for their work, you can have all the craftsmen you want making magic items for you, but you still have to buy them. (I rule that the maximum reasonable discount for a permanent magical item or one with charges is up to 25% off market price, and up to 50% off (produced at cost) for single-use consumable items)

Djinn_in_Tonic

2015-09-01, 07:09 PM

It only gives you that because planar binding exists. Leadership will never be broken unless something else is already broken.

In a world of all Fighters, the man with two Fighters is king.

Seriously...even if everything else is perfectly balanced, Leadership is STILL the single most powerful feat in the game, bar none, because it gives you about 80% of your character's power in the form of another character. No other feat is that big a force multiplier.

My opinion is that the jump from two to three is much less significant than the jump from one to two, which is in turn less significant than they jump from zero to one.

But due to the limits on spells known, spells-per-day, and preparation, two Wizards can cover each others weaknesses and become invincible. One Wizard + One Fighter doesn't have that large a power spike. It's how D&D works.

Nifft

2015-09-01, 07:21 PM

My opinion is that the jump from two to three is much less significant than the jump from one to two, which is in turn less significant than they jump from zero to one.

I feel mildly bad -- it was meant to be a clever example which disproved your claim, but you didn't look up how Circle Magic works.

Look, with two Red Wizards, you get two Wizards.

With three (or more) Red Wizards, you get Circle Casting which can push the Circle Leader's caster level up to 40 (or give free Metamagic, but seriously, he's going to take the caster level 40).

That's one example from the core DMG which disproves your assertion. There are others.

Sometimes, it turns out that 6+6 = 40, and the situation is even worse than expected for the poor little #1 Fighter.

Brova

2015-09-01, 07:34 PM

In a world of all Fighters, the man with two Fighters is king.

Seriously...even if everything else is perfectly balanced, Leadership is STILL the single most powerful feat in the game, bar none, because it gives you about 80% of your character's power in the form of another character. No other feat is that big a force multiplier.

So? Something has to be most powerful. As long as Leadership is not asymmetric, I don't even care.

But due to the limits on spells known, spells-per-day, and preparation, two Wizards can cover each others weaknesses and become invincible. One Wizard + One Fighter doesn't have that large a power spike. It's how D&D works.

You get to learn twice as many spells, half of which are a level behind. That's okay for like five levels, but then you get planar binding and you get all the spells (go go gadget wish for a Boccob's Blessed Book!).

I feel mildly bad -- it was meant to be a clever example which disproved your claim, but you didn't look up how Circle Magic works.

I don't need to. And you're actually probably missing something important: you can use circle magic as often as you want. If you happen to be a Red Wizard with followers, not even a cohort, you can just circle magic your caster level up to 40 over as many uses as you happen to want*. If you get your hands on simulacrum, you don't need Leadership at all.

Seriously, go read circle magic. There's nothing about a daily limit. The only text that even implies one is this:

Many high-level Red Wizards lead circles on a daily basis to exact magical power from their apprentices.

That kind of implies that people only do do it once per day, not that they only can do it once per day.

Honestly, I wouldn't necessarily take Leadership as a Red Wizard. Improved Familiar (Mirror Mephit) does more of what you want.

*: Subject to time constraints. It does take an hour, and you need some time to rest and adventure.

Nifft

2015-09-01, 07:48 PM

So? Something has to be most powerful. As long as Leadership is not asymmetric, I don't even care. It is asymmetric.

The asymmetry is along the axis of player skill.

I don't need to. And you're actually probably missing something important: you can use circle magic as often as you want. If you happen to be a Red Wizard with followers, not even a cohort, you can just circle magic your caster level up to 40 over as many uses as you happen to want*. If you get your hands on simulacrum, you don't need Leadership at all.

You do have a point -- but Leadership is available earlier than Simulacrum, so my point is still valid.

And like I said before, it's not the only case where an added character has MORE impact on the power of a T1 than it could on the power of a Mundane.

Another fun example is a White Raven Warblade who does nothing but White Raven Tactics -> recover maneuvers -> repeat. That gives the Wizard 3 actions per 2 turns. (Plus a meat-shield, sure.) Giving bonus actions to a PC is more valuable when the PC is able to take better actions.

The boost is not equal, nor is the asymmetry slanted in favor of the Mundane.

Brova

2015-09-01, 07:55 PM

It is asymmetric.

The asymmetry is along the axis of player skill.

Everything is asymmetric on the axis of player skill. Anything that makes the game more complex rewards skill.

You do have a point -- but Leadership is available earlier than Simulacrum, so my point is still valid.

Not if you spend a feat on Improved Familiar (Mirror Mephit). I mean, it is technically one level later, but it's still before you get Circle Magic, so it doesn't really matter. Also, you can chain simulacrum in a way you can't with Leadership.

Another fun example is a White Raven Warblade who does nothing but White Raven Tactics -> recover maneuvers -> repeat. That gives the Wizard 3 actions per 2 turns. (Plus a meat-shield, sure.) Giving bonus actions to a PC is more valuable when the PC is able to take better actions.

But what if instead of those guys you had two Idiot Crusaders who spent their turns using white raven tactics then automatically refreshing maneuvers to kill everything ever without giving them a chance to respond?

Also, I think you overestimate the optimal number of spells per round. Dropping a cloudkill or acid fog is going to win (almost) any (level appropriate) fight where those are your top level spells. The fact that you can get more spells out doesn't really make you better in that kind of a situation.

Djinn_in_Tonic

2015-09-01, 08:01 PM

Also, I think you overestimate the optimal number of spells per round. Dropping a cloudkill or acid fog is going to win (almost) any (level appropriate) fight where those are your top level spells. The fact that you can get more spells out doesn't really make you better in that kind of a situation.

But the fact that you can instant-win nearly TWICE as many encounters in a day is pretty significant.

Nifft

2015-09-01, 08:13 PM

Everything is asymmetric on the axis of player skill. Anything that makes the game more complex rewards skill.
1 - That does not follow. It's possible to make a game which is complex WITHOUT including trap options for n00bz.

2 - I'm saying that what Leadership does is exacerbate the issue. Not merely follow the pre-existing curve, but rather make the curve more slanted.

But what if instead of those guys you had two Idiot Crusaders who spent their turns using white raven tactics then automatically refreshing maneuvers to kill everything ever without giving them a chance to respond? Crusaders can't spam as reliably without cheese.

If your argument relies on cheese, then I don't think you're making a good argument.

Mirror Mephit falls under the same heading: if you're equating Leadership with something emphatically cheesy, you're making a case that Leadership is similarly cheesy.

Also, I think you overestimate the optimal number of spells per round. Dropping a cloudkill or acid fog is going to win (almost) any (level appropriate) fight where those are your top level spells. The fact that you can get more spells out doesn't really make you better in that kind of a situation. Your generalizations don't really fit my gaming experience, but even if what you said were true -- which it's not -- your argument is only valid for two or three encounters at most.

Are you advocating a 15-minute-workday?

Brova

2015-09-01, 08:22 PM

But the fact that you can instant-win nearly TWICE as many encounters in a day is pretty significant.

Are you advocating a 15-minute-workday?

It is only true that getting more spells per day matters if you are regularly having more spells than your normal workload can handle, you are regularly time constrained, and you are regularly fighting opponents who are sufficiently dangerous that you can't defeat them with at-will options (i.e. Persist Spell + Buffs, Ubercharging). I don't think those conditions are particularly common.

1 - That does not follow. It's possible to make a game which is complex WITHOUT including trap options for n00bz.

Maybe. It's possible that you can reduce skill returns without reducing complexity in a game. But I don't think you can do that for tactical skill.

But 3.5 is not that game.

2 - I'm saying that what Leadership does is exacerbate the issue. Not merely follow the pre-existing curve, but rather make the curve more slanted.

I don't really know that you're right. The marginal return from getting more spells is smaller than the marginal return for getting spells at all.

Crusaders can't spam as reliably without cheese.

What makes something cheese? The Idiot Crusader is certainly more complex than a Wizard, but it's not really better (barring infinite actions). The cheese is white raven tactics, not auto-refreshing maneuvers.

Mirror Mephit falls under the same heading: if you're equating Leadership with something emphatically cheesy, you're making a case that Leadership is similarly cheesy.

The Mirror Mephit is only cheesy if you loop it and/or do it repeatedly. If you just pick up three or four low level dudes, you're fine. You only need three 5th level Wizards (assuming no bonus spells) to get a caster level of 40 with repeated circle magic.

Misery Esquire

2015-09-01, 08:41 PM

So? Something has to be most powerful. As long as Leadership is not asymmetric, I don't even care.

Well...

Fighter #1 takes Power Attack, and a bunch of Charge/Leap/Shocktrooper feats. He is now excellent at putting a ridiculous amount of damage into one guy, as long as nothing interferes with the plan of running/flying/jumping at the target and hitting them with a sword. We'll say he somehow spends feats all the way to Level 25 improving this plan.

Fighter #2 doesn't take Power Attack, and in fact takes no feats other than Leadership. At Level 25 he now has a Level 17 Wizard cohort, 135 Level 1 Wizards, 13 Level 2 Wizards, 7 Level 3 Wizards, 4 Level 4 Wizards, 2 Level 5 Wizards, and 2 Level 6 Wizards. BUT, his Level 17 Wizard also has a Level 12 Wizard cohort, 30 Level 1 Wizards, 3 Level 2 Wizards, 1 Level 3 Wizard, 1 Level 4 Wizard. The Level 12 Wizard Cohort has a Level 8 Wizard cohort, and 8 Level 1 Wizards. The Level 8 Wizard has a Level 5 Wizard.

The above is assuming he and his Wizard Cohorts have no Charisma or Leadership Score modifier.

All of them above level 5 can be Red Wizards, or Incantrixes (Incantrixii? Incantrixus, Incantrix :pl.)

Fighter #2 no longer takes any actions other than leading the mob of wizards wherever his party goes. Fighter #2 provides orders of magnitude more power to the party than Fighter #1, and absorbs the majority of time (if not PbP ; in PbP it will be merely scarily enormous posts) given that his turns now include ~210 wizards, even if most of them will be casting Magic Missle or other level 1 spells.

And Fighter #2 could have the same build as #1 but behind by 1 feat and do almost as well as #1, if he wanted to.

ExLibrisMortis

2015-09-01, 08:42 PM

It only gives you that because planar binding exists. Leadership will never be broken unless something else is already broken.
Well, what are the odds that nothing is broken? And, since we're discussing 3.5: things are broken, therefore, Leadership is broken. Let's not go into a discussion about a hypothetical not-broken D&D 3.5, because we are never going to figure out what that even is.

Even if nothing is 'broken' per sé, Leadership is still the most powerful feat by miles (therefore broken), as other people noted, because it gives you whatever the strongest build in the game is, and every other possibility (and the ability to change cohort; it's not that quick, but you can swap), just two levels lower. Two levels are a big deal (less so when your cohort is 17, or an ur-priest of some variety), but there's plenty of mid-level cheese you can melt on top of your gorgonzola PC.

Anlashok

2015-09-01, 08:48 PM

Planar Binding isn't broken. Outsiders and Elementals are.

Brova

2015-09-01, 08:55 PM

Well, what are the odds that nothing is broken? And, since we're discussing 3.5: things are broken, therefore, Leadership is broken. Let's not go into a discussion about a hypothetical not-broken D&D 3.5, because we are never going to figure out what that even is.

Yes, but even if broken things exist, Leadership isn't one of them. Whatever is broken is broken. Leadership isn't.

Even if nothing is 'broken' per sé, Leadership is still the most powerful feat by miles (therefore broken),

No.

The best option is not necessarily broken. I think we can all agree that Cleave is not a broken feat. Would Cleave become broken if you removed every feat better than Cleave?

For something to be broken, it needs to grant power that is either overwhelming (i.e. no XP wish for a magic item) or significant and asymmetric (i.e. planar binding).

Djinn_in_Tonic

2015-09-01, 09:35 PM

Yes, but even if broken things exist, Leadership isn't one of them. Whatever is broken is broken. Leadership isn't.

Something that lets you get the most powerful options available at little to no opportunity cost IS, by definition, overpowered.

Imagine that I made a feat that gave you a Wizard casting progression, then claimed it wasn't overpowered...CASTING was overpowered. That feat is still very clearly overpowered compared to every other feat that exists in the game. Right?

That's pretty much exactly what Leadership can do.

The best option is not necessarily broken. I think we can all agree that Cleave is not a broken feat. Would Cleave become broken if you removed every feat better than Cleave?

No, because Cleave isn't orders of magnitude better than the feats below it. Leadership, on the other hand, IS.

Milo v3

2015-09-01, 09:42 PM

I do think that the Greatest issue of leadership is that is probably shouldn't exist just from how much it blurs the separation of Roleplay and Mechanics issue. I mean, you can lead organisations and have companions without the feat...

WalkingTheShade

2015-09-02, 03:21 AM

Was away from thread, don't have time to read all I've left behind.

In fact, this is exactly how we used the feat in my first 3.5 campaign. Myself and another player each took the feat, and we built our cohorts ourselves. Since we were the two strongest roleplayers in the group, we each developed a detailed backstory for our respective cohorts, woven into the broader backstory of our primary characters.
And I'd probably do the same with my players, as I trust them to be mature about it, not try to break the game, and not sacrifice the story for senseless optimization.
My issue is with DM banning the feat on the grounds of their players using it to break the game. This entails two questions:
- Why play with players who actively want to break the game?
- If you have to play with such players, why let them do things with the feat that are NOT supported by RAW, or even RAI?

Our BEST case scenario is allowing a single feat to purchase an ECL-2 level spellcaster, complete with optimal spell selection, feats, and items. For the cost of a SINGLE FEAT.
No, by RAW it is not.

I'm afraid I don't get how Leadership could ever be seen as balanced, as is. Sure, there's the argument that the DM could mutilate the feat and/or surprise nerf it to the point where you're only getting NPC classed people, but the DM can do that to any feat, so I don't think that applies(I feel like there was even a term/quote for "the DM can nerf it =/= the feat is balanced").
It's not a mutilation or a nerf, it's RAW. What's so hard to understand about that?
Sure, you could decide to make power attack give a x3 return on two-handed weapons, x2 on one-handed, apply to bows and spells. Then someone comes along and says that going back to power attack as RAW is a mutilation or a nerf...

Please cite the portion that says the Player (or Character) must accept only the first person to show up as a potential Cohort, rather than holding out for one more in keeping with the hoped-for Cohort.
Yeah, with infinite time and infinite candidates they might get exactly what they want.

Using the power of RAW, you can take a look at how many NPCs with class levels you can find in a given settlement and do the maths. If there are at most 10 wizards in the broader region the character lives, given alignment and level restrictions, that entails a limited pool to choose from.

Using the power of common sense, that's why I edited in that analogy about the work market.

Now, I wouldn't rely on such systematic uses of the rules to annoy a player. I'd just discuss it with them, bringing up the interests of the game in general against the interests of over-optimization.

I do think that the Greatest issue of leadership is that is probably shouldn't exist just from how much it blurs the separation of Roleplay and Mechanics issue. I mean, you can lead organisations and have companions without the feat...
I actually like this aspect of the feat. I might also be one of few DMs that puts in play organizational aspects of prestige classes.
The point of the feat is that it gives a reliable organization and followers to the character, an organization that is their own. It also states "this PC is not any adventurer, he's a born leader", as much as Craven, for example, states "this PC is not just a Rogue, he's also a dirty coward".

Milo v3

2015-09-02, 03:36 AM

I actually like this aspect of the feat. I might also be one of few DMs that puts in play organizational aspects of prestige classes.
The point of the feat is that it gives a reliable organization and followers to the character, an organization that is their own. It also states "this PC is not any adventurer, he's a born leader", as much as Craven, for example, states "this PC is not just a Rogue, he's also a dirty coward".

Except it implies you cannot lead an organization or get followers without the feat.

Though, I do have prestige classes represent abilities restricted to an organisation (otherwise they should just be alternate class abilities or archetypes), but that rarely comes up since I dislike PrC's.

JDL

2015-09-02, 03:53 AM

Since the OP didn't specify the version of the ruleset being used for Leadership, I'd like to point out that in Pathfinder they specifically call out the question of who gets to control building the cohort:

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/wizard/familiar#TOC-Advancing-Companions

Cohort: Advancement choices for a cohort include feats, skills, ability score increases, and class levels.

A cohort is generally considered a player-controlled companion, and therefore you get to decide how the cohort advances. The GM might step in if you make choices that are inappropriate for the cohort, use the cohort as a mechanism for pushing the boundaries of the game rules, or treat the cohort unfairly. a cohort is a loyal companion and ally to you, and expects you to treat him fairly, generously, without aloofness or cruelty, and without devoting too much attention to other minions such as familiars or animal companions. The cohort's attitude toward you is generally helpful (as if using the Diplomacy skill); he complies with most of your requests without any sort of skill check, except for requests that are against his nature or put him in serious peril.

If you exploit your cohort, you'll quickly find your Leadership score shrinking away. Although this doesn't change the cohort's level, the cohort can't gain levels until your Leadership score allows for a level increase, so if you're a poor leader, you must wait longer for your cohort to level up. In extreme cases, the cohort might abandon you, and you'll have to recruit a new cohort.

Examples of inappropriate advancement choices are a good-aligned companion selecting morally questionable feats, a clumsy cohort suddenly putting many ranks in Disable Device (so he can take all the risks in searching for traps instead of you), a spellcaster cohort taking nothing but item creation feats (so you get access to plenty of cheap magic items at the cost of just one feat, Leadership), a fighter cohort taking a level in wizard when he had no previous interest in magic, or you not interacting with your cleric cohort other than to gain defensive spells from a different class or a flanking bonus.

When you select the Leadership feat, you and the GM should discuss the cohort's background, personality, interests, and role in the campaign and party. Not only does this give the GM the opportunity to reject a cohort concept that goes against the theme of the campaign, but the GM can plan adventure hooks involving the cohort for future quests. The random background generator in Chapter 1 can help greatly when filling in details about the cohort. Once the discussion is done, writing down a biography and personality profile of the cohort helps cement his role in the campaign and provides a strong reference point for later talks about what is or is not appropriate advancement for the cohort.

It's basically in between an NPC and a class feature such as an Eidolon or Animal Companion. In Pathfinder, the player gets to build the cohort, with veto control by the DM if they're abusing it for too much mechanical advantage compared to the optimization level of the campaign.

WalkingTheShade

2015-09-02, 04:34 AM

Except it implies you cannot lead an organization or get followers without the feat.
Even without Combat expertise, a character can fight defensively. Combat expertise, however, is strictly better (and can be stacked with fighting defensively). You take a feat to be able to do something better.

There's a difference between leading an organization, and being a natural leader.

Since the OP didn't specify the version of the ruleset being used for Leadership, I'd like to point out that in Pathfinder they specifically call out the question of who gets to control building the cohort:
I'll edit the first post, but yeah. I was thinking of 3.5 mainly.

In Pathfinder, the player gets to build the cohort, with veto control by the DM if they're abusing it for too much mechanical advantage compared to the optimization level of the campaign.
That's actually the way I use it, by applying common sense to 3.5. Yes, I know there might be some general contradictions between such things as common sense and 3.5.
Now, 3.5 RAW say something else, in the case you're stuck with a munchkin. <= point of the thread.

Palanan

2015-09-02, 11:31 AM

Originally Posted by WalkingTheShade
My issue is with DM banning the feat on the grounds of their players using it to break the game. This entails two questions:
- Why play with players who actively want to break the game?
- If you have to play with such players, why let them do things with the feat that are NOT supported by RAW, or even RAI?

On these particular points I think we agree. If a DM is banning the feat to prevent player abuse, that's a player issue first and foremost.

Originally Quoted by JDL
A cohort is generally considered a player-controlled companion, and therefore you get to decide how the cohort advances.

When you select the Leadership feat, you and the GM should discuss the cohort's background, personality, interests, and role in the campaign and party…. Once the discussion is done, writing down a biography and personality profile of the cohort helps cement his role in the campaign and provides a strong reference point for later talks about what is or is not appropriate advancement for the cohort.

This is interesting, because it implies a broad acceptance of the idea that players design their own cohorts.

I can't find this text in my hardcopy of the CRB, so not sure if it's PFSRD-only or if it was in print when the CRB first came out. Would be interesting to know if this is a later addition or if it was written into Pathfinder from the start.

Taelas

2015-09-02, 12:05 PM

Now, 3.5 RAW say something else, in the case you're stuck with a munchkin. <= point of the thread.

And the counterpoint -- which you seem to have been ignoring completely -- is that even in the absolute worst case, a cohort is a character only a few levels lower than your own that can perform actions, effectively doubling the action economy, and the cohort will have abilities of his own. It is an exponential increase, something no other feat grants, or even comes close to granting. It is that good.

Djinn_in_Tonic

2015-09-02, 12:23 PM

It is an exponential increase, something no other feat grants, or even comes close to granting. It is that good.

Yep. Leadership, in the worst case scenario of getting you a DM-created, DM-controlled, un-optimized, standard-geared, low-tier PC class, is arguably better than any other feat option.

Let me repeat: that's the worst case scenario.

dascarletm

2015-09-02, 12:46 PM

Meh, I'd rather pick up a feat to increase my power than to waste a feat getting something I can get using non-permanent expenditures. Diplomacy, Charm/Dominate, etc.

I wouldn't consider adding on another player to the game a power increase for myself. Torrag the Barbarian is no more or less powerful if I recruit my friend Joe to play Garrot the rogue in my game.

Who is more powerful on the high end?

Wizard A: Took leadership and has as many minions as he wants.

Wizard B: Didn't take leadership and instead took... idk Quicken Spell earlier and still has as many minions as he wants.

Misery Esquire

2015-09-02, 12:57 PM

Who is more powerful on the high end?

Wizard A: Took leadership and has as many minions as he wants.

Wizard B: Didn't take leadership and instead took... idk Quicken Spell earlier and still has as many minions as he wants.

Wizard A, who has an automatically refreshing pool of 210 wizard friends, who can Charm, Dominate, or Diplomancy for him. Or in addition to his own Charm and Dominating.

Djinn_in_Tonic

2015-09-02, 01:09 PM

Wizard A: Took leadership and has as many minions as he wants.

Wizard B: Didn't take leadership and instead took... idk Quicken Spell earlier and still has as many minions as he wants.

Definitely Wizard A, since at 20th level he's got an 18th level Wizard buddy helping him shore up each and every weakness he might possibly possess. He's down ONE meta-magic spell, but his buddy brings an entire complement of spells known, spells per day, and metamagic feats to close the gap, walk over the now closed gap, and run roughshod over the opposition thinking it was safe on the other side of the gap.

And yeah...he might also have 201 followers all casting Magic Missile (or not...they might well be NPCs) to handle a bunch of smaller threats, but that's small stuff compared to what the two high-level Wizards bring to the table.

danzibr

2015-09-02, 01:16 PM

Brova

2015-09-02, 03:50 PM

Something that lets you get the most powerful options available at little to no opportunity cost IS, by definition, overpowered.

That's reasonable. But it's (barring Wizards that don't have some other spell access shenanigans) symmetrical. Totally so. If you give one character +10 to all stats, that's imbalanced. If you give it to everyone, it's just making the party more powerful.

Imagine that I made a feat that gave you a Wizard casting progression, then claimed it wasn't overpowered...CASTING was overpowered. That feat is still very clearly overpowered compared to every other feat that exists in the game. Right?

You're conflating terms. That feat is overpowered, sure. But it's not broken. Individual spells are broken. And it's not imbalanced (ignoring attribute constraints). It's just very good. Like casting stinking cloud, or being a Cleric.

Yep. Leadership, in the worst case scenario of getting you a DM-created, DM-controlled, un-optimized, standard-geared, low-tier PC class, is arguably better than any other feat option.

Other than Natural Spell, Persist Spell + Cost Reducer, arguably Quicken Spell + Cost Reducer, Master Spellthief in a holy word build, Improved Familiar (Mirror Mephit), pre-errata Extra Spell, and probably Uncanny Forethought. Probably more I'm not thinking of. It also takes a massive hit in terms of marginal utility if you happen to be a Summoner, Necromancer, Enchanter, or Druid. The "even if you get a Fighter, it rocks!" argument is alarmist and based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the game.

I almost do what Curmudgeon does. Limit of one per character. So if you have an AC you can't summon or have a familiar (at least one that takes up turns in combat). A Dread Necromancer would have to roll all their baddies into 1 (work something out with the DM). Et cetera.

I just don't like that. It seems like too much of a hit to too many character concepts. I get banning stuff like simulacrum or planar binding from a power level perspective, but demanding that people not cast summon monster or animate dead seems excessive.

Djinn_in_Tonic

2015-09-02, 04:29 PM

That's reasonable. But it's (barring Wizards that don't have some other spell access shenanigans) symmetrical. Totally so. If you give one character +10 to all stats, that's imbalanced. If you give it to everyone, it's just making the party more powerful.

But that power gain is asymmetrical. A Wizard gains a HUGE amount from an additional +10 to his casting stat -- it's a force multiplier to his spells per day AND his save DC. The Paladin and Monk and Bard use all stats well -- they come out far ahead. The Fighter? Significantly less of a power boost.

You're conflating terms. That feat is overpowered, sure. But it's not broken. Individual spells are broken. And it's not imbalanced (ignoring attribute constraints). It's just very good. Like casting stinking cloud, or being a Cleric.

I've never said that my example OR Leadership is "broken:" that implies that the feat is powerful in a way never anticipated by the system. I've only said it's incredibly overpowered.

Other than Natural Spell, Persist Spell + Cost Reducer, arguably Quicken Spell + Cost Reducer, Master Spellthief in a holy word build, Improved Familiar (Mirror Mephit), pre-errata Extra Spell, and probably Uncanny Forethought. Probably more I'm not thinking of.

Assuming that we only get one feat in our build (which is untrue), almost all of these are strictly inferior to grabbing a second caster as a cohort, then having that cohort take the feat you were considering. In some cases it's close, but I think the two-caster team has the edge even then. I'd be interested in other people's thoughts on this.

The "even if you get a Fighter, it rocks!" argument is alarmist and based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the game.

Even if you get a Fighter it IS still a great feat: better than the vast majority of non-caster feats, if not all of them (and spellcasting is, by your own admission, broken -- coincidentally nearly every feat MORE powerful than Leadership you suggested was a spellcasting feat). Maybe it's not the BEST feat if you're not snagging a Tier 1 class, but it's NEVER a BAD choice. Would I get a Fighter cohort over Persist Spell? Probably not. But at 20th level would I snag an 18th level Cleric with Persist Spell instead of wasting my own spell slots and feat slot by taking it? Absolutely. The power boost is huge.

...and based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the game.

Let's kindly avoid the personal and philosophical attacks, shall we? I disagree with you, but I'm not questioning your A: right to your opinion or B: your understanding of the game.

So you know, I have an excellent grasp of the game: you can ask around on the Homebrew Design boards if you doubt this -- I don't feel the need to prove myself to you here. But throwing ad hominem attacks at my understanding of D&D doesn't get you or your argument anywhere -- especially when my position on Leadership's power has been backed up by the opinions of highly knowledgeable posters in this and other threads on the topic.

MorgromTheOrc

2015-09-02, 04:31 PM

Eh I would just make it a fighter only feat and limit followers to NPC classes, a fighter with an ECL -2 wizard cohort is still worse than an ECL wizard, even if he has an army of commoners or warriors he's still not as good being effectively a slightly crappier wizard who has somehow(diplomancy, charming, etc.) taken control of a large group of warriors, even if one of them is really good(the actual PC) he's still one spell level behind until late game, in which case it won't matter anyways.

Other than that maybe limit it to NPC classes and it'll still be the best feat, but not any better than class features some classes get by default. I always thought they had to be an NPC class reading the feat myself before I got on the playground anyways.

Though I always had a dream of having an artificer cohort and expert followers always back at the parties HQ working on building it up and making items with the gold we send them, seems a much less game bogging way of playing a crafter to me and is a neat mechanics supported way of getting a custom base, again without bogging down the game with crafting time.

Brova

2015-09-02, 04:48 PM

EDIT: It seems fairly obvious at this point that further discussion is going to require some understanding of what level of optimization we're talking about. If you are playing a Barbarian or a Fighter, Leadership is very good. On the other hand, if you are playing a Wizard that is chain binding demons, dropping a feat on one extra minion is a very bad rate. I suspect that this is at the heart of my disagreement with Djinn. He seems to be talking about whether or not Leadership is balanced at the level of most classes. I'm talking about whether it's reasonable for full casters or other similarly powerful people to have access to.

Assuming that we only get one feat in our build (which is untrue), almost all of these are strictly inferior to grabbing a second caster as a cohort, then having that cohort take the feat you were considering. In some cases it's close, but I think the two-caster team has the edge even then. I'd be interested in other people's thoughts on this.

Improved Familiar (Mirror Mephit) is substantially better than Leadership. So is DMM: Persist. DMM: Twin captures 90% of your reasoning as to why two casters are good.

"But your cohort could take it" is not a comparative argument. It leads to the conclusion that a feat which is strictly better than Leadership is worse than Leadership. You have to evaluate it as "you could have a cohort, or you could have Improved Familiar/DMM: Persist/etc". Anything else produces useless results.

And this is all missing the point. Leadership makes you better, but it is available to everyone. Your only argument that Leadership is asymmetrically good for a caster is that it lets Wizards beat spells known limits. Given that wish, secret page, and wealth loops exist, I do not care.

I'm not even sure you're arguing against my position. I've never said that Leadership isn't good, just that it's not something that needs to be banned. Compare that to stuff like wishing for items, or chain binding, which needs to be banned or substantially nerfed for the game to function at all.

Even if you get a Fighter it IS still a great feat: better than the vast majority of non-caster feats, if not all of them

So? Non-caster feats are bad. heroics will grant you 90% of good non-caster feats, and it is not a good spell. It's like saying a spell is better than magic missile or a class is better than Monk. It doesn't matter, and you shouldn't care.

(and spellcasting is, by your own admission, broken

No, that's not what I said. What I said is:

But it's [a feat that grants spellcasting] not broken. Individual spells are broken.

If you are going to argue against me, argue against my actual position and the things I actually say.

-- coincidentally nearly every feat MORE powerful than Leadership you suggested was a spellcasting feat).

Non-casters are not level appropriate. Demanding that options be balanced with respect to them is, by definition, demanding that they be underpowered.

Let's kindly avoid the personal and philosophical attacks, shall we? I disagree with you, but I'm not questioning your A: right to your opinion or B: your understanding of the game.

You are completely ignoring feats that give you better minions options. That's a misunderstanding of the game. You are completely ignoring the fact that a plethora of classes offer better options for minions. That's a misunderstanding of the game. I consider them fairly fundamental. To be clear: I did not mean to insult you, and apologize if I have.

And let's be clear, I'm not saying your whole argument is a misunderstanding, I'm saying the idea that a feat that gives you a free Commoner or Fighter would be good is.

So you know, I have an excellent grasp of the game: you can ask around on the Homebrew Design boards if you doubt this -- I don't feel the need to prove myself to you here.

I don't know why I care what your credentials are. Having them doesn't make you right. Being right makes you right.

dascarletm

2015-09-02, 05:09 PM

Wizard A, who has an automatically refreshing pool of 210 wizard friends, who can Charm, Dominate, or Diplomancy for him. Or in addition to his own Charm and Dominating.
1: Barring other feats the maximum followers you can have is 163.
There are a lot of really nice feats for casters, and while they may not be particularly feat starved, I say they are better than a bunch of low level wizards doing trivial actions. At level 20 when you are fighting Gods, who cares about what 135 level 1 scrubs can do? Also you have to invest in charisma to an extent. You'll need +6 (assuming you still have your familiar)(I'm dropping the RP bonuses because that is campaign and DM specific) to charisma at level 20. Easy to accomplish, yes, but it requires resources. Either you are spending your precious point-buy, or you are spending wealth. Most likely you'll need both.

To hit that 22 charisma you'll need a +6 item (36,000), and either a +5 book and a +1 level stat, or alternatively, if you spent more than 2 points of your point buy to hit 10, you can get away with a +4 or +2 book. I'd rather of had the higher dex or con at the early levels.

Definitely Wizard A, since at 20th level he's got an 18th level Wizard buddy helping him shore up each and every weakness he might possibly possess. He's down ONE meta-magic spell, but his buddy brings an entire complement of spells known, spells per day, and metamagic feats to close the gap, walk over the now closed gap, and run roughshod over the opposition thinking it was safe on the other side of the gap.

And yeah...he might also have 201 followers all casting Magic Missile (or not...they might well be NPCs) to handle a bunch of smaller threats, but that's small stuff compared to what the two high-level Wizards bring to the table.

1: the highest level follower you can have is 17, barring epic levels. Granted that isn't too much a power gap, but I'm bringing it up because I like to nit-pick.

First let's state at what optimization level we are talking about? At the highest levels of optimization another wizard isn't going to matter much. You already have done all the high-op tricks. They don't need another person, and they are already so potent you obtain everything you just listed. At that level, leadership doesn't really matter.

If we are at low-mid op, honestly I'd rather have Quicken Spell, Spell Penetration, Improved Initiative, or whatever feat I need to get into a sweet prestige class. Adding another player essentially doesn't boost your power in effect, it increases party size. Increased party size increases the size of challenges and it all evens out.

Let's say we want a large army of wizards, and we are using our army to increase our army. The equation to solve for army size is going to be P=P0ert
P = army size
P0=Initial size
e = Euler's Number which is ~2.7
r = rate in which we can gain more wizards (campaign/skill dependent I guess)
t = time elapsed

Best case scenario for you, we ignore all time spent before level 6. in which case P0 is two instead of one. After a certain point that difference is trivial.

If we take into account the time before, or perhaps even an increase rate of gain due to the increased power of the feat, it gets worse.

All this math aside, it is all fairly trivial, since my main point was this:

"I wouldn't consider adding on another player to the game a power increase for myself. Torrag the Barbarian is no more or less powerful if I recruit my friend Joe to play Garrot the rogue in my game."

Afgncaap5

2015-09-02, 05:23 PM

This is an accurate interpretation of my position.

Ah, I apologize for not being clear, then. No, the point I was making was that it's never been over-powered in my games and I never expect it to be so in the games I run, but that doesn't mean that other DMs shouldn't treat it with caution.

Taelas

2015-09-02, 06:24 PM

But that power gain is asymmetrical. A Wizard gains a HUGE amount from an additional +10 to his casting stat -- it's a force multiplier to his spells per day AND his save DC. The Paladin and Monk and Bard use all stats well -- they come out far ahead. The Fighter? Significantly less of a power boost.

I'd have to somewhat disagree with you here. While the extra spells per day that the Wizard gets are more powerful than the damage and to-hit the Fighter gets, it is more of an overall boost for the Fighter than it is for the Wizard. The extra spells just aren't as important, relatively speaking. The Wizard can already cast shapechange -- being able to do it more often is nice, of course, but it really isn't that big of a deal.

The save DCs are of course only relevant if you insist on them being so. It may be less efficient, but you can make do with spells that do not allow them.

Brova

2015-09-02, 06:37 PM

To hit that 22 charisma you'll need a +6 item (36,000), and either a +5 book and a +1 level stat, or alternatively, if you spent more than 2 points of your point buy to hit 10, you can get away with a +4 or +2 book. I'd rather of had the higher dex or con at the early levels.

Note: You're not buying a tome. You're binding/kindnapping/bribing a pile of Efreet and forcing them to give you the wishes for +5 to all stats.

The Wizard can already cast shapechange -- being able to do it more often is nice, of course, but it really isn't that big of a deal.

This is the point I'm trying to make.

The difference between being able to cast shapechange or not is much larger than the difference between being able to cast it once or twice.

Having one option at a given power level lets you play there. Having two just makes you more interesting.

dascarletm

2015-09-02, 06:50 PM

Note: You're not buying a tome. You're binding/kindnapping/bribing a pile of Efreet and forcing them to give you the wishes for +5 to all stats.

Fair point, but that is relevant in high-op games, where the feat, in my opinion, is less important.

Misery Esquire

2015-09-02, 07:35 PM

If you are playing a Barbarian or a Fighter, Leadership is very good. On the other hand, if you are playing a Wizard that is chain binding demons, dropping a feat on one extra minion is a very bad rate.

1: Barring other feats the maximum followers you can have is 163.

...

... a Level 17 Wizard cohort, 135 Level 1 Wizards, 13 Level 2 Wizards, 7 Level 3 Wizards, 4 Level 4 Wizards, 2 Level 5 Wizards, and 2 Level 6 Wizards. BUT, his Level 17 Wizard also has a Level 12 Wizard cohort, 30 Level 1 Wizards, 3 Level 2 Wizards, 1 Level 3 Wizard, 1 Level 4 Wizard. The Level 12 Wizard Cohort has a Level 8 Wizard cohort, and 8 Level 1 Wizards. The Level 8 Wizard has a Level 5 Wizard.

210.

Edit ; Actually, it could be... 212 if your 2 Level 6 wizards take Leadership.

There are a lot of really nice feats for casters, and while they may not be particularly feat starved, I say they are better than a bunch of low level wizards doing trivial actions. At level 20 when you are fighting Gods, who cares about what 135 level 1 scrubs can do? Also you have to invest in charisma to an extent. You'll need +6 (assuming you still have your familiar)(I'm dropping the RP bonuses because that is campaign and DM specific) to charisma at level 20. Easy to accomplish, yes, but it requires resources. Either you are spending your precious point-buy, or you are spending wealth. Most likely you'll need both.

It takes an investment to have the full mob early, and whether or not having the mob early is worth the investment is certainly questionable ; but even the one additional Level 17 Wizard is a terrifying addition to your power compared to almost any other choice.

"I wouldn't consider adding on another player to the game a power increase for myself. Torrag the Barbarian is no more or less powerful if I recruit my friend Joe to play Garrot the rogue in my game."

You can have your army of up to 210 guys, AND your friend Joe. And Joe could have up to 210 guys. And so could everyone at the table who wants to play this way, or chooses Leadership in order not to be the guy without 210 backup dudes.

Milo v3

2015-09-02, 07:38 PM

SkipSandwich

2015-09-02, 07:59 PM

Something surprising that I've noticed is that cohorts (at least in PF) gain a share of the XP. In your games, do you have their share be an equal portion to everyone else, or do you halve the Xp portion granted to the Leadership owner?

yes and no. In 3.5 cohorts explicitly do NOT reduce the XP gain of the Leadership character, but they do gain XP based on how much XP their Leader earns.

The cohort gains X/Y times the XP awarded to their Leader, where X is the Cohort's ECL and Y is the Leader's ECL. For example, if a 10th level character with a 6th level cohort gained 100xp, the cohort would gain 6/10 * 100 = 60 XP.

danzibr

2015-09-02, 08:00 PM

I just don't like that. It seems like too much of a hit to too many character concepts. I get banning stuff like simulacrum or planar binding from a power level perspective, but demanding that people not cast summon monster or animate dead seems excessive.
To be fair, I don't like it either. Some of my favorite builds involve tons of minions. We only do it to speed up combat (we do many things to speed up concept... not that this is the thread for that).

Nifft

2015-09-02, 08:32 PM

Ah, I apologize for not being clear, then. No, the point I was making was that it's never been over-powered in my games and I never expect it to be so in the games I run, but that doesn't mean that other DMs shouldn't treat it with caution.
That's cool.

I'm not in favor of banning it -- just making it not be a Feat, because it doesn't behave like a Feat.

yes and no. In 3.5 cohorts explicitly do NOT reduce the XP gain of the Leadership character, but they do gain XP based on how much XP their Leader earns. Crafting high-XP gear was always a pain... did the Cohort lose XP when the master lost XP?

We just got rid of crafting XP costs and I used rare ingredients and political favors instead to limit crafting to the WBL ballpark.

WalkingTheShade

2015-09-03, 03:34 AM

Yep. Leadership, in the worst case scenario of getting you a DM-created, DM-controlled, un-optimized, standard-geared, low-tier PC class, is arguably better than any other feat option.

Let me repeat: that's the worst case scenario.
And the counterpoint -- which you seem to have been ignoring completely -- is that even in the absolute worst case, a cohort is a character only a few levels lower than your own that can perform actions, effectively doubling the action economy, and the cohort will have abilities of his own. It is an exponential increase, something no other feat grants, or even comes close to granting. It is that good.

And I seem to be ignoring that argument, because the answer seems, to me at least, quite straightforward:

Adding another player essentially doesn't boost your power in effect, it increases party size. Increased party size increases the size of challenges and it all evens out.Or again:
I wouldn't consider adding on another player to the game a power increase for myself. Torrag the Barbarian is no more or less powerful if I recruit my friend Joe to play Garrot the rogue in my game.
The feat only adds member(s) to the team, most of whom make no difference in a battle, one of whom is significantly more fragile than PCs. Moreover, these are independent minded characters, not undead minions, not dominated monsters, not summons, not even planar binded outsiders. They might choose to run away from a dragon, might go left when they should have gone right, zig when they should have zagged, etc.
Your follower might have the ability to spend whole days summoning demons or angels, or whole days crafting wand after wand. Now, there are many reasons they might not want to. Who wants to spend his days repeating the same tasks? A cohort might still have moral or ethical compunctions doing whatever the PC wants. A cohort might get sloppy in the task, flat out refuse or just leave.
If what you want is a mindless automaton, why take that feat? Just go find a suitable wizard somewhere and dominate him.

Wizard A, who has an automatically refreshing pool of 210 wizard friends, who can Charm, Dominate, or Diplomancy for him. Or in addition to his own Charm and Dominating.
Definitely Wizard A, since at 20th level he's got an 18th level Wizard buddy helping him shore up each and every weakness he might possibly possess. He's down ONE meta-magic spell, but his buddy brings an entire complement of spells known, spells per day, and metamagic feats to close the gap, walk over the now closed gap, and run roughshod over the opposition thinking it was safe on the other side of the gap.
And those would be possible, if players could choose the builds of their followers. Again, by RAW, they cannot.

So you know, I have an excellent grasp of the game: you can ask around on the Homebrew Design boards if you doubt this -- I don't feel the need to prove myself to you here. But throwing ad hominem attacks at my understanding of D&D doesn't get you or your argument anywhere -- especially when my position on Leadership's power has been backed up by the opinions of highly knowledgeable posters in this and other threads on the topic.
All (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority) these (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum) arguments (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_tradition)are as fallacious as ad hominem attacks.

That's cool.

I'm not in favor of banning it -- just making it not be a Feat, because it doesn't behave like a Feat.
Now, that's an argument that I'm fine with.
One of the few issues I have with 3.5, is that designers never described a mechanism separate from feats to add advantages relating to the background of your character. Instead of feats like Mentor, Apprentice, Guildmaster or Leadership, a system similar to WoD's merits would have been welcome, from my point of few (now, there might be one hidden in some 3.5 supplement, never say never). But it'd take away from the hack & slash spirit of D&D 3.X

Sagetim

2015-09-03, 04:55 AM

I have built both of the cohorts for 2 PCs in my game that have taken leadership. We also have a familiar, animal companion, wild cohort, and two intelligent items. The PCs are at level 15. Basically, the PCs tell me what type of cohort they want to attract, and I build one that fits. My knight wanted a healer, I built one using the Healer class. My cleric wanted a team buffer, I built a bard.

Broken? Yeah, but it fits with our game just fine. I adjust encounters to fit.

I've been thinking about changes to the leadership feat though. What if the cohort was 1/2 the PC's level, and cohorts and followers were separate feats?

Well, at 1/2 the pc's level, the cohort is now going to be comparable to the wizard casting simulacrum on himself or another party member. And they didn't spend a feat on that, they could pick that up as a spell choice on leveling up and the gp and xp cost would still be less painful than a feat. Or, they may have been able to pick that spell up from a scroll (to scribe it) or in trade with another wizard.

Making followers and cohorts separate feats is odd. Mostly because followers are so weak that they don't really warrant a feat of their own. They're not going to boost your combat prowess, even if you have 300 of the level 1 guys. This is because they are still normal npcs. They most likely do not have character class levels. That means they are, at their most combat potent, level 1 warriors in whatever gear you bought for them. Which would probably make them about as dangerous against a real army as...300 average soldiers. This does not take into account potential shenanigans to equip them, but you shouldn't be basing a feat on how it can be broken...rather, based on what it should do on a normal player's table. Normal in this case not referring to the optimizers on these boards. We're not normal. Normal people try to come up with clever plans that don't actually work because of the rules that they aren't quite familiar with.

Cohorts at a cap of character level -2 are close to party level. Close enough to be useful in combat without overshadowing other party members. Let's go into some examples- a cohort sorcerer at 5 is going to be two spell levels behind a party wizard at 7. A cohort fighter 12 is going to be a feat behind (and not meeting the same prereqs as) a fighter 14...and the player is probably deep into a prestige class by that point, while the cohort is more likely to be a simple base class build. On the flip side, cohorts can be specialized party members...like paladins. It's not going to hurt a good party to have a paladin cohort in the mix. Sure, he's going to be at best two levels behind the party, but when the party really badly needs to deal with undead, demons, and the like? That paladin can step up and smite some things and turn some stuff and then get completely outshone by the party fighter murdering the everloving crap out of whatever the enemy was with a two hander. I know that's not exactly a clear example...but my point is that the more specialized a cohort's build is, the more limited it's use is. And cohorts generally follow a character because they are adventurers and seeking direction...so while an artificier might be willing to cohort up, they probably aren't going to be content being given a list of **** to build and then left behind to build it all while the party goes out on adventures.

As for level 4 commoners...that's not a cohort. That's an overpaid hireling. Cohorts are expected to take a half share of treasure, they expect to get magic items and what not as fair for the party. So...no, what you described is not a fair minimum for someone that you not only have to cut in a half share of the loot for, but someone you spent a feat to obtain. You could get the same utility described for that cohort from a number of the hirelings presented in the DMG. If you just need a guy to keep a lookout and tie stuff up, it's going to be even cheaper than hiring someone who would be expected to go into combat. A silver piece a day for a laborer...maybe at most a few gold a day for a guard? 2 silver a day for a merc (level 1 warrior), merc leaders start at 6 per day (level 2 warriors) and can keep going up at a rate of +1 level per +3 silver per day. So a level 4 warrior* would cost 12 silver a day (1 gold, 2 silver). Much less than someone who expects a half a share of the treasure. I think it's fair to expect a cohort to be build with player character levels. Followers not so much. Also of note: the line on page 104 about cohorts being too valuable to be wasted on menial tasks. I think tying stuff up and keeping night watch is pretty menial if that's their only purpose in the party.

*Assuming availability.

And when it comes to circle magic...I'm pretty sure that since it would be granting the same bonus (as in, the same type, same source, etc) and that since that bonus is not...say... a dodge bonus that inherently stacks with itself, that you have to boost to 40 in one go with circle magic. I'm not saying you can't use it multiple times in a day to metamagic your spells up or what have you, just that I don't think you can stack the caster level boost like that, only overlap it.

Followers are still limited to normal npc availability. They don't just pop in out of thin air. So while it's technically possible that some low level wizards might want to follow you around for adventure and glory, I think it's unreasonable to expect that any statistically significant (minimum 5%) number of your followers are going to be wizards. They're usually a very tiny percentage of the population.

Also, if we look at the leadership chart we can see that cohorts cap out at 17. They never make it to 18. I know that means they can potentially hit a single, maybe at best two 9th level spells per day...but by that point the theoretical 19th level wizard has already had 9th level spells for 3 levels (17, 18, and 19). This theoretical wizard also has a rather invested charisma modifier for a wizard (at least 14, if we're generously assuming they have great renown, fairness and generosity, and that spellcasting counts for special power) and no familiar (which is a -2 to leadership scores). I don't know about you, but the way these wizards have been described, I wouldn't consider them to be well known for fairness and generosity (unless you're counting the generosity of mental domination), special power is not guaranteed (spells alone might not be considered that special, at least not to the point of a leadership boost). And generally you have to earn great renown with a lot of heroic acts. And I'm pretty sure rampantly dominating things is not the kind of thing you get respect for. So what I'm saying is that most wizards would need to have at least 22 charisma to get 25 leadership by level 19. That's an insane stat investment for a wizard. I know there's probably this that or the other optimizing trick to do it, but it's still way more charisma than any normal wizard would invest in. And I'm not counting a cape of charisma +6 because it would mean that if you took it off, you would lose followers and your cohort's level advancement potential would likely freeze up.

...

210.

Edit ; Actually, it could be... 212 if your 2 Level 6 wizards take Leadership.

It takes an investment to have the full mob early, and whether or not having the mob early is worth the investment is certainly questionable ; but even the one additional Level 17 Wizard is a terrifying addition to your power compared to almost any other choice.

You can have your army of up to 210 guys, AND your friend Joe. And Joe could have up to 210 guys. And so could everyone at the table who wants to play this way, or chooses Leadership in order not to be the guy without 210 backup dudes.

No, you can't. Cohort's can't take leadership. Neither can followers. Leadership stacking like this doesn't function. In a similar vein, while it may not be a rule as written, it's safe to assume that cohorts cannot be Thrallherds because they are supposed to specifically not be leaders.

Note: You're not buying a tome. You're binding/kindnapping/bribing a pile of Efreet and forcing them to give you the wishes for +5 to all stats. (other stuff I'm not responding to)

....no, I'm not. I expect there to be consequences for this kind of crass mistreatment of extraplanar beings. I also expect there to be problems from the Efreeti themselves in their granting of said wishes, as it is in their capricious nature to twist the meanings of words and I wouldn't put them above actively misinterpreting, mishearing, or just plain being ***** about wishes. Like saying no if your wish is too complicated (which isn't actually unreasonable). That's not even taking into account the potential of having a pile of near epic CR inevitables hunting your character down and countering your shenanigans with wishes because of your wish abuse to get that many inherent bonuses that high. My point being consequences. This plan works in TO, but if you play in a game where your actions have consequences this seems like the kind of plan of action that is going to result in a fate worse than death for the character doing it.

Nifft

2015-09-03, 07:04 AM

All (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority) these (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum) arguments (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_tradition)are as fallacious as ad hominem attacks. He's responding to an ad hominem attack, so that's not inappropriate, isn't it?

Now, that's an argument that I'm fine with.
One of the few issues I have with 3.5, is that designers never described a mechanism separate from feats to add advantages relating to the background of your character. Instead of feats like Mentor, Apprentice, Guildmaster or Leadership, a system similar to WoD's merits would have been welcome, from my point of few (now, there might be one hidden in some 3.5 supplement, never say never). But it'd take away from the hack & slash spirit of D&D 3.X
If I run 3.5e again, what I'm going to do is basically assign Cohorts based on a calculated Leadership score, but not use any Leadership feat.

The other thing to consider is: does the party need a Cohort or two? Some powerful parties might, while other low-powered parties might not. It's campaign dependent, and party composition dependent.

No, you can't. Cohort's can't take leadership. Neither can followers. Leadership stacking like this doesn't function. In a similar vein, while it may not be a rule as written, it's safe to assume that cohorts cannot be Thrallherds because they are supposed to specifically not be leaders.
What you say is true -- but as with many true things, there is a work-around involving an obscure rule.

In this case, the obscure rule is Psicrystal Feats.

Taelas

2015-09-03, 08:14 AM

And I seem to be ignoring that argument, because the answer seems, to me at least, quite straightforward:
Or again:
That reaction is telling in and of itself. You would change the encounters a party faces solely on the basis of a single feat. Pray tell, what other feats cause you to ramp up the difficulty the party faces?

WalkingTheShade

2015-09-03, 08:42 AM

That reaction is telling in and of itself. You would change the encounters a party faces solely on the basis of a single feat. Pray tell, what other feats cause you to ramp up the difficulty the party faces?
I take issue with "ramp up the difficulty". It's not a question of difficulty in absolute, it's a question of difficulty relative to one specific party composition. An encounter that's too easy for a given party, might be a TPK against another one. So I tailor encounters to the party. Sometimes, it's just minor tweaks. Sometimes, the whole encounter is built around the party's abilities (moreover if the enemy has some prior intel).

Putting the "difficulty" issue aside, I take every feat that can have a mechanical effect into account, but also every class feature, power, etc. whenever I think it's needed. I may even do that during play, leaving options to give opponents (or the party) some last minute reinforcement if an important fight becomes one sided too soon. Sometimes, I also cheat on the dice results.
I don't do that for every fight, as throwing twists upon twists at the party gets old fast, but I do it often enough to keep things interesting.

An example: if the Druid has taken Sudden empower and Sudden maximize and likes to use them with Call lightning, you're obviously not going to give lightning immunity to every mook. You might not even give it to a BBEG, since you know, you're not going to punish a player for building his character one way instead of the other. However, if the story needs the BBEG to survive, you either have to rework the story, or give the man some way to survive 1 to 6 rounds of maximized empowered lightning bolts in the mug.

Do you mean you don't tailor encounters to the party? I wouldn't want to play in such a game.

dascarletm

2015-09-03, 09:46 AM

...

210.

Edit ; Actually, it could be... 212 if your 2 Level 6 wizards take Leadership.

It takes an investment to have the full mob early, and whether or not having the mob early is worth the investment is certainly questionable ; but even the one additional Level 17 Wizard is a terrifying addition to your power compared to almost any other choice.

You can have your army of up to 210 guys, AND your friend Joe. And Joe could have up to 210 guys. And so could everyone at the table who wants to play this way, or chooses Leadership in order not to be the guy without 210 backup dudes.

:smallsigh: In the DMG it says followers/cohorts are not leaders.

Secondly at level 20 210 low level guys are a non-threat, even to mid-OP characters. At levels below 6 it is a non-issue, as you can't have the feat. At mid levels you have far less followers. Fighting level appropriate encounters, the amount of followers you have are more-likely-than-not going to contribute almost nothing. In fact they are just a good way to hurt your leadership score.

He's responding to an ad hominem attack, so that's not inappropriate, isn't it?

What was that saying... two wrongs... Ah I forget:smalltongue:

Final Edit:

To the idea of taking feats into consideration, here is a few:

Craft Contingent Spell
DMM: Persist
Quicken Spell

And to a lesser extent all other feats for the same reasons mentioned before me.

Taelas

2015-09-03, 12:52 PM

I take issue with "ramp up the difficulty".
Well that is too bad, because that is exactly what you are doing.

The cohort is a benefit from a feat. Feats are part of a character, and are included when considering their power. If a feat alone makes you change the composition of the foes the party encounters, then you are acknowledging that the feat is powerful.

It's not a question of difficulty in absolute, it's a question of difficulty relative to one specific party composition.
The party composition is essentially unchanged. The cohort is the result of a feat, so it is included in the character's power. It is not actually a separate character.

An encounter that's too easy for a given party, might be a TPK against another one. So I tailor encounters to the party. Sometimes, it's just minor tweaks. Sometimes, the whole encounter is built around the party's abilities (moreover if the enemy has some prior intel).
That is obviously fine, it's how encounters should be designed quite often. But you need to realize that Leadership is so strong that you are already taking it into account separately from the character that has taken it. That is how strong the feat is.

Do you mean you don't tailor encounters to the party? I wouldn't want to play in such a game.
I do, I just don't lie to myself about why I am doing it.

dascarletm

2015-09-03, 02:09 PM

Well that is too bad, because that is exactly what you are doing.

The cohort is a benefit from a feat. Feats are part of a character, and are included when considering their power. If a feat alone makes you change the composition of the foes the party encounters, then you are acknowledging that the feat is powerful.

The party composition is essentially unchanged. The cohort is the result of a feat, so it is included in the character's power. It is not actually a separate character.

That is obviously fine, it's how encounters should be designed quite often. But you need to realize that Leadership is so strong that you are already taking it into account separately from the character that has taken it. That is how strong the feat is.

I do, I just don't lie to myself about why I am doing it.

I think due to the nature of the feat it isn't really fair to count the cohort as solely part of the character with leadership, or solely as its own entity. It is enough of a gray line (at lease in my book) to say, "kinda?"

Misery Esquire

2015-09-03, 02:16 PM

And those would be possible, if players could choose the builds of their followers. Again, by RAW, they cannot.

No, you can't. Cohort's can't take leadership. Neither can followers. Leadership stacking like this doesn't function. In a similar vein, while it may not be a rule as written, it's safe to assume that cohorts cannot be Thrallherds because they are supposed to specifically not be leaders.

:smallsigh: In the DMG it says followers/cohorts are not leaders.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/feats.htm#leadership

The feat has no text stating that you cannot select your cohort and followers. It also has no text stating that a cohort/follower cannot take the feat. It does not say that the cohort or followers will want any reward ; treasure, magic items, or otherwise.

It also states that the cohort and followers come with their own level appropriate gear.

Secondly at level 20 210 low level guys are a non-threat, even to mid-OP characters. At levels below 6 it is a non-issue, as you can't have the feat. At mid levels you have far less followers. Fighting level appropriate encounters, the amount of followers you have are more-likely-than-not going to contribute almost nothing. In fact they are just a good way to hurt your leadership score.

Lets go with a weak plan for those 173 Level 1 Wizards, and ignore the rest of them for now. The weak plan is Magic Missile, Force Damage with no to-hit roll.

1d4+1 has an average of 3.5. 3.5 x 173 = 605.5. This can immediately remove a CR24 Great Wyrm Dragon for you. And they can do this more than once a day.

The mob is less useful against other mid-or-high Optimization Player Characters ; but against appropriate monsters, and likely challenges? They blow it away.

dascarletm

2015-09-03, 02:34 PM

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/feats.htm#leadership

The feat has no text stating that you cannot select your cohort and followers. It also has no text stating that a cohort/follower cannot take the feat. It does not say that the cohort or followers will want any reward ; treasure, magic items, or otherwise.

It also states that the cohort and followers come with their own level appropriate gear.

I said the DMG, not the SRD. One has the text stating cohorts are not leaders, the other does not. Before you say, "The book doesn't explicitly say they cannot take the feat, it only says they cannot be leaders," the book was written for humans, who unlike computers, can understand concepts not put into direct codified cause -> action. If you wish to contend that when the book says (and I paraphrase), "Cohorts are not leaders." Then we have different stances on how RPG rulebooks need to state their rules. I don't need it to be written in legalese.

Secondly, it is more clear in the primary source, the DMG, but seeing as it is the DMs purview to create all NPCs and not the players, I see no indication in the rule changing this. DMs create NPCs, the Cohort is an NPC. For the player to be allowed to build this NPC you would need the feat to specify otherwise. Also, yes I understand the irony of my two paragraphs...:smalltongue:

Lets go with a weak plan for those 173 Level 1 Wizards, and ignore the rest of them for now. The weak plan is Magic Missile, Force Damage with no to-hit roll.

1d4+1 has an average of 3.5. 3.5 x 173 = 605.5. This can immediately remove a CR24 Great Wyrm Dragon for you. And they can do this more than once a day.

The mob is less useful against other mid-or-high Optimization Player Characters ; but against appropriate monsters, and likely challenges? They blow it away.

I guess if DMs regularly don't run their dragons with any sort of contingencies against something like that... perhaps... I don't know... Shield, then sure. That is a great tactic to stop (in my opinion) a poorly planned DM. Of course, I could do the same with a maximized shivering touch. (I didn't do the math, but add twinned or empowered if we need a little more dex damage).

Heck, a lesser globe of invulnerability, stops anything your army of wizards can do. Remember monsters have access to their own treasure, and many of the relevant high level threats have SR, or spells of their own... usually both.

Let's not forget the logistics of towing around 100+ low-levels.
Do you want to go to the plains? Forget about it.
Do you want to ever get the drop on something? Not going to happen.
Fighting in somewhere besides an infinite open field where opponents start 60ft. apart? Nope.

Taelas

2015-09-03, 03:04 PM

I think due to the nature of the feat it isn't really fair to count the cohort as solely part of the character with leadership, or solely as its own entity. It is enough of a gray line (at lease in my book) to say, "kinda?"

That is fine, sure -- but it is just another indication of how powerful the feat really is.

Misery Esquire

2015-09-03, 03:07 PM

I said the DMG, not the SRD. One has the text stating cohorts are not leaders, the other does not. Before you say, "The book doesn't explicitly say they cannot take the feat, it only says they cannot be leaders," the book was written for humans, who unlike computers, can understand concepts not put into direct codified cause -> action. If you wish to contend that when the book says (and I paraphrase), "Cohorts are not leaders." Then we have different stances on how RPG rulebooks need to state their rules. I don't need it to be written in legalese.

Secondly, it is more clear in the primary source, the DMG, but seeing as it is the DMs purview to create all NPCs and not the players, I see no indication in the rule changing this. DMs create NPCs, the Cohort is an NPC. For the player to be allowed to build this NPC you would need the feat to specify otherwise. Also, yes I understand the irony of my two paragraphs...:smalltongue:

Yes, the sane option is that we cannot have a free army for a feat, but D&D3.5 fails the sanity line for balance by a mile. Yes, it can be corrected with common sense, but that does not mean that it is what is written. The discussion is about whether Leadership is fair and balanced, not if it could be corrected to be ; no matter how easily it may be adjusted to something more reasonable.

The player in no way needs to build the cohorts or followers ; they simply look for (for example) wizards with Leadership. From there the wizard cohort/follower follows the player's commands, and you can have them do exactly what you want.

I guess if DMs regularly don't run their dragons with any sort of contingencies against something like that... perhaps... I don't know... Shield, then sure. That is a great tactic to stop (in my opinion) a poorly planned DM. Of course, I could do the same with a maximized shivering touch. (I didn't do the math, but add twinned or empowered if we need a little more dex damage).

Heck, a lesser globe of invulnerability, stops anything your army of wizards can do. Remember monsters have access to their own treasure, and many of the relevant high level threats have SR, or spells of their own... usually both.

Yes, there are spells that accomplish the same thing ; but this is accomplishing it without using a single spell slot, and/or frees you up to kill the third, fourth or fifth dragon. And for your guys to accomplish a hundred different (simpler) tasks at the same time.

Technically, the dragons, and every other CR20+ monster that has casting could prepare themselves every day for combat but ;

A.) This is not covered in the books as a thing they do.
B.) It uses that casting power from them to protect themselves against the mob, but with Globe of Invunerability having a duration of rounds and Shield having minutes, they may need to cast it when combat begins, if they win initiative against you and your mob, giving you a free round. Or if they have a crafted contingency: Shield (or GoI), then... Well, kill it yourself. But every monster having one of those is a tad strange.
C.) Magic Missile, and that they are all wizards, is less an optimized choice and more that I was quickly making a point.

Let's not forget the logistics of towing around 100+ low-levels.
Do you want to go to the plains? Forget about it.
Do you want to ever get the drop on something? Not going to happen.
Fighting in somewhere besides an infinite open field where opponents start 60ft. apart? Nope

Have a magic item of Create Food and Water, or have one of the higher level follower/cohorts be a Cleric instead. Or one of the other sixty ways you can quickly feed a nation.

...Why? To both points 2 & 3. ...And 4 for that matter. Although, 4 has the additional issue of involving the DM again to make terrain unsuitable, since there are fewer cases where your army is ineffective compared to effective.

dascarletm

2015-09-03, 04:35 PM

Yes, the sane option is that we cannot have a free army for a feat, but D&D3.5 fails the sanity line for balance by a mile. Yes, it can be corrected with common sense, but that does not mean that it is what is written. The discussion is about whether Leadership is fair and balanced, not if it could be corrected to be ; no matter how easily it may be adjusted to something more reasonable.
Well, since what I paraphrase is literally written in the book... not quite.

the book was written for humans, who unlike computers, can understand concepts not put into direct codified cause -> action. If you wish to contend that when the book says (and I paraphrase), "Cohorts are not leaders." Then we have different stances on how RPG rulebooks need to state their rules. I don't need it to be written in legalese.
You, according to what I observe, believe rules need to be written in formal legal terms. Everything must be black or white, or else, it can just as well be removed from the book. I do not think any ground will be gained here on either side.

To the fair and balanced.
Fair: All players have equal access. Thus it is fair.
Balanced: Well, that is what we are discussing.

The player in no way needs to build the cohorts or followers ; they simply look for (for example) wizards with Leadership. From there the wizard cohort/follower follows the player's commands, and you can have them do exactly what you want.

You may only attract based on three different criteria per the rules.
[LIST=1]
Race
Class
Alignment
You may not ask for anything else:

The DM determines the details of the cohort

Yes, there are spells that accomplish the same thing ; but this is accomplishing it without using a single spell slot, and/or frees you up to kill the third, fourth or fifth dragon. And for your guys to accomplish a hundred different (simpler) tasks at the same time.
Trivial tasks, yes. (since you haven't proven an army of low levels can accomplish anything meaningful) I don't see how a feat that basically says, "don't worry about doing boring stuff that is beneath your character" is particularly too powerful.

Technically, the dragons, and every other CR20+ monster that has casting could prepare themselves every day for combat but ;

A.) This is not covered in the books as a thing they do.
B.) It uses that casting power from them to protect themselves against the mob, but with Globe of Invunerability having a duration of rounds and Shield having minutes, they may need to cast it when combat begins, if they win initiative against you and your mob, giving you a free round. Or if they have a crafted contingency: Shield (or GoI), then... Well, kill it yourself. But every monster having one of those is a tad strange.
C.) Magic Missile, and that they are all wizards, is less an optimized choice and more that I was quickly making a point.
A.) Oh, this way lies madness. I suppose all monsters that lack the turn-by-turn tactics in their description do actually nothing, and they do nothing in the world except exist in their stated environment? We are effectively playing different games. To attempt to move further on this issue is impossible.
B.) With the availability of various divination spells, I'd be surprised if someone came up with a reliable way to get the jump on an equally optimized dragon.
C.) Are you saying it is less optimized because that is the common conception of the spell in general, or is that your own self derived opinion of how optimal the spell is in this scenario?
Given the scenario: Lots of low level wizards vs. one high level threat, that spell is in fact quite optimal as a first level. It ignores SR, has

Have a magic item of Create Food and Water, or have one of the higher level follower/cohorts be a Cleric instead. Or one of the other sixty ways you can quickly feed a nation.

I wasn't speaking about feeding them, I was speaking about the ability to move them around and use them. Mounts are considered unreliable because dungeons. This is the same problem, but on an even grander scale.

...Why? To both points 2 & 3. ...And 4 for that matter. Although, 4 has the additional issue of involving the DM again to make terrain unsuitable, since there are fewer cases where your army is ineffective compared to effective.

If it is your opinion that the majority of game time is set up in terrain favorable to your tactic, then that is your opinion.

The army is only truly effective in an open, blank field. Most if not all terrain hinders it to varying degrees, and seeing as the game is called Dungeons and Dragons, if you fight in the games name-sake terrain you are quite ineffective.

Sagetim

2015-09-03, 04:59 PM

I said the DMG, not the SRD. One has the text stating cohorts are not leaders, the other does not. Before you say, "The book doesn't explicitly say they cannot take the feat, it only says they cannot be leaders," the book was written for humans, who unlike computers, can understand concepts not put into direct codified cause -> action. If you wish to contend that when the book says (and I paraphrase), "Cohorts are not leaders." Then we have different stances on how RPG rulebooks need to state their rules. I don't need it to be written in legalese.

Secondly, it is more clear in the primary source, the DMG, but seeing as it is the DMs purview to create all NPCs and not the players, I see no indication in the rule changing this. DMs create NPCs, the Cohort is an NPC. For the player to be allowed to build this NPC you would need the feat to specify otherwise. Also, yes I understand the irony of my two paragraphs...:smalltongue:

I guess if DMs regularly don't run their dragons with any sort of contingencies against something like that... perhaps... I don't know... Shield, then sure. That is a great tactic to stop (in my opinion) a poorly planned DM. Of course, I could do the same with a maximized shivering touch. (I didn't do the math, but add twinned or empowered if we need a little more dex damage).

Heck, a lesser globe of invulnerability, stops anything your army of wizards can do. Remember monsters have access to their own treasure, and many of the relevant high level threats have SR, or spells of their own... usually both.

Let's not forget the logistics of towing around 100+ low-levels.
Do you want to go to the plains? Forget about it.
Do you want to ever get the drop on something? Not going to happen.
Fighting in somewhere besides an infinite open field where opponents start 60ft. apart? Nope.

Don't forget having to fit your wizards in such a way that they are all within medium range (magic missile is medium range, right?) of the target. And all high level dragons (even moderate level ones) have SR. A significant portion of those magic missiles are going to fizzle against even 10 SR, let alone the 15+ that dragons regularly have just for being dragons. And while your wizards are despairing that their magic missile swarm didn't kill the dragon, it has ample time to wing over and murder them with a breath strafe and scatter them with frightful presence. Armies don't do very well at killing dragons in dnd.

Also, if you want the full rules for cohorts and followers, I suggest reading the entire nonplayer characters chapter of the dmg. It starts on page 103 of the 3.5 dungeon master's guide and the rules for cohorts and followers start on page 104.

Additional information in the dmg (and I'm pretty sure in that chapter) includes the statistical distribution of npcs, their levels, and their classes (including tables so you can roll such things up randomly if you want). The typical dnd setting has a very small number of characters with player class levels, let alone wizards and ****. I don't think it's safe to assume that you could find 100+ level 1 wizards willing to follow you around just because you have the leadership feat. It doesn't entitle you to wizards. It entitles you to npcs showing up who want to be your groupies/roadies. There's a very...very small percentage of wizards in the typical dnd setting. If you got even one wizard follower in your entire sum of 136 level 1 followers...it would be rather lucky of you.

The supplemental material is rather necessary to have read if you're going to talk about what someone can do with the leadership feat, because it sets the tone and ground rules for a generic dnd setting. Obviously your mileage is going to vary by DM, and that's why talking about what you can do with the leadership feat should be grounded in an understanding of how the basic rules work with regards to settings, availability of characters, and so on. I know it's more fun to assume that you can buy a magic item from the rulebook because you have the money to do so...but that's not how the rules are actually written. By a similar token, I know it's more fun to assume that you can recruit an army of piddling wizards to do your bidding...but that doesn't mesh with the basic rules on how many piddling wizards there are in the world (for example).

Edit:

Also, when it comes to using a psi crystal to try and pick up more leadership or what have you? I'm skeptical of the possibility of actually doing it. If you're going to claim that psi crystals are a loophole around the leadership stacking not being possible, I would like to see you explain how it's supposed to work.

Misery Esquire

2015-09-03, 08:00 PM

Well, since what I paraphrase is literally written in the book... not quite.

You, according to what I observe, believe rules need to be written in formal legal terms. Everything must be black or white, or else, it can just as well be removed from the book. I do not think any ground will be gained here on either side.

No, personally I would never play the books by the book, because that leads to insanity, but when discussing a piece of the rules with everyone, the base assumption must be what is written down in the book itself. Thus, if the book fails to state something to the negative, it is thus open to being positive.

The DMG has no additional lines that actually stops your minions from having Leadership. It says, to quote ; "Cohorts are people who take on a subservient role. Cohorts are not leaders, they voice an opinion now and again, but for the most part, they do as they are told."

To the fair and balanced.
Fair: All players have equal access. Thus it is fair.
Balanced: Well, that is what we are discussing.

Hm. I'd consider fair more that if one player takes something, everyone else doesn't have to take it, but fair enough.

You may only attract based on three different criteria per the rules.
[LIST=1]
Race
Class
Alignment
You may not ask for anything else:

Yes, you may not ask for anything else, but it does not prevent you from vetting your way through "applicants".

Trivial tasks, yes. (since you haven't proven an army of low levels can accomplish anything meaningful) I don't see how a feat that basically says, "don't worry about doing boring stuff that is beneath your character" is particularly too powerful.

I mean, aside from the low level mob, you're getting a level 17, 12, 8 and 2 6s, which all have options that can take part in more important activities. And if you're forcing high CR creatures to change their habits to prevent the mass-of-1s gank, then their mission is accomplished.

A.) Oh, this way lies madness. I suppose all monsters that lack the turn-by-turn tactics in their description do actually nothing, and they do nothing in the world except exist in their stated environment? We are effectively playing different games. To attempt to move further on this issue is impossible.
B.) With the availability of various divination spells, I'd be surprised if someone came up with a reliable way to get the jump on an equally optimized dragon.
C.) Are you saying it is less optimized because that is the common conception of the spell in general, or is that your own self derived opinion of how optimal the spell is in this scenario?
Given the scenario: Lots of low level wizards vs. one high level threat, that spell is in fact quite optimal as a first level. It ignores SR, has

A.) Yes. But its where we have to start, a Pit Fiend isn't going to wake up each morning, cast a divination to find out if he's going to need to be proof against a level 1 spell today, and craft a contingency: Shield. He has other action to take, and other worries than the level 1s. Like what level 20 wizard is coming after him, or what those other traitorous Pit Fiends are up to.

B.) That's fair. But then the same can apply to any action the level 20 wizard takes by himself, so why not have the 17, and mass of other guys back him up, in order to force the dragon to try and adjust to EVERY move available to you, and all your friends.

C.) I meant that the choice of Wizard in general is probably not the best for the level 1 wave'o'guyz, and could probably be optimized, magic missile-ing things to death is the simplest plan that occurred to me to do with that pack of guys ; I'm not really an excellent Level 1 Wizard player.

I wasn't speaking about feeding them, I was speaking about the ability to move them around and use them. Mounts are considered unreliable because dungeons. This is the same problem, but on an even grander scale.

Teleportation Circle, Plane Shift to a non-fatal plane, and back, etc.

Edit : Actually, Plane shift is a bad answer after a moment's consideration. Whoops.

If it is your opinion that the majority of game time is set up in terrain favorable to your tactic, then that is your opinion.

The army is only truly effective in an open, blank field. Most if not all terrain hinders it to varying degrees, and seeing as the game is called Dungeons and Dragons, if you fight in the games name-sake terrain you are quite ineffective.

They function equally well in a city, woods, plain, grassland, hills, highland, mountainous, at sea, and in a small selection of dungeon designs. Admittedly the greater selection of dungeon and caves are an issue for the army of guys.

...

...

Heck, I didn't even mean the mob of 1's to be a major point here, its a (happy) side effect compared to the high level sidekick character gained. :smallredface:

Don't forget having to fit your wizards in such a way that they are all within medium range (magic missile is medium range, right?) of the target. And all high level dragons (even moderate level ones) have SR. A significant portion of those magic missiles are going to fizzle against even 10 SR, let alone the 15+ that dragons regularly have just for being dragons. And while your wizards are despairing that their magic missile swarm didn't kill the dragon, it has ample time to wing over and murder them with a breath strafe and scatter them with frightful presence. Armies don't do very well at killing dragons in dnd.

Yes, Medium, which is 100 + 10 feet, meaning they have to stand in three(ish?) rows starting at 90' to fit them all at near max range. This would admittedly make the area ~250' wide, but that's not too bad.

If the mass of trash wizards fails to kill something, remove it yourself. They simply create a binary switch to kill any monster unprepared or unresistant to them.

Also, if you want the full rules for cohorts and followers, I suggest reading the entire nonplayer characters chapter of the dmg. It starts on page 103 of the 3.5 dungeon master's guide and the rules for cohorts and followers start on page 104.

Additional information in the dmg (and I'm pretty sure in that chapter) includes the statistical distribution of npcs, their levels, and their classes (including tables so you can roll such things up randomly if you want). The typical dnd setting has a very small number of characters with player class levels, let alone wizards and ****. I don't think it's safe to assume that you could find 100+ level 1 wizards willing to follow you around just because you have the leadership feat. It doesn't entitle you to wizards. It entitles you to npcs showing up who want to be your groupies/roadies. There's a very...very small percentage of wizards in the typical dnd setting. If you got even one wizard follower in your entire sum of 136 level 1 followers...it would be rather lucky of you.

The supplemental material is rather necessary to have read if you're going to talk about what someone can do with the leadership feat, because it sets the tone and ground rules for a generic dnd setting. Obviously your mileage is going to vary by DM, and that's why talking about what you can do with the leadership feat should be grounded in an understanding of how the basic rules work with regards to settings, availability of characters, and so on. I know it's more fun to assume that you can buy a magic item from the rulebook because you have the money to do so...but that's not how the rules are actually written. By a similar token, I know it's more fun to assume that you can recruit an army of piddling wizards to do your bidding...but that doesn't mesh with the basic rules on how many piddling wizards there are in the world (for example).

I have read it, thank you. Assumptions about people is rather impolite.

Setting, DM intervention and, honestly, sane assumptions are irrelevant to discussing RAW ; what is written is what is, and what is, is what is written. Vetting your followers to only be Wizards, to only be Thrallherds, or Githyanki Rune-scarred Berserkers with Diehard and two adamantium whips is allowed*. Not reasonable, but allowed.

*They still have to qualify for Rune-scarred, or be able to afford the whips. Vetting for Level 1 RS Berserkers is going to yield no results, can't find what doesn't exist.

Edit:

Also, when it comes to using a psi crystal to try and pick up more leadership or what have you? I'm skeptical of the possibility of actually doing it. If you're going to claim that psi crystals are a loophole around the leadership stacking not being possible, I would like to see you explain how it's supposed to work.

...Psi Crystal? What Psi crystal? :smallconfused:

Sagetim

2015-09-03, 08:28 PM

No, personally I would never play the books by the book, because that leads to insanity, but when discussing a piece of the rules with everyone, the base assumption must be what is written down in the book itself. Thus, if the book fails to state something to the negative, it is thus open to being positive.

The DMG has no additional lines that actually stops your minions from having Leadership. It says, to quote ; "Cohorts are people who take on a subservient role. Cohorts are not leaders, they voice an opinion now and again, but for the most part, they do as they are told."

Hm. I'd consider fair more that if one player takes something, everyone else doesn't have to take it, but fair enough.

Yes, you may not ask for anything else, but it does not prevent you from vetting your way through "applicants".

I mean, aside from the low level mob, you're getting a level 17, 12, 8 and 2 6s, which all have options that can take part in more important activities. And if you're forcing high CR creatures to change their habits to prevent the mass-of-1s gank, then their mission is accomplished.

A.) Yes. But its where we have to start, a Pit Fiend isn't going to wake up each morning, cast a divination to find out if he's going to need to be proof against a level 1 spell today, and craft a contingency: Shield. He has other action to take, and other worries than the level 1s. Like what level 20 wizard is coming after him, or what those other traitorous Pit Fiends are up to.

B.) That's fair. But then the same can apply to any action the level 20 wizard takes by himself, so why not have the 17, and mass of other guys back him up, in order to force the dragon to try and adjust to EVERY move available to you, and all your friends.

C.) I meant that the choice of Wizard in general is probably not the best for the level 1 wave'o'guyz, and could probably be optimized, magic missile-ing things to death is the simplest plan that occurred to me to do with that pack of guys ; I'm not really an excellent Level 1 Wizard player.

Teleportation Circle, Plane Shift to a non-fatal plane, and back, etc.

Edit : Actually, Plane shift is a bad answer after a moment's consideration. Whoops.

They function equally well in a city, woods, plain, grassland, hills, highland, mountainous, at sea, and in a small selection of dungeon designs. Admittedly the greater selection of dungeon and caves are an issue for the army of guys.

...

...

Heck, I didn't even mean the mob of 1's to be a major point here, its a (happy) side effect compared to the high level sidekick character gained. :smallredface:

Yes, Medium, which is 100 + 10 feet, meaning they have to stand in three(ish?) rows starting at 90' to fit them all at near max range. This would admittedly make the area ~250' wide, but that's not too bad.

If the mass of trash wizards fails to kill something, remove it yourself. They simply create a binary switch to kill any monster unprepared or unresistant to them.

I have read it, thank you. Assumptions about people is rather impolite.

Setting, DM intervention and, honestly, sane assumptions are irrelevant to discussing RAW ; what is written is what is, and what is, is what is written. Vetting your followers to only be Wizards, to only be Thrallherds, or Githyanki Rune-scarred Berserkers with Diehard and two adamantium whips is allowed*. Not reasonable, but allowed.

*They still have to qualify for Rune-scarred, or be able to afford the whips. Vetting for Level 1 RS Berserkers is going to yield no results, can't find what doesn't exist.

...Psi Crystal? What Psi crystal? :smallconfused:

To start with, I didn't mean to offend in assuming that you had only read the SRD entry for leadership. Your previous posts lead me to that conclusion, since they did not seem to take the complete rules for leadership into consideration and your quote was to the SRD.

Where does it say that you can screen applicants for followers? I'm willing to assume that you can see who shows up for cohorts, but there's a built in limit to how many npcs of any given class and level exist within the world (let alone the region you are in), Rules as Written, in the DMG. The pool of potential applicants is further lowered by the fact that not all npcs are looking to be cohorts.

And someone else was mentioning psycrystals (psi crystals? whatever) as a work around for leadership stacking. So the comment about those was aimed at them. I think it was Nifft maybe?

Even if you Can screen followers, you can't screen them for gear. They don't come with any gear in particular.

Followers are similar to cohorts, except they’re generally low-level
NPCs. Because they’re generally five or more levels behind the
character they follow, they’re rarely effective in combat. But a
clever player can use them as scouts, spies, messengers, errandrunners,
or guards.
Followers don’t earn experience and thus don’t gain levels.
However, when a character with the Leadership feat (see page
106) attains a new level, the player consults the table in the feat
description to determine if she has acquired more followers, some
of which may be higher level than the existing followers. (You
don’t consult the table to see if your cohort gains levels, however,
because cohorts earn experience on their own.)
Followers don’t demand a share of treasure, although they
depend on the PC they follow to equip them and keep them fed.

I've bolded the last paragraph for emphasis. If you want to equip followers with adamantine whips (which...I don't think you can make anyway, because whips are not primarily made of metal and thus not normally viable to be constructed out of adamantine) you'll have to buy/build said whips yourself and give them over to said follower.

The rules as they are written do not grant the player any means of controlling who shows up as a follower. Rules as Written, a level 6 paladin could attract chaotic evil orcs as followers. That paladin could determine the alignment, class, and race of his cohort. But that's it. The followers show up and start following the paladin.

Misery Esquire

2015-09-03, 09:10 PM

To start with, I didn't mean to offend in assuming that you had only read the SRD entry for leadership. Your previous posts lead me to that conclusion, since they did not seem to take the complete rules for leadership into consideration and your quote was to the SRD.

Fair enough. I used the SRD quote because its a resource that is easily shared and shown.

Where does it say that you can screen applicants for followers? I'm willing to assume that you can see who shows up for cohorts, but there's a built in limit to how many npcs of any given class and level exist within the world (let alone the region you are in), Rules as Written, in the DMG. The pool of potential applicants is further lowered by the fact that not all npcs are looking to be cohorts.

You can fire or refuse to take them, thus opening the spot for another cohort/follower. Firing them has no detriment on your Leadership Score, and thus can be done until you get the result you want. This can be done during character creation, and take no in game time ; although, using it during a game to try and find your specific wishes can easily eat time, as it takes 1d4 months to "replace" them.

The rules place no maximum on population, the geography of the world, the number of cities, or its access to the multiverse of NPCs/worlds, and while they do provide the percentage of PC classes in the population it places no maximum limit of them available overall, and without DM adjudication they can all be your own. And, once again, while the rules as written can be fixed, it does not stop them from not being sensible as they are written.

...On a strange side note while re-reading the DMG I noticed that it states there is no limit on the number of Cohorts you can have. I had thought it would only be one, since the Leadership feat only discusses the cohort's level, but. :smallconfused:

I've bolded the last paragraph for emphasis. If you want to equip followers with adamantine whips (which...I don't think you can make anyway, because whips are not primarily made of metal and thus not normally viable to be constructed out of adamantine) you'll have to buy/build said whips yourself and give them over to said follower.

I had meant to write cohort, as they come with their own gear. The adamantine was mostly an addition to the joke as to how strange you could possibly vet your guys.

Sagetim

2015-09-03, 10:12 PM

Fair enough. I used the SRD quote because its a resource that is easily shared and shown.

You can fire or refuse to take them, thus opening the spot for another cohort/follower. Firing them has no detriment on your Leadership Score, and thus can be done until you get the result you want. This can be done during character creation, and take no in game time ; although, using it during a game to try and find your specific wishes can easily eat time, as it takes 1d4 months to "replace" them.

The rules place no maximum on population, the geography of the world, the number of cities, or its access to the multiverse of NPCs/worlds, and while they do provide the percentage of PC classes in the population it places no maximum limit of them available overall, and without DM adjudication they can all be your own. And, once again, while the rules as written can be fixed, it does not stop them from not being sensible as they are written.

...On a strange side note while re-reading the DMG I noticed that it states there is no limit on the number of Cohorts you can have. I had thought it would only be one, since the Leadership feat only discusses the cohort's level, but. :smallconfused:

I had meant to write cohort, as they come with their own gear. The adamantine was mostly an addition to the joke as to how strange you could possibly vet your guys.

Yeah, the no limit on cohorts thing was actually a thread unto itself like, a week or two ago. As far as I'm concerned, it means you can hunt down (through gather info and the like) cohorts and hire as many as you like...assuming you can talk them into working for you and what not. But the Leadership feat gives you a guaranteed 'I can has one that fits my requirements' instead of having to rely on the 'placed an ad in the paper for workers' method. I think given the way the rules are written, the correct interpretation is supposed to be that you don't have a hard limit on how many times you can replace a cohort.

I still don't see any place in the RAW that states you can fire your followers or reject them. It mentions you can replace them if they die, but doesn't state that you can get them to leave by telling them you don't want them. This would be another example of 'RAW doesn't always make sense'. To use your own argument- RAW doesn't always make sense, there has been no specific allowance of the harmless firing of followers therefore you cannot fire them or otherwise peacefully get them to stop following you.

As for refusing cohorts based on how they are equipped? RAW, I suppose you could keep cherry picking, or driving cohorts off until you get one that has the right hat and the right whip to go with it, but I'm pretty sure that would be grounds for the mistreatment or one of the other negative modifiers to leadership scores.

Misery Esquire

2015-09-04, 12:07 AM

Yeah, the no limit on cohorts thing was actually a thread unto itself like, a week or two ago. As far as I'm concerned, it means you can hunt down (through gather info and the like) cohorts and hire as many as you like...assuming you can talk them into working for you and what not. But the Leadership feat gives you a guaranteed 'I can has one that fits my requirements' instead of having to rely on the 'placed an ad in the paper for workers' method. I think given the way the rules are written, the correct interpretation is supposed to be that you don't have a hard limit on how many times you can replace a cohort.

Wacky.

I still don't see any place in the RAW that states you can fire your followers or reject them. It mentions you can replace them if they die, but doesn't state that you can get them to leave by telling them you don't want them. This would be another example of 'RAW doesn't always make sense'. To use your own argument- RAW doesn't always make sense, there has been no specific allowance of the harmless firing of followers therefore you cannot fire them or otherwise peacefully get them to stop following you.

I had a few amusing thoughts on how to "lose" them, as not to qualify for having killed them, but then I noticed an important line in the Cohort text ; "They are hired by or seek out a PC or PCs, and work out a deal agreeable to both parties so that the NPC works for the character(s).", and in Followers ; "Followers are similar to cohorts , except they're generally low-level NPCs." Followers contains no alternate text on how they join you, so I think its safe to go with the cohort text.

So, you decline any agreement until they leave you alone. This, makes the PC sound like a company holding job interviews, but that's kind of appropriate all things considered.

SEEKING :
ANY RACE
WIZARD
ANY NON-EVIL ALIGNMENT PREFERRED

APPLICANTS WHO DO NOT MEET THESE CRITERIA WILL BE DECLINED OR DISMISSED WITHOUT FURTHER NOTICE

As for refusing cohorts based on how they are equipped? RAW, I suppose you could keep cherry picking, or driving cohorts off until you get one that has the right hat and the right whip to go with it, but I'm pretty sure that would be grounds for the mistreatment or one of the other negative modifiers to leadership scores.

True, but if selecting one of the preparation spellcasters, their gear is mostly irrelevant since you can just provide your matching prepared spells, or get them cheap... Martials get the short end of the stick again?

I will never find my lovely half-elven half-blue-red-green-white-black-gold-bronze-silver-copper-brass dragon with a riverine greatspoon, a musketeer's hat, a beige-and-purple sundress and Extended Breath. Never.

WalkingTheShade

2015-09-04, 05:16 AM

Well that is too bad, because that is exactly what you are doing.
The issue here I think is the definition of difficulty. By difficulty, in an RPG contest, I usually mean something close to "lethality". The reason for that is I consider that whether or not the party wins an encounter, the story goes on. And loosing is sometimes more interesting than winning story-wise.
From my point of view, the only real risk in an encounter is character death (at lower levels at least) or TPK (at higher ones). That's why the only difficulty I tend to take into account is the lethality of the encounter.
Now, unless the DM wants to assassinate the cohort, there's no reason to make an encounter more lethal just because someone took leadership. The DM needs only give a little bit more options to the antagonists. That's what I meant by not changing the difficulty.

The cohort is a benefit from a feat. Feats are part of a character, and are included when considering their power. If a feat alone makes you change the composition of the foes the party encounters, then you are acknowledging that the feat is powerful.
Yes, I acknowledge that. I however don't acknowledge that it's THAT powerful, and far from being as broken as a lot of people on this board seem to think. To me, the impact on encounters is not bigger than the example given above with sudden metamagic feats (that the majority here seems to think are generally underwhelming).

The party composition is essentially unchanged. The cohort is the result of a feat, so it is included in the character's power. It is not actually a separate character.
Again, definition issue. By party composition, I don't only mean the number of PC and their class or role. I also mean specific details of builds, feats, etc. So Leadership is as much part of my definition of composition as say Power attack or a character's template.

That is obviously fine, it's how encounters should be designed quite often. But you need to realize that Leadership is so strong that you are already taking it into account separately from the character that has taken it. That is how strong the feat is.
I don't understand what you mean by "taking it into account separately from the character that has taken it".

I do, I just don't lie to myself about why I am doing it.
I don't think I do either. I think there's a difference about definitions here. Wait, no I lied!

Yes, the sane option is that we cannot have a free army for a feat, but D&D3.5 fails the sanity line for balance by a mile.
It seems to be a common pitfall on these boards, but people seem to only discuss the effects of feats at level 20, whereas most games don't seem to take place at that level.
Currently, in my campaign, at ECL 8, a player plans to take the feat at level 9 (ECL 10) for his Knight/Marshal. It fits the character like a glow, as he's already been going around recruiting every NPC possible (and some even planned as antagonists) to the party's cause.
At this ECL, really, the feat is nothing that might break the game. It won't probably change much. It's just a quantitative boost on whatever the PC was already doing, not a qualitative change of paradigm.

Now, at ECL 20, I don't see the problem with having a (mostly) free army. The wizard can bend the fabric of reality to his whims many times a day. Characters are nearly gods. It just looks normal that if one is a natural leader, hordes of villains, mercenaries or would-be heroes would flock to his cause.

The player in no way needs to build the cohorts or followers ; they simply look for (for example) wizards with Leadership. From there the wizard cohort/follower follows the player's commands, and you can have them do exactly what you want.
I don't agree with that last part, as I stated many times already...

Where does it say that you can screen applicants for followers? I'm willing to assume that you can see who shows up for cohorts, but there's a built in limit to how many npcs of any given class and level exist within the world (let alone the region you are in), Rules as Written, in the DMG. The pool of potential applicants is further lowered by the fact that not all npcs are looking to be cohorts.
As already noted above, I agree with this point.

The rules as they are written do not grant the player any means of controlling who shows up as a follower. Rules as Written, a level 6 paladin could attract chaotic evil orcs as followers. That paladin could determine the alignment, class, and race of his cohort. But that's it. The followers show up and start following the paladin.
Heh... that gives me bad bad ideas to troll my player... It makes a lot of sense, actually.

So, you decline any agreement until they leave you alone. This, makes the PC sound like a company holding job interviews, but that's kind of appropriate all things considered.
Yup, I already used the work market as an analogy.

I will never find my lovely half-elven half-blue-red-green-white-black-gold-bronze-silver-copper-brass dragon with a riverine greatspoon, a musketeer's hat, a beige-and-purple sundress and Extended Breath. Never.
The way you put this creeps me out. But don't despair, there's someone for everyone, you just have to keep looking. Maybe, you know, you'll find someone who's not so perfect, but you'll realize they're actually far better than what you hoped for.

Taelas

2015-09-04, 11:34 AM

The issue here I think is the definition of difficulty. By difficulty, in an RPG contest, I usually mean something close to "lethality". The reason for that is I consider that whether or not the party wins an encounter, the story goes on. And loosing is sometimes more interesting than winning story-wise.
From my point of view, the only real risk in an encounter is character death (at lower levels at least) or TPK (at higher ones). That's why the only difficulty I tend to take into account is the lethality of the encounter.
Now, unless the DM wants to assassinate the cohort, there's no reason to make an encounter more lethal just because someone took leadership. The DM needs only give a little bit more options to the antagonists. That's what I meant by not changing the difficulty.
I said Leadership gives you an additional action every turn at the very worst, and you responded with a quote about how it was balanced because you would count it as an increase to the party. How else do you handle additional party members? :smallconfused:

Yes, I acknowledge that. I however don't acknowledge that it's THAT powerful, and far from being as broken as a lot of people on this board seem to think. To me, the impact on encounters is not bigger than the example given above with sudden metamagic feats (that the majority here seems to think are generally underwhelming).
Again: A cohort means additional actions at worst. That is not comparable to Sudden Metamagic.

Again, definition issue. By party composition, I don't only mean the number of PC and their class or role. I also mean specific details of builds, feats, etc. So Leadership is as much part of my definition of composition as say Power attack or a character's template.
So what you were saying is, what, "it's balanced because I take it into account"? That is not what balance means.

I don't understand what you mean by "taking it into account separately from the character that has taken it".
By considering it an increase to the party -- as you said you would do by quoting dascarletm earlier -- you are counting it separately from the character that has taken it. (dascarletm made the direct comparison to adding a friend to the party.)

I don't think I do either. I think there's a difference about definitions here. Wait, no I lied!
Frankly, you don't seem too sure what exactly your stance is. First you want to count a cohort as an additional member of the party, then it suddenly isn't more of an increase than Sudden Metamagic.

Misery Esquire

2015-09-04, 01:02 PM

I don't agree with that last part, as I stated many times already...

It is how the rules are written ; not necessarily how they should have been written, but how they were.

The way you put this creeps me out. But don't despair, there's someone for everyone, you just have to keep looking. Maybe, you know, you'll find someone who's not so perfect, but you'll realize they're actually far better than what you hoped for.

It was part of my continuing joke on how strange you can vet your cohorts. :smallconfused:

dascarletm

2015-09-04, 02:44 PM

I'm going to drop most every bit of the argument, because mostly I don't see it being productive or going anywhere.

However let's discuss

No, personally I would never play the books by the book, because that leads to insanity, but when discussing a piece of the rules with everyone, the base assumption must be what is written down in the book itself. Thus, if the book fails to state something to the negative, it is thus open to being positive.

The DMG has no additional lines that actually stops your minions from having Leadership. It says, to quote ; "Cohorts are people who take on a subservient role. Cohorts are not leaders, they voice an opinion now and again, but for the most part, they do as they are told."

Well, since what I paraphrase is literally written in the book... not quite.

You, according to what I observe, believe rules need to be written in formal legal terms. Everything must be black or white, or else, it can just as well be removed from the book. I do not think any ground will be gained here on either side.

I know that this forum likes to hold RPG rule-books to a standard usually held to legal documentation or computer programming code. However, I postulate that the rules within the book need not be in this format. Rules are written for a particular system. For the same reason you cannot use HCTL formatting for C++ programming (excuse my ignorance if that doesn't make any sense I'm not a programmer) likewise rules written for role-playing in a fantasy world will and should be written differently than rules dictating how a federal government should work.

Therefore, when they say that cohorts are not leaders, it is a rule. It is a rule saying they are not leaders, and to take leadership contradicts that. This is not an interpretation, this is reading comprehension. This is no more an interpretation than any form of reading is. To take leadership means one is a leader. Cohorts are not leaders. Therefore cohorts cannot take leadership. There is no other way to parse that.

This may be too far off-topic, if that is the case I will start a new thread... Otherwise, thoughts?

skellig

2015-09-04, 03:17 PM

Also keep in mind the party is investing xp in said cohorts as well. So there is that over summoned creatures do not take up xp because they are temporary.

Taelas

2015-09-04, 04:39 PM

Therefore, when they say that cohorts are not leaders, it is a rule. It is a rule saying they are not leaders, and to take leadership contradicts that. This is not an interpretation, this is reading comprehension.
No. "Being a leader" is not required for taking the Leadership feat (and it does not actually have a meaningful mechanical impact whatsoever to be one, as leaders are not defined within the game).

You can in fact be in charge of something without being a leader. It's what middle management is all about.

To take leadership means one is a leader. Cohorts are not leaders. Therefore cohorts cannot take leadership. There is no other way to parse that.
Even if you accept the assertion that Leadership makes you a leader (which is not at all certain in the first place), it states that cohorts aren't leaders, it does not say that they cannot become one.

Nifft

2015-09-04, 05:45 PM

Even if you accept the assertion that Leadership makes you a leader (which is not at all certain in the first place), it states that cohorts aren't leaders, it does not say that they cannot become one.

There's nothing stopping a Cohort from deciding to leave and go start his or her own party, so yeah, there's nothing stopping a Cohort from becoming a leader.

They just can't be both at the same time.

Taelas

2015-09-04, 06:13 PM

There's nothing stopping a Cohort from deciding to leave and go start his or her own party, so yeah, there's nothing stopping a Cohort from becoming a leader.

They just can't be both at the same time.

There is literally nothing preventing them from being both at the same time.

OldTrees1

2015-09-04, 06:17 PM

There is literally nothing preventing them from being both at the same time.

You might have noticed that some literate intelligent people disagree with this claim or yours. Merely contradicting them will not convince the people that disagree with you.

Taelas

2015-09-04, 06:29 PM

You might have noticed that some literate intelligent people disagree with this claim or yours. Merely contradicting them will not convince the people that disagree with you.

I was merely responding in kind.

Nifft

2015-09-04, 07:12 PM

There is literally nothing preventing them from being both at the same time.

You are wrong about basically everything.

The SRD cuts out a lot of the relevant text, but it's pretty blatant in the DMG.

Here's some content -- hopefully short enough that it falls under legal use -- which directly contradicts your misinformation:
http://i.imgur.com/nXECykT.png

Hope that helps.

Misery Esquire

2015-09-04, 07:24 PM

Nifft

2015-09-04, 07:39 PM

There is nothing in that text, which has been already referenced and argued about, that precludes the cohort or follower taking Leadership. Just as I had said originally, and which Taelas also said.

The character who takes Leadership is referred to in the DMG as "the leader".

(Not in the SRD, though.)

The section in which the Leadership feat appears is "PCs as Leaders".

The section I quoted says that Cohorts are not leaders.

It's very clear, and most people can see it.

Amphetryon

2015-09-04, 07:54 PM

Palanan

2015-09-04, 07:55 PM

Originally Posted by Kinslayer
There is nothing in that text…that precludes the cohort or follower taking Leadership.

"Cohorts are not leaders" seems pretty clear to me.

Originally Posted by Taelas
There is literally nothing preventing them from being both at the same time.

Other than a face-value reading of p. 104.

"Sidekick" and "subservient" are other terms used to describe cohorts. Subservient sidekicks don't inspire others to follow them.

Originally Posted by Amphetryon
Middle management is a thing.

That's your second-level follower acting as staff sergeant for your fifteen first-level followers.

.

Misery Esquire

2015-09-04, 08:14 PM

The character who takes Leadership is referred to in the DMG as "the leader".

(Not in the SRD, though.)

The section in which the Leadership feat appears is "PCs as Leaders".

The section I quoted says that Cohorts are not leaders.

It's very clear, and most people can see it.

The problem I'm having here is that this discussion is mostly myself going over what we're reading, and the people against continuing to imply lack of intelligence, lack of reading, wilful reading of the incorrect material, and lack of understanding on my part.

This seems like less a conversation, and more a hope that continued besmirching of the other side will be a convincing argument. :smallconfused:

"Cohorts are not leaders" seems pretty clear to me.

It continues that line to indicate that they sometimes voice opinions, but do as they are told. This has nothing to do with their qualifications for taking Leadership and having their own followers. Followers can often leaders, with examples both in D&D, and in life ; from kings and their vassals, to Generals and their lower ranking officers.

"Sidekick" and "subservient" are other terms used to describe cohorts. Subservient sidekicks don't inspire others to follow them.

Robin's going to be rather sad with this news. :smalltongue:

Taelas

2015-09-04, 08:21 PM

You are wrong about basically everything.

The SRD cuts out a lot of the relevant text, but it's pretty blatant in the DMG.

Here's some content -- hopefully short enough that it falls under legal use -- which directly contradicts your misinformation:
http://i.imgur.com/nXECykT.png

Hope that helps.

There is no need for that patronizing attitude.

I already refuted this earlier. Here it is again:

Even if you accept the assertion that Leadership makes you a leader (which is not at all certain in the first place), it states that cohorts aren't leaders, it does not say that they cannot become one.

The character who takes Leadership is referred to in the DMG as "the leader".

(Not in the SRD, though.)

The section in which the Leadership feat appears is "PCs as Leaders".

The section I quoted says that Cohorts are not leaders.

It's very clear, and most people can see it.

It never states, "Cohorts CANNOT be leaders." It states they AREN'T leaders. The only thing that sentence precludes would be a cohort having Leadership when you get the cohort. It does not stop them from taking it later -- being a leader is NOT a prerequisite for the feat.

"Cohorts are not leaders" seems pretty clear to me.

Other than a face-value reading of p. 104.

"Sidekick" and "subservient" are other terms used to describe cohorts. Subservient sidekicks don't inspire others to follow them.
Character development is a thing. Just because a cohort is that when you meet them does not mean they have to stay that way. In fact, I would argue good leaders would promote leadership qualities in his closest followers.

It also feels entirely natural to me that a character with Leadership might delegate control of (a portion of) his followers to his cohort.

Nifft

2015-09-04, 08:55 PM

The problem I'm having here is that this discussion is mostly myself going over what we're reading The person quoting most of the source material on this page of the thread is me.

Sorry if you're having difficulties with the earlier pages of the discussion, but I assure you, you're not alone in "going over what we're reading".

Followers can often leaders, with examples both in D&D, and in life ; from kings and their vassals, to Generals and their lower ranking officers. Being an important part of my organization doesn't make you a leader of your own organization. It makes you an important part of my organization, which is structured around my Leadership.

It never states, "Cohorts CANNOT be leaders." It states they AREN'T leaders. The only thing that sentence precludes would be a cohort having Leadership when you get the cohort. It does not stop them from taking it later -- being a leader is NOT a prerequisite for the feat. It is in the DMG. (Not the SRD.)

The whole section, "PCs as Leaders", is in fact about PCs being Leaders.

The character who takes the Leadership feat is referred to as "the leader" in the text.

That's the context under which the Leadership feat appears.

Character development is a thing. Just because a cohort is that when you meet them does not mean they have to stay that way.

You can develop the character to become a leader. But not while being a Cohort, because cohorts are not leaders.

Here:

while( x.cohort == true ) {
x.leader = false;
}

Taelas

2015-09-04, 09:18 PM

It is in the DMG. (Not the SRD.)
There is no prerequisite in the DMG either. What is your point, exactly?

The whole section, "PCs as Leaders", is in fact about PCs being Leaders.

The character who takes the Leadership feat is referred to as "the leader" in the text.

That's the context under which the Leadership feat appears.
Utterly irrelevant.

LEADERSHIP [GENERAL]
A character with this feat is the sort of individual others want to follow, and he or she has done some work attempting to recruit cohorts and followers.
Prerequisite: A character must be at least 6th level to take this feat.
Benefits: Having this feat enables the character to attract loyal companions and devoted followers, subordinates who assist her. See the table below for what sort of cohort and how many followers the character can recruit.

Leadership [General]
Prerequisite
Character level 6th.

Benefits
Having this feat enables the character to attract loyal companions and devoted followers, subordinates who assist her. See the table below for what sort of cohort and how many followers the character can recruit.

There are the beginning of the entries for Leadership, in the DMG and the SRD -- as you can see, there is no real difference between the two (except for a brief descriptive blurb at the top that does not contain rules text).

There are no requirements beyond being at least 6th level.

You can develop the character to become a leader. But not while being a Cohort, because cohorts are not leaders.

Here:

while( x.cohort == true ) {
x.leader = false;
}

Why do you insist on talking down to me? Is it truly that difficult to have a civilized discussion?

I am perfectly capable of parsing what you are saying. It is simply not correct. Cohorts have feats. There are no prerequisite in the Leadership description that prohibits them from taking it, and there are no provisos for a cohort suddenly not being a cohort. Therefore, a cohort with the Leadership feat (which they are allowed to take) is still a cohort.

There is nothing preventing a cohort from being a leader, except when they are first recruited.

Curmudgeon

2015-09-04, 09:45 PM

Character development is a thing. Just because a cohort is that when you meet them does not mean they have to stay that way.
Character development of NPCs is entirely the DM's responsibility. That's stated clearly in the Nonplayer Characters chapter of Dungeon Master's Guide, starting on page 103:
EVERYONE IN THE WORLD
It’s your job to portray everyone in the world who isn’t a player character.
The player of the character with Leadership can only request particular race, class, and alignment options for their cohort. Input into the cohort's feats isn't even on the table.

So why the big discussion of "character development", when that's entirely outside the scope of what the rules permit? Yes, you as a player can ask your DM for anything. But you've got no RAW leverage for cohort "character development".

Misery Esquire

2015-09-04, 09:46 PM

The person quoting most of the source material on this page of the thread is me.

Sorry if you're having difficulties with the earlier pages of the discussion, but I assure you, you're not alone in "going over what we're reading".

No, the exact same material was quoted and covered by Sagetim, dascarletm, and myself on the previous page (apologies to anyone else who made a direct reference that I missed), and I continue to refer directly to it. (The other two have not taken part in this page of yet.)

You are, however the only one who feels it nessecary to declaim ;

It is in the DMG. (Not the SRD.)

For every statement, in a rather passive-aggressive attack on everyone else's argument, and, in other ways, more directly patronizing everyone who opposes your opinion.

Shackel

2015-09-04, 09:50 PM

There is nothing RAW preventing a cohort from becoming a leader. It's not exactly difficult RAI, and one that even a strict, by-the-books DM might find convincing, but it's RAI nonetheless to say that they can't.

This is pretty important, if you ask me. It's not wrong to use RAI, but in a talk about a feat as-is, RAW is king.

EDIT: One can say "cohorts are not leaders" all they wish, but since there is nothing specifically saying that they cannot(see: RAW), standard takes precedence, which is that they can take the feat. It makes perfect sense, however, that the intention is to say that cohorts can't take Leadership.

Even then, I can see perfect reason for them doing so. Even someone who does not impose their will can have a friend and their friends. People more subservient than even them. Unless followers and cohorts literally have no free will of their own, there will be something or someone they can impose their will on.

Palanan

2015-09-04, 09:55 PM

Originally Posted by Kinslayer
Robin's going to be rather sad with this news. :smalltongue:

Robin's not a bad example, although it's been a long while since I've looked at those. (Never was much of a DC reader myself.)

As Batman's sidekick, Robin is just riding around in the sidecar; he doesn't have anyone tagging after him. Once he's leading the Titans, that's a different story--but he's no longer the back half of "Batman and." At that point he's reached a different phase in his career.

So, stepping back from the black-and-white print, I can certainly see the point that a cohort might, in the fullness of time, separate from his mentor and become an independent player, who would eventually attract a following of his own. But he wouldn't have that following while he was still under his original mentor's wing.

And if the story and RP went in that direction, then mechanically I would probably allow the character with Leadership to "let go" the original cohort and select a new one, while retaining his original cohort as a close ally. (Assuming the story allowed for it.)

Originally Posted by Kinslayer
Followers can often [be] leaders…from kings and their vassals, to Generals and their lower ranking officers.

Again, I see your broader point, and it's reasonable to assume that a cohort would have some authority over followers. But I would say this is by virtue of reflected glory rather than any inherent power of command.

As for kings and vassals on the one hand, and military rank on the other--those are grand societal structures, and I've always understood Leadership to be extremely personal. Soldiers may or may not like and respect their CO, but they're duty-bound to follow his or her orders because of their broader commitment to the uniform and the military culture they've sworn to join. That's an oath to an institution and a nation, rather than to a particular officer in their chain of command.

And as far as kings and vassals go, it's Leadership, not Feudalism.

:smalltongue:

Originally Posted by Taelas
Why do you insist on talking down to me? Is it truly that difficult to have a civilized discussion?

I have to say that while I tend to agree with Nifft's perspective and his reading of the text, I can't endorse his tone.

I'm not a programmer, but even I felt that the bit with the code was unnecessarily patronizing.

Taelas

2015-09-04, 09:57 PM

Character development of NPCs is entirely the DM's responsibility. That's stated clearly in the Nonplayer Characters chapter of Dungeon Master's Guide, starting on page 103:
The player of the character with Leadership can only request particular race, class, and alignment options for their cohort. Input into the cohort's feats isn't even on the table.

So why the big discussion of "character development", when that's entirely outside the scope of what the rules permit? Yes, you as a player can ask your DM for anything. But you've got no RAW leverage for cohort "character development".

As has been quoted repeatedly, cohorts generally do what they are told. You have direct input in what they become after you have recruited them.

OldTrees1

2015-09-04, 10:06 PM

There is nothing RAW preventing a cohort from becoming a leader. It's not exactly difficult RAI, and one that even a strict, by-the-books DM might find convincing, but it's RAI nonetheless to say that they can't.

This is pretty important, if you ask me. It's not wrong to use RAI, but in a talk about a feat as-is, RAW is king.

EDIT: One can say "cohorts are not leaders" all they wish, but since there is nothing specifically saying that they cannot(see: RAW), standard takes precedence, which is that they can take the feat. It makes perfect sense, however, that the intention is to say that cohorts can't take Leadership.

The statements "are not" and "cannot" are related but different. "Cannot" implies "If npc is a cohort, then it can't take leadership". "Are not" implies "If an npc has leadership, it is not a cohort". There are a few differences to note here but one major one is the difference between talking about the future and talking about all presents. As a result "are not" means that NPCs that are cohorts can take leadership but NPCs with leadership are not cohorts (relatively easy word puzzle). They did something similar with the Apprentice/Mentor feats in DMG II.

Now, whether you consider that sentence to be part of RAW or not is up to you. I am just trying to translate the other position.

Curmudgeon

2015-09-04, 10:23 PM

As has been quoted repeatedly, cohorts generally do what they are told.
Cohorts are people who take on a subservient role. Cohorts are not leaders. They might voice an opinion now and again, but for the most part, they do as they’re told.

You have direct input in what they become after you have recruited them.
No, only "for the most part", and the directive to the DM to portray everyone in the world who isn’t a player character removes any part of "do as they're told" that's contrary to the DM's portrayal of the cohort. That includes whether they take on a leadership role.

Nifft

2015-09-04, 11:38 PM

There is no prerequisite in the DMG either. What is your point, exactly? You're rather rude for someone who claims to want civilized discussion.

Why do you insist on talking down to me? Is it truly that difficult to have a civilized discussion?

I am perfectly capable of parsing what you are saying. It is simply not correct. Cohorts have feats. There are no prerequisite in the Leadership description that prohibits them from taking it, and there are no provisos for a cohort suddenly not being a cohort. Therefore, a cohort with the Leadership feat (which they are allowed to take) is still a cohort.

There is nothing preventing a cohort from being a leader, except when they are first recruited. Nobody has access to the Leadership feat without DM permission. It's not in the PHB. It's not a thing anyone can expect to receive. It's not any character's natural right.

If you're the DM, you can give it away like a cheerleader at homecoming. If someone else is the DM, you might beg and whine and get nothing but flustered. Leadership is not like any other feat.

The DMG does say more than the SRD, and notably, not all the text which deals with Cohorts is under the Leadership feat. Much of it is in the preceding section, including stuff like the definition of a Cohort.

While a character is a Cohort, it is not a leader. This is part of the definition of Cohort -- it does not end at recruitment.

At level two, if it's a Cohort, it's not a leader.

When it grows up to level three, if it's still a Cohort, it's still not a leader.

I'm trying to explain this in a way that is impossible to mis-understand, because you have been so persistent in failing to understand all previous attempts at communication.

Sorry if you feel that comprehending such things is below you, or that unambiguous communication is "talking down".

If you were able to see the point -- and refute it by some means other than repeating your unfounded contrary assertion -- then maybe we could have a higher-level discussion.

Palanan

2015-09-05, 12:02 AM

Originally Posted by Nifft
Nobody has access to the Leadership feat without DM permission. It's not in the PHB.

I'm not sure if I follow your second statement. Leadership is on p. 97 of my copy of the PHB, in Chapter Five: Feats.

Sagetim

2015-09-05, 12:18 AM

Robin's not a bad example, although it's been a long while since I've looked at those. (Never was much of a DC reader myself.)

As Batman's sidekick, Robin is just riding around in the sidecar; he doesn't have anyone tagging after him. Once he's leading the Titans, that's a different story--but he's no longer the back half of "Batman and." At that point he's reached a different phase in his career.

So, stepping back from the black-and-white print, I can certainly see the point that a cohort might, in the fullness of time, separate from his mentor and become an independent player, who would eventually attract a following of his own. But he wouldn't have that following while he was still under his original mentor's wing.

And if the story and RP went in that direction, then mechanically I would probably allow the character with Leadership to "let go" the original cohort and select a new one, while retaining his original cohort as a close ally. (Assuming the story allowed for it.)

Again, I see your broader point, and it's reasonable to assume that a cohort would have some authority over followers. But I would say this is by virtue of reflected glory rather than any inherent power of command.

As for kings and vassals on the one hand, and military rank on the other--those are grand societal structures, and I've always understood Leadership to be extremely personal. Soldiers may or may not like and respect their CO, but they're duty-bound to follow his or her orders because of their broader commitment to the uniform and the military culture they've sworn to join. That's an oath to an institution and a nation, rather than to a particular officer in their chain of command.

And as far as kings and vassals go, it's Leadership, not Feudalism.

:smalltongue:

I have to say that while I tend to agree with Nifft's perspective and his reading of the text, I can't endorse his tone.

I'm not a programmer, but even I felt that the bit with the code was unnecessarily patronizing.

Feudalism you say? hmmm....

Feat
Feudalism
Requirements: DM's Permission and a backstory and first level character only, OR character level 6 or higher and Leadership.
Benefit: In addition to any followers/cohort you might have, you are the heir to a country, the ruler of a country, or someone who has conquered/formed a country by their own hand. You are the king (or queen, or grand high mugwump, or whatever). This means you can raise armies, collect taxes, distribute land, rescind land distribution, knight and unknight people and so on.

Any armies or militia raised will need to be equipped and fed for the duration (and will probably complain after the fact if you don't pay them anything, which causes unrest). You can tax religious organizations, but they tend to get offended by that and may forment unrest or pick up and leave. If you rescind lands or titles from people, you'll need some legal pretense to do so or it will forment unrest (and either way, the person will probably try to rebel to avoid losing titles or lands. Most people are selfish like that).

If you're looking to just pass time ruling your country you can do so by making special leadership checks. If your character is trying hard and doing their best, they get to roll a d20 and add their leadership score + wisdom mod + synergy bonuses from 5 or more ranks in diplomacy, sense motive, intimidate, bluff, and each knowledge skill. Your character also suffers from a persistent 5 subdual damage that does not go away unless they take a break for at least 2 days.

If you're putting minimal effort into ruling the country you add your leadership score and synergy bonuses from knowledge skills to your check.

If you're putting no effort into ruling the country, you add half your leadership score to your check.

If you are actively debauching yourself when you should be ruling your country, you add half your leadership, plus charisma modifier again, plus synergy bonuses from diplomacy, bluff, and intimidate to the check. Unlike other methods however, your result is only subtracted from the rebellion threshold total After you have checked to see if the threshold has been exceeded that month.

Each month of your rule, your country makes a modified d20 roll, adding numbers for each organization and each powerful person you have driven to unrest. If this number meets or exceeds the rebellion threshold for the country, then grats you now have a rebellion on your hands. Otherwise this number continues to roll over from month to month as a running total of the Unrest in the Kingdom. For most ruling methods, you will subtract the rulership check result from the unrest total before checking to see if it's exceeded the Rebellion Threshold.

You can wield any item with monarch, royal, or similar words in it's name no matter it's normal requirements. Yes, this means you can wear armor and wield weapons you don't have proficiencies for normally if it's named with a kingly or rulership theme as if you had proficiency. If you're in the Birthright Setting, you gain a bloodline rating equal to your leadership score.

Special: This feat may be taken as a fighter bonus feat. Thrallherd's qualify for this feat even though they don't have leadership.

Palanan

2015-09-05, 12:23 AM

That's no feat, that's a subsystem.

:smalltongue:

Sagetim

2015-09-05, 12:24 AM

That's no feat, that's a subsystem.

:smalltongue:

What? Didn't you know? Feats Are Subsystems.

Taelas

2015-09-05, 03:51 AM

Nifft,

There is a vast difference between not agreeing and not comprehending. I understand your point. I simply do not agree with you.

If I try to respond point-by-point, I will become infuriatingly mad, which serves no purpose. So I'm not going to.

Nifft

2015-09-05, 01:50 PM

Feudalism you say? hmmm....

Feat
Feudalism
Requirements: DM's Permission and a backstory and first level character only, OR character level 6 or higher and Leadership.
Benefit: In addition to any followers/cohort you might have, you are the heir to a country, the ruler of a country, or someone who has conquered/formed a country by their own hand. You are the king (or queen, or grand high mugwump, or whatever). This means you can raise armies, collect taxes, distribute land, rescind land distribution, knight and unknight people and so on.

Any armies or militia raised will need to be equipped and fed for the duration (and will probably complain after the fact if you don't pay them anything, which causes unrest). You can tax religious organizations, but they tend to get offended by that and may forment unrest or pick up and leave. If you rescind lands or titles from people, you'll need some legal pretense to do so or it will forment unrest (and either way, the person will probably try to rebel to avoid losing titles or lands. Most people are selfish like that).

If you're looking to just pass time ruling your country you can do so by making special leadership checks. If your character is trying hard and doing their best, they get to roll a d20 and add their leadership score + wisdom mod + synergy bonuses from 5 or more ranks in diplomacy, sense motive, intimidate, bluff, and each knowledge skill. Your character also suffers from a persistent 5 subdual damage that does not go away unless they take a break for at least 2 days.

If you're putting minimal effort into ruling the country you add your leadership score and synergy bonuses from knowledge skills to your check.

If you're putting no effort into ruling the country, you add half your leadership score to your check.

If you are actively debauching yourself when you should be ruling your country, you add half your leadership, plus charisma modifier again, plus synergy bonuses from diplomacy, bluff, and intimidate to the check. Unlike other methods however, your result is only subtracted from the rebellion threshold total After you have checked to see if the threshold has been exceeded that month.

Each month of your rule, your country makes a modified d20 roll, adding numbers for each organization and each powerful person you have driven to unrest. If this number meets or exceeds the rebellion threshold for the country, then grats you now have a rebellion on your hands. Otherwise this number continues to roll over from month to month as a running total of the Unrest in the Kingdom. For most ruling methods, you will subtract the rulership check result from the unrest total before checking to see if it's exceeded the Rebellion Threshold.

You can wield any item with monarch, royal, or similar words in it's name no matter it's normal requirements. Yes, this means you can wear armor and wield weapons you don't have proficiencies for normally if it's named with a kingly or rulership theme as if you had proficiency. If you're in the Birthright Setting, you gain a bloodline rating equal to your leadership score.

Special: This feat may be taken as a fighter bonus feat. Thrallherd's qualify for this feat even though they don't have leadership.
Neat subsystem.

(Terrible as a Feat, though. :smile: Just like Leadership.)

I'm not sure if I follow your second statement. Leadership is on p. 97 of my copy of the PHB, in Chapter Five: Feats. Ah, you're right! Thanks.

I wonder if I'm remembering the 3.0e PHB...

Anyway, the Special block does support my assertion that Leadership is not like other feats, and that you must have the DM's explicit permission before you take it.

Nifft,

There is a vast difference between not agreeing and not comprehending. I understand your point. I simply do not agree with you.

If I try to respond point-by-point, I will become infuriatingly mad, which serves no purpose. So I'm not going to.

You can agree to disagree. That's very much within the bounds of civilized discourse.

But, the thing is, if you have a reason for disagreeing, then I'm kinda interested in that reason. It might be something that I don't yet know, or it might be a new way of looking at the issue.

So far, it seems like your entire argument is built off the idea that the Prerequisites block is the only thing that can possibly determine whether a character can take a feat. Is that accurate?

If so, do you think that a Wizard can take Spell Focus nine times?