Downtime Roleplaying, which feat is better? Leadership or Recruits?

[Madokar]

I'm the middle of a homebrew campaign, and I feel like doing some worldbuilding in-character. I play a Paladin of Iomedae, and I am feeling a bit of conflict with the local temple of Abadar. Part of it is that they have the biggest paladin force in the city, and we know that some of those "paladins" are on the take from the nobility.

We know that as the party Shaman made his Perception check after we raided a cultist hideout to notice that some of the prisoners discreetly passed some gold to some "paladins" and were released. These are cultists that employ lycanthropes that plan assault the city during the next full moon, and kidnap the poor to turn them into bombs.

That raid also revealed that a fair number of the cultists are of the nobility. Nobility that we know have plans of sedition against the ruling mayor, due to a communion with Sarenrae.

So, I decided to "lead by example" and provide an alternative to the people of the city. Both the party Shaman and I built temples to Sarenrae and Iomedae, respectively. Thing is, the Shaman player took the Leadership feat to get a following for his temple and to boost the party numbers. I did not, and I am seriously considering retraining to get a "Leader" feat.

I'm kind of on the fence on which "Leader" feat I should invest in, though. If I take the bog-standard Leadership feat, I get to reach the hearts and minds of the commoners. If I take Recruits, I get more powerful agents for my temple. Agents I can leave behind to manage my temple when it comes time to leave the city to continue the campaign.

[icefractal]

Leadership is straight-up better in most cases - Recruits reads as a scaled-down Leadership for campaigns where that feat is too powerful. Since someone else already took Leadership, that's not the case in your campaign.

Assistance while adventuring: Leadership. It gives you a cohort two levels higher, and you're only allowed to take one of the Recruits cohorts with you at a time.

Downtime production: Leadership. Multiple cohorts might be better, if not for this:
As minor cohorts are busy learning and studying the basics of their careers, those not traveling with you cannot engage in mundane or magical crafting or Profession checks.So that's losing a good chunk of utility, especially if the GM reads that as extending to similar ideas like spellcasting for profit.

Supporting a town: Probably Leadership. In most cases, the large number of low level followers will be better than a handful of higher-level ones, especially since the Recruits cohorts aren't even better than Leadership followers until at least 6th level (terrible Leadership score) and maybe not until 11th level (good Leadership score).

However, if you're in the double-digit levels, and you only want the cohorts for the purpose of helping/defending a town, and the town faces challenges/dangers where low-level characters would be useless, then Recruits could make sense.

Also, if your Leadership score is going to be really bad (poor Cha, or you keep getting people killed off), then Recruits doesn't use it nearly as much as Leadership does.

[Coidzor]

I suppose a lot of it depends upon what your level and charisma and other leadership modifiers would be and what level you expect to be when you leave town and how long you expect to be gone.

If you're low level, but have a high charisma and good other modifiers to your Leadership score, then the number of Followers you can get will probably be most useful.

Will this be your home base or will you just be moving on completely?

On the other hand, if your GM is letting your Recruits actually *do* things instead of basically not existing while not your current, active cohort, then that will shift things towards that feat, especially if you're higher level or expect to be by the time you leave, so the number is great enough that they can manage your various interests without trying to steal them from you.

OTOOH, if you have a lot of downtime and you use the Downtime system, how your GM reacts to the idea of using the rooms and teams subsystem to upgrade level 1 Followers into Level 3 Teams (Such as Priest) will also influence how Leadership stacks up with Recruits.

[Madokar]

I suppose a lot of it depends upon what your level and charisma and other leadership modifiers would be and what level you expect to be when you leave town and how long you expect to be gone.

If you're low level, but have a high charisma and good other modifiers to your Leadership score, then the number of Followers you can get will probably be most useful.

Will this be your home base or will you just be moving on completely?

On the other hand, if your GM is letting your Recruits actually *do* things instead of basically not existing while not your current, active cohort, then that will shift things towards that feat, especially if you're higher level or expect to be by the time you leave, so the number is great enough that they can manage your various interests without trying to steal them from you.

OTOOH, if you have a lot of downtime and you use the Downtime system, how your GM reacts to the idea of using the rooms and teams subsystem to upgrade level 1 Followers into Level 3 Teams (Such as Priest) will also influence how Leadership stacks up with Recruits.

I either have a Leadership score of 16-20. I have a temple to serve as my headquarters, but the other positive bonuses would be up to GM decision.

I set up the temple as a home base, yes. I have some business to take care of down south, but once it's resolved, I will return to live out the rest of days in the city.

[Coidzor]

I either have a Leadership score of 16-20. I have a temple to serve as my headquarters, but the other positive bonuses would be up to GM decision.

I set up the temple as a home base, yes. I have some business to take care of down south, but once it's resolved, I will return to live out the rest of days in the city.

I'd say then that your Leadership score skews towards taking Leadership, then.