3.5 leadership character

[Puppeteer_87]

Hey everyone,

I'm looking to build a character that excels in leadership. What are some good classes and or races to utilise? We start at lvl 5, almost all books are permitted.

Thanks in advance!

[Kaleph]

I'd start from the following on-line resources:

http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=8817

http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?PHPSESSID=hstcmjmn88qavismclgf752sj7&topic=9963

Also, please add useful Details on the purposes of the character, e.g. minionmancy, optimized/multiple cohorts, guildmastery, roleplay enhancement, etc.

[Puppeteer_87]

Thanks! I'm mostly looking for roleplay enhancement at first. The campaign is set on an island made up of 60% ice and 40% 'normal' terrain. There is little to no arcane magic, but plenty of divine. It'll be my first time playing a 'leadership' character, I do have plenty of dnd experience however. Mostly playing rangers and paladins.

[Kaleph]

Based on These new Information, I'd see as a good Option to coordinate with your DM, in order to include affiliations in his/her campaign. Affiliations bring several benefits, including - but not limited to - roleplay enhancements:

The give you benefits, e.g. resources, special trainings (cross-class skills), contacts
You get access to hirelings or even followers
You may get the leadership feat - usually for free
You get "titles" based on your score in the Affiliation
They put you in an organisational hierarchy and provide the chance to make a career
You get access to the feats "Favored in guild" and "guildmaster" (possibly for free), which somehow formalize your status in the guild

Although not only it's possible, but highly recommended, to customize together with the DM your guild/Affiliation, you may start have a look here to some examples, just to see how they work and how they are balanced: http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=10240.0. Since there's plenty of divine Magic, a religious order seems an obvious clichè to start with.

If you follow this route, I'd build the character having the following in mind:

High charisma is always good
Take class levels and skill ranks in order to have a privileged position in the organisation. For example, having levels in the druid class in a religious order that worships the nature normally increases your "guild score" and enables a quicker career.
Decide, together with the master, which roleplay-based feat you should select. Favored in guild is a good option. The remaining feats (leadership and guildmaster) can be achieved for free through roleplay.
If you're not interested in minmaxing every bit of your build, I'd avoid spending too many resources (feats and class levels) to collect mechanical leadership improvements. This is mainly due to the fact that some leadership-based classes and feature (e.g. Thrallherd) tend to become irremedly broken too fast.

[weckar]

So what are we talking here; military leadership, corporate leadership, religious leadership... They are very different things, all.

[ReaverVonVette]

If you're doing a militant type of thing, Heroes of Battle has a PrC that I believe is called Legendary Leader - I think it effectively doubles your Leadership score, and gives you some other nice military-assisting type abilities. It uses some functions that exclusive to HoB, but if you're cool with some light reading it's really a great class for Leadership junkies.

[Puppeteer_87]

Thanks! I'm going to look into it. Loads of inspiration :)