Leadership to allow or to deny

[finaldooms]

So im running a clan game with kobolds ( survival for food and the like) with my group and ive always said no to leadership due to what i understand it as just a bunch of free minions to do whatever with. ( and i would have to make and control the followers and cohorts as the dm when im already controlling the other npc things)

One of my players keeps bugging to allow the feat since" he would just have a couple of lvl 1 warrior kobolds" ..the game has not started yet so i figured id ask for the pros and cons of allowing and or disallowing leadership......and if someone could help me understand it better

Btw if they do well enough i assume they will eventually control the tribe anyways such as deciding where to move the tribe and what group does what..or even go to war with others but i feel like thats not the same aa the feat

[ExLibrisMortis]

Leadership should not be a feat. You can allow the players to lead a group of kobold soldiers, and that will work fine, or you can make them use regular NPC mechanics, and that will work fine as well. Leadership as feat, though, suggests it's somehow competing with other 6th-level feats, which it simply isn't—it's far stronger than most anything else you can get.


I would stick to your original idea of giving them control over the tribe gradually, as they advance through the story and level up. Tell your player that they can earn influence by supporting/leading the tribe well, so they don't need Leadership to lead.

[Vaz]

As above, Leadership should not be a feat.

Either you force the entire world who has followers to have the Leadership feat.

Also, bear in mind that if an individual takes the Leadership feat, the the other party members are going to be playing 1 character, compared to the other individual playing 2. It's more hassle than it's worth. Just a flat ban, or give it everyone.

[finaldooms]

Alright il just stick with my orginal plan of no leadership then

[Florian]

Leadership as a feat is quite handy when used right. The marked benefit is how actual actions modify the leadership score, what in turn gives better control over how to handle the whole mess.

[Goaty14]

Leadership realistically, should not be a feat, because your tribe of "1st level kobold warriors" will somehow start getting higher level kobolds that follow the PCs around.

No, don't let your PCs take leadership, let them take control of the tribe, and let the tribe evolve at their own rate.

[Dr_Dinosaur]

Ban it and make the lesser versions (Squire and Torchbearer, I think) Fighter-only (maybe Cavalier) feats like Weapon Specialization. Being a leaderman was their whole thing as a class in previous editions after all.

[Hackulator]

Leadership is fine as long as you remember three things.

It doesn't say the player gets to design their cohort, you design it.

Followers are still people with lives, not constructs serving the players every whim.

If followers help you do things, they split xp with you.

[Tiri]

If followers help you do things, they split xp with you.

Actually, they don't. Not according to the rules.

[Pleh]

Leadership needs to not be taken too literally. Don't consider it to be in effect any time a character acquires cooperation from NPCs. They should be thought of as being like a familiar or animal companion, that is to say, a subset of the PC which is subordinate, but not completely enthralled or compelled to act against self interest (any more than the leading PC does likewise).

The feat shouldn't be used to "adopt" existing/encountered NPCs any more than druids adopt companions along the road or wizards adopt familiars. Doing so ought to be quite exceptional circumstances.

Note that druids and wizards don't get customized or even unique companions or familiars (without investing resources into them). A cohort or follower ought to likewise be more or less stock and vanilla for whatever standard the campaign is using. If the DM is using pregenerated stock NPC levels for the average NPC encounter, that's how cohorts and followers ought to be built. If they are using copy pasted PC levels (like all the guards have 3 levels fighter with the exact same feats, HP, skills, gear, etc) then the cohorts should follow the template. If the DM is customizing and/or optimizing NPCs (even ones that aren't meant as antagonists or obstacles), customize/optimize the cohorts too, but for their own lives and jobs, not just to pair well with their leader.

If the player wants that level of influence, they need to do more than just lead their followers. They have to be responsible for their training, too. Or at least make them take another feat, like Improved Leadership or Intensive Training*

*just making stuff up here. There's probably already feats by these names I haven't heard of.

[Ashiel]

So im running a clan game with kobolds ( survival for food and the like) with my group and ive always said no to leadership due to what i understand it as just a bunch of free minions to do whatever with. ( and i would have to make and control the followers and cohorts as the dm when im already controlling the other npc things)

One of my players keeps bugging to allow the feat since" he would just have a couple of lvl 1 warrior kobolds" ..the game has not started yet so i figured id ask for the pros and cons of allowing and or disallowing leadership......and if someone could help me understand it better

Btw if they do well enough i assume they will eventually control the tribe anyways such as deciding where to move the tribe and what group does what..or even go to war with others but i feel like thats not the same aa the feat
I allow the feat but players almost never take it unless they want a very specific companion. This is mostly because they end up with a small entourage of NPCs following them around anyway so they tend to not need it.

The last major campaign I ran had three players and about three other players who were able to make it to the game when they could.

However, there was no less than five NPCs who the party had accompanying them at the time, including the Paladin's vampire squire, a templar inquisitor and sorceress (also accompanying the Paladin), one of the PC's parents (she had two mothers, both traveling with the party), a goblin sorcerer whose mercenary company the party defeated, an orc barbarian who liked pistol whipping people, and a twelve year old slave that one of the party members bought from a brothel because they couldn't bear to leave them there.

Barring the former slave, the rest of the NPCs were powerful individuals in their own right. The two mothers were competent shapeshifting assassins on the run from their Oni Shogun. The inquisitor and sorceress were as strong as the PCs. The sorcerer was weaksauce by comparison but was stronger than normal people by far. Buckshot the orc could make most nightmares hide in the closet (but wasn't as strong as the PCs).

Leadership wouldn't have really gotten them anything they couldn't have gotten organically, other than letting them custom build a companion that would be hyper loyal and not abandon them for any reason.

[Malimar]

My Leadership (also thrallherd) nerf is that followers and cohorts are limited Commoner, Warrior, Aristocrat, or RHD. To upgrade your cohort from those classes (followers can't be upgraded), you can take a series of feats that open up one tier per feat (which means if you want a Sorcerer cohort you need to spend all your feats from 6-18 on it, and if you want a Wizard cohort you need shenanigans to get you an extra feat in there somewhere). (Marshals get these feats for free, dribbled out over the course of their career.)

But that's only one way to acquire NPC allies. The other ways are to pay them, or to convince them to follow you using old-fashioned diplomacy. (I'm generous and use the cohort XP rules for all NPC allies, so no NPCs ever reduce player XP.) This is how NPCs acquire other NPCs as allies -- NPC leaders needn't take Leadership.

This combination of limiting Leadership and recognizing that you can get NPC allies in other ways makes Leadership underpowered if anything.

[Gildedragon]

I'd say don't.
But don't throw out the feat.
Use the feat's mechanics to calculate the followers/free-of-cost hirelings for the party

[Calthropstu]

I allow it in my games, but make it a lot more complex than it has to be.
I give the cohort a believable personality. Sure, the cohort works for you, but just because they work for you doesn't mean you're going to get them to do whatever you want.
They will demand cuts of treasure, they will absorb xp, they will sometimes have their own errands to run and if a much better opportunity comes along and they are treated poorly they will happily go elsewhere.
It can make for great role play. Most people who allow it treat it as an animal companion though... which is silly.
Also, the cohorts and followers kind of need to be paid.

[Zanos]

I don't allow leadership myself. The party will tend to accrue support and fame naturally if they want it during the campaign. You don't need to take a feat to represent that you were awarded a plot of land and a keep that's staffed, although some diplomacy or intimidate might be good to have.

The other aspect of Leadership is just stupid. It's not exactly getting a second character, but it's fairly close. I once had someone argue with me that warlock was really good because you could get an artificer cohort.