How Powerful Is The Leadership Feat Really Is?

[Bartmanhomer]

Just out of curiosity I just want to know how powerful is the Leadership Feat really is? If is really broken then it must be a must have feat to get. :smile:

[ColorBlindNinja]

D&D 3.5 is all about action economy. For the price of a single feat, you can increase the number of actions at your disposal by a wide margin.

If you can pick up full caster cohorts, all the better, since they'll give you more spells and more spells are nearly always going to yield good results.

Most tables ban Leadership because:

A. It's broken.

B. It's a lot of extra work for the DM.

[Bartmanhomer]

D&D 3.5 is all about action economy. For the price of a single feat, you can increase the number of actions at your disposal by a wide margin.

If you can pick up full caster cohorts, all the better, since they'll give you more spells and more spells are nearly always going to yield good results.

Most tables ban Leadership because:

A. It's broken.

B. It's a lot of extra work for the DM.Wow that good huh? I bet Epic Leadership is just one of the same huh? :smile:

[ColorBlindNinja]

Wow that good huh? I bet Epic Leadership is just one of the same huh? :smile:

Assuming you can find a table than wants to play epic, Epic Leadership combos beautifully with Epic Spellcasting since you can use cohorts to make your spells easier to cast via sacrificing spell slots.

[Bartmanhomer]

Assuming you can find a table than wants to play epic, Epic Leadership combos beautifully with Epic Spellcasting since you can use cohorts to make your spells easier to cast via sacrificing spell slots.

Oh wow! I'm speechless. :smile:

[Gibblewrett]

It is only as powerful as the GM allows it to be. If you feel like the leadership feat means your player gets to home grow their own PC from scratch it's pretty damn powerful. If you have them attract cohorts and followers organically from say an adventure path it's unlikely it will get out of hand.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Oh wow! I'm speechless. :smile:

There's a reason it's nigh universally banned.


It is only as powerful as the GM allows it to be. If you feel like the leadership feat means your player gets to home grow their own PC from scratch it's pretty damn powerful. If you have them attract cohorts and followers organically from say an adventure path it's unlikely it will get out of hand.

Well, there's this line:



A character can try to attract a cohort of a particular race, class, and alignment.


That implies that the player has a measure of control over who they can recruit.

And even if the PCs they attract aren't very well optimized, they're still tilting action economy in the PCs favor.

[Jack_Simth]

Assuming you can find a table than wants to play epic, Epic Leadership combos beautifully with Epic Spellcasting since you can use cohorts to make your spells easier to cast via sacrificing spell slots.
Epic Spellcasting combos beautifully with casting (especially Epic Spellcasting), and you have to have casting to get Epic Spellcasting. The Epic Spell system, such as it is, is broken. Adding Leadership to it doesn't change much.



Base Wizard slots are 4/day/spell level, with bonus for specialization and a high Int. Magic Circle Against X is Sor/Wiz-3, Dimensional Anchor is Sor/Wiz-4, Dismissal is Sor/Wis-5, Planar Binding is Sor/Wiz-6, and Moment of Prescience is Sor/Wiz-8. During down-time, a Wizard could prepare four of each, and still have 7th's, 9th's, 0-3rd's, plus any bonus slots from specialization or a high Int available for standard defenses.

A Couatl (there's better options, but this Core critter is easy to pick on) is a 9 HD outsider that casts as a Sorcerer-9, has a +10 Will save, and a Charisma of 17 (+3 modifier). Assuming you've done even a little Int optimization, that beast should need a 20 to resist your Planar Binding spell. But let's assume, for the sake of argument, that our vanilla Wizard-21 isn't quite that good. The beast only needs a 17 (aka, DC 27, or an 80% chance to fall into the trap vs. the Wizard's 6th level spell). With Moment of Prescience and a Circlet of Persuasion, a Charisma-6 Wizard-21 is rolling 1d20+22 vs. the Couatl's 1d20+3. If the Couatl rolls a 20, and you roll a 2 (to avoid the automatic failure on a 1), you have a 24 vs. it's 23. You win the Charisma check, 95% of the time.

95% of 80% is 76%. Call it 3/4ths.

So each day, this rather vanilla Wizard-21 can Planar Bind 3 Couatl's reliably, and keep them around for open-ended tasks for 21 days (this gets better with actual optimization, but we don't need it), for 63 Couatl's constantly (+/- statistical noise).

Each Couatl has 4 4th level spells available, but can only donate one per Epic spell. A 4th level slot for a ritual participant is 7 points of reduction per donated slot. 50 of those (to give some room for statistical noise) is worth 350 points of reduction.

The Summon seed is DC 14 for a CR 2 outsider, +1 for each CR increase. A Planetar (easy-to-pick on outsider) is CR 16, and casts as a Cleric-17 (9th level Spells), so the DC of an Epic spell to summon one is just 14+28=32. The Permanent mod is a *5, so that's DC 160. We can get two of those at a time with just the 50 Couatl's, and still have DC 0 due to ritual spellcasting mitigation. DC 0 means 0 research time, 0 reasearch GP, 0 research XP. Four of them after our warm-up period (as we'll have two epic spell slots per day, two planetars per casting). And really, I could have started this at just 21 couatl's after a week (add a little casting time on the Epic spell to make up the tiny remainder). But I'll go whole-hog on the warm up. Why not?

A 9th level spell is worth 17 points of mitigation. Four planetars on day 2 add 68 points of mitigation for us. 350 points of reduction from the Couatls, 68 from the Planetars, and we're at 418 points of reduction. Permanently summoning 3 planetars would be DC 480, so we're not quite there yet. Four more on day 2, though, and that additional 68 puts us at 486 points of reduction, which means we can now permanently summon six planetars per day starting at day three (three per casting, two castings). So those six we pick up on day 3 mean we've got another 6*17 points of mitigation we can use, putting us at 588. Six more the next day and we're at 690, which is enough to permanently summon 4 planeters per casting, so 8 more per day. This is exponential growth. You can, very quickly, hit arbitrarily high DC's this way - in less time, I might add, than it would take to research the higher DC spell. Here's one (used Solars, rather than Planetars, which slowed it down) (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=791074&postcount=9).

Epic Spellcasting is broken. If you don't cheese it up, it's basically useless. If you do, it's basically god-mode.

[Reversefigure4]

Well, let's compare it to other feats you could be taking instead. Some basic, simple to assess feats, that are broadly useful to all character types - Improved Initiative, granting you a +4 initiative, and Iron Will, giving you a +2 to your Will save.

At the very best of Leadership, you get to entirely design and control an entire second character of your level-2. If you're a Fighter, you now have a Wizard who casts spells for you. If you're a Wizard, you have a full time healer cleric to aid you. If you're a Druid, your secondary Rogue character has 40 skill points to spend on all the urban social skills you couldn't pick up yourself. Is that better than +4 Initiative or +2 Will? Heck yes.

At the very worst of Leadership, the GM designs a cohort for you, maybe a badly built one. A barbarian with a greataxe and Skill Focus: Arborist. But it's still a second character - a pile of hit points for enemies to beat one, somebody else to hold open a door, somebody to distract or flank, or escort NPCs out of the dungeon... endless uses, far more variable and useful that +4 Initiative or +2 Will.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Ya know how powerful planar binding/ ally are? That powerful. Moreso if you build around it.

[ericgrau]

Just out of curiosity I just want to know how powerful is the Leadership Feat really is? If is really broken then it must be a must have feat to get. :smile:

Simply by the CR system it's +50% power for one feat. Way too much for a feat. Of course it depends on what the two builds are, but that gives you a pretty good rough idea. But see also last paragraph on why this isn't completely true.

It doesn't need to be banned because it's written specifically as requiring permission to use in the first place. In a sense it is pre-banned and the DM must un-ban it to use it. There is a good reason to use it It's great fun to play a 2nd character. And just like no one would flinch at one player controlling 2 full power characters, controlling 1 character and a 1/2 character that work together isn't actually a big deal either. You just need to fit it into the campaign properly, rather than making this an automatic build choice option that everyone needs to keep up. In 2e everyone essentially got leadership for free. Giving everyone leadership is one solution if you want to keep it fair, but that isn't really necessary. For example some players may want to control 2 characters, while others won't want the extra headache.

If anything's wrong with it I'd say leadership shouldn't even cost a feat. It should be free with DM permission and/or acquiring NPCs through campaign events. Applying a small cost to what is essentially a variant rule seems pointless.

One last purely mechanical thing you might not notice on paper: Cohorts are a pain in the butt to keep alive. They're 2 levels behind the party and so have trouble surviving appropriate level challenges. You need to build them really defensive which limits their actual offensive power in practice. In a game where one of the main goals is not losing any party members, you're actually adding a big liability to the party. And not as much of an asset as you might think.

[Mordaedil]

Isn't there a class-feature or feat that allows you to have a cohort within one level of you?

I think Thrallherd does, but was there more?

[Silva Stormrage]

Isn't there a class-feature or feat that allows you to have a cohort within one level of you?

I think Thrallherd does, but was there more?

Thrallherd does but the feat you are probably thinking of is literally called "Improved Cohort". It's from Heroes of Battle. If I remember correctly it also boosts your leadership score by 1.

[Rebel7284]

Isn't there a class-feature or feat that allows you to have a cohort within one level of you?

I think Thrallherd does, but was there more?

A quick google search brings up Improved Cohort from HoB. A bunch of other leadership-related feats there as well.

Darn swordsages....

[animewatcha]

IIRC, a psicrystal can take leadership, obtain psicrystal ( can't remember exact feat name, but they get their own psicrystal ), and wild cohort. Think of each minion down the line taking these three feats when within qualifications.

[Yogibear41]

Like most things in 3.5 it's only broken if you make it broken.

[TiaC]

Like most things in 3.5 it's only broken if you make it broken.

Without trying to optimize it or create ridiculous synergy builds, the CR system shows how powerful it is. Adding a cohort raises an enemy's Encounter Level by 1. There's really no other feat comparable in power to gaining a level, but Leadership is.

[Mordaedil]

The only time I've been allowed to play with the leadership feat in a game was when the DM was just as hyped to play the cohort and they got to play it and decide everything about it.

[rferries]

Epic Spellcasting combos beautifully with casting (especially Epic Spellcasting), and you have to have casting to get Epic Spellcasting. The Epic Spell system, such as it is, is broken. Adding Leadership to it doesn't change much.



Base Wizard slots are 4/day/spell level, with bonus for specialization and a high Int. Magic Circle Against X is Sor/Wiz-3, Dimensional Anchor is Sor/Wiz-4, Dismissal is Sor/Wis-5, Planar Binding is Sor/Wiz-6, and Moment of Prescience is Sor/Wiz-8. During down-time, a Wizard could prepare four of each, and still have 7th's, 9th's, 0-3rd's, plus any bonus slots from specialization or a high Int available for standard defenses.

A Couatl (there's better options, but this Core critter is easy to pick on) is a 9 HD outsider that casts as a Sorcerer-9, has a +10 Will save, and a Charisma of 17 (+3 modifier). Assuming you've done even a little Int optimization, that beast should need a 20 to resist your Planar Binding spell. But let's assume, for the sake of argument, that our vanilla Wizard-21 isn't quite that good. The beast only needs a 17 (aka, DC 27, or an 80% chance to fall into the trap vs. the Wizard's 6th level spell). With Moment of Prescience and a Circlet of Persuasion, a Charisma-6 Wizard-21 is rolling 1d20+22 vs. the Couatl's 1d20+3. If the Couatl rolls a 20, and you roll a 2 (to avoid the automatic failure on a 1), you have a 24 vs. it's 23. You win the Charisma check, 95% of the time.

95% of 80% is 76%. Call it 3/4ths.

So each day, this rather vanilla Wizard-21 can Planar Bind 3 Couatl's reliably, and keep them around for open-ended tasks for 21 days (this gets better with actual optimization, but we don't need it), for 63 Couatl's constantly (+/- statistical noise).

Each Couatl has 4 4th level spells available, but can only donate one per Epic spell. A 4th level slot for a ritual participant is 7 points of reduction per donated slot. 50 of those (to give some room for statistical noise) is worth 350 points of reduction.

The Summon seed is DC 14 for a CR 2 outsider, +1 for each CR increase. A Planetar (easy-to-pick on outsider) is CR 16, and casts as a Cleric-17 (9th level Spells), so the DC of an Epic spell to summon one is just 14+28=32. The Permanent mod is a *5, so that's DC 160. We can get two of those at a time with just the 50 Couatl's, and still have DC 0 due to ritual spellcasting mitigation. DC 0 means 0 research time, 0 reasearch GP, 0 research XP. Four of them after our warm-up period (as we'll have two epic spell slots per day, two planetars per casting). And really, I could have started this at just 21 couatl's after a week (add a little casting time on the Epic spell to make up the tiny remainder). But I'll go whole-hog on the warm up. Why not?

A 9th level spell is worth 17 points of mitigation. Four planetars on day 2 add 68 points of mitigation for us. 350 points of reduction from the Couatls, 68 from the Planetars, and we're at 418 points of reduction. Permanently summoning 3 planetars would be DC 480, so we're not quite there yet. Four more on day 2, though, and that additional 68 puts us at 486 points of reduction, which means we can now permanently summon six planetars per day starting at day three (three per casting, two castings). So those six we pick up on day 3 mean we've got another 6*17 points of mitigation we can use, putting us at 588. Six more the next day and we're at 690, which is enough to permanently summon 4 planeters per casting, so 8 more per day. This is exponential growth. You can, very quickly, hit arbitrarily high DC's this way - in less time, I might add, than it would take to research the higher DC spell. Here's one (used Solars, rather than Planetars, which slowed it down) (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=791074&postcount=9).

Epic Spellcasting is broken. If you don't cheese it up, it's basically useless. If you do, it's basically god-mode.

I loved this calculation. Summoning creatures to provide spell slots is something I had never considered.

[Uncle Pine]

How powerful the Leadership feat really is?

For the price of a feat, a cohort was gained;
For the price of a feat, the cohort gained a cohort;
For the price of a feat, the cycle continued.
All for the price of a feat.

For the price of the same feat, a host of loyal followers rushed in;
For the price of the same feat (and a leadership score of 21), a 6th level follower joined in;
For the price of a feat, the cycle continued.
All at level six. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=7795656&postcount=13)

[Jack_Simth]

I loved this calculation. Summoning creatures to provide spell slots is something I had never considered.
I'm glad to help.

Some addendums:
Look up Lost Empires of Faerun, for the Shadow and Mithral epic seeds.

At some point, you'll likely want to create a creature (via the clause in Conjure about making an entirely new creature). Not to have, but to change into via the Transform seed. Because that allows you to give yourself an at-will Epic spell arbitrarily.

Combine Shadow with creature creation and Transform, and you can get yourself the ability to duplicate any non-XP spell of 10th level or lower (note that Epic spells count as 10th level spells...) as an at-will Ex ability. At least one of those uses should be to re-do the Transform on yourself, so that the chosen creature type is essentially Instant (permanent AND nonmagical).

At some point, you'll likely want to create a permanent Ward for yourself, that excludes all spells of 9th level and lower.


How powerful the Leadership feat really is?

For the price of a feat, a cohort was gained;
For the price of a feat, the cohort gained a cohort;
For the price of a feat, the cycle continued.
All for the price of a feat.

For the price of the same feat, a host of loyal followers rushed in;
For the price of the same feat (and a leadership score of 21), a 6th level follower joined in;
For the price of a feat, the cycle continued.
All at level six. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=7795656&postcount=13)
Note that the linked recursive builds rely on "soft" bonuses to the leadership score:
"+2 renown
+2 keep
+1 special power
+1 fairness and generosity"
And by "soft" I mean "things that aren't well-defined on how you get them" - which (among other things) means your DM can say "no, you don't get those" and be well within RAW. Meanwhile, you need a Leadership score of at least 21 to get a 6th level follower.

Additionally, recursing requires that the PC have FULL control of the follower's builds. While that's very common, it's not actually RAW (they're NPC's, which are by default built and controlled by the DM; there's no language stating otherwise in the Leadership feat... although as noted, it's very common for a DM who permits Leadership to simply permit the player to make 'em all).

[Particle_Man]

I allow leadership but I do not allow cohorts or followers to take leadership. I have seen players use it to basically ensure loyal npcs taking care of the pc’s castle or inn or other mercantile network while the pc does hero stuff, or being a legion of spies and agents like The Shadow has. It also can give the player the option to play the cohort if the main character goes down, either temporarily or permanently.

It is one of those things that a dm has to watch and work with the player on to prevent abuse (how much work depends on the player and whether they and the dm are on the same page). Unless the dm thinks the extra fun merits that extra work it makes sense to deny it.

But assuming the platonic version of the completely compliant dm, leadership is the most powerful feat in the game pre-epic. And it is core.

Heck in addition to the cohort just imagine that all the followers are warlocks. Tons of at will ranged touch attacks that are unaffected by any elemental resistance suddenly open up on any opponents without decent sr. Plus they all get one or more invocations, also at will.

[AvatarVecna]

So, over in Mutants & Masterminds, most characters are created with 15 power points per power level (usually PL 10, and 150 PP), and there are these things called advantages (but really, they're feats). All feats cost 1 PP to purchase, and some can be taken multiple times and self-stack. Improved Initiative (+4 init) is one such feat. Another couple are Close Attack (+1 to hit with all melee) and Ranged Attack (+1 to hit with all ranged). These feats are all more or less comparable in terms of power. And M&M also has a couple of equivalent feats to Leadership, in the form of the Minions feat and the Sidekick feat. Basically, Minions are built like normal people, but they're really easy to take out, so usually what you do with the feat is get lots of weak guys instead of one big guy who has a gigantic glass jaw. If you want a follower who doesn't go down to a stiff breeze, you can get a Sidekick instead, which plays by Hero rules instead of Minion rules. So here's the thing: for every rank of the Minion advantage, you get 15 PP worth of minions, and for every rank of the Sidekick advantage, you get 5 PP worth of sidekick. So if you're a PL 10 Batman and you want a PL 8 Robin at your side with the normal number of points for his PL, you need to spend 24 PP on Sidekick. If you wanted the equivalent of Improved Initiative in the system, you would need to spend 1 PP; if you wanted the equivalent of Leadership in the system, you would need to spend 24 PP on the cohort alone (getting the followers too ratchets the price up significantly). I dunno if Leadership is twenty-four times as valuable as Improved Initiative but I'm having a hard time arguing against the conclusion.

Or, if you'd rather a comparison example that stays within the same gaming system as Leadership, here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?541881-3-5-or-PF-Leadership-vs-Gestalt-Your-Choice)'s a thread I made awhile back asking if people would rather spend a feat on Leadership or on become gestalt characters, and they could only every pick one. The general conclusion I came away from that thread with was "gestalt is powerful and relatively simple, but barring significant cheese leadership is more powerful almost entirely by virtue of the action economy advantages".

[Gnaeus]

Craft wondrous items is one of the strongest feats in the game. It lets you buy whatever gear you want for half a dozen categories at half price, or sell found gear at 50% then recover that value by crafting. In a game with downtime it is almost a must have for someone in the party.

A PF wizard cohort for a 7th level character can come equipped with Scribe Scrolls (bonus), Craft Wondrous (3), Craft arms (5), craft wands (5, bonus), and a feat and a trait to reduce time/costs. Then trade a bunch of spells with your party wizard and spend downtime casting long duration spells. That’s broken if he never casts a spell in combat.

If you are 11th level, he can do that, 2 feats better, but also craft all day and then teleport to where you are adventuring, hand you your newly crafted gear, and teleport back with party loot to keep the crafting engine full of gas.

A crafter Vizier can do the same, 2 feats worse, but adding the abilities to instantly swap that +5 dagger you found for a +5 great sword, to switch charges around on party wands, and to make wands and potions of any spell in the game, allowing you to loot rare domains and spell lists for joy. I think a 3.5 artificer can do much of that also but I play PF more these days.

[Particle_Man]

And leadership can get you a cohort with craft feats and if not actively adventuring with their boss enough time to make stuff at the boss’s home town or base.

Basically leadership can get you a cohort with any other feat and a build to take advantage of that feat, another reason leadership is better than merely taking that other feat.

[ColorBlindNinja]

If Leadership is good, the Thrallherd prestige class (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/prestigeClasses/thrallherd.htm) is even better.

It's more limited since you have to be a 5th level Psion with the Mindlink power (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/mindlink.htm), but Thralls show up automatically and you don't take any penalties if they die.

[Particle_Man]

So take the Leadership feat and make your cohort take the Thrallherd prestige class, or take the Thrallherd prestige class and make your Thrall take the Leadership feat. :smallsmile: Leadership feat still wins as best feat.

[ColorBlindNinja]

So take the Leadership feat and make your cohort take the Thrallherd prestige class, or take the Thrallherd prestige class and make your Thrall take the Leadership feat. :smallsmile: Leadership feat still wins as best feat.

I think that last one is the best combination.

And that's my favorite part about Leadership; your cohorts can take it, and their cohorts can take it. Ad infinitum.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by ColorBlindNinja
And that's my favorite part about Leadership; your cohorts can take it, and their cohorts can take it. Ad infinitum.


Originally Posted by Jack_Simth
Meanwhile, you need a Leadership score of at least 21 to get a 6th level follower.

Has anyone calculated the Leadership score you’d need to support each successive iteration of cohorts with Leadership?

Seems to me the requirements of the Leadership score would put a stop to things pretty quickly, even without the mythical all-approving DM.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Has anyone calculated the Leadership score you’d need to support each successive iteration of cohorts with Leadership?

Level and CHA are the two big ones. If you take cohorts that are CHA focused, they'll be able to pretty easily get cohorts of their own.

Also, "Great Renown" is a +2, while "Fairness" and "Special Power" are a +1 each.

EDIT 1: A level 6 character with an 18 in CHA, who is greatly renowned, fair and has "special powers" would have a leadership score of 14. If they were level 8, they could attract a 6th level character with cohorts of their own.

EDIT 2: So, if a PC was level 10, they could get a level 8 cohort, who themselves had a level 6 cohort with Leadership, with even more cohorts.

EDIT 3: If that level 10 PC had a 24 in CHA, they could get a follower with Leadership and even more minions.


Seems to me the requirements of the Leadership score would put a stop to things pretty quickly, even without the mythical all-approving DM.

At higher levels? I doubt it.

Also, this is RAW we're talking about, DM approval is moot.

[Uncle Pine]

Has anyone calculated the Leadership score you’d need to support each successive iteration of cohorts with Leadership?

Seems to me the requirements of the Leadership score would put a stop to things pretty quickly, even without the mythical all-approving DM.

If you have your cohort take Leadership, yes (because each cohort's cohort is going to have two less levels, until one of them doesn't qualify for Leadership anymore). However, there's no hard limit on the level of your followers relatively to your own, which means you and all of the followers who are going to take Leadership only need a score of 21 to support each successive iteration.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Has anyone calculated the Leadership score you’d need to support each successive iteration of cohorts with Leadership?

Seems to me the requirements of the Leadership score would put a stop to things pretty quickly, even without the mythical all-approving DM.

Your cohort's followers aren't keyed off of your leadership score. They're keyed off of his. Chaining leadership through your string of cohorts gets you a huge mess of very low level minions to comprise the bulk of the body of a large organization and far fewer officers for that organization from the highest level followers and the cohorts more than a couple iterations from the first. The bulk of the body of followers are loyal to the organization at the direction of their leaders rather than to the supreme leader that is your PC.

If a cohort in the chain leaves for whatever reason, he's taking a chunk of the organization with him, according to his leadership score. What happens with the cohorts and followers further down the chain than the one leaving could go two ways; either the next in the chain disagrees with the departure and leaves his leader to become cohort to the one above him in the chain or he agrees and you may have a schism in your hands. In any case, you've got some reorganizing to do and either some downsizing or turnover to account for.

[ColorBlindNinja]

I crunched some numbers.

A level 10 PC with a 24 in CHA, who is greatly renowned, fair and has special powers could have a level 8 cohort, who has a level 6 cohort, who has cohorts of his own. The level 10 PC would also have a single level 6 follower who could have cohorts as well.

So, assuming I did the math correctly, that's:

1 level 8 cohort.
1 level 6 cohort.
2 level 4 cohorts.

105 level 1 followers.
10 level 2 followers.
4 level 3 followers.
2 level 4 followers
1 level 5 follower.
1 level 6 follower.

Please let me know if I screwed up those calculations. :smallredface:

[Ruethgar]

I only really use it if the character is built for that purpose and it would fit in the story. For example, I have an E6 half ghost character with Cha through the roof focused on support and and commanding tactical forces. He gathered an army to murderize the theocracy that slaughtered his village in their crusade. When you are going against armies even if you get Leapership(Dmg), Undead Leadership(LM), Undead Leadership(Web), Extra Followers, Turning Pool, and can train them, within reason, you are still fighting an uphill battle without more support.

And then there is that feat, I think from Kalamar, that lets you make your own feat and needs Leadership. Of course that can get OP af fast.

[ColorBlindNinja]

And then there is that feat, I think from Kalamar, that lets you make your own feat and needs Leadership. Of course that can get OP af fast.

:smalleek:

You wouldn't happen to remember the name of that feat, perchance, would you?

[Rynjin]

Here's an easy litmus test for how powerful Leadership is: try to find a Feat with this much value in the game somewhere.

What other Feat gives you a second character at nearly full power? Cohorts are, on average, stronger than Animal Companions and the like, so we already know Leadership is, at a bae level, stronger than several class features.

Then think about a basic use of Leadership: a crafting Cohort. At the level you can usually get it (6th), your Cohort will have at least two Feats. So you're spending ONE Feat and getting two Feats out of it. That's at the absolute base level, weakest optimization possible for Leadership. It pays for itself and then some at 6th, and only improves as you level further.

Even any high op shenanigans aside, that's a powerful Feat.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Here's an easy litmus test for how powerful Leadership is: try to find a Feat with this much value in the game somewhere.

What other Feat gives you a second character at nearly full power? Cohorts are, on average, stronger than Animal Companions and the like, so we already know Leadership is, at a bae level, stronger than several class features.

Epic Spellcasting? :smalltongue:

[Rynjin]

I haven't read Epic stuff for 3.5, but if your main competition as a 6th level Feat is something with "Epic" in the name, something might be wonky with the balance of it. =p

[ColorBlindNinja]

I haven't read Epic stuff for 3.5, but if your main competition as a 6th level Feat is something with "Epic" in the name, something might be wonky with the balance of it. =p

It's 3.5, the entire game balance is wonky.

The other feat that might be worth mentioning is Supernatural Transformation, when used on a Psion or an Erudite. No XP costs for spells and no spell/power resistance.

Combo with certain spells/powers, and you can easily break the game in two.

[Malphegor]

Here's an easy litmus test for how powerful Leadership is: try to find a Feat with this much value in the game somewhere.

What other Feat gives you a second character at nearly full power? Cohorts are, on average, stronger than Animal Companions and the like, so we already know Leadership is, at a bae level, stronger than several class features.

Then think about a basic use of Leadership: a crafting Cohort. At the level you can usually get it (6th), your Cohort will have at least two Feats. So you're spending ONE Feat and getting two Feats out of it. That's at the absolute base level, weakest optimization possible for Leadership. It pays for itself and then some at 6th, and only improves as you level further.

Even any high op shenanigans aside, that's a powerful Feat.

Well there is Undead Leadership, which is basically Leadership except your cohort is some kind of intelligent undead, I understand. Combined with a necromancer in general...

The lich had a mummy, and occasionally they produced a wight. The wight produced wights, guided by its creators might.

The lich had a lieutenant who was alive as can be. He recruited followers so they’d be the power that be.

[NerdHut]

I'd say it's as broken as the DM allows (to oversimply). The DMG specifically calls out that DMs can ban the feat, and all NPCs are assumed to be built and run by the DM anyway.

The feat describes what you CAN get, not what you do get. If a DM was mean, they might allow the feat, then only allow the PCs access to cowardly commoners. That's a bad way to go, obviously, but it's technically a possibility.

Something I've implemented in case a player ever wants to take the feat, and I understand others have done, is to allow only the one cohort, and not the extra followers (I suppose it could also work the other way too). That makes it a much simpler feat, and harder to abuse (if only by a little).

It really comes down to the game that's being run, and who's running it. If you're in a game about a party of adventurers solving problems, a bunch of followers may not be appropriate. If you're in a game about raising armies and conquering fiefdoms, I don't see why you should require a separate feat to access the whole point of the game.

[ColorBlindNinja]

The feat describes what you CAN get, not what you do get. If a DM was mean, they might allow the feat, then only allow the PCs access to cowardly commoners. That's a bad way to go, obviously, but it's technically a possibility.

That would be the DM screwing over the players unnecessarily, especially because the feat says:



A character can try to attract a cohort of a particular race, class, and alignment.


EDIT: There's no reason a PC couldn't turn down or dismiss cohorts they don't want, anyway.

If the DM isn't happy with the way the feat works, he/she should just ban it.

[Jon_Dahl]

I just wanted to add that I allow actually Leadership in my games because my players do not abuse it, which is pretty amazing, since the feat's name should be Abusership. I guess the only reason that I allow it is that I expect my players to use it creatively and not break my game with it.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

If you're willing to throw resources at it, Leadership is a lot more optimizable than thrallherd, simply because there are way more options to do so with. Baseline ability? Thrallherd wins, hands down.

[Ashtagon]

When I GM, one rule I consistently enforce about Leadership is that your cohorts cannot take any feat that would grant them followers of their own (or rather, they can choose the feat/ability, but any such feat/ability is disabled while they are operating as a follower/cohort).

I also tend to aim towards forcing cohorts to be suboptimally built; if they were optimally built, they wouldn't want to be a cohort.

[ColorBlindNinja]

When I GM, one rule I consistently enforce about Leadership is that your cohorts cannot take any feat that would grant them followers of their own (or rather, they can choose the feat/ability, but any such feat/ability is disabled while they are operating as a follower/cohort).

I also tend to aim towards forcing cohorts to be suboptimally built; if they were optimally built, they wouldn't want to be a cohort.

Honestly, when I GM I ban Leadership because it's a lot of extra work.

Making the players design their cohorts makes the feat more prone to abuse, but it's less work for me. :smallsmile:

[ezekielraiden]

A 3.PF game I'm in (though it's sorta on hiatus) has not only allowed Leadership, but given us some...interesting cohort options. We aren't quite epic yet, but I have picked up an NG/CG reformed (well, enforced-reformed, it's sad and kinda scary) pit fiend as a cohort and I am pretty excited to see where that goes. Haven't yet worked out the statblock details but it's a fun way to add both story potential and some power (we're doing "playable high-op," so sort of the area where TO and PO overlap, leaning to PO.)

[Jack_Simth]

Has anyone calculated the Leadership score you’d need to support each successive iteration of cohorts with Leadership?

Seems to me the requirements of the Leadership score would put a stop to things pretty quickly, even without the mythical all-approving DM.
The infinite chain relies on folllowers rather than cohorts. A 6th level PC can have a 4th level cohort... but with enough optimization, a 6th level PC can have 6th level followers. If the followers of 6th level are equally optimized to the same goal, then they can also have 6th level followers (and so on).

However... it does need an "all approving" DM. Cohorts and followers are all NPC's. By RAW, they're controlled by the DM - from build to specific choice of action. That said: As noted elsewhere (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?577628-Leadership-pc-creates-Cohort-or-DM-creates), it's very common for a DM who permits Leadership to also let the player build and control cohorts and followers (to the point where it's widely assumed to be the case). If followers use PC build rules (or something very much like them - PC classes, elite array at a minimum, decent amount of wealth, and so on), and followers are permitted to also take and use leadership, and if the DM has the player control everything all along the leadership chain, then the infinite clone army is feasible (I say "clone army" because few, if any, folks will go to the work to make each one unique, so it'll just be photocopied character sheets with the names filled in after).

[SLOTHRPG95]

A 3.PF game I'm in (though it's sorta on hiatus) has not only allowed Leadership, but given us some...interesting cohort options. We aren't quite epic yet, but I have picked up an NG/CG reformed (well, enforced-reformed, it's sad and kinda scary) pit fiend as a cohort and I am pretty excited to see where that goes. Haven't yet worked out the statblock details but it's a fun way to add both story potential and some power (we're doing "playable high-op," so sort of the area where TO and PO overlap, leaning to PO.)


The infinite chain relies on folllowers rather than cohorts. A 6th level PC can have a 4th level cohort... but with enough optimization, a 6th level PC can have 6th level followers. If the followers of 6th level are equally optimized to the same goal, then they can also have 6th level followers (and so on).

However... it does need an "all approving" DM. Cohorts and followers are all NPC's. By RAW, they're controlled by the DM - from build to specific choice of action. That said: As noted elsewhere (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?577628-Leadership-pc-creates-Cohort-or-DM-creates), it's very common for a DM who permits Leadership to also let the player build and control cohorts and followers (to the point where it's widely assumed to be the case). If followers use PC build rules (or something very much like them - PC classes, elite array at a minimum, decent amount of wealth, and so on), and followers are permitted to also take and use leadership, and if the DM has the player control everything all along the leadership chain, then the infinite clone army is feasible (I say "clone army" because few, if any, folks will go to the work to make each one unique, so it'll just be photocopied character sheets with the names filled in after).

Assuming said "all approving" DM, this problem is actually much, much worse in Pathfinder/3.PF. There's a feat from Pathfinder called Recruits that's much, much worse (for balance) when chained. It's basically supposed to be mini-leadership, and you can even swap it out one eligible, but why would you? It gives a number of followers four levels below you equal to half your current level. Combine this w/ Instructor archetype for Wizard or Esquire for Cavalier, and at 10th level you have an 8th level minion, six 6th level minions, ten 4th level minions, and dozens of lower-level ones. By the time you hit 20th, you have a 17th level minion, eleven 15th-16th level minions, nineteen 13th-14th level minions, just over a hundred 11th-12th level minions, and thousands of "low-level" (10th and below) minions. The obvious choice between the two is being an Instructor Wizard. It keys your score off of Int for your Apprentice, and gives your low-level minions the ability to pick up an extra ten thousand or so 1st level commoners who can still do mundane crafting for cash or whatever. Oh, and also generally being a wizard w/ an army of almost nineteen thousand other wizards sounds good. Even without Instructor/Esquire, at 20th level you still have your host of ten 16th level minions, their eighty 12th level minions, their 480 8th level minions, and their 1,920 4th level minions. That seems a lot more worthwhile than what you can get from chaining Leadership. With the latter, you can only get six minions above 6th level, instead of 570 of them.

[Ruethgar]

:smalleek:

You wouldn't happen to remember the name of that feat, perchance, would you?

Sorry, hadn't really been frequenting the forms every few hours like I normally do. Loyalty's Reward, Kingdoms of Kalamar Player's Guide pg 88.

[Jack_Simth]

Assuming said "all approving" DM, this problem is actually much, much worse in Pathfinder/3.PF. There's a feat from Pathfinder called Recruits that's much, much worse (for balance) when chained. It's basically supposed to be mini-leadership, and you can even swap it out one eligible, but why would you? It gives a number of followers four levels below you equal to half your current level. Combine this w/ Instructor archetype for Wizard or Esquire for Cavalier, and at 10th level you have an 8th level minion, six 6th level minions, ten 4th level minions, and dozens of lower-level ones. By the time you hit 20th, you have a 17th level minion, eleven 15th-16th level minions, nineteen 13th-14th level minions, just over a hundred 11th-12th level minions, and thousands of "low-level" (10th and below) minions. The obvious choice between the two is being an Instructor Wizard. It keys your score off of Int for your Apprentice, and gives your low-level minions the ability to pick up an extra ten thousand or so 1st level commoners who can still do mundane crafting for cash or whatever. Oh, and also generally being a wizard w/ an army of almost nineteen thousand other wizards sounds good. Even without Instructor/Esquire, at 20th level you still have your host of ten 16th level minions, their eighty 12th level minions, their 480 8th level minions, and their 1,920 4th level minions. That seems a lot more worthwhile than what you can get from chaining Leadership. With the latter, you can only get six minions above 6th level, instead of 570 of them.
Umm.. no. Per Recruits (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/recruits/)
You gain a number of cohorts (as the Leadership feat) that represent NPCs you are responsible for instructing and overseeing. You have a number of such cohorts equal to half your character level. Unlike normal cohorts, these minor cohorts must be at least 4 levels lower than your character level. Since these students must spend most of their time studying and gaining experience, you can only have one minor cohort travel with you at a time (though they all gain experience at the same rate, as those not present are assumed to be studying and growing independently). Whenever you are in a major town or city, you may exchange your current minor cohort for a different member of your recruits.

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. Minor cohorts not traveling with you can serve as managers for your holdings if you are using downtime rules. If a minor cohort dies, you take only a –1 penalty to your Leadership score.(emphasisadded)

So... no, not better than 3.5 Leadership chaining via followers. Especially if you add "Improved Cohort" into the mix. Then there's the nastiness that is Draconic Cohort...

[ColorBlindNinja]

Sorry, hadn't really been frequenting the forms every few hours like I normally do. Loyalty's Reward, Kingdoms of Kalamar Player's Guide pg 88.

Thanks, I'll be sure to take a look at that one.

[SLOTHRPG95]

Umm.. no. Per Recruits (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/recruits/)

You gain a number of cohorts (as the Leadership feat) that represent NPCs you are responsible for instructing and overseeing. You have a number of such cohorts equal to half your character level. Unlike normal cohorts, these minor cohorts must be at least 4 levels lower than your character level. Since these students must spend most of their time studying and gaining experience, you can only have one minor cohort travel with you at a time (though they all gain experience at the same rate, as those not present are assumed to be studying and growing independently). Whenever you are in a major town or city, you may exchange your current minor cohort for a different member of your recruits.

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. Minor cohorts not traveling with you can serve as managers for your holdings if you are using downtime rules. If a minor cohort dies, you take only a –1 penalty to your Leadership score.
(emphasisadded)

So... no, not better than 3.5 Leadership chaining via followers. Especially if you add "Improved Cohort" into the mix. Then there's the nastiness that is Draconic Cohort...

Yeah, I'm aware of the restrictions. So you can't take them all on a dungeon crawl with you, or turn them into a magic item factory. That doesn't make them totally useless. There are plenty of uses for a host of non-crafting wizards besides adventuring with you. Besides, most of them would be vulnerabilities if they did, since anything eight levels beneath you is going to be pretty squishy.

[Jack_Simth]

Yeah, I'm aware of the restrictions. So you can't take them all on a dungeon crawl with you, or turn them into a magic item factory. That doesn't make them totally useless. There are plenty of uses for a host of non-crafting wizards besides adventuring with you.So... name three that are not in the realm of "pure DM fiat for the results".

Regardless, though: It does mean they're significantly less useful than normal followers - which means going by pure numbers stops being a useful comparison.

And, of course "Caused the death of other followers" is a one-time leadership hit, unlike with cohorts.

Besides, most of them would be vulnerabilities if they did, since anything eight levels beneath you is going to be pretty squishy.
There's a trick to that. Suppose I have 20,000 5th level followers with me (the 6th level ones being keystones, and so not risked), all of whom are Wizards who have Improved Initiative, Greater Spell Penetration, a dex of 10, several copies of Magic Missile prepared, one copy of Stinking Cloud, one copy of Glitterdust, and one copy of Web. And while I'm traveling with this army, a Great Wyrm Red Dragon attacks.

Well, unless the DM is using group initiative, 1,000 of those 5th level followers get a 24, 1,000 of them get a 23, 1,000 of them get a 22, and so on down to 5.

Suppose the Great Wyrm Red dragon rolls an 20 on initiative. Nice, high roll for a Dex-10 creature... well, there's 4,000 followers that go first. The first 1,000 cast Magic Missile. They're rolling 1d20+9 SR penetration against SR 32. They all fail. The next 1,000 followers see that, and all cast Stinking Cloud. There's a save, and the Great Wyrm only fails that save on a nat-1... but there's 1,000 of them. Let's assume this Great Wyrm has the Pride domain power via feat. The Great Wyrm has to roll 1's twice. 1 in 400. He fails the save (on average) to 2.5 of the Stinking Cloud spells. Even if the dragon gets out of the cloud, it's down to a single move action per round for the next 1d4+1 rounds. The next 1,000 all use Glitterdust. Again: Nat-1 only, but 1,000 of them. Dragon is blinded for 5 rounds as well. The next 1,000 followers cast Magic Weapon... on the next 1,000's light crossbows. The next 1,000 fire their light crossbows, which now penetrate the dragon's DR. Sure, only hitting on the nat-20's, but that's still 50 hits (and 2.5 crits) at 1d8+1 each. At 5.5 average damage per hit, that's 275 damage of his 660 hp.

It's finally the Great Wyrm's turn... and he can only move. And then there's another 15,000 followers left to go.

Meanwhile, PC and main cohort can take actions freely.

That dragon is dead in short order. And unless it gets a surprise round, it never gets a useful action.

[Jay R]

So... name three that are not in the realm of "pure DM fiat for the results".

Regardless, though: It does mean they're significantly less useful than normal followers - which means going by pure numbers stops being a useful comparison.

And, of course "Caused the death of other followers" is a one-time leadership hit, unlike with cohorts.

There's a trick to that. Suppose I have 20,000 5th level followers with me (the 6th level ones being keystones, and so not risked), all of whom are Wizards who have Improved Initiative, Greater Spell Penetration, a dex of 10, several copies of Magic Missile prepared, one copy of Stinking Cloud, one copy of Glitterdust, and one copy of Web. And while I'm traveling with this army, a Great Wyrm Red Dragon attacks.

Well, unless the DM is using group initiative, 1,000 of those 5th level followers get a 24, 1,000 of them get a 23, 1,000 of them get a 22, and so on down to 5.

Suppose the Great Wyrm Red dragon rolls an 20 on initiative. Nice, high roll for a Dex-10 creature... well, there's 4,000 followers that go first. The first 1,000 cast Magic Missile. They're rolling 1d20+9 SR penetration against SR 32. They all fail. The next 1,000 followers see that, and all cast Stinking Cloud. There's a save, and the Great Wyrm only fails that save on a nat-1... but there's 1,000 of them. Let's assume this Great Wyrm has the Pride domain power via feat. The Great Wyrm has to roll 1's twice. 1 in 400. He fails the save (on average) to 2.5 of the Stinking Cloud spells. Even if the dragon gets out of the cloud, it's down to a single move action per round for the next 1d4+1 rounds. The next 1,000 all use Glitterdust. Again: Nat-1 only, but 1,000 of them. Dragon is blinded for 5 rounds as well. The next 1,000 followers cast Magic Weapon... on the next 1,000's light crossbows. The next 1,000 fire their light crossbows, which now penetrate the dragon's DR. Sure, only hitting on the nat-20's, but that's still 50 hits (and 2.5 crits) at 1d8+1 each. At 5.5 average damage per hit, that's 275 damage of his 660 hp.

It's finally the Great Wyrm's turn... and he can only move. And then there's another 15,000 followers left to go.

Meanwhile, PC and main cohort can take actions freely.

That dragon is dead in short order. And unless it gets a surprise round, it never gets a useful action.

Don't be silly. Magic Missile, Stinking Cloud, and Glitterdust have medium range -- up to 150 feet. You can't get twenty thousand people that close to anything. And you aren't likely to march 20,000 people to melee distance without being noticed anyway. The dust from their marching was visible miles away. Besides, you said that the Dragon attacks. He goes first, in the surprise round.

Your example assumes no actual rules restrict the PC's horde.

Besides, I can't imagine any DM ruling that that many 5th level wizards exist on the same continent -- certainly not that many close enough to recruit. [I'd give you a die roll each week to find *one* wizard that high willing to work for you.] Nor would a real DM allow the kind of chaining that would give this many 5th levels to a player.

You are stretching one rule absurdly to try to gain that much power, and ignoring all other rules that would limit it.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Don't be silly. Magic Missile, Stinking Cloud, and Glitterdust have medium range -- up to 150 feet.

You could always use War spells.


Your example assumes no actual rules restrict the PC's horde.

Such as?


Besides, I can't imagine any DM ruling that that many 5th level wizards exist on the same continent -- certainly not that many close enough to recruit.

Per the rules, every large town would have at least 1 level 6 Wizard (on average). A small city would have 2 level 6 Wizards and a metropolis would have 2 level 7 Wizards.

Depending on how many settlements the continent has, you could have a large number of Wizards of level 5+.


Nor would a real DM allow the kind of chaining that would give this many 5th levels to a player.

That's moot.


You are stretching one rule absurdly to try to gain that much power, and ignoring all other rules that would limit it.

Which rules would those be?

[unseenmage]

...

Per the rules, every large town would have at least 1 level 6 Wizard (on average). A small city would have 2 level 6 Wizards and a metropolis would have 2 level 7 Wizards.

Depending on how many settlements the continent has, you could have a large number of Wizards of level 5+.

...
Not to.mention there's a multitude of infinite planes out there chock full of planar metropolises and the NPCs to staff them.
AND canonical permanent gateways/crystal spheres/color pools/etc connecting them.

There's also Minor Servitor (GM willing), Awaken Sand, Awaken, Awaken Undead, Awaken Construct, etc that will just create sapient free willed creatures from your surroundings whom you can attract as minions.

Oh, and they're already friendly towards you.

Sure those are a higher level shenanigans but still, without a wider, broader ban-stick players WILL get minions one way or another.

Heck, just using the Dominate chain can net you enough bodies to rival unoptimized Leadership.

[Cosi]

There's a trick to that. Suppose I have 20,000 5th level followers with me (the 6th level ones being keystones, and so not risked), all of whom are Wizards who have Improved Initiative, Greater Spell Penetration, a dex of 10, several copies of Magic Missile prepared, one copy of Stinking Cloud, one copy of Glitterdust, and one copy of Web. And while I'm traveling with this army, a Great Wyrm Red Dragon attacks.

Well, unless the DM is using group initiative, 1,000 of those 5th level followers get a 24, 1,000 of them get a 23, 1,000 of them get a 22, and so on down to 5.

Suppose the Great Wyrm Red dragon rolls an 20 on initiative. Nice, high roll for a Dex-10 creature... well, there's 4,000 followers that go first. The first 1,000 cast Magic Missile. They're rolling 1d20+9 SR penetration against SR 32. They all fail. The next 1,000 followers see that, and all cast Stinking Cloud. There's a save, and the Great Wyrm only fails that save on a nat-1... but there's 1,000 of them. Let's assume this Great Wyrm has the Pride domain power via feat. The Great Wyrm has to roll 1's twice. 1 in 400. He fails the save (on average) to 2.5 of the Stinking Cloud spells. Even if the dragon gets out of the cloud, it's down to a single move action per round for the next 1d4+1 rounds. The next 1,000 all use Glitterdust. Again: Nat-1 only, but 1,000 of them. Dragon is blinded for 5 rounds as well. The next 1,000 followers cast Magic Weapon... on the next 1,000's light crossbows. The next 1,000 fire their light crossbows, which now penetrate the dragon's DR. Sure, only hitting on the nat-20's, but that's still 50 hits (and 2.5 crits) at 1d8+1 each. At 5.5 average damage per hit, that's 275 damage of his 660 hp.

It's finally the Great Wyrm's turn... and he can only move. And then there's another 15,000 followers left to go.

Meanwhile, PC and main cohort can take actions freely.

That dragon is dead in short order. And unless it gets a surprise round, it never gets a useful action.

That seems more like a problem with nat-1 autofailing, and with trying to scale a system that expects order-of-10 inputs to order-of-10,000 inputs. Using the natural 1 is a -10 houserule (let alone just treating it as a 1) means the Dragon is pulling minimum 22/12/20 saves, which means you need to find a Ref save-or-die to have any chance of working (and that's before buffs). And, really, the game should switch over to a mass-battle system for "20,000 people versus a Dragon", and if you want 20,000 people to not kill a dragon, you can just set things up that way in that system.

Now, that's not to say Leadership is fine, it's just that the problems that arise from "throw a bunch of followers at it" are mostly not Leaderhip's fault.

[gkathellar]

It has the potential to nearly double the effectiveness of most characters, assuming a permissive DM. For a smaller subset of builds, it can be even better than that. In the absence of a permissive DM, one wonders why it exists at all, since all of its effects are probably better-handled through roleplay.

[SLOTHRPG95]

Don't be silly. Magic Missile, Stinking Cloud, and Glitterdust have medium range -- up to 150 feet. You can't get twenty thousand people that close to anything. And you aren't likely to march 20,000 people to melee distance without being noticed anyway. The dust from their marching was visible miles away. Besides, you said that the Dragon attacks. He goes first, in the surprise round.

Your example assumes no actual rules restrict the PC's horde.

Besides, I can't imagine any DM ruling that that many 5th level wizards exist on the same continent -- certainly not that many close enough to recruit. [I'd give you a die roll each week to find *one* wizard that high willing to work for you.] Nor would a real DM allow the kind of chaining that would give this many 5th levels to a player.

You are stretching one rule absurdly to try to gain that much power, and ignoring all other rules that would limit it.

Notwithstanding the fact that (as pointed out) spells with longer ranges than those examples can mitigate some of these problems, yeah generally I've gotta agree with these points. We were dwelling in the cosmos of "overly-permissive DM" so I don't think it's too out of line to cite multiplanar wizard populations, but one of the reasons in-game that Recruits is nice is that I've never seen a DM restrict them to NPC classes only. Leadership, on the other hand, often (but not always) has some sort of implicit understanding that most of your 5th-level followers are warriors and experts instead of fighters and rogues, let alone wizards. This aside, marching an army of 20,000 wizards around and hoping for any sort of stealth without epic-level magic is pretty impractical as far as ideas go. And once the Great Wyrm Red Dragon spots the horde, it can choose to not engage. Or it can hit-and-run, flying above cloud cover and emerging only to lay down a few Meteor Swarms at 1,160 ft. range before retreating. It doesn't need to kill all your followers in one go, it just needs to do so faster than you can replace them. Or for that matter, it can put its 26 Int to good use and come up with a better plan than I can. The real advantage of an army of 20K 5th level wizards seems to me that you can trounce other conventional forces at long range. It's not that you can go and slay all the dragons.

[Jack_Simth]

You are stretching one rule absurdly to try to gain that much power, and ignoring all other rules that would limit it.So? Leadership chaining - by any method - requires an "all approving" DM - I've mentioned that:
However... it does need an "all approving" DM. Cohorts and followers are all NPC's. By RAW, they're controlled by the DM - from build to specific choice of action. That said: As noted elsewhere (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?577628-Leadership-pc-creates-Cohort-or-DM-creates), it's very common for a DM who permits Leadership to also let the player build and control cohorts and followers (to the point where it's widely assumed to be the case). If followers use PC build rules (or something very much like them - PC classes, elite array at a minimum, decent amount of wealth, and so on), and followers are permitted to also take and use leadership, and if the DM has the player control everything all along the leadership chain, then the infinite clone army is feasible (I say "clone army" because few, if any, folks will go to the work to make each one unique, so it'll just be photocopied character sheets with the names filled in after).As have others:
Assuming said "all approving" DM, this problem is actually much, much worse in Pathfinder/3.PF

That seems more like a problem with nat-1 autofailing, and with trying to scale a system that expects order-of-10 inputs to order-of-10,000 inputs. Using the natural 1 is a -10 houserule (let alone just treating it as a 1) means the Dragon is pulling minimum 22/12/20 saves, which means you need to find a Ref save-or-die to have any chance of working (and that's before buffs). And, really, the game should switch over to a mass-battle system for "20,000 people versus a Dragon", and if you want 20,000 people to not kill a dragon, you can just set things up that way in that system.Could also dig out Cooperative Spell Metamagic (Tome and Blood). +1 DC for each caster, +1 SR penetration per caster, using the best ability score and caster level of the group, and all of them go off. Get 40 or so casting at once (which just requires 800 locally, on average, to have at maximum initiative), and the Wizards with 18 Int (15 base on elite array, +1 level up at 4th, +2 headband) mean a save DC of 54 + spell level, and an SR penetration of 1d20+45 + relevant feats and items. Is that any better, really?

The real advantage of an army of 20K 5th level wizards seems to me that you can trounce other conventional forces at long range.
Yep. And note that you don't have the potential for the option of 20,000 in one place with Recruits, but it's at least theoretically possible via Leadership chaining.

[Gibblewrett]

There's a reason it's nigh universally banned.



Well, there's this line:



That implies that the player has a measure of control over who they can recruit.

And even if the PCs they attract aren't very well optimized, they're still tilting action economy in the PCs favor.

Not a problem at all. They sure can attract anyone. There are plenty of people in an adventure path. Use them. But what it doesn't say is, create who ever you want. Personally, I enjoy Player Paraphernalia 103 - Re-Envisioning Leadership.

Leadership is Innate Skill

First, everyone has a leadership score, equal to ½ the character’s total class level + the character’s Charisma modifier with a minimum leadership score of 0. The character’s leadership score determines the total levels of possible associates as well as attracting others that believe in the character and willing to provide aid.

Second, ranks in Bluff, Diplomacy, or Intimidate equal to the character’s total class level grants a +1 bonus to the character’s leadership score (applies for each skill). If the character is chaotic or good, a -1 penalty is suffered for each aspect that applies. In the same regards, being evil or lawful grants a +1 bonus for each aspect that applies. Other bonuses and penalties may apply as listed in the Influence table.


Any character may attempt to attract one or more cohorts, though the character may not have more cohorts than their Charisma modifier (minimum of 1) at any one time. The total levels (or HD) of cohorts cannot exceed ½ the character’s total class level unless the character has the Vile/Leadership feat.

Otherwise, if you absolutely have to create something, there is nothing that says this cohort gets heroic/normal/array stats or anything. Dinglegames is a great tool - totally worth the money, and so is pc gen if you want to create something on the fly. Generally speaking, since most people are not going to pick up leadership until level 7-9 anyway, a random NPC can be build pretty easily.

But in one of my way of the wicked AP im running I already have a LN person in a LE group, befriend an NG servant trained ranger through basics of diplomacy and haven't even touched leadership yet. She's not great, because he stats weren't great but the point is, they can do it.

As far as tilting the action economy, a cohort isn't slave or servant. They don't have to do a god damn thing the PC tells them to. They are still an NPC. They aren't all going to be lapdogs following the PC around looking for table scraps.

Players and GMs get way way WAY too bogged down with the rules of the leadership and there is just no communication about it. No, it's not ok for a player to clone themselves with leadership. It's also not ok (imo) to ban leadership. Learn to compromise.

[Heliomance]

No-one's mentioned Draconic Cohort yet. More restrictions on what you can get than Leadership - your cohort has to be a dragon of some sort, and you don't get followers. But, they can have an ECL no higher than your ECL PLUS 1, meaning you can chain Draconic Cohort to get MORE powerful with each iteration, ending up with Great Wyrms and the like.

[Psychoalpha]

Players and GMs get way way WAY too bogged down with the rules of the leadership and there is just no communication about it. No, it's not ok for a player to clone themselves with leadership. It's also not ok (imo) to ban leadership. Learn to compromise.

Right? >_> Leaving aside the weight of Leadership vs basically every other Feat, and that I much prefer it just be a basic function of character advancement, this always seems like much ado about nothing. If you're in the kind of game where a DM is going to let you chain infinite Draconic Cohort feats for a legion of Great Wyrm dragons who will do whatever you want, there are much bigger problems than that to worry about.

Leadership has never been banned in any of the games I've played in, and it's also never caused the game to fall apart, even in some ridiculous situations. Not because the DMs kept an iron fist on everything to do with Leadership, not because everyone I play with is some kind of saint when it comes to restraint, but because players and GMs communicate with each other and other players about what they'd like to do with it. Some things are silly but the GM can roll with it, some things are too over the top and the GM asks them not to. Some things other players take issue with (like lugging around a -2 ECL Fighter is rarely anybody's idea of fun), etc.

We pretty universally let the players design the cohorts unless they ask the DM to. That doesn't mean the player whose cohort it is does it, it's usually whoever has the system knowledge to best build whatever role the player wants their cohort to fill. That said, it's also usually the case that we don't bring cohorts with us into combat unless it's as a healer and literally no one in the PC group wanted to play one.

Mostly cohorts serve as agents out in the world acting on behalf of or in coordination with the player character and his or her party. They serve as narrative tools, resources, and influence on the world while the PCs are off storming the castle or what have you. They're more often than not used as world building tools with voices and stories of their own, outside of the hack and slash that characterizes much of the life of an adventurer.

Again, leaving aside it's weight as a feat, virtually any real 'problems with Leadership' can better be summed up as 'problems with your gaming group'.

[SLOTHRPG95]

Could also dig out Cooperative Spell Metamagic (Tome and Blood). +1 DC for each caster, +1 SR penetration per caster, using the best ability score and caster level of the group, and all of them go off. Get 40 or so casting at once (which just requires 800 locally, on average, to have at maximum initiative), and the Wizards with 18 Int (15 base on elite array, +1 level up at 4th, +2 headband) mean a save DC of 54 + spell level, and an SR penetration of 1d20+45 + relevant feats and items. Is that any better, really?

Yep. And note that you don't have the potential for the option of 20,000 in one place with Recruits, but it's at least theoretically possible via Leadership chaining.

I thought about Cooperative Spell, but unless you have casters delaying action (which seems to defeat the purpose of winning initiative), the requirements under "Special" make this not at all a given.
If you have your 20K wizards in a relatively compact shape, they're still going to have at most eight other wizards adjacent. In fact, almost all of them will, as if they're "compact" in this sense, we mean that we want as many interior wizards (cf. boundary wizards) as possible, and then generally optimal secondary adjacency, and then tertiary, etc. This is probably ideally a "circle" (in the sense of 5-ft. squares) with a radius of about 400 ft.
Still, any given wizard has a roughly 1/3 chance (1 - (19/20)^8) of having at least one adjacent wizard with exactly the same initiative score, assuming they all have the same initiative mod. Note that if they have different mods, the probability goes down. However, with 20K wizards, you expect to have about 266 of them who've rolled a 20 and are adjacent to another 20-roller. This is great, until you look at the feat text and see that "[w]hen more than two spellcasters cooperatively cast a spell, each must be adjacent to at least two other casters involved in the casting."
So what we're looking for isn't even the maximal chain of 20-rollers, it's made more complicated by double adjacency. It's at this point that I figure minimally a large chalk board and a decent amount of time is required to come to a good estimate for the expected value of wizards casting this optimally-buffed spell. Oh, or I guess I could feed this into Mathematica, but either way I can't do it from home. But, if you've already done the work and the answer is indeed about 40, I'd love to see the gory details.

As for Recruits, combining it with the Instructor archetype and chaining both allows for 29,407 minions at 20th level, admittedly 10,540 of which are commoners ("wizards-in-training") and not wizards. Of these, 3,147 are 5th level or higher. It might indeed be theoretically possible to chain leadership into 20K 5th-level followers, but this use of Recruits allows you to not care about charisma and instead just focus on intelligence as normal, and it doesn't care if you move around a lot for whatever that's worth. Also, a "tame" chained leadership build only results in about two dozen followers of 5th or 6th level, so you've really got to be pulling out all the stops to hit that 20K benchmark, or even the 3K benchmark.

[Cosi]

Could also dig out Cooperative Spell Metamagic (Tome and Blood). +1 DC for each caster, +1 SR penetration per caster, using the best ability score and caster level of the group, and all of them go off. Get 40 or so casting at once (which just requires 800 locally, on average, to have at maximum initiative), and the Wizards with 18 Int (15 base on elite array, +1 level up at 4th, +2 headband) mean a save DC of 54 + spell level, and an SR penetration of 1d20+45 + relevant feats and items. Is that any better, really?

No, because that's missing the point. I'm not objecting to the particular strategy, I'm saying that the problem with "a bunch of 5th level Wizards can kill a Great Wyrm Red Dragon" isn't Leadership giving you a bunch of 5th level Wizards, but the fact that such a thing is possible at all. The game says that a bunch of 5th level Wizards should not be able to beat a Great Wyrm Red Dragon.

Again, that is not to say that Leadership is fine. Just that this particular problem is not a Leadership problem. Consider two actual leadership problems:

1. You can get a cohort who is half your level, and that's a way bigger power increase than any other feat.
2. If you can get 6th level followers as a 6th level character you can amass an army of people who are as individually strong as you are.

In both of those cases, the power of what you are getting is exactly what the game says it should be. A Level - 2 character should, according to the CR system and all other metrics for power, provide a 50% increase in power (roughly speaking). And it does. The problem there is Leadership because the effect is working as intended. There's nothing else to fix (ditto with the 6th level followers at 6th level). Conversely, in the "20,000 Wizards versus a Dragon" case, the game says that there should be no real effect, so the problem is with how much 20,000 5th level Wizards can do to a Dragon rather than Leadership giving you 20,000 5th level Wizards.

Imagine, by way of analogy, that Two Weapon Fighting gave you at-will wish as a SLA. That would certainly make Rangers very overpowered. But I wouldn't call that a Ranger balance problem.

[ColorBlindNinja]

No, because that's missing the point. I'm not objecting to the particular strategy, I'm saying that the problem with "a bunch of 5th level Wizards can kill a Great Wyrm Red Dragon" isn't Leadership giving you a bunch of 5th level Wizards, but the fact that such a thing is possible at all. The game says that a bunch of 5th level Wizards should not be able to beat a Great Wyrm Red Dragon.

Minor nitpick, with its access to 9th level magic, I don't think that a bunch of 5th level Wizards can kill a Great Wyrm Red Dragon if it acts intelligently.

[Cosi]

Minor nitpick, with its access to 9th level magic, I don't think that a bunch of 5th level Wizards can kill a Great Wyrm Red Dragon if it acts intelligently.

Eh. Certainly you can make the argument that after we account for tactics, the Dragon wins. But I think it's fair to say that the amount of tactical advantage the Wizards need is too small.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Eh. Certainly you can make the argument that after we account for tactics, the Dragon wins. But I think it's fair to say that the amount of tactical advantage the Wizards need is too small.

Agreed.

I was merely pointing that out victory isn't by any means a guarantee for the army of 5th level Wizards.

[SLOTHRPG95]

Consider two actual leadership problems:

1. You can get a cohort who is half your level, and that's a way bigger power increase than any other feat.
2. If you can get 6th level followers as a 6th level character you can amass an army of people who are as individually strong as you are.

If you can get 6th level followers as a 6th level character, and you can custom-build followers, congrats you've got yourself an arbitrarily large number of followers. With that said, even if you're guaranteed the latter, I'm not sure how you're getting the former. Even w/ all the reputation bonuses and a stronghold, you're still looking at a minimum of 28 Cha needed at 6th level. In most campaigns, that's not possible unless you've already broken WBL. And if you have, there's plenty of other "I have arbitrarily large amounts of X" tricks that you can pull off.

[ColorBlindNinja]

If you can get 6th level followers as a 6th level character, and you can custom-build followers, congrats you've got yourself an arbitrarily large number of followers. With that said, even if you're guaranteed the latter, I'm not sure how you're getting the former. Even w/ all the reputation bonuses and a stronghold, you're still looking at a minimum of 28 Cha needed at 6th level. In most campaigns, that's not possible unless you've already broken WBL. And if you have, there's plenty of other "I have arbitrarily large amounts of X" tricks that you can pull off.

I think you're over-exaggerating how difficult it is to get 6th level followers:


I crunched some numbers.

A level 10 PC with a 24 in CHA, who is greatly renowned, fair and has special powers could have a level 8 cohort, who has a level 6 cohort, who has cohorts of his own. The level 10 PC would also have a single level 6 follower who could have cohorts as well.

So, assuming I did the math correctly, that's:

1 level 8 cohort.
1 level 6 cohort.
2 level 4 cohorts.

105 level 1 followers.
10 level 2 followers.
4 level 3 followers.
2 level 4 followers
1 level 5 follower.
1 level 6 follower.

Please let me know if I screwed up those calculations. :smallredface:

[ericgrau]

I'll add in breastplate of command, 24,500 gp, +2 to leadership score, DMG. Not feasible at 6th level though.

Better ways to boost your leadership score: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?291713-3-5-Tell-me-your-tips-and-tricks-to-increase-Leadership-scores!

[ColorBlindNinja]

I'll add in breastplate of command, 24,500 gp, +2 to leadership score, DMG. Not feasible at 6th level though.

Better ways to boost your leadership score: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?291713-3-5-Tell-me-your-tips-and-tricks-to-increase-Leadership-scores!

Thanks for that, I'll be sure to bookmark that link.

[Jack_Simth]

I thought about Cooperative Spell, but unless you have casters delaying action (which seems to defeat the purpose of winning initiative), the requirements under "Special" make this not at all a given.
If you have your 20K wizards in a relatively compact shape, they're still going to have at most eight other wizards adjacent. In fact, almost all of them will, as if they're "compact" in this sense, we mean that we want as many interior wizards (cf. boundary wizards) as possible, and then generally optimal secondary adjacency, and then tertiary, etc. This is probably ideally a "circle" (in the sense of 5-ft. squares) with a radius of about 400 ft.
Still, any given wizard has a roughly 1/3 chance (1 - (19/20)^8) of having at least one adjacent wizard with exactly the same initiative score, assuming they all have the same initiative mod. Note that if they have different mods, the probability goes down. However, with 20K wizards, you expect to have about 266 of them who've rolled a 20 and are adjacent to another 20-roller. This is great, until you look at the feat text and see that "[w]hen more than two spellcasters cooperatively cast a spell, each must be adjacent to at least two other casters involved in the casting."
So what we're looking for isn't even the maximal chain of 20-rollers, it's made more complicated by double adjacency. It's at this point that I figure minimally a large chalk board and a decent amount of time is required to come to a good estimate for the expected value of wizards casting this optimally-buffed spell. Oh, or I guess I could feed this into Mathematica, but either way I can't do it from home. But, if you've already done the work and the answer is indeed about 40, I'd love to see the gory details.

Oh, that's not how you do it. They merely need to go off at the same time. They all ready an action for cooperative spellcasting on the same trigger: interrupt whatever the dragon does (this also ensures that they'll still go before the dragon on successive turns, if there are any). It's not 1 in 20 eight times to see if there's an adjacent wizard doing it at the same time. It's 4 or 5 in 20 (4 if the dragon wins on ties, 5 if the wizard's do), eight tries. Eight instances of 20% or 25% will arrive twice quite often: Handy Page for This (https://www.statisticshowto.datasciencecentral.com/calculators/binomial-distribution-calculator/). Between 2 and 8 successes on 8 tries at 25% is 63.29...%. Between 2 and 8 successes on 8 tries at 20% is 49.67...%. Per Wizard that rolls above the dragon, which will be 20% or 25% of them.

Even if they don't hit specific numbers... there's still that x-zillion spells getting slung about, and statistics are against the dragon (or other reasonably conventional force).


As for Recruits, combining it with the Instructor archetype and chaining both allows for 29,407 minions at 20th level, admittedly 10,540 of which are commoners ("wizards-in-training") and not wizards. Of these, 3,147 are 5th level or higher. It might indeed be theoretically possible to chain leadership into 20K 5th-level followers, but this use of Recruits allows you to not care about charisma and instead just focus on intelligence as normal, and it doesn't care if you move around a lot for whatever that's worth. Also, a "tame" chained leadership build only results in about two dozen followers of 5th or 6th level, so you've really got to be pulling out all the stops to hit that 20K benchmark, or even the 3K benchmark.
You're focusing on 20th. Why? 3.5 Leadership(Follower) chaining theoretically goes capless at 6th (inherently needed if it's possible), and few games are played at 20th.

Also: What can you actually do with them, outside the realm of "DM decides whether or not it works" (such as, say, spying)? You can't adventure with them (explicitly limited to 1), you can have them earning you money (Craft, Profession, and Crafting are explicitly out).


No, because that's missing the point. I'm not objecting to the particular strategy, I'm saying that the problem with "a bunch of 5th level Wizards can kill a Great Wyrm Red Dragon" isn't Leadership giving you a bunch of 5th level Wizards, but the fact that such a thing is possible at all. The game says that a bunch of 5th level Wizards should not be able to beat a Great Wyrm Red Dragon.

The system design spec says X. Behavior analysis on the system confirms !X. The system is bugged. Sure. Nolo contendere.

We're discussing a 3.X based game (whether we're in Pathfinder or 3.5 mode). That the system is buggy is very, very well known.


Again, that is not to say that Leadership is fine. Just that this particular problem is not a Leadership problem. Consider two actual leadership problems:

1. You can get a cohort who is half your level, and that's a way bigger power increase than any other feat.
2. If you can get 6th level followers as a 6th level character you can amass an army of people who are as individually strong as you are.

In both of those cases, the power of what you are getting is exactly what the game says it should be. A Level - 2 character should, according to the CR system and all other metrics for power, provide a 50% increase in power (roughly speaking). And it does. The problem there is Leadership because the effect is working as intended. There's nothing else to fix (ditto with the 6th level followers at 6th level).
Sure there is something to fix. Feats are also supposed to (mostly) be roughly on par with each other, which is also not true. Leadership becomes MUCH less of a problem if the DM builds the NPC's like what's theoretically supposed to happen. Wizard cohort? Fine. But the DM picks feats, spells known, skills, and so on. Followers are NPC classed, like is suggested in the Leadership feat itself, except for those you recruit on-screen (which all had to have been statted up a bit by the DM before they got there).

[Bartmanhomer]

Ok. I need to say something here. All I asked is how good is Leadership really is and many people in this thread tell me it broken but now it's derail into arugments. I didn't even asked for optimizing the use of the feat. :annoyed:

[ColorBlindNinja]

Ok. I need to say something here. All I asked is how good is Leadership really is and many people in this thread tell me it broken but now it's derail into arugments. I didn't even asked for optimizing the use of the feat. :annoyed:

That's pretty typical for this forum, actually. We do like to argue. :smallbiggrin:

[Kelb_Panthera]

Ok. I need to say something here. All I asked is how good is Leadership really is and many people in this thread tell me it broken but now it's derail into arugments. I didn't even asked for optimizing the use of the feat. :annoyed:

I mean... did you not get your answer? Even at its weakest possible interpretation (short of the GM actively sabotaging it) it's the most powerful feat in the game short of epic spellcasting.

[SLOTHRPG95]

I think you're over-exaggerating how difficult it is to get 6th level followers:

Your prior post was about getting them at 10th level, which is a far cry from getting them at 6th level and theoretically getting infinite recursion. You're right that at mid-to-high levels, 6th level followers aren't insanely hard to get.


Oh, that's not how you do it. They merely need to go off at the same time. They all ready an action for cooperative spellcasting on the same trigger: interrupt whatever the dragon does (this also ensures that they'll still go before the dragon on successive turns, if there are any). It's not 1 in 20 eight times to see if there's an adjacent wizard doing it at the same time. It's 4 or 5 in 20 (4 if the dragon wins on ties, 5 if the wizard's do), eight tries. Eight instances of 20% or 25% will arrive twice quite often: Handy Page for This (https://www.statisticshowto.datasciencecentral.com/calculators/binomial-distribution-calculator/). Between 2 and 8 successes on 8 tries at 25% is 63.29...%. Between 2 and 8 successes on 8 tries at 20% is 49.67...%. Per Wizard that rolls above the dragon, which will be 20% or 25% of them.

Even if they don't hit specific numbers... there's still that x-zillion spells getting slung about, and statistics are against the dragon (or other reasonably conventional force).

I don't know about you, but I'd consider "interrupt whatever X person does" to be a too-general use of a readied action. "Interrupt specific thing" is fine, but this ain't that. Without this, you've got a risky strategy, since then you've got to assume that your army of wizards knows the dragon's initiative, rather than just knowing that they're going before it. It doesn't take too much modification of the scenario for this to fall apart, even if all your army has the meta-knowledge that the dragon could under normal circumstances get at most (in fact exactly) a 20. Even a simple casting of Cat's Grace before being spotted would mean that the dragon would beat anyone who delayed action to an initiative of 21. This aside, even if the wizards had a way of knowing that the dragon rolled a nat 1 and lost on ties, and everyone cooperatively cast together, this'd still not fix the fundamental problem of spell range. At 5th CL, a Long spell that'd been Enlarged only goes 1,200 ft., which is about half the Long range of a GWRD's Enlarged Long spells (2,360 ft.). This is even worse when you remember the relative difficulties of spotting a Colossal creature at long distances versus an army of 20K people.


You're focusing on 20th. Why? 3.5 Leadership(Follower) chaining theoretically goes capless at 6th (inherently needed if it's possible), and few games are played at 20th.

Also: What can you actually do with them, outside the realm of "DM decides whether or not it works" (such as, say, spying)? You can't adventure with them (explicitly limited to 1), you can have them earning you money (Craft, Profession, and Crafting are explicitly out).



I've picked 20th level somewhat arbitrarily, but I'd be happy to talk about different levels.

Also: you can have them cast spells for money, if there exists sufficient demand (read: portals into Sigil or the like). You can start up your own wizarding university and leverage the influence of alumni into a position of power and prestige, and build up a $39.2B endowment from alum donations/good investment. You can, as you mentioned, use them as spies as long as you're okay with a varying success rate. If they're all taking a feat to pick up the Divination/Insight/Planning domain, you can have them break the stock market. In the world of TO, there's plenty of things to do outside of combat, crafting, and craft-adjacent skills. Outside the world of TO, it's a moot point anyways.

[ezekielraiden]

Not a problem at all. They sure can attract anyone. There are plenty of people in an adventure path. Use them. But what it doesn't say is, create who ever you want. Personally, I enjoy Player Paraphernalia 103 - Re-Envisioning Leadership. <snip>

Wait, why does being Evil give a bonus, a being Good a penalty? I can--kinda sorta--see the benefit of Lawful, but how on earth do people generically and pervasively dislike having a Good leader, and generically and pervasively like having an Evil one??

[Jack_Simth]

Ok. I need to say something here. All I asked is how good is Leadership really is and many people in this thread tell me it broken but now it's derail into arugments. I didn't even asked for optimizing the use of the feat. :annoyed:

OK. I'll stop derailing you, then.

So: Yeah. In terms of feats, second in terms of power only to Epic Spellcasting. It's pretty much the second most powerful feat in the game, and the only one over it is not supposed to be accessible prior to 21st. This one's available at 6th.

[unseenmage]

OK. I'll stop derailing you, then.

So: Yeah. In terms of feats, second in terms of power only to Epic Spellcasting. It's pretty much the second most powerful feat in the game, and the only one over it is not supposed to be accessible prior to 21st. This one's available at 6th.

And really after epic spellcasting comes online Leadership can not you a second iteration of Epic Spellcasting.

[Florian]

I think it´s fair to say that Leadership is at the same time the most over- and under-rated feat around.

The deciding factors are:
1) Who is in control of the Cohort and Followers?
2) Who create the Cohort and Followers?
3) How hard or easy/automatic is access to Cohorts and Followers?

The value and usefulness of Leadership rises drastically under a "permissive GM" and drops correspondingly under a rather strict GM. For example, contrast the situation with the very high OP talk going on in this thread with a GM that only allows access to pre-existing NPC and standard troops based on the DMG stat blocks.

[Ruethgar]

Since we're talking about leadership, a build I did for more of a village thought experiment was Prince Charming.

32pt buy Str 8 Dex 12 Con 12 Wis 14 Int 10 Cha 24
LN Magic Blooded Unseelie Lesser Aasimar
Martial Monk 1/Marshal 1(for diplomancy)/Aristocrat 1
Monk: Leadership(via the Commander Fighter bonus feat list)
Flaw: Extra Followers
Flaw: Improved Cohort
1st: Practiced Cohort
Marshal: Skill Focus(Diplomacy)
3rd: Inspirational Leadership
Skills: Diplomacy, Sense Motive, Perform(Oratory), Bluff

Cha +7, lvl 3, feats +4, fairness +1, special power +1, aloof -1, stronghold +2, moves -1= 16. He's supposed to be a guy who travels around talking people's ears off so they give him money(maybe to go away but w/e). If you made him stationary and more involved with his community he jumps up to a score of 18 and now has 2 followers of a higher level than him. Not sure if there are anymore leadership feats, but if there are, you can snag up to another 7 from taint, faustian, and elder evils plus 3 more from excessive Light Armor Proficiency feats if you manage a DCS. Each leadership feat grants +1 to your score so if you could manage to fine 10 more you could keep your traveling vagabond ways and still be maxed out. But let's not assume that's a possibility. This guy was designed to be a normal-ish human-ish leader of a normal-ish village. But throw that out the window and we can have some more fun!

Cha 24 Int 20
LN Unseelie Magic Blooded Venerable Kobold
Martial Monk 1/Major Gold Dragon Bloodline 3/Commander 1/Marshal 1
Monk: Leadership(via the Commander Fighter bonus feat list)
Flaw: Dragonwrought
Flaw: Extra Followers
1st: Practiced Cohort
Fighter: Skill Focus(Diplomacy)
3rd: Inspirational Leadership
Marshal: Epic Leadership
Shuffle: Improved Cohort, Loyalty's Reward(something with the Leader descriptor), Sculpt Self

Cha +7, lvl 3, feats +5, fairness +1, special power +1, stronghold +2= 19. Reasonably speaking, Loyalty's Reward could be a Leader feat that grants the equivalent to Might Make's Right for say Int which would raise you to a score of 24. Snag Riddled and Spellhoarding, if you count as true, and you score jumps to 28 and you can actually start befitting from that Epic Leadership you have there.

[ezekielraiden]

OK. I'll stop derailing you, then.

So: Yeah. In terms of feats, second in terms of power only to Epic Spellcasting. It's pretty much the second most powerful feat in the game, and the only one over it is not supposed to be accessible prior to 21st. This one's available at 6th.

Agreed. There's nothing that can really compare to either one. The closest I can think of is Natural Spell, but that's only for a specific class, and even then, Leadership is more powerful than Natural Spell (sure, your cohort might be a few levels below you--but they can cast spells while you're wildshaped.)

[Kelb_Panthera]

I'd probably put planar touchstone in a very distant 3rd after those two. The catalogues of enlightenment greater power is pretty impressive.

[ezekielraiden]

I think it´s fair to say that Leadership is at the same time the most over- and under-rated feat around.

The deciding factors are:
1) Who is in control of the Cohort and Followers?
2) Who create the Cohort and Followers?
3) How hard or easy/automatic is access to Cohorts and Followers?

The value and usefulness of Leadership rises drastically under a "permissive GM" and drops correspondingly under a rather strict GM. For example, contrast the situation with the very high OP talk going on in this thread with a GM that only allows access to pre-existing NPC and standard troops based on the DMG stat blocks.

Even if the DM only gives weak, NPC-classed characters as followers and cohorts, prevents chaining, doesn't even allow choice within that (e.g. you don't get to pick Adept vs Warrior), personally makes all decisions for them, and purposefully plays them sub-optimally, it's still an extra warm body taking more actions, or lots of them with followers. It's still, at the very least, comparable to a single feat granting a (very slightly) weakened animal companion. No other feat can compare for direct, individual action-economy impact. All other things require further feats, resources, etc. All you need for a cohort is provided, plus you can invest further if you want. They even get a lower-scale wealth by level! How many feats come with free gear attached??

And this is all assuming the most restrictive DM who isn't actively and outrightly sabotaging the cohort. (Because obviously any DM can invoke rocks-fall-everyone-dies; we have to assume a minimum of good faith.) Any points on which the DM becomes more lenient are ones that improve the power of the feat. I imagine, frex, that many DMs would not consider it permissive to let the player, with DM oversight, control post-hiring item purchases, build choices (remaining within the original class), and in-combat decisions....but every single one of those is a step away from "well you get more actions for your team in combat" and closer to "you get a second character for the price of 1 feat."

Even with a DM actively suppressing cheesy stuff, that's really the bottom line. Pay less than 10% of your character's resources, get a free character. Sure, lower level, more fragile, etc. But the trade you make is utterly insane in value even in a very restrictive environment. And in just a moderately permissive one, it is, for its prerequisites and investment costs, downright incomparable. Even Epic Spellcasting, as insane and more-powerful as it is, needs an investment of 48 skill points and 9th level spellcasting (minimum 17 levels for most classes). Leadership needs only level 6 and can be used by any character.

[ColorBlindNinja]

Your prior post was about getting them at 10th level, which is a far cry from getting them at 6th level and theoretically getting infinite recursion. You're right that at mid-to-high levels, 6th level followers aren't insanely hard to get.

I see, I thought you were talking about merely getting 6th level followers, not getting them at 6th level.

[Gnaeus]

Given that the feat specifically says that you can try to attract a cohort of a particular class, I think any reasonable reading of RAW would suggest that you should be able to get a Cleric or Wizard for your cohort at least.

Even if the DM creates the cleric or wizard, in a suboptimal way, there is a limit to how bad those classes can get, assuming that DM is not such a jerk as to tank their casting stats so they can’t cast spells.

Even the worst cleric gets to pray for spells every day. So when you go to him and say “I want you to prepare 4 greater Magic Weapons and 4 extended Protection from Cold’s and 4 extended Magic Vestments tomorrow, what is this guy (who has chosen to be your follower, and likely has a similar alignment) gonna do? Say no? To his boss? Why? If he says no, frankly, the DM needs a darn good reason or he’s just being a jerk. If he says yes, a dedicated buffbot who just throws a bunch of hour or 20 minute/level spells in the AM and then some cures before bed is worth way more than a feat. Not as good as a second full character but plenty good enough.

And what happens when they level? Yeah, the DM writes their sheet, so let’s assume their stats and starting feats and the wizard’s spells are utter rubbish. Well, first off, what possible good reason would your minion have to NOT trade his rubbish spells for your party wizard’s good ones (and even rubbish spells added to a spellbook have value. It’s a good bet your wizard didn’t have them all). But more than that, let’s say you are a fighter 10 with a wizard 8 cohort. What’s to stop you from saying “It is necessary for our team and mission for you to be researching “teleport” next level”? Or “for you to learn how to craft magical rods”? He’s your follower! Your “loyal companion”. Your “subordinate who assists you (leadership feat)”.

If you are good he is likely motivated by your cause, if you are evil he may be the same but also concerned that if he is useless that you could wear his body parts as a necklace. But either way he’s gonna be motivated to take your advice as to how to be useful to the team. It’s pretty hard to sabotage that to not be the best feat in the game without just murdering the text.

Hell, even if the DM forces them to be Adepts (and given the text about choosing their class I really think that’s the worst case that isn’t griefing the player or just rewriting the feat). Assuming that you can suggest his feats and spells after he has joined you he can take crafting feats worth more than any single feat slot.

[HouseRules]

While the player could select Race, Class, Alignment, they cannot build the Cohort. Cohorts and Followers are NPCs, so they are part of the DM's responsibility that they do not want if there are so many Cohorts and Followers. Remember that while the Table indicates the maximum level a Cohort could appear based on your modifiers and character level (not effective character level), DM's who hate you for chaining this stuff could keep sending level 1 "Cohorts" for you to choose.

[Gnaeus]

I know that the line is blurry, but I suspect that anything that involves cohorts having leadership is probably TO (theoretical optimization, fun to speculate on but unlikely in play) in any games but kingdom builders or games that are so permissive/high op that you would find it easier for your wizard cohort to just abuse planar binding.

In practical op, on the other hand, I suspect (both based on plain text of feat and my experience in play) that in any game that doesn’t ban leadership or rewrite it with a massive nerf you can still get a caster of some flavor that can far exceed any single feat.

[ColorBlindNinja]

I said it before, I'll say it again; if a DM is going to screw over the PCs by giving them terrible cohorts, he/she should just ban the Leadership feat.

[Gnaeus]

I said it before, I'll say it again; if a DM is going to screw over the PCs by giving them terrible cohorts, he/she should just ban the Leadership feat.

I would agree. But for the cohort to not be worth a feat, you are pretty much already stomping the RAI. If that language about selecting the class means anything, unless you have entered the realm of Int 9 wizards or Wis 9 clerics, you can hardly make one that isn’t stronger than any other level 6 feat.

[SLOTHRPG95]

I know that the line is blurry, but I suspect that anything that involves cohorts having leadership is probably TO (theoretical optimization, fun to speculate on but unlikely in play) in any games but kingdom builders or games that are so permissive/high op that you would find it easier for your wizard cohort to just abuse planar binding.


At the end of the day, yes. It's not to say that such TO isn't fun, but that's all it is. I've had several players take Leadership before in long-running campaigns, and because of the nature of the table/the group, I've never had any problems. But I wouldn't ever allow a cohort/follower/whatever comparable thing take leadership/undead leadership/thrallherd/whatever. No minions if you're a minion yourself is a good general rule.

[ColorBlindNinja]

The biggest problem I have with Leadership, is not the fact that it's broken, it's the amount of extra work it creates both for the players and the DM.

[Gnaeus]

The biggest problem I have with Leadership, is not the fact that it's broken, it's the amount of extra work it creates both for the players and the DM.

And I suppose that is a balance problem from the perspective of the new or casual player who is already behind the ball compared with a rival who is doing his homework, researching the best spells, feats, and tactics and employing them.

But in general, the least broken, most RAI uses of the feat (like to get a special mount or combat flunky) are the most extra work for the DM in running combat. While the most powerful uses (a buffbot, item crafter, travel agent) are almost no work for the DM and the player who is trying to do those things probably doesn’t see the administration as work.

[HouseRules]

The TO of Leadership is worth at least LA +2. Yes, that's how powerful the feat could be. The upper bound should be LA +4 or so.

[Covenant12]

I would agree. But for the cohort to not be worth a feat, you are pretty much already stomping the RAI. If that language about selecting the class means anything, unless you have entered the realm of Int 9 wizards or Wis 9 clerics, you can hardly make one that isn’t stronger than any other level 6 feat.I have read the entire thread, and didn't want to overly discuss TO/infinite loop shenanigans and the like. But the above is the short version of my opinion, and the answer to the op.

At level 6, a feat that is "I'd like a 4th level dwarven cleric." or "I'd like a 4th level halfling rogue." That massively overpowers "good" feats, like improved initiative or quicken spell. It gets better with level if you chose a T1 cohort. Even complete warrior samurai is an additional set of actions, a feat can't compete with that. Well, wild cohort but that's because a druid's animal companion might compete with a horribly optimized character. Leadership is still better than wild cohort, maybe not massively.