Leadership with Charisma 3

[Conradine]

Two quick questions:

1- How can be justified, from a storytelling perspective, a character with Charisma 3 able to get the Leadership feat ( since it has no prerequisite except being level 6 )?

2- There are feats or sheningans that enable using other abilities for Leadership?

[Nousos]

A loose example is Forest Gump. Barely said a word to anybody when he was doing his soul searching cross country run, but he had a crowd of people following him the whole way.

If you really want to role play a 3 charisma leader, maybe they lead by example, and people follow suit and are inspired. Maybe they have a proxy speak for them. Maybe they use smoke and mirrors and a megaphone in a throne room to give orders to their underlings, and are never seen.

Plenty of ways to do it, bad social skills (or none at all) don't necessarily mean you can't lead, but you might not be the best at it.

[Talwar]

I'd look at circumstances where the character accomplishes something - or is perceived to meet some external criteria - which is unrelated to the force of their personality.

As an example, the haughty wizard who finds an artifact might be revered as "Chosen One" by folks who know about the artifact.

Or the mumbling and horribly scarred fighter might draw squires/trainees after a lengthy and successful career of defending the local village.

[Draken]

Two quick questions:

1- How can be justified, from a storytelling perspective, a character with Charisma 3 able to get the Leadership feat ( since it has no prerequisite except being level 6 )?

2- There are feats or sheningans that enable using other abilities for Leadership?

The followers and cohort could be attracted to something not inherent to the character. Their money or their deeds, for instance. With a leader that unpersonable, the loyalty of the followers to the person might be extremely thin, and they could congregate more about the cohort, who might either be a blind to the faults of the leader or be using them as a figurehead for their wealth/might while the cohort themselves act as the actual 'leader'. The followers might not even have any contact with the leader, who acts much like a god, and the cohort as a priest.

Note that the leadership feat is not about your ability to engage socially, that is your charisma skills. Leadership just means you have a mob following you.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Whether because he hired some to spread his fame or because of a chance meeting after a big incident he averted (or caused), one or more bards is spreading tales that paint him in a heroic (or villainous) light, and that makes people want to follow him.

He's a higher-up in an army and has shown that he has a history of good decision-making skills and outside-the-box thinking, and is known for always leading to victory with virtually no losses. People want success under him and follow him as their leader, even though he'd rather be left alone outside of having people to back him up in a fight.

He is gruff and bad with people but kind and generous. People forgive him his low Cha and understand he's not a people person, but they look up to him for his example of a truly good person.

He's cruel and ruthless to his enemies but reasonable to his allies and underlings, and they're terrified of standing against him. They don't want him and his minions to crush them or their families, so they join out of fear of the alternative.

He has poor natural skill at dealing with people but has worked hard at trying to overcome this with learning how people work. Low Cha but high ranks in social skills. He's nowhere as good as someone who is naturally charismatic and has put in the effort he has, but he's better than naturally skilled but lazy people who didn't put in the work for the ranks.

He's got access to buff spells to increase his Cha and social skills.

He has that feat that uses Str instead of Cha on Intimidate and uses that to flex people into following him.

He takes credit for things others have done. He may or may not have been tangentially involved, and those who did those things may or may not be giving him credit for reasons of their own.

Some of these seem mutually exclusive, but even ones that seem to be can be used together. Extra-kind to allies, ruthless to enemies, for instance, even on a fairly good person. Good doesn't mean nice, after all.

Note that a lot of these apply to Worm's Armsmaster, and he's the leader of the ENE Protectorate Branch.

[ShurikVch]

Might Makes Right feat (Races of Faerûn)

[Particle_Man]

From a storytelling perspective? Well, love is weird. The cohort might have a "what do they *see* in that person?" kind of crush. Or the person might be the chosen by some obscure prophecy, and regardless of chr 3, gets a cohort and followers devoted to The Chosen One.

And, well, in a game where you can play a monk with str 3 and dex 3, the game allows for options that suck.

This reminds me of 1st ed AD&D where your charisma determines the maximum number of henchmen you would have and modifies their loyalty (in effect, everyone has the leadership feat, in a way). At charisma 3 you could have a maximum of 1 henchman and they would more than likely kill you in your sleep for your boots. Fitting, since with that charisma you could only be an assassin.

[ManicOppressive]

A loose example is Forest Gump. Barely said a word to anybody when he was doing his soul searching cross country run, but he had a crowd of people following him the whole way.

If you really want to role play a 3 charisma leader, maybe they lead by example, and people follow suit and are inspired. Maybe they have a proxy speak for them. Maybe they use smoke and mirrors and a megaphone in a throne room to give orders to their underlings, and are never seen.

Plenty of ways to do it, bad social skills (or none at all) don't necessarily mean you can't lead, but you might not be the best at it.

It's not SUPER important to this discussion, but I would myself firmly reject the assertion that Forrest Gump is presented as having a CHA penalty. He's presented with an INT penalty, but if I were to 'mental stat' him according to the filmmaker's intentions as it were, (and please bear in mind this is based on a very Hollywood portrayal of... look I don't love this movie is all I'm gonna say) it'd be something like 7/18/15. The framing device in the bus scene demonstrates that once people get past his self-evident conversational traits they find him both irresistibly charming and convincing.

The running scene may not be a speaking-based CHA exercise but it is an exercise in magnetism, and more to the point it's pretty clearly allegorical for a kind of accidental populist movement that the movie is very fond of and which might even exist in real life depending on whomst you ask.

-

I'm a pretty firm proponent of alternative Charisma expressions. Charisma doesn't have to express in making people like you--Intimidate and Bluff are all about being socially awful to people, and Gather Information does not in any way require making someone like you within the mechanics, being usable for some light Jack Bauer nonsense according to the listed rules. A warlord who rules by fear is still ruling with Charisma, which can be presented in all manner of ways.

It's not tautological to suggest that to some extent the ability to lead other people is an aspect of, and suggests a certain amount of Charisma. Low Charisma characters can ultimately attract followers because just about anyone can find people sympathetic to their ideas or causes if they meet other criteria, but they're penalized for a reason.

Thing is, the mechanics all work just fine for this as is. A character with 3 Charisma can absolutely take Leadership--and they'll get one cohort significantly lower leveled than them, and maybe at high level get a few level 1s and maybe even 2s willing to glue their lips to your ass for the power as it were.

[aglondier]

Just going straight of raw, a charisma 3 leader would attract very few followers, and be reliant on deeds, reputation, and situation to attract any real number. A level 7 leader with a 3 charisma would have to have a stronghold, and a reputation for great reknown, fairness and generosity, and special power...just to recruit 5 level 1 followers. (7 - 3 + 2 + 2 + 1 + 1 = 10).

This same, heroic but unlikable, leader would be able to attract a 5th level cohort, but without the reputation would be limited to a 3rd level cohort...and no followers...

[Ramza00]

Grumpy Loaner in a Ronin / Western who adopts 5 orphans and must saves them from some type of force (either man made, fellow man, or nature.)

Then You Say Run plays in the background while he does the thing.

[RexDart]

I'd look at circumstances where the character accomplishes something - or is perceived to meet some external criteria - which is unrelated to the force of their personality.

As an example, the haughty wizard who finds an artifact might be revered as "Chosen One" by folks who know about the artifact.

Or the mumbling and horribly scarred fighter might draw squires/trainees after a lengthy and successful career of defending the local village.

A cinematic example might be Brian of Nazareth from Life of Brian, who is perceived by many to be the Messiah through no fault of his own.

Now, Brian isn't a CHA-3 character, but his Charisma certainly isn't above average. The same scenario could have played out about the same, even with a more surly and uncharismatic fellow.

[GrayDeath]

Two quick questions:

1- How could it be justified, from a storytelling perspective, for a character with Charisma 3 to be able able to get the Leadership feat ( since it has no prerequisite except being level 6 )?

2-Are there feats or sheningans that enable using other abilities for Leadership?

First, fixed the weird grammar for you.
I dont enjoy bing the Grammar Nazi, but your posts often set up strange and convoluted situations, and taking the time and effort to formulate them in a way that does not require the reader to spend extra effort to actually understand what you are asking is only polite. (especially if your potential helpers are also not native speakers, this can lead to a lot of misunderstandings proper grammar helps to avoid).
Please dont take this as an attack, but as the attempt to help you that it is.


Now for the actual question:

In one word? Power.
in 3: Power and Skill.
If your Charisma 3 non-speaking,s tinking, harsh and ugly guy is the most powerful, succesful and competent guy around, people WILL follow him.
Not as many as would if he were less...charisma-challenged, but they will.

Just going straight of raw, a charisma 3 leader would attract very few followers, and be reliant on deeds, reputation, and situation to attract any real number. A level 7 leader with a 3 charisma would have to have a stronghold, and a reputation for great reknown, fairness and generosity, and special power...just to recruit 5 level 1 followers. (7 - 3 + 2 + 2 + 1 + 1 = 10).

This same, heroic but unlikable, leader would be able to attract a 5th level cohort, but without the reputation would be limited to a 3rd level cohort...and no followers...

^
This, if you want a more in depth answer using mechanics and a specific example.

Shenanigans, well, you just need to be very good at arguing that your deeds, history in geneeral and Backstory in particular, qualify for Bonuses. And maybe have a DM that allows more of them to stack than regularly allowed. But other than that the only "Shenannigan" thats not cheating, houseruling or replacing CHarisma with another Ability Score (we use a houseruled feat that replaces Intimidate and Leadership bonus with Intelligence, we call it "menacing Brilliance", it counts it as 4pts lower without another feat though^^) is using Thrallherd instead of Leadership, or being a Beguiler Diplomancer/Charmer and replace Leadership with enchanted, Diplomanced and Intimidated people, but thats not what you were asking...


The third option, and hte most fitting for a Fluff explanation imo, would be that there is a situation that somehow requires people to follow others, or suffer "bad" consequences, and our Charisma 3 guy being the only available choice that is of fitting alignment, does not sacrifice his followers on a whim, and , simply put, is HERE NOW.


(Example, if not in this System but since you are mainly asking for a storytelling perspective that should not matter: In an Exalted Game I played in some time in the early 2000s, there was a huge horde of Fae attacking the coastal region where the 3 exalted were.
All 3 players had built Ass Kickers par excellence, but the most charismatic one had a Charisma of 2 (comparable to a 9-10 in D&D Terms).
Everyone who didnt follow them, lived in their protected Camp and kept close had a better than 50% chance to be abducted/eaten/first abducted, then tortured, then got their dreams eaten for years by the Fair Folk.

So they followed, and followed well, or they died.)

[Conradine]

First, fixed the weird grammar for you.
I dont enjoy bing the Grammar Nazi, but your posts often set up strange and convoluted situations, and taking the time and effort to formulate them in a way that does not require the reader to spend extra effort to actually understand what you are asking is only polite. (especially if your potential helpers are also not native speakers, this can lead to a lot of misunderstandings proper grammar helps to acoid).
Please dont take this as an attack, but as the attempt to help you that it is

My friend, I assure you, I spend time and energy trying to write as correctly and clearly as I can.
But since english is not my native language, I can't avoid some mistakes. Not even after years of study, not even after reading in english / american every day for more than a decade. I can tell you it's quite frustrating for me, too. It's not that I'm not polite, this is simply my best.

[Jay R]

1- How can be justified, from a storytelling perspective, a character with Charisma 3 able to get the Leadership feat ( since it has no prerequisite except being level 6 )?

A dull, uninspiring child who is looked down on or ignored by all other people can still have a very loyal dog.

[GrayDeath]

My friend, I assure you, I spend time and energy trying to write as correctly and clearly as I can.
But since english is not my native language, I can't avoid some mistakes. Not even after years of study, not even after reading in english / american every day for more than a decade. I can tell you it's quite frustrating for me, too. It's not that I'm not polite, this is simply my best.

All Good. All one can ever do is try ones best.

The main problem you keep repeating is not starting your questions with a modal verb.

This often makes your questions look like statements (with a ? stuck on end, making them seem like "I state this is so. ... Or is it?" In meaning instead of the intended "Say, is this so or not?" you seem to want to use :) ), which coming from a language that also does not do that outside of very specific types of questions has been one of my problems with english for the longest time, until I made my Business English Certificate in early 2011.

Just keep to this simple tip and MOST questions (there are ones that do not work like this, after all English is the language that goes down dark allies, hits other languages over the ehad and loots them^^) should be much clearer:

Normally you should start a question with a "Do/Can/Will/etc modal verb, some questions can do without, but this part will help (trust me, it helped me :) ).
Example: "Can a Paladin drink liquid pain willingly, or is this an Evil Action?", to stay in tune with your scenarios ^^


Enough grammar now.

Back to topic, another solution that came to mind was that they simply embody the virtues the potential followers see as most important down to a T.
They are just that good/evil/Lawful/honorable/creative/etc that people cant do anything BUT follow.

Thats for example the Explanation for "Took the Wis instead of Cha Feat" Paladins we often use. Ergo the Munchkin Paladin. :P


Edited: For typos.
Yes, the irony is not lost on me. ^^

[Bavarian itP]

Two quick questions:

1- How can be justified, from a storytelling perspective, a character with Charisma 3 able to get the Leadership feat ( since it has no prerequisite except being level 6 )?

Getting knighted and a fiefdom for some heroic deed.

[Zancloufer]

So worth noting that a level 6 character with 3 charisma would have a leadership score of 2. Anything (literally anything) negative, such as a bad rep, known for being cruel, having a mount or familiar or even being a different alignment of your cohort, would drop their leadership score low enough to not even have a level 1 cohort. It's not like having no charisma doesn't effect your ability to attract people with leadership just that you can get enough positives to overcome it eventually.

Also worth noting that level and social standing generally have more of an impact than raw Charisma. Which kind of makes sense. Yes it would be nice if you leader was inspiring to meet in person, but that grumpy old wizard who summons hoards of angelic avengers and owns 10 castles seems like a pretty competent leader all things considered.