Leadership is a broken feat this we all know, but that doesn't mean its an unusable feat under the right conditions.
In the right campaign giving all players the leadership feat somewhat levels the playing field. And if the GM knows everyone is going to have a cohort going in then he can plan accordingly.
List of House Rules
Rule 1: Cohorts can be gained one of three ways.
1) First is turning a GM created NPC into your ally and recruiting them as a cohort subject to GM approval.
2) Second is the follower promotion rule found under Rule 4 section 4.
3) The Third way is to create them from scratch however each player is only allowed on such scratch created cohort making these more precious. The third way is realistically the only way to gain unusual cohorts such as a dragon (subject to GM approval) .
(If the unusual cohort would require a character level above your current to take you can’t take it yet and since you can only scratch create one cohort you would have to wait and use one of the other methods for your cohort until then. Cohorts released to make room for scratch created cohorts become GM controlled NPC who might not be happy about getting the arse and will take any gear they’ve been using with them. Perhaps even steal some items of gold as they go.
Rule 2: During a round of combat each PLAYER may only perform one standard action across all his cohorts, familiars, companions, summoned creatures. He may however give them all move and swift actions. all characters threaten and flank and may take AoO’s
Rule 3: All characters get full HP, with the following changes.
1) All Characters at Critical health (25% or less) lose the ability to take standard actions
2) All non-heroic characters, cohorts animal companions etc at moderate health (50% or less) lose the ability to take standard actions but can still perform a double move and still threaten and flank.
3) All non-heroic characters,cohorts animal companions etc at critical health (~25% or less) must make a DC 10+(the fights CR) or retreat to a safe distance using either withdrawal or double moves once they are beyond the run range of the nearest enemy or ally they are removed from the fight.(Mounts may use their riders handle animal or ride check if better than their will save)
The GM may wish to use these rules from most of his monsters, advise that mindless, fearless or most BBEG’s should probably be immune to this rule.
(Reasons for Rule 3: starts to thin out a fight at ½ HP , creates some realism of secondary characters withdrawing when injured as they’re not all heroes. having damaged characters retreat instead of fall down make the chance to retreat actually possible. and help end larger fights other than with 100% death on one side)
Rule 4: All characters either get leadership for free or MUST take leadership as their 7th level feat GM choice. As a result all players will have one cohort and followers eventually this is bound to lead to cohort and follower attrition.
1) Followers are gained at the rate of 1 per week per character up to their maximum. The type and race of follower should be appropriate to the region during that week. keep a basic list of Race/NPC class level.
2) If the GM decides an area is suitable to gather followers the PC can spend 1 week uninterrupted gathering followers from the area to gain up to his maximum number of followers. Again followers should be of a race/npc class suitable to the area. The is no roll required for this it would needlessly bog down the process.
3) Followers when gained join the group and travel with the group until they are dropped off at a home base of one exists otherwise they stay with the group as logistical support, they can be killed if the “caravan” of followers is ambushed by GM but usually stay back as PC ride out to meet foes ahead of the column they also set up camp outside caves and dungeons and don’t enter. They can be left in camps or towns should the group want to fast travel/teleport but each PC will lose 1d4 followers from a group of followers left behind per week +1d4 per additional week each week unless they are based in a permanent “home base”. If a cohort is left with the followers the exodus is reduced from weekly to monthly.
4) When a PC’s cohort dies they can be raised if such magic is available or the PC can promote the highest level Follower he has to a new cohort. That new cohort keeps his current character level and NPC classes, but gains 1 heroic class for each new “game session” he is involved in up to the cohort level maximum, the cohort once at maximum cohort level can retrain one NPC level every “game session” until he is a full Cohort with heroic levels and then progresses as written.
(So a level 1 follower who is a warrior would take 4 game sessions to reach char level 5 with 1 warrior/4 fighter levels he’d then need 1 more game session to convert a warrior level to a fighter level for fighter 5 and be maxed for a 7th level PC cohort, this may result in several newly promoted followers dying during combats before one survives long enough to gain enough levels to mix it up with the PC’s, a followers race can’t be changed, and their heroic classes should somewhat match their NPC classes, so cohort gained this way are not as good as the scratch built/unusual cohorts. NPC’s encountered by the group may become optional cohorts if the GM allows it.)
Rule 5: Only cohorts created with the scratch method come with a gold level appropriate amount of gear and magic items, cohorts gained as promoted followers have nothing and must be given better gear out of the parties pool. GM NPC’s that become cohorts have whatever gear the GM gave them prior to that point. items given to cohorts to use can only be taken back through diplo, intimidation, theft or other overt means, they won’t just hand them back without complaint unless its replaced with something of equal or better value. Cohorts that leave the group take everything they currently have or were using with them, some may steal if they are kicked out to make room for a new “better” cohort. Dead cohorts of course have no claim on their stuff ;)
Apologies for wall of text
Thoughts ?
I think calling leadership broken is debatable (its been debated considerably over the years), sure it can lean a power gamer to more power gaming, but it can also be a very effective roleplay tool.
What you've done here with these rules is dramatically increase the bookkeeping at your table. If you're okay with that then it may be a good solution for you. At my table it wouldn't work, I have enough to keep up with already.
Rule 1 seems okay, nothing too complicated there.
Rule 2 seems to not only increase bookkeeping (did npc #3 take a move or standard action, etc.) but would (in my mind) end up with most of the PC's allies on the board just run around and do nothing defeating much of the purpose of having allies.
Rule 3 to me, if I were a character, seems like I'm being penalized for having allies that the GM forced on me. If I didn't want to take leadership would I still have to use these rules? Rule 3.3 seems interesting and makes some sense, my comments are mostly aimed at 3.1 and 3.2.
Rule 4, either give me leadership for free or don't force me as a player to take the feat, a player should have control of their characters development path given a set of options by the DM. Forcing PC's to take feats is looked down upon. If they want something special that may be a special case. The rest of 4 based on the rules given seems fine.
Rule 5 seems okay.
It seems a better idea to just give each PC 1 cohort that works along with the Leadership rules. If they want a larger organization then they need to pick up the feat. This may be more simple than your looking for but in my opinion simplicity works best.
Hope this helps!
Dot.
I'll come back later, but I'll just say I am also doing leadership for free as soon as the leadership score reaches 1 (no 6th level prereq).
Personally, I run Leadership for free at 7th Level. I personally think that your rules are a little too complicated. Here's what I do:
A) Every player gets 1 Cohort at 7th level. The cohort is adjucated based on your Leadership score when you reach 7th Level.
B) The players are allowed to bring (1) additional character with them on adventures; the other cohorts are allowed to perform Downtime activities for the PCs in their absence. A PC can only have one character performing downtime activities for her at once, and a cohort can't perform Downtime activities for a player.
C) A cohort is allowed to make an aid another check to help a PC during all Downtime activities.
D) The PCs receive (1) GM PC at 1st level and may receive additional GM PCs as the story progresses and the players choose to recruit them. A GM PC is treated as a cohort, except they match the player's APL, count against the total experience earned by the party, do not receive the Leadership feat for free, and their class progression is determined by the GM.
E) Characters can receive additional cohorts as the story progresses.
I think calling leadership broken is debatable (its been debated considerably over the years), sure it can lean a power gamer to more power gaming, but it can also be a very effective roleplay tool.
What you've done here with these rules is dramatically increase the bookkeeping at your table. If you're okay with that then it may be a good solution for you. At my table it wouldn't work, I have enough to keep up with already.
Rule 1 seems okay, nothing too complicated there.
Rule 2 seems to not only increase bookkeeping (did npc #3 take a move or standard action, etc.) but would (in my mind) end up with most of the PC's allies on the board just run around and do nothing defeating much of the purpose of having allies.
Rule 3 to me, if I were a character, seems like I'm being penalized for having allies that the GM forced on me. If I didn't want to take leadership would I still have to use these rules? Rule 3.3 seems interesting and makes some sense, my comments are mostly aimed at 3.1 and 3.2.
Rule 4, either give me leadership for free or don't force me as a player to take the feat, a player should have control of their characters development path given a set of options by the DM. Forcing PC's to take feats is looked down upon. If they want something special that may be a special case. The rest of 4 based on the rules given seems fine.
Rule 5 seems okay.
It seems a better idea to just give each PC 1 cohort that works along with the Leadership rules. If they want a larger organization then they need to pick up the feat. This may be more simple than your looking for but in my opinion simplicity works best.
Hope this helps!
Thanks for the advice
Rule 2 I figure could be handled by simply having a flip token for a standard action for each player once flipped it used that way no need to track which character has used it. tokens all flip back at start of new round.
Rule 3: yes, and you'd need to explain to players this is designed to help resolve larger fighter faster which although may be detrimental to individual characters is beneficial to players being able to resolve fights faster. You'll notice the withdraw rules only apply to non Heroes . Also if a hero gets healed back above 25% they can use std actions again. Finally with full HP and these rules Heroic characters still have 75% of max HP before they suffer any effect which is what most games normally run.
I'll grant it certainly something that would require explanation to players to avoid them feeling penalized.
Rule 4; I personally would give it for free , but it would be up to the individual GM.
Again Thanks for the tips
Dot.
I'll come back later, but I'll just say I am also doing leadership for free as soon as the leadership score reaches 1 (no 6th level prereq).
hmmmm that's an interesting idea, although persaonally I'd like to leave the door open for higher CR cohorts at higher levels
Personally, I run Leadership for free at 7th Level. I personally think that your rules are a little too complicated. Here's what I do:
A) Every player gets 1 Cohort at 7th level. The cohort is adjucated based on your Leadership score when you reach 7th Level.
B) The players are allowed to bring (1) additional character with them on adventures; the other cohorts are allowed to perform Downtime activities for the PCs in their absence. A PC can only have one character performing downtime activities for her at once, and a cohort can't perform Downtime activities for a player.
C) A cohort is allowed to make an aid another check to help a PC during all Downtime activities.
D) The PCs receive (1) GM PC at 1st level and may receive additional GM PCs as the story progresses and the players choose to recruit them. A GM PC is treated as a cohort, except they match the player's APL, count against the total experience earned by the party, do not receive the Leadership feat for free, and their class progression is determined by the GM.
E) Characters can receive additional cohorts as the story progresses.
I see what your doing and it certainly a good option for having cohorts. I think what I'm trying to do is more fully incorporate them into the campaign so they at at risk while giving their reward.
e.g. If someone makes a craft monkey I would want that craft monkey to be in many of the groups combat encounters/dungeon crawls and at therefore at risk.
this is also the same reason I would like to bring followers closer to the front line where the PC will need to protect them to get any benefit from them.
I also like the idea that by giving a PC an ever growing pile of followers they'll probably take ownership of them so as a GM you've got an easy string to pull when you want to give PC tough choices.
An equal amount of benefit and burden if possible.
As this is also a campaign concept I'd be very up front with players about how cohorts and followers may play a roll over the course of the campaign so they are making a somewhat informed choice when designing their PC and cohort.
My group's house rules give the followers for free once you attain 7th level; though I think I will propose a version of Evil Lincoln's 'followers at Leadership score 1' (psst, Evil...cohorts start at a score of 2 on the PF chart). I think we'll allow followers when score reaches 10.
Anyway, attracting a cohort requires the Leadership feat. One cohort per feat, and all cohorts are always PC character level -2. Meaning they raise automatically when the PC does.
I am sure many would find this ridiculous, so let me point out that any cohorts along on adventure take a half share of the xp (they don't use them, they just eat into the party's xp). So, a lot of cohort's means fewer xp for all; a self correcting issue.
I'd also like to say that I think most problems that stem from followers come from not paying attention, and not being realistic with their behavior, reactions, and expectations.
As far as the feat itself being broken; Monte Cook said that they put the feat in the DMG to give players something to get a hold of that enabled the accrual of followers, while still leaving it up to the DM to decide if they wanted to do that. GMs could just as easily ignore the feat, allowing no followers, or even build and attract 'henchmen' like the old days.