Designing a leader - Discussion


Advice

Silver Crusade

Before I get things started, I'd like to make something clear. I'm not looking for personality traits or individual characteristics that will optimize leadership skills. Players will learn on their own whether they are able or unable to be leaders in different situations, followed by learning how they can be the best leader they can be. This thread is purely intended for the discussion of leadership application through mechanical and game theory.

Cool, now that I've got that out of the way, I've got something I'd like to talk to you guys about, and get some feedback on potentially. What classes and character design would work best for a leader?

As far as party composition goes in this scenario, we will focus on the generic group, plus an additional player.

1 fighter (sword/board)
1 rogue (twf, unchained)
1 cleric (support, melee)
1 wizard (conjurationist)
and
1 leader (could be any class and build)

For character design rules, we'll go with the following:
20 pt. buy
any paizo except psionic stuff (I don't know anything about that stuff, and generally stay away from things that remind me of illithids. Creepy bass-tards. <.<)

My knowledge as far as character building goes revolves around the full casters. I am a biased person and prefer casting (No, I'm not trying to build a character here. This is purely discussion.) This is where you guys come in. I'll be relying on you guys for everything else that I do not know (which I find o be a lot...quite regularly, haha). For a generic group such as the above, what would you make the leader? Again, could be any class, any race, any alignment, and this is again purely for mechanical character design discussion.

Thank you in advance.


In my experience, groups work best when each character steps into the leadership position in situations where their skills and personality fit best.

Having just one person make all the decisions and direct everyone else's actions is even less fun in a game than it is in real life.

So unless you have a way to make the leader a better fighter and strategist than the fighter, and a better sneaky spy than the rogue, and a better diplomat than the cleric, etc, etc, then you probably don't need a leader telling everyone how to do their job.


I would say a leader in a party like that is more of a social role and representative, so maxed put bluff, diplomacy, and intimidate.

I'd recommend bard or vigilante, or something else with charisma and skill points.

I made a pretty good face build one though with a magaambyan Arcanist. Decent charisma and class skills helped a ton, and excellent flavor.


At my table, my older brother is the leader of all our parties except for in the game in he's running. I'm the leader in the game he's running but that's because we're both natural leaders. Our friends never take charge so even when we don't want to lead we end doing it.

A good leader in pathfinder is a good leader IRL. We tried making another friend the party leader in a different game my older brother ran and he wasn't up for the task.

As for classes, the paladin just screams leader to me. He's charismatic and can fight on the frontline. He's iconic and doesn't have oversized arms or anything weird like a bloodrager. The leader is usually the face for the party and gives everyone the drive to go on. You can tell who the leader is by hypothetically killing off characters and then determine how the narrative would be. Characters can come and go but if the leader leaves or dies, the group will feel it. Maybe the group won't miss the rogue who was just asking to die but then the paladin dies and the survivors find difficulty in replacing the role. It wouldn't make much sense for the new character to take charge but I've seen it. Another class could be Skald since they're sort of war leaders and some archetypes stress this too.


You're talking about a character who has some mechanical attributes which gives the PCs bonuses from following his orders, right? Not trying to max out the leadership feat, which is another can of worms.

One variant of this is the helpful halfling build. Aid another bonuses can be made large enough that not taking them and doing something else is an obvious waste.

Another is a spellcaster focusing on buffs and battlefield control. Besides Contingent Action which literally locks you into actions in advance, or walls/pits/entangling plants which make going somewhere dumb, plans often involve the spellcaster - resist energy before charging the flaming monster, fly to reach some enemy, etc.

If those aren't leader-ish enough to you then there's the battle herald prestige class. Combine with a cavalier with the tactician ability and a bard with perform (oratory) and you have your basic battle leader.


I think the golden legionaire actually gives bonuses to allies for following orders.

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