Nazim's page

They've got (often less than) four hours to run a game that someone (the mod purchaser, at the minimum, if not everyone, at a convention) is *paying money to play,* and make it an enjoyable experience for everyone at the table. Allowing what has traditionally been an *optional* feat to grant a single player the chance to monopolize twice as much of the limited game time available for everyone at the table seems like a bad idea.

Class abilities, such as Animal Companions, Summoning spells and Familiars, already toe this line during combat, and yet at least have the self-limiting factor that the 'critter' class features are not often regarded as full NPCs, and, usually, don't take up a whole lot of RPing time.
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Heck, I can write it into my backstory, if I want. Wizard Bob has a flunky. His name is Poncy, he's been with the family forever, and he stays at home and minds the alchemy shop while Bob is adventuring. Bob writes down (and attempts to sketch, poorly) the exciting new things he discovers, and send Poncy letters of these 'adventures' whenever he's in town, so Poncy even gets to serve an RP function during the adventure, as Bob stops to describe a monster the party has just fought and asks various party members if they know a better word for 'grotesque.' Best of all, this 'old friend' Bob is writing letters to could be completely imaginary, and my character a quirky duck indeed! Who would know that the letters he's sending off are only going to stack up on the characters doorstep, as there's nobody there to read them?

You highlight how an additional character in the party can take up a lot of gameplay time. However, your example, if implemented into actual play, would occupy just as much time. And I do like the example, but it seems to defeat the solution provided to the problem you perceive. I agree that certain character abilities take up more time than others. I agree that there are time constraints. But I can't find a convincing argument that makes removing the leadership feat from the game a good solution.

Certain mods also have very specific situations written into them, which require the party to not go wildly off of the four-to-six person group, as the party has to take a boat somewhere, or all have to get into a sliding room that moves through the pyramid, or whatever, and every single mod author shouldn't be expected to account for the 'four-to-six-man-party' being potentially a dozen strong.

This can certainly be a problem, but it remains a problem even without leadership. We can still hire hirelings, and have eidolons, animal companions, familiars, mounts and guard dogs. All these can pose issues in the situation you described. Should we therefore ban mounts?

Nazim wrote:

Joshua J. Frost wrote:

Leadership isn't allowed for many of the reasons noted above and for many not noted above.

Josh, has this been discussed publicly elsewhere? I don't mean to drag you into this discussion, since you seem weary of it. But I would like to read the other reasons, if it weren't too much trouble. And I don't mean that sarcastically.

Asking Josh to explain his decisions in detail would have the effect of appearing to create an open debate, and I don't believe that that would be advantageous for the organization.

That's not to say that we're not receptive to feedback—it's pretty clear from the way that the Pathfinder Society has evolved over time that we do listen to suggestions, but when Josh says that he's considered something and made a decision, please, let's all do him the courtesy of not second-guessing his rationale.

I certainly didn't mean to ask you folks to run paizo through a committee of first time posters. I really meant what I wrote. I was asking if the issue had been discussed publicly elsewhere...

I can't please everyone and I'm not going to try.

I can certainly respect that.

Just please me. :)

I wish there were something a bit closer to downtown philly. I've been to redcap, but it would be nice to have the same set of consistent players. If anyone else is looking for something closer to downtown, I'd love to hear about it.

Hope to see more of you on the boards.

Have a good one.

Thanks, and likewise.

1. My Cohort was cleric and at his highest level he hit level 16 which gave him access to planer cohort. So at one point I had a PC, Cohort, and a planer cohort (Astral Deva). I felt this did get a bit munch so I kept the two in the backgound...Buffs, heals, and little to no offense and DM controlled my two other EGO's when needed especailly the astra deva. My followers were never a part of the main quest. They help run things for me in between downtimes and what not and maintained our "Base of operations" DM and myself were cool with that use of followers.

2. When I DM'ed the Age of Worms campaign cohort were at first allowed. We still had 7-8+ players and now many people took the feat. So the party size went up 50%. Many of the players ae just not up to par when it comes to running a single PC and having a cohort just slowed things down way to much. I had to step in a ask people to get rid of the leadership feat and reselct something else. Gave everyone a extra Fate point due to DM intervention and moved on.

These seem excellent ways of dealing with problems. Once I babysitted a PC that was a high level spellcaster in a thoroughly houseruled 3.5 campaign. I was terrible at it, and it wasn't because of the houserules. I didn't know the spell lists, and it was a very powerful character. Looking back at it, I probably did one thing right with the character during that session. For the rest of the time, I might as well not have played.

What I mean to convey is that some folks (players and DMs) can't really deal with the feat. That's fine. I suck at plenty of things myself (I can provide people with a list, but I'm not sure the bandwidth would carry it). But the feat is not the problem. It's the folks that abuse it, or don't know how to use it.

I'd be fine with a PFS limitation that the cohort must be 3 or 4 levels lower than the PC. I'd be fine with not allowing the cohort to participate in combat. I'd even be fine with not allowing the cohort on the adventure proper. But this contradiction where the regular rules allow it, but it's not allowed in official rules, and there's no clarification on how a high level character that has that kind of resources should work around the feat ban leaves such players in an awkward limbo with respect to how to deal with this. Because banning the feat is like saying "we don't think players should be allowed to do this." But player characters are supposed to have good staff at hand. Even great staff at hand. So what's a paladin supposed to do for a valet? A priest for a flock? A magician for a day-to-day bodyguard? A fighter for a seneschal? A batman for a robin?

Nazim wrote:

Having said that, if it's so disruptive a feat, then why even put it in the book?

I would have preferred replacing the Leadership feat with some AD&D-style rules for NPC henchman, but that's just my preference.

I would have liked that too.

Leadership isn't allowed for many of the reasons noted above and for many not noted above.

Josh, has this been discussed publicly elsewhere? I don't mean to drag you into this discussion, since you seem weary of it. But I would like to read the other reasons, if it weren't too much trouble. And I don't mean that sarcastically.

To clarify, would you want to run an Eidonon as your PC? Or an Animal Companion? Most likely not. Why? Because they aren't as powerful or effective as a PC. Yet you would have no trouble playing the cohort, because it IS a PC. With a slightly lower level.

I would rather play the PC of slightly higher level, all other things being equal. I would have trouble playing a lower level PC than the one I'm playing. I know players who would rather stop playing than play a PC of lower level. One of them, a good player at that, says so, as a policy, whenever there's a hint that level-draining monsters might round the corner.

There's a faction mission. Accomplishing it requires, say, a skill check. Having two characters under your control gives you a far higher chance of completing said faction mission.

This can be the case with any other type of companion. Say the familiar can pull off the skill check while you couldn't. Should we ban familiars?

First, no class is balanced around having Leadership, with the possible exception of an 8th level Nobility Domain Cleric - who gets a different power in PFS instead.

I can't really make sense of this. If it's so overpowered, how come not everyone goes for it? Or am I misunderstanding you?

Second, there is a huge difference in the capabilities and complexities of an animal companion, and a cohort. The problem is *not* with the power of the cohort, but the options available.

Describing the difference as huge seems excessive. There's more choice, but that can be addressed. Put together some pregens and limit cohort choices to those pregens. But I'm not really buying the fact that the difference in the quantity of options makes the feat unviable.

Third, they take too long. More players/cohorts = more time, almost exponentially so. These are 4-5 hour time slots. Can you imagine a game with 7 players, with 7 cohorts? If each (n)pc took only 1 minute to resolve an action (which is short usually - and remember this is only 7 players deciding the actions of 2 people each), only 16-20 rounds could be adjudicated in the entire session.

I don't beleive that every player would have a cohort if leadership were allowed. The fact that not every player aspires to have the leadership feat proves this particular point. I'm not saying it's a weak feat. I want it. But I want it so that I can formalize something I think my character will have at higher level: a good secretary. They're so hard to find. ;)

Point one rebutle: It would allow certain players to control more than two units on the board. What happens when the Summoner has a cohort? With a table of 7 characters, that's not needed.

If the summoner has a cohort he has to decide which participates actively in any given encounter, as the current rules would deal with a summoner that had a warhorse.

Point two rebutle: nerfing the feet is pointless. Cohorts are fifth wheels.

I can't reasonably respond to your conclusion. I could say something about your feet, but it would obstacle an intelligent conversation. Instead, I'll ask you if you mean that they do not contribute to the game (in very broad terms), or that they are not useful to the adventure (in an in-game sense).

Point three rebutle: Adding another character to the mix skews the power formula used to determine what level to run an adventure. You can't argue that the cohort can't be added as it's a full fledged character. The rest of this arguement you put forward is strictly one about fluff. So for the sake of arguement, I say "Adventurers are a self reliant lot and don't need anyone more than thier peers."

It's two or more levels lower than the character. To that extent, it's not a full-fledged character like other player characters are. Having said that, if it's so disruptive a feat, then why even put it in the book? The current situation allows the feat for non-PFS play, but casts a shadow on it. This makes it problematic for characters to have any kind of long-term collaborators, since the mechanic that replicates that is "frowned upon." That's an awkward gaming sitation to be in, especially if you're playing under different DMs, like folks often do with Pathfinder Society.

Point four rebutle: It is too much. I don't want to handle a seperate sheet at a Con for just a cohort. I don't want to deal with meta game elements with cohorts and faction missions. I don't want to deal with the ecomionics of having a cohort, nor do I want to help keep track of what someone's leadership score is. Everytime one of your cohorts is killed, that goes down by one, got to make sure that into your conditions gained section.

The DM shouldn't handle the sheet. The player does. And if the player cheats or makes a mistake, it's just the same as if the player cheated or made a mistake in any other part of the game.

If you seriously review every character for legality every time, you should be rather quick at it by now. I don't think DMs should do something like that every time. They should review the sheet of someone who is new to the game, or if something looks suspicious, but this is not something that the DM has to check every time. At least that's my opinion.

Please don't take this as just somone ranting. As a GM who is working towards my second star, I find that there is great relief in not having the leadership feet to deal with. It's hard enough to get a large table through some slots. Let's not make this harder.

To be honest, you do sound like you're ranting, but it's fair. I've certainly opened the door to that. And you sound overworked. ;)

Ever since 1e, I've heard DMs wince at the notion of players that bring in henchment, hirelings, or other forms of assistance. In 4e, they've gone to the extreme of unifying the actions of the character and the companion (to some extent). When a disorganized player tries to use this kind of resource, I agree that it's a pain in the neck. But if players are disorganized, there's a solution for that: they should get organized. But when players have everything set up neatly, it's not a real problem at all.

PS: it's rebuttle. Like your're butting, but again.

http://paizo.com/paizo/about/contact

josh@paizo.com

Thanks. I wonder if I should take this there, at this point. I'll see what he says.

Preamble
First, I apologize if this post is a nuisance to the authors and organizers that put together a game that entertains so many, including myself. I'm grateful for their work, and it's certainly not my intent to be a pain in the neck. I've searched the boards and I didn't see any satisfying and complete explanation. I tried to find a way to post the following to Mr. Frost privately, but couldn't find a way. I know there's a little envelope thingie next to his profile, but it wouldn't work for me. I imagine that much of this has been rehashed among playtesters, so I apologize again if someone has to repeat themselves in this thread.

The Point
My opinion, to be frank about it is that denying use of the Leadership feat is unfair and unreasonable. It is possible that the feat should be nerfed a little so that cohorts do not outshine other party members, but as things stand, characters with high Charisma and several class features (clerics who choose the nobility domain, for example), lose out on a normal development that most such characters would normally have within the RPG environment. The feat simply integrates and formalizes such a development in terms of game mechanics, which makes things easier on a DM. Further, the denial seems out-of-place when the rules expressly allow characters to bring along a helper of sorts, with the limitation that only one such permanent "helper" assist in combat. Working within this limitation takes care of any legitimate concern that the Leadership feat might be problematic. Therefore, I don't understand why it has been denied use in PFS games. I'll try to list the possible reasons why someone might have resorted to banning the feat, and why I think each reason falls short of being valid.

Argument against Leadership #1: Leadership allows a player to control two units in the game
This is true, but it's not a reason to ban the feat. Players often control two units in the game. Rangers and druids have their animals, summoners have eidolons, and spellcasters have familiars. Further, the game lists guard dogs and mercenaries (albeit under the sanitized term "expert hirelings" - for which there do not seem to be any stats) as legitimate purchases. Therefore, this argument does not seem to carry weight in this particular game design.

Argument against Leadership #2: Cohorts are too flexible/powerful/shiny to allow a character to play them.
This is arguable, but let's assume it's true. Wouldn't a better fix have been to nerf the feat then? Limit the level of the cohort to the character's level -3 or -4. If cohorts are too flexible, deny them the ability to multiclass. If they are too shiny, make them dull. If the feat was banned under this argument, the ban is an overreaction, and out-of-proportion.

Argument against Leadership #3: The additional followers generated by high level characters are problematic.
This I just don't buy. Many, many high level characters (both player and non-player) of every kind have all sorts of staff helping them out. Whether they be bought, magicked or otherwise. Whether it be guarding, attacking, exploring, messaging, or holding your reading book, high level characters command appropriate resources, and removing this feat from play does nothing to restrain that. Therefore, targeting this feat because resources are overwhelming seems just plain wrong.

Argument against Leadership #4: The feat creates too much additional work.
This is also false, at least to the extent that it might be considered "too much." The feat creates additional work for the player that chooses it, but the player that chooses it obviously wants the additional work. As to the additional work required of DMs, let's say, for sake of argument, that it's the equivalent of another player in the game. I actually don't think it is, since players often have an extra hoop to jump through when figuring out how to cooperate with each other, while the player with a cohort will usually be already well-integrated. But assuming that it's the equivalent of another player, I don't see how this creates too much work for the DM.

In Conclusion...
If it's not too much of a pain, I'd love to read why the feat has been banned from PFS games. It's not a way to circumvent the money/equipment system, and I can't think of a way in which it causes problems. Again, please forgive me if this comes across as obnoxious or trolling. I'm a big fan of the game, and of the serious work you've put into it.