I'm just about to run Dawn of a New Age with my PC's, and I must say this is going to be interesting. Three of the PC's have taken leadership, so they have a small army following them. I'm willing to bet that they will be taking them to Alhaster with them, especially since they can outfit them with a bunch of stuff from Dragotha's horde.
Any suggestions on how to play this if they try to bring their army in? I imagine that this will largely been in the background as most of the creatures they pc's are fighting would absolutly decimate these low level npcs. Perhaps the army can secure various parts of the city as the pc's mow thru everything else...
It's a thought. With the exception of a cohort, most followers are likely to become prey for whatever equivalent CR the PCs fight at their level, and that's bad, evil PCs notwithstanding.
However, those same followers serve a more behind-the-scenes role, if you ask me, if you send them to accomplish a goal where a presence of followers of the PCs can influence events. Say, to sway an opinion from an opposed mob, convene in a street to block passage, etc.
While the cohort is often a boon in combat--sometimes as good as another character--the followers are really the fill-in-the-blanks kinda guys, who can mop up after, or whatever. With all the cohorts, the combats can be significantly scaled in your PCs favor, but the followers should hardly attract the attention of any enemies if your PCs are the obvious threats.
I could see using the followers to help protect the citizens from lesser undead entities, to herd them away from falling buildings and other hazards, and to get them the heckout of the city, maybe to Eel town or beyond.
Currently my players (two in my campaing) both have leadership and have been using it in various ways. The one is a Paladin of Hextor and has his followers rebuilding his mine and temple in Diamond Lake and retrofitiing and repairing the former Temple of St. Cuthbert in Alhaster that is to be his new Mansion/Palace.
The other player, a Cleric of Wee Jas, has recently purchased Iomandi's Magic Shop in Alhaster (with the supposed financial support of a mysterious benefactor named Lashonna) and has his Prosylets of the Stern Lady staffing, redecorating, and defending his shop.
Followers can be intersting, difficuolt to work well, outside of a big army scene, or invasion adventure like in STAP (which btw is an sweomse adventure they wrote).
I could see using the followers to help protect the citizens from lesser undead entities, to herd them away from falling buildings and other hazards, and to get them the heckout of the city, maybe to Eel town or beyond.
I agree with Sol here. The adventure is dealing with an entire city in turmoil, and the extra bodies could be very useful. Using them appropriately can add to a player's sense of accomplishment as they'll be helping directly & indirectly too. Plus, followers can add to the overall flavour & drive home the scale of this adventure.
Here are a few examples of how followers can be used:
- Holding the main gates.
- Defending a civillian safe zone.
- As agents of the PCs, can carry out an evacuation on their behalf.
- Shuttling any rescued civillians to safety.
- Sources of info. ex. "Sir, we were scouting the Boneyard and spotted a few of those noxious clouds...".
The PCs earned them, let them use them. They'll get the idea pretty quick though that they won't be much use in the PCs' battles when a dozen die to a casual fireball from a lich.
J-
Well I'll just have to see what zanyness happens tonight. Thank you all for your suggestions.
Funny story related to both leadership and Age of worms. The original person who took leadership had all of his followers bet on their team during the arena matches, except for the last match where the player figured that if something was going to go wrong it would be then. Talk about metagaming.
3 players with Leadership? Our group has got that beat.
I'm playing Filge (I've got a post about it a while back), and so I've got 2 gray render zombies (large), an Illthane skeleton (huge), and now a barbed devil skeleton. This is only after Skelechair (Drider skeleton mount....he walks backwards and his arms are twisted back for armrests...is everyone getting this mental image?), Chumley (orignal zombie), and Debbie (Slaymate) all died right before or during the Gathering of Winds. In addition there is a barbarian keeping the War Turtle as a pet, a ranger with an animal companion, and a Jester with a few Bags of Tricks. Combine all this with being in a group that had 8 people for some time (two were moved to another game) and for a while the sheer number of minis on the grid at any one time can get really out of hand.