Leadership really needs to be separated into two feats:
Leadership
Attract Cohort or Find Associate or Personal Bond something like that
Leadership would then only provide followers and no cohort, whereas Personal Bond would only furnish a cohort and no followers. The conflation of these two within one feat is annoying and makes the Leadership feat practically unusable as written in many campaigns one or the other (cohort or followers) is not appropriate or wanted by either the players or the DM.
Yes, Leadership can be house-ruled to provide one or the other without changing it officially. Alternatively, followers or cohorts can be obtained through pure roleplaying rather than through a mechanical contrivance, such as feats, but since the mechanics for this do exist, let's make them flexible and separate the gaining of a cohort and of followers into two separate feats. It's not as if Leadership and Personal Bond would be underpowered feats anyway.
I'm sorry OP, but I really don't agree. The Leadership feat is the one feat in the DMG, that the DM really has to approve, and its just easy to say "okay, but no followers" or something like that.
In my game, all the four characters actually have leadership (one got at leve 6, one at leve 9, one retrained at level 10 and one got now at level 12), and although I don't have problem with Rping the cohorts and the followers, two of the players said "I want leadership to have (insert dear-to-the-party-and-the-story npc's name here) as a cohort, but I don't want any followers. My char don't want and I don't want".
Quite simple.
I'm sorry OP, but I really don't agree. The Leadership feat is the one feat in the DMG, that the DM really has to approve, and its just easy to say "okay, but no followers" or something like that.
In 3.5E D&D you would be correct, but in the Pathfinder RPG, the Leadership feat is no longer in the DMG, but right there among the other feats. Personally, I would still require that a player gets my approval before taking it, but by the official rules it is now a normal feat that is no longer in the DMG.
In my game, all the four characters actually have leadership (one got at leve 6, one at leve 9, one retrained at level 10 and one got now at level 12), and although I don't have problem with Rping the cohorts and the followers, two of the players said "I want leadership to have (insert dear-to-the-party-and-the-story npc's name here) as a cohort, but I don't want any followers. My char don't want and I don't want".
That's what I am doing right now. I also have players who take the feat and I house rule the feat so that it does not grant both cohorts and followers. Yes, it is possible to house-rule anything - I even stated as much in my original post. After all, if I want to I can rule that Dragons breath rainbows instead of fire, but we are talking about how the rules are officially and not how I can change them at my whim. The feat is internally sufficiently conceptually different to be split into two feats and cohorts have a very different impact on the game from followers, so it makes little sense to lump these two functions of the feat together.
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In 3.5E D&D you would be correct, but in the Pathfinder RPG, the Leadership feat is no longer in the DMG, but right there among the other feats. Personally, I would still require that a player gets my approval before taking it, but by the official rules it is now a normal feat that is no longer in the DMG.
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As far as I know, and according to my PHB, Leadership is a standard feat in the Player's Handbook, not in the DMG.
As for the actual feat in question, I have only DMed for it once. I found it rather confusing, calculating Cohort level/advancement and treasure, and then there were all the followers. Now I usually don't allow it, instead opting for the option of "You will get a cohort or followers if I, as DM, find it makes sense, fits with the story and will not disrupt/unbalance combat."
But that's just me.
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Actually, the RPG Superstar has brought up a couple of very different issues with leadership.
- How does the GM/Player convert monster cohorts/followers? What is the level equivalent of a Lamia for instance?
- How does the Leadership feat apply to NPCs? Do the NPCs Cohort and Followers count against the CR (since Familiars, Animal Companions, and Summoned Creatures don't.)?
I posted this before, and some may find it too different, but it works for me. Note that I am not posting this as advice on how the official Pathfinder rules should appear so much as simply showing how I am handling Leadership.
Wow I'm starting to think my Leadership rules have a secret power to kill threads lol
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I posted this before, and some may find it too different, but it works for me. Note that I am not posting this as advice on how the official Pathfinder rules should appear so much as simply showing how I am handling Leadership.
I really like your leadership rules, Jreyst, I'll probably be integrating them into my game ASAP. The way you have henchman work will likely keep a lot of the current cheese that I expect from my players (like a wizard with a cleric or artificer henchman) out of the game and it'll let them have followers as well.
Most spiffy! :D
Thanks Gene. They may be too divergent from normal rules but I think its a good thing because I think it actually makes it useful and accomplishes several things at once. The Leadership Feats tie into Action Points and allow a PC with the feat(s) to really act in a leader-type role in a group. I encourage PC's with leadership to role-play out how they are granting an AP to another PC. For example, if a PC with Leadership is granting an AP to another PC so that he can take another attack, the player usually says something in character like "Strike now! He left himself open!".