How valuable is leadership?

[Elosandi]

I'm playing in a campaign where every player will eventually be given the leadership feat without prior investment. Obviously this would be most helpful for charisma based classes, but I'd like to play a witch for it.

Most of the time, charisma is considered a poor attribute for a witch, but leadership is obviously a powerful feat; in regards to attribute distribution how valuable is the bonus to leadership value in comparison to other attributes?

[Arizhel]

Leadership is potentially the most powerful feat in the game! Yes Cha is handy.

[Elosandi]

So it's useful, but where does it fall in comparison to the other attributes?

It's probably more important than strength, and less so than intelligence, but what about compared to wisdom, dexterity or constitution?

[Isil-zha]

even with average charisma you can get a decent leadership score, so don't sweat it. I wouldn't build my character around the feat but rather see how the feat fits into your character concept.

[Arizhel]

The feat is packed full of tables and whatnot, so it is hard to relate in words simply, otherwise they would not have used tables.

1) Witch = Familiar (-2 Leadership)
2) Adventurers tend to Move Around Alot (-1 Leadership . . If you have a Stronghold, you gain +2)
3) +2 to -2, your renown. Ranging from Great Renown to Cruel.

Leadership Score: Your base Leadership score equals your level plus your Charisma modifier. In order to take into account negative Charisma modifiers, this table allows for very low Leadership scores, but you must still be 7th level or higher in order to gain the Leadership feat. Outside factors can affect your Leadership score, as detailed above.

Your likely (with out dumping Cha) leadership score at level 7 will be:

7 (level) -2 (Familiar) -1 (Move Around) +0 (reputation) = 4.

Once you have a cohort and followers, you can possibly suffer further damage to Leadership.

Every Cohort you get killed costs you a permanent, cumulative -2 on your leadership.

If your Cohort is a different Alignment, you take a -1 on leadership

If you cause the death of a Follower, you take another -1 on leadership.

So, you can quickly tank your leadership beyond repair if you are not careful.

[Isil-zha]

note though that some of those modifiers are either with respect to the cohort or to the number of followers not both. The number of followers is usually not too important, though, and since the whole group seems to get the feat for free, there will be quite a few of those around anyway.

[Lord Pendragon]

Leadership is an amazing feat, mainly because it allows a PC to shore up his weaknesses.

Are you a wizard in need of a meat shield? Leadership!

Are you a rogue without a flanking partner? Leadership!

Are you a fighter who could use more buffage? Leadership!

My paladin took leadership and picked up a holy sword that was an angel (mechanically a cleric). Its job was to cast lots and lots of buffs on me.

[Hopea]

For the more calculative types let it be said that we'll be getting the free leadership feat at level 10.

[Ascalaphus]

You can work on that reputation in-game a bit. If you're a stand-up type of guy/gal, you can build up a good reputation for a +1 or so. If you're a spellcaster, getting the reputation for "special power" should be easy.

In general, I think it shouldn't be too hard to get your leadership modifiers up to the point where you get the maximum-level cohort (your level -2).

Usually the followers aren't combat-relevant; they're too fragile. Although you can do some odd things with them (Allied Spellcaster wizard battalions with Magic Missile) in combat. Other uses are lawyers (for the barbarian that often trashes taverns in a drunk rage) or a spy network.

[Jmacq1]

Really just depends on how willing your DM is to roll with it. Sounds like in this case they're definitely planning on using the feat significantly as opposed to ruling that "Oh, your followers (including your cohort) are back in town/the camp doing stuff" every time they'd potentially be useful/make the encounters less challenging.

If it's used to its' full extent it's probably one of the best feats in the game (basically giving you another character for your party), if it's sidelined it becomes little more than flavor text.