Got a player who wants to take the feat. Has it been changed and how so?
Thanks.
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I don't know that it has ever been changed at all.
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Ok. Thanks! So many things get the errata treatment. I don't download all the updates because my players would revolt if I changed something every other game session.
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Remember to not give your player free rein on the cohort or you are begging for abuse.
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Thanks, guys! The player requesting the feat is now the most powerful Cleric left in the city after the others were killed or run out of town by an army of Kytons. So she wants to reconsecrated the old primary temple to her deity and gather adherents to her religion to her. It shouldn't be a problem. She's a pretty new player and anything that looks like it'll get out of hand I can deal with. I think.
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Don't let the leadership feat character use his cohort for indiscriminate crafting at half price. That's the worst form of leadership abuse. Just say that the cohort is his friend, but still needs the income for his crafting, so he charges full price, or something similar.
It's also best for the player *not* to get to draw up the cohort's character sheet on his own. Ask the player for input, then you do it, or download stats from an appropriate NPC listed in one of Paizo's compendiums or online, like at PFSRD. You could certainly allow the player to select spells prepared for a day, but allowing too much player control of the cohort's specific feats and other abilities can be dangerous. Let the player request a few things, then give the cohort whatever other feats or abilities make the most sense (to you as the DM). Same for equipment and magical gear.
If you usually have players roll for stats, don't let him roll for the cohort's stats. Use a standard stat array.
That's about all the advice I can give. The more power you give the player, the more broken the feat is.
Noted! Good advice!
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I also recommend Ultimate Charisma from Everyman Gaming (sold through Rogue Genius), which has some great advice on Leadership, as well as new mechanics for many things involving Charisma.
Hmm.. I'll check it out. Thanks!
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Don't let the leadership feat character use his cohort for indiscriminate crafting at half price. That's the worst form of leadership abuse. Just say that the cohort is his friend, but still needs the income for his crafting, so he charges full price, or something similar.
It's also best for the player *not* to get to draw up the cohort's character sheet on his own. Ask the player for input, then you do it, or download stats from an appropriate NPC listed in one of Paizo's compendiums or online, like at PFSRD. You could certainly allow the player to select spells prepared for a day, but allowing too much player control of the cohort's specific feats and other abilities can be dangerous. Let the player request a few things, then give the cohort whatever other feats or abilities make the most sense (to you as the DM). Same for equipment and magical gear.
If you usually have players roll for stats, don't let him roll for the cohort's stats. Use a standard stat array.
That's about all the advice I can give. The more power you give the player, the more broken the feat is.
Man, I disagree with, like, all of this.
But regardless, do what's best for your game!
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The player is a 13 year old girl, the daughter of one of my Army of The Immortals I've been playing with for over 30 years. It was her idea to re-consecrate a temple, and he asked about the Leadership feat. Except for a tiny few certain individual NPCs, I doubt seriously they'll create more than that.
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Got a player who wants to take the feat. Has it been changed and how so?
Thanks.
Not change but there are more add on/replacement feats for it. Dynasty Founder, Stronghold, Recruits and Practiced Leadership come to mind.
In your case, I think Recruits is a perfect feat to take instead of leadership. the cohorts are "busy learning and studying the basics of their careers", so it fits right in with a temple.
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Oh, nice one. Thanks!
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Got a player who wants to take the feat. Has it been changed and how so?
Thanks.
Not change but there are more add on/replacement feats for it. Dynasty Founder, Stronghold, Recruits and Practiced Leadership come to mind.
In your case, I think Recruits is a perfect feat to take instead of leadership. the cohorts are "busy learning and studying the basics of their careers", so it fits right in with a temple.
What books are those feats from?
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What books are those feats from?Got a player who wants to take the feat. Has it been changed and how so?
Thanks.
Not change but there are more add on/replacement feats for it. Dynasty Founder, Stronghold, Recruits and Practiced Leadership come to mind.
In your case, I think Recruits is a perfect feat to take instead of leadership. the cohorts are "busy learning and studying the basics of their careers", so it fits right in with a temple.
Hmmm... Let me see...
Champions of Balance [Practiced Leadership]
Quests and Campaigns [Dynasty Founder]
Ultimate Campaign [Stronghold]
Cohorts and Companions [Recruits]
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Man, I disagree with, like, all of this.
That's the thing with the leadership feat. It's a highly divisive topic, and folks will hotly debate both sides. Many players want to give the feat maximum cheese (free crafting, optimised design, etc) while many DMs just want to avoid any semblance of controversy, so they ban the feat.
IMHO, as a DM you don't have to ban the feat if you put clear-cut limits on it, and let the player know about those limits before he selects it (or allow him to swap it out if he ends up feeling cheated).
The thing is, if you allow maximum cheese, it's just too powerful to be a feat - it does give you a second character, after all.
But hey, I do get what Tacticslion is saying. My perspective is as a DM, and wanting to keep the option of having one of my players choose the leadership feat, without risking the extreme cheese it can lead to.
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The soon to be released (as in, early next month most likely) New Paths Compendium hardcover contains an alternate version of the Leadership feat that essentially breaks the feat into two feats - one which grants a cohort, and the other which grants the followers.
The New Paths Compendium also contains the Beast Leadership feat, for the more nature-oriented classes, which grants a cool animal or magical beast cohort and various animal followers ...
My perspective is as a DM
(For the record, mine is, too. I've only had, like, a single dude ever take the Leadership feat, and he crafts all of his own items, and most of yours, too, thank you very much! I just want my players to, you know, be able to do really awesome stuff...)
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The soon to be released (as in, early next month most likely) New Paths Compendium hardcover contains an alternate version of the Leadership feat that essentially breaks the feat into two feats - one which grants a cohort, and the other which grants the followers.
The New Paths Compendium also contains the Beast Leadership feat, for the more nature-oriented classes, which grants a cool animal or magical beast cohort and various animal followers ...
I certainly hope it's not as bad as the options for monster cohorts already out. I know a ranger who wants his childhood shocker lizard as a combat buddy.
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In my first Pathfinder campaign, one PC out of five took Leadership when they reached level 7+. She mostly wanted it for enough followers to crew the party's ship, but the cohort was the fun part. She and I worked together to build a cohort that was effective but that didn't step on any of the other PCs' schticks. (For example, rogue was ruled out because the urban ranger PC had trapfinding covered. We settled on bard for the minor buffs and because it didn't compete with the cleric, druid, and witch.)
In contrast, my current campaign has three out of six PCs who could justify taking Leadership when they are high enough level: a cavalier with good Charisma skills; a bard who wants to gather allies to liberate his conquered homeland; and an inquisitor who may eventually seek converts to her obscure cult. In all three cases, the feat will definitely give me ways to tie in background and plots, so I will welcome it, despite the potentially unwieldy size of the party at that point. (OTOH, we may be losing a couple of the other PCs' players before then, so that would make things less awkward on that front.)
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I have in multiple cases waved the feat and just given my players various types of cohorts and followers through plot activities though generally these rarely if ever show up for combat.
I find cohorts to be an excellent tool for character development for characters as they climb in levels.
So the reason I've been lax on leadership restrictions is because generally nobody's ever abused the feat in my games.
Admittedly I have always stated that I generally do not want players to take the feat because of the potential for abuse which my players generally take to heart in their gameplay. So by the time they hit 7+ and it logically makes sense for the narrative, they often end up with followers if applicable.
TLDR: imo Leadership is only an issue when players get cheesy and a great tool when they aren't.
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The player is a 13 year old girl, the daughter of one of my Army of The Immortals I've been playing with for over 30 years. It was her idea to re-consecrate a temple, and he asked about the Leadership feat. Except for a tiny few certain individual NPCs, I doubt seriously they'll create more than that.
That sounds like an awesome idea. Don't forget that the followers she gets can be excellent rumormongers and sources of information on the city (and world) around them. Use them and she'll feel like she's really built something with that leadership choice.
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Man, I disagree with, like, all of this.That's the thing with the leadership feat. It's a highly divisive topic, and folks will hotly debate both sides. Many players want to give the feat maximum cheese (free crafting, optimised design, etc) while many DMs just want to avoid any semblance of controversy, so they ban the feat.
IMHO, as a DM you don't have to ban the feat if you put clear-cut limits on it, and let the player know about those limits before he selects it (or allow him to swap it out if he ends up feeling cheated).
The thing is, if you allow maximum cheese, it's just too powerful to be a feat - it does give you a second character, after all.
But hey, I do get what Tacticslion is saying. My perspective is as a DM, and wanting to keep the option of having one of my players choose the leadership feat, without risking the extreme cheese it can lead to.
For me, it's a mix. I generally make up the cohort with player input in mind and I use the standard array. But as far as using a cohort to make magic items? I have absolutely no problem with that. I ran a campaign where someone had that going (she was even a mystic theurge to expand the number of spells available to her for crafting requirement). It was never a problem.
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My perspective is as a DM(For the record, mine is, too. I've only had, like, a single dude ever take the Leadership feat, and he crafts all of his own items, and most of yours, too, thank you very much! I just want my players to, you know, be able to do really awesome stuff...)
I would like to clarify. By, "I've only had, like, a single dude ever take the Leadership feat," I meant of my own characters that I play. I've actually had quite a few people take it, when I GM.
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The soon to be released (as in, early next month most likely) New Paths Compendium hardcover contains an alternate version of the Leadership feat that essentially breaks the feat into two feats - one which grants a cohort, and the other which grants the followers.
The New Paths Compendium also contains the Beast Leadership feat, for the more nature-oriented classes, which grants a cool animal or magical beast cohort and various animal followers ...
Quick follow up - the New Paths Compendium is now available for preorder!
It will also be available in a few weeks right here through Paizo.com as well!
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The soon to be released (as in, early next month most likely) New Paths Compendium hardcover contains an alternate version of the Leadership feat that essentially breaks the feat into two feats - one which grants a cohort, and the other which grants the followers.
The New Paths Compendium also contains the Beast Leadership feat, for the more nature-oriented classes, which grants a cool animal or magical beast cohort and various animal followers ...
The book is now available right here on Paizo.com!!
I don't know of any official changes which have been made to Leadership, but I can think of some homebrew changes which might be interesting (haven’t tried them yet)
#1 - It might be nice if cohorts were less powerful but more survivable:
A cohort which works more like a high HP familiar might be nice in some ways. I’ve thought about whether it might make sense to slap a simple class template on an animal companion chassis (or maybe that would be a terrible idea). Alternately you could lower the level of the cohort but add some survivability perks, maybe something simple like letting the PC spend HP to keep the cohort in action and/or a cohort version of Hero Points (amazingly your sidekick fell off the cliff and survived yet again)
#2 - It might be nice if followers were more survivable, especially in groups:
I’ve thought of maybe using something like the Troop creature type to represent the crew of a pirate or viking ship in a way which might not end up with all of them dying the first time an area damage effect goes off.
Sometimes the standard Leadership rules can work pretty well though. For instance, people often complain that certain classes aren’t well rounded, and the cohort can really even that out. In general if I take a cohort I go for one who will buff and support the party rather than a frontliner or primary caster. A Bard seems (somewhat ironically) less likely to steal the spotlight.
Leadership is fine. The cohort uses a 15-pt. build and NPC gold (which is so small i.e. 3,450gp for 5th level cohort of a 7th level PC) and must remain 2 levels lower than the PC at all times. Any extra gear beyond NPC gold has to be forked over by the PC. And don't change how treasure shares are handled, regardless of whatever silliness the player might find in the rules. Again: anything going to the cohort should come straight out of the PC's pocket.
From PRD:
If the NPC possesses levels in a PC class, it is considered a heroic NPC and receives better ability scores. These scores can be assigned in any order.
Basic NPCs: The ability scores for a basic NPC are: 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, and 8.
Heroic NPCs: The ability scores for a heroic NPC are: 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, and 8.
Agreed. Leadership works as written.
I had a sorcerer take Leadership in my game. He gained a magus cohort.
That was fine. I generally allowed him to control the magus in combat, but I controlled the magus out of combat. The biggest issue there was just one more turn in initiative order, and that wasn't a big deal except when I had exceptional participation (playing in a game store, so number of players varied).
The problem wasn't with the cohort at all, but with the number of followers the character gained.
Our adventure took place in a village of about 70 people. The character gained something like seventy followers. I told him not everyone in the village was his follower, but his renown had spread to other communities and he could expect to have followers in most of the local communities.
He put his local followers to work building a barracks on the grounds of the inn where the party lived and worked, and planned to shape them into a demon-worshiping cult.
This was not a kingdom-building campaign, so managing his growing cult and its activities in the local community slowed down the game and created a plethora of new considerations for the setting. While this might have been fine in other circumstances, or a campaign with a different focus, the expectation of large numbers of followers negatively impacted the atmosphere I hoped to create in an adventure-horror campaign.
The player dropped out of the campaign for other reasons (game store closed, he didn't want to switch venues with some reasonable justification), so his sorcerer vanished and his cultist followers gradually dispersed.
I have since informed my players that Leadership will function differently in my campaign going forward, likely resulting in much fewer followers or less direct access to give them commands and mandates. (I still like the idea of the cohort, and of recruiting followers, but the followers would be restricted.)
That's my thoughts on Leadership. The only other Leadership-like feat I've reviewed is the Torch-bearer feat from Dungeoneer's Handbook, but that just becomes Leadership at 8th level. That it becomes Leadership kind of makes it less valuable to me than something that could be used as an alternative. I'll have to look at those other feats mentioned up-thread.
As for the vanished sorcerer, the player has contacted me and did not ask about rejoining the game, but he wants me to bring his sorcerer back as a lich NPC to confront the ongoing players. They're not up to the level of dealing with liches yet, but my campaign is undead-centric with about everything but a lich roaming around. (Well, it's in Ustalav so the Whispering Tyrant is imprisoned in his tower, of course, and people talk about him, but there's no lich that they'd eventually fight.)
Yeah, sounds like your player wanted the entire game to go in a direction that ran counter to the agreed-upon tone. That's never (well, almost never) good. Leadership is one of the earlier abilities that can exacerbate such a conflict, but eventually you can end up there anyway once planar binding and other interesting spells crop up. The best advice I can offer is to make sure players understand what kind of game this is intended to be and stick to it, letting the player know that, while player agency is fine and dandy, turning a high adventure game into SimCult just isn't going to happen. Maybe it would have worked if he'd set them up as a cult but left it as a mostly nebulous allied information information source and/or plot hook generator. They are still NPCs, after all.
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Man, I disagree with, like, all of this.That's the thing with the leadership feat. It's a highly divisive topic, and folks will hotly debate both sides. Many players want to give the feat maximum cheese (free crafting, optimised design, etc) while many DMs just want to avoid any semblance of controversy, so they ban the feat.
IMHO, as a DM you don't have to ban the feat if you put clear-cut limits on it, and let the player know about those limits before he selects it (or allow him to swap it out if he ends up feeling cheated).
The thing is, if you allow maximum cheese, it's just too powerful to be a feat - it does give you a second character, after all.
But hey, I do get what Tacticslion is saying. My perspective is as a DM, and wanting to keep the option of having one of my players choose the leadership feat, without risking the extreme cheese it can lead to.
Protip: Your input will be a lot more meaningful if you take the time to understand and actually re-state positions other than yours, rather than simply assuming base motives and dishonesty on the part of everyone except you. In the hundreds of threads about the Leadership feat, any number of DMs have weighed in about the myriad reasons they encourage it -- none of which have to do with "player cheese."