Leadership (Feat)
You attract followers to your cause and a companion to join you on your adventures.
Prerequisites: Level 6, unable to cast spells, create extracts, or make poultices.
Related: Leadership, Epic (Feat), Legendary Commander (Feat)
Benefit: This feat enables you to generate a Leadership score. Leadership is a measure of your reputation and native ability to lead. If you have a Leadership score, then followers accumulate around you, wanting you to lead them.
The first follower you attract will be your loyal Cohort. This Cohort is (hopefully) permanent. A Cohort is not your slave or lackey, they are a loyal partner who will aid you through thick and thin as long as you treat them well. As you increase your Leadership score, your Cohort may gain power with you as you level up, and over time you will naturally attract a number of devoted subordinates who assist you.
A Cohort is generally an NPC with class levels, while followers are typically lower level NPCs. See Table: Leadership for what level of Cohort and how many followers you can recruit.
Special: In all cases, Leadership and all following feats (Leadership, Epic (Feat) and Legendary Commander (Feat)) MUST be approved by the GM. This allows the GM to incorporate the followers into their game world, or disallow the feat if it will be disruptive.
Calculating Leadership Score: Leadership is based upon your character level plus your Leadership ability modifier.
When this feat is chosen, you may pick either your Con, Wis, or Cha to be your Leadership ability score. Once chosen, this may not be changed. Your chosen ability reflects the type of leader you will be. Con leaders are steadfast and unflinching. Wis leaders are spiritual and insightful. Cha leaders are bold and dazzling.
Leadership Modifiers: Several factors can affect your Leadership score, causing it to vary from the base score (character level + ability modifier). Your reputation (from the point of view of the cohort or follower you are trying to attract) raises or lowers your Leadership score as follows:
| Leader's Reputation | Modifier |
|---|---|
| Great renown | +2 |
| Fairness and generosity | +1 |
| Special power | +1 |
| Stingy | -1 |
| Petty | -1 |
| Failure | -1 |
| Aloofness | -1 |
| Weak or Ineffective | -2 |
| Cruelty | -2 |
Other modifiers may apply when you try to attract a cohort, as listed below.
| The Leader... | Modifier |
|---|---|
| Has sordid connections or a shady past | -2 |
| Has other demands on their time such as church obligations or regular adventures | -2 |
| Recruits a cohort of a different alignment | -1* |
| Caused the death of a cohort | -2* |
- Cumulative per cohort killed.
Followers have different priorities from cohorts. When you try to attract a follower, use the following modifiers.
| The Leader... | Modifier |
|---|---|
| Has a stronghold, base of operations, guildhouse, etc. | +2 |
| Won a glorious battle while leading followers. | +1* |
| Moves around a lot | -1 |
| Caused the death of other followers | -1* |
- Cumulative per incident, but frequently cancels out.
Table: Leadership
| Leadership Score | Cohort Level | Number of Followers by Level | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th | 6th | ||
| 6 or lower | – | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| 7 | 1st | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| 8 | 2nd | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| 9 | 3rd | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| 10 | 3rd | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| 11 | 4th | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| 12 | 5th | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| 13 | 5th | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| 14 | 6th | – | – | – | – | – | – |
| 15 | 7th | 5 | – | – | – | – | – |
| 16 | 7th | 6 | – | – | – | – | – |
| 17 | 8th | 8 | – | – | – | – | – |
| 18 | 9th | 10 | 1 | – | – | – | – |
| 19 | 10th | 15 | 1 | – | – | – | – |
| 20 | 10th | 20 | 2 | 1 | – | – | – |
| 21 | 11th | 25 | 2 | 1 | – | – | – |
| 22 | 12th | 30 | 3 | 1 | 1 | – | – |
| 23 | 12th | 35 | 3 | 1 | 1 | – | – |
| 24 | 13th | 40 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | – |
| 25 | 14th | 50 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 1 | – |
| 26 | 15th | 60 | 6 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| 27 | 15th | 75 | 7 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 1 |
| 28 | 16th | 90 | 9 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 1 |
| 29 | 17th | 110 | 11 | 6 | 3 | 2 | 1 |
| 30 or higher | 17th | 135 | 13 | 7 | 4 | 2 | 2 |
Cohort Level: You can attract a Cohort of up to this level. Regardless of your Leadership score, you can only recruit a Cohort who is two or more levels lower than yourself. The Cohort should be equipped with gear appropriate for its level. A Cohort can be of any race or class. The Cohort's alignment may not be opposed to your alignment on either the law/chaos or good/evil axis, and you take a -1 penalty to your Leadership score if you recruit a cohort of an alignment different from your own.
A Cohort does not count as a party member when determining the party's XP. Instead, divide the Cohort's level by your level. Multiply this result by the total XP awarded to you, then add that number of experience points to the Cohort's total.
In no case may a Cohort gain more than one level from a given award of experience.
If a Cohort gains enough XP to bring it to a level one lower than your level, the cohort does not gain the new level — its new XP total is 1 less than the amount needed to attain the next level.
Number of Followers by Level: You can lead up to the indicated number of characters of each level. Followers are similar to cohorts, except they're generally low-level NPCs. Because they're usually 5 or more levels behind you, they're rarely effective in combat.
Followers don't earn experience and thus don't gain levels. When you gain a new level, consult Table: Leadership to determine if you acquire more followers, some of whom may be higher level than the existing followers. Don't consult the table to see if your Cohort gains levels, however, because Cohorts earn experience on their own.