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Sigil
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### Changing Leadership

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Post by Sigil » Mon Mar 10, 2014 2:06 am

Alright, time for a redux. I know I said I'd do this... what, the better part of two weeks ago, but I bought Dark Souls II instead.
Leadership
There are now three kinds of subordinates that leadership can grant you: Cohorts, Companions, and Followers.

- Cohorts: Having a cohort is very similar to having a secondary character. You have direct control over your cohort, just as you have control over your own character. This means that you literally have your cohorts character sheet and operate them as an additional PC. Your cohort, if you have one, always has a CR that is 3 less than your character level or half of your character level, whichever is greater. Every cohort beyond the first one you gain has a CR one less than the previous cohort. Cohorts are usually gained by taking [Leadership] feats.
- Companions: Companions play supporting roles to your own character. You have direct control of your companions as long as they are with your character. If for some reason one of your companions is separated from your character, the companion continues to act in your best interest, typically following any orders you have given it. This means that while your character and their companions are in the same "scene" you countrol them just as you would a cohort and have access to their character sheet. Companions do not follow any standardized power schedule, and are usually gained via class features.
- Followers: Your followers are people that take orders from you, possibly as members of an organization you lead or have a leadership position within. Instead of keeping track of all of your followers individually, they are represented by your Leadership Score (see below). By using your leadership score to issue orders, you can have your followers accomplish tasks for you.

Leadership Score
Your Leadership Score represents the amount of benefit you have from being the head of your organization. It variously represents the manpower of your followers, the favors that can be called in, and the knowledge of those that work for you. Your leadership score entitles you to issue a number of 'orders' per week equal to your leadership score.
The time it takes for a task to be finished, wether successful or not, varies. Each order has a base time requirement that fits in somewhere on the table below, every favorable circumstance changes the time required to the nearest faster category. Every unfavorable circumstance likewise adjusts the time required to the next slower category. These adjustments are cumulative.
Table: Time Required to Complete Orders

Time Needed
Right Now
One Hour
One Day
One Week
Two Weeks
One Month
Three Months
Six Months
One Year
Never

Orders
Table: Orders

Order | Base Time
Body Guard | One Week, see text
Favor | One Day, see text
Gather Intelligence | One Week
Labor | Two Weeks, see text
Provide Service | One Week
Requisition | One Day
Retinue | One Week
Service | One Day
Skill Check Equivalent | One Week

Body Guard
Base Time: One Week
You have a character or group of characters follow you around and assist you in battle. These characters together must have an encounter level that is no greater than half of your character level. You can only have one instance of this order active at any given time.
Special: The amount of time required for this order represents the time needed to gather your body guard, and they follow you around for one week after the order is completed. You can keep your body guard with you afterwards by expending a use of your leadership each week you keep them. If you allow your body guard to be killed your leadership score is reduced by 2 for one month.
Favor
Base Time:[/b] One Day
You can call in a favor from a specific NPC. For the purpose of a single task, that NPC is considered to have a Helpful attitude toward you. You cannot call in a favor from an NPC that has a Hostile attitude toward you. The amount of time required, if lengthy, represents the time needed for agents from your organization to make the appropriate contacts to call in the favor.
Gather Intelligence
Base Time: One Week
You can use your followers to find out about a person place or thing. After the required amount of time has elapsed you make a Character Level Check against a DC of 10. If successful you learn a single piece of information about the object of your investigation at the end of the week, and an additional piece of information for every 5 points by which your check exceeds the DC. On a failed check, you gain a piece of information that turns out to be false. The DC of this check is modified depending on the target of your investigation, as shown on the table below. Additionally, if you have recently succeeded on a check against the same target, you gain a cumulative +5 bonus (maximum +15), a failure clears these bonuses.

- Person: A successful check indicates that you learn one thing of your choice about a person: their current location, where they plan to be during the next week, if there is currently a plot against that person, the truth about one rumor about the person.
- Place: A successful check allows you to learn one thing about the place: presence of people or monsters and a general indication of how dangerous the area is, the number of a specific group of people that you already know the presence of in the area, the presence or absence of ambush points.
- Thing: A successful check lets you learn one of the following about an object: the history of the object, the previous owner of the object, the function of the object, the activation method for the object (if magical).

Table: Gather Intelligence DC Modifiers

Person is... | DC | Place is... | DC | Thing is... | DC
Friendly | -5 | Friendly Territory | -5 | In Your Possession | -5
An Enemy | +5 | Hostile Territory | +5 | Not Specific | +5
Secretive | +5 | Remote | +5 | Medium or Major | +5
In Hiding | +5 | Guarded | +5 | An Artifact | +10

Labor
Base Time: Two Weeks
You can have your followers work to build or craft something. After the required time has elapsed, an amount of work has been done equivalent to a number of laborers working for one week. The number of laborers is based on your leadership score, as shown on the table below. If the task would normally require some sort of skill check or other special circumstance to complete, you must arrange for that to be done separately.
Special: The amount of time required for this order represents the time needed both to arrange for the laborers to arrive, and the time needed for the work to be done, as such this time cannot be reduced beyond one week. If the project is still not finished after one use of the labor order, you can continue to have work done on consecutive weeks by expending another use of your leadership, and in such a case the time required is always one week.
Table: Work Done by Laborers

Leadership Score | Equivalent Number of Laborers
1 | 5
2 | 10
3 | 25
4 | 100
5 | 500
6 | 2,500
7 | 15,000
8 | 50,000
9 | 250,000
10 | 500,000
+1 | x2

Requisition
Base Time: One Day
You can borrow a single item from your organization for one week. You can only borrow one such item at a time, and the maximum value of the item is based on your level and can be seen on the table below. You may only have one item requisitioned at any given time.
Special: the amount of time required for this order represents the time needed to get the item delivered to you, and you can keep the item for one week thereafter. You can continue to keep the item afterwards by expending a use of your leadership every week that you keep it. If you lose the item or you cease expending leadership uses for it without returning it, your leadership score is reduced by two until you pay double the items value back to your organization.
Table: Requisitionable Items

Level | Most Expensive Possible Requisition*
1 - 2 | A non-masterwork weapon or set of armor worth up to 1,000 gp
2 - 3 | A masterwork weapon or set of armor worth up to 1,500 gp
5 - 8 | A minor magic item
9 - 15 | A medium magic item
16+ | A major magic item

* The items given on this table do not necessarily limit you to this selection, your DM may allow you to requisition other items of equivalent value.
Retinue
Base Time: One Week
You can bring a group of advisers, craftsmen, squires and other such camp followers with you on an adventure. This camp following can do 'stuff' for you while you're busy with real work. This camp following can do the same amount of 'stuff' that a number of people equal to your leadership score could do, has a bonus equal to your leadership score to all skill checks, and can cast spells from the core Cleric and Wizard spell lists of a level up to one third of your character level a number of times per day equal to half of your leadership score. If for some reason you need to represent your personal retinue in combat, treat them as a group of NPCs with only NPC class levels with an encounter level equal to one half of your leadership score.
Special: The amount of time required for this order represents the time needed to gather your personal retinue, and they follow you around for one week after the order is completed. You can keep your personal retinue with you afterwards by expending a use of your leadership each week you keep them. If you allow your retinue to be killed your leadership score is reduced by 2 for one month.
Service
Base Time: One Day
You can have your organization, or someone in debt to it, provide you a service.

- Spellcasting: One of your followers casts a spell at your behest. This spell must be of a level that a wizard half of your character level could cast, and be chosen from the core Wizard or Cleric spell list. You must provide any costly materials or experience points required by the spell.
- Transport: Your organization arranges for you to travel by vehicle, either overland or by water, for a number of days equal to your leadership score. You may expend additional uses of your leadership to extend the journey beyond this.

Skill Check Equivalent
Base Time: One Week
You can have your followers perform some task that is equivalent to a skill check. The skill may be any relevant skill, and the bonus is equal to your character level. Special: You may expend additional uses of your leadership score on this order, and for each extra use you expend the check is made at an additional +5 bonus, up to a maximum of twice your character level.
Favorable and Unfavorable Circumstances
Your base is...*

You're actually in it now | Faster
In the local area (up to 50 miles away) | No change
In a neighboring province or country (50 - 500 miles away) | Slower
In a distant country (500 or more miles away) | Two slower
On Another continent | Three Slower
On Another Plane | Four Slower

* If you have a means of instantly communicating with the followers at your base, you count as actually being in it for the purpose of orders where no one has to physically reach you.[/spoiler]
The target of your order is, relative to your base...

In the local area (up to 50 miles away) | No change
In a neighboring province or country (50 - 500 miles away) | Slower
In a distant country (500 or more miles away) | Two slower
On Another continent | Three Slower
On Another Plane | Four Slower

You are in a...

Metropolis Two Faster
Small or Large City | One Faster
Large Town | No Change
Village or Small Town | One Slower
Thorp or Hamlet | Two Slower
Unpopulated Area | Three Slower

The attitude towards you or organization where the order will take place is...

Friendly | Faster
Indifferent | No Change
Unfriendly | Slower
Hostile | Two Slower

Rushing an Order
By expending an extra use of your leadership, you can reduce the time required to complete it to the next quickest category, you may do this multiple times per order.
Replacing Cohorts and companions
Sometimes companions and even cohorts might die. Or maybe the one you have just isn't cutting it anymore. Often the requirements involve some amount of in-game time passing, and this assumes that the character spends some minimal amount of time between adventures looking for suitable replacements. Unless there are extenuating circumstances, the DM should try to follow these guidelines or work out another suitable means of replacing the minion. The requirements to replace them are as follows.
Replacing a Cohort: A cohort can be replaced any time you gain a level, or after some period of in-game time (typically a month). Your DM may also allow you to immediately replace your cohort with an appropriate NPC that is already in the campaign.
Replacing a Companion: Typically the steps necessary to replace a companion are given by the feat or class feature that granted it. If no method of replacement is specified, a companion can usually be replaced after one week of in-game time.
The original post, for reference.
Leadership in 3.x is not standardized and is often weird. Your followers are supposed to be useful, but they suck at combat and have no concrete rules so it sort of ends up as MTP (they also require plenty of paperwork). Classes give you things that are similar to cohorts, but aren't. I want to standardize this stuff and simplify it.
The stuff here is very preliminary and I'm not even trying to say it's complete, but I wanted to put something up on The Den for feedback.
Leadership
There are now three kinds of subordinates that leadership can grant you: Cohorts, Companions, and Followers.

- Cohorts: Having a cohort is very similar to having a secondary character. You have direct control over your cohort, just as you have control over your own character. Your cohort, if you have one, always has a CR that is 2 less than your character’s level. A cohort increases in power, gaining a level or hit dice, when you gain a level. You may only ever have one cohort at a time, if a source would grant you more than one cohort, you instead gain a companion. Cohorts are usually gained by taking [Leadership] feats.
- Companions: Companions play supporting roles to your own character. You have direct control of your companions as long as they are with your character. If for some reason one of your companions is separated from your character, the companion continues to act in your best interest, typically following any orders you have given it. Your companions always have a CR equal to your level -4 or to 1&#8260;2 of your level (round down), whichever is greater. Companions are usually gained through class features.
- Followers: Your followers are people that take orders from you, possibly as members of an organization you lead or have a leadership position within. Instead of keeping track of all of your followers individually, they are represented by your Leadership Score (see below). By spending points of your Leadership Score (and temporarily reducing it) you can have your followers accomplish tasks for you.

Leadership Score
Your Leadership Score represents the amount of resources and manpower your followers can produce. Your Leadership Score has a maximum value equal to your level, and is replenished by an amount equal to your Charisma bonus each week (minimum 1). You only have one Leadership Score, if a source would grant you more than one Leadership Score, your score is instead increased by 4. Below are the tasks you can accomplish by spending your Leadership Score.
When you first gain a leadership score, you should select a location to serve as the base for your organization. The location of your base affects the DC of and the the time it takes perform certain actions.
Table: Uses of Leadership

Action | Leadership Cost
Gather Intelligence | 1
Labor | Varies, see text
Personal Retinue | Equal to EL of Followers
Provide Service | Varies
Skill Check Equivalent | 1 per +5 Bonus

Gather Intelligence: You can use your followers to find out about a person place or thing. If successful you learn a single piece of information about the object of your investigation at the end of the week, and an additional piece of information for every 5 points by which your check exceeds the DC. On a failed check, you gain a piece of information that turns out to be false. The base DC for this check is 10, modified by the conditions shown on the table below. You have a bonus to the check equal to you level.

- Person: A successful check indicates that you learn one thing of your choice about a person: their current location, where they plan to be during the next week, if there is currently a plot against that person, the truth about one rumor about the person.
- Place: A successful check allows you to learn one thing about the place: presence of people or monsters and a general indication of how dangerous the area is, the number of a specific group of people that you already know the presence of in the area, the presence or absence of ambush points.
- Thing: A successful check lets you learn one of the following about an object: the history of the object, the previous owner of the object, the function of the object, the activation method for the object (if magical).

Table: Gather Intelligence DC Modifiers

Person is... | DC | Place is... | DC | Thing is... | DC
Friendly | -5 | Friendly Territory | -5 | In Your Possession | -5
An Enemy | +5 | Hostile Territory | +5 | Not Specific | +5
Secretive | +5 | Remote | +5 | Medium or Major | +5
In Hiding | +5 | Guarded | +5 | An Artifact | +10

Labor: You can have your followers work to build or craft something for one week. The amount of work done is based on how much of your leadership score you spend, and is equivalent to a given number of people working for one week. This cost recurs weekly if you have your followers continue to labor. If the task would normally require some sort of skill check to complete, you must arrange for that to be done separately.
Table: Leadership Cost of Labor

Points Spent | Number of Laborers
1 | 1
2 | 3
3 | 5
4 | 10
5 | 25
6 | 55
7 | 110
8 | 225
9 | 450
10 | 900
11 | 1,800
12 | 3,750
13 | 7,500
14 | 15,000
15 | 30,000
16 | 60,000
17 | 125,000
18 | 250,000
19 | 500,000
20 | 1,000,000
+1 | x2

Personal Retinue: You can take followers with you on adventures. The cost to do this is equal to the encounter level (EL) of the followers you bring with you, up to a maximum of 1/2 of your level. The followers remain with you for one week, and the cost recurs for each week they remain with you. If some of them are killed or otherwise rendered unfit for service, a one-time penalty equal to half of the cost to bring them is incurred. If all of them are killed or otherwise rendered unfit for service, the penalty is instead equal to the full cost to bring them. This can temporarily reduce your Leadership Score to a negative value.
Skill Check Equivalent: You can have your followers perform some task that is equivalent to a skill check. The skill may be any relevant skill, and the bonus is equal to your character level. For every additional point you spend, the check is made at an additional +5 bonus, up to a maximum of double your character level.
Leadership and Location
When you first gain your leadership score, you should select a place to serve as the base of operations for your organization. Tasks take additional time to start based on how distant the task is to take place from your base. This amount of time does not necessarily equate to the time it takes for your followers to physically reach the location, but could be the time it takes to get in touch with with local contacts or contractors.
Table: Extra Time Required

Distance to Task | Extra Time Required
Local | No Extra Time
Neighboring Province (100 mi.) | 1 Week
Distant Province (250 mi.) | 2 Weeks
Neighboring Country (500 mi.) | 1 Month
Distant Country (1000 mi.) | 2 Months
Another Continent (3000 mi) | 3 Months
Another Plane | 4 Months

Rushing Your Followers
By spending an extra 50% of the cost of a use of your leadership (round up), you can reduce the time it takes to complete the task from a number of weeks, to an equivalent number of days.
Replacing Cohorts and companions
Sometimes companions and even cohorts might die. Or maybe the one you have just isn't cutting it anymore. Often the requirements involve some amount of in-game time passing, and this assumes that the character spends some minimal amount of time between adventures looking for suitable replacements. Unless there are extenuating circumstances, the DM should try to follow these guidelines or work out another suitable means of replacing the minion. The requirements to replace them are as follows.
Replacing a Cohort: A cohort can be replaced any time you gain a level, or after some period of in-game time (typically a month). Your DM may also allow you to immediately replace your cohort with an appropriate NPC that is already in the campaign.
Replacing a Companion: Typically the steps necessary to replace a companion are given by the feat or class feature that granted it. If no method of replacement is specified, a companion can usually be replaced after one week of in-game time.

So, now for some examples of what feats or class features would look like under this system. Surprise, they're shorter and standardized.
Druids Animal Companion: You gain a cohort that must have the Animal type, or have both the Magical Beast type and the [augmented animal] subtype. If you already have a cohort, you gain a companion with the same requirements instead.
Improved Familiar [Skill: Knowledge Arcana]
Requirement: The Familiar class feature.
0: You replace your familiar with a companion. This companion must be an animal, magical beast, elemental, or outsider that meets the CR requirements for being a companion. This cohort cannot gain class levels, and must be a creature that can advance by HD.
4: If your familiar makes a successful attack or successfully casts a spell on a creature, that creature takes a -2 penalty to saving throws against your spells for the next minute.
9: Your now keep part of your familiars soul within your own. If your familiar dies it spontaneously regenerates after one week.
14: Once per day, any time you would be killed you can have your familiar die instead.
19: You and your familiar are now best bros, as a full round action you can switch locations with your familiar regardless of distance, or teleport your familiar into an adjacent space. This is a supernatural ability.
Last edited by Sigil on Wed Apr 02, 2014 12:53 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Dean
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Post by Dean » Mon Mar 10, 2014 7:02 am

I really like the gist of what you've got here. The 2 problems I do have with leadership that this doesn't fix is that Cohorts are too powerful and that Cohorts can take Leadership.
If a cohort is 2 levels below a character then taking leadership is definitely the best feat ever. It is a feat that, taken twice, adds +2 to your challenge rating level. The same as gaining two levels. Taking leadership is the equivalent power upgrade to an additional gained level. It's far too powerful. I feel that cohorts should be at the same power level as companions. So they would be 4 levels beneath you but they would come with two powers.
1: You can play them, not even direct them just literally put their character sheet in front of you and play them if it's useful.
2: If you die you can declare your character as refusing raising efforts and then your Cohort gains one level a week as he swears vengeance until he's equal to the level you were at when you died.
I think cohorts should be flavorful and cool and be replacement characters but not multiply your power levels and action economy. Just gaining several allies, hundreds of servants, and many abilities makes the feat strong enough to compete for the same slot as Skill Focus: Spot.

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Post by RadiantPhoenix » Mon Mar 10, 2014 7:25 am

"Skill Focus: Spot" is not something I would endorse as a good benchmark of what feats should be doing at levels.
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TarkisFlux
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Post by TarkisFlux » Mon Mar 10, 2014 6:30 pm

Standardized and abstracted leadership stuff? I've got energy to kick in for that...
Companions going to your CR/2 makes them better than or equivalent to cohorts at low levels. Intentional?
The leadership pool is an interesting concept, and a frankly welcome abstraction. But the linear costs for exponential effects coupled with a non-level based recharge mechanic looks weird. If you have a +5 cha mod, you get the 5 point cha mod benefit per week, else you nova and wait for the recharge. And the recharge takes longer if you're a higher level, so you get your level appropriate effect less regularly. It's probably functional, it just seems uneven. If you want people to get their level appropriate follower benefit more regularly you probably want to swap some things around though. I can come up with some options if you care.
Tying it to Cha mod needs to go though. That should be determined by leadership source, to allow for intelligent guild leaders and strong wrestling leaders and whatever else gets written up (yes, I want a stable of wrestlers granted by a feat now).
The leadership functions that might need a skill check (gather information, labor, etc.) should probably not reference the check at all. Assume everyone takes 10 (which is what their checks will average out to, rounded down), and then scale up the amount of "stuff" you get based on level / points spent / whatever. So just like you wrote the laborer chart that indicates how many guys you could get to do work, a similar chart that indicates how many guys you poll for information when gathering intel or stealing you keys or whatever. If you want it variable, add a single roll for random side effects that are modified by the threat or rarity of the "stuff" (so "many bothans died to get this information" can be a thing).
Personal retinue currently grants you a companion, or a bunch of other guys. If it's supposed to be an actual retinue instead of an extra companion, it needs a "max CR level -6" line, or something similar.
Provide service isn't detailed at all. You said not complete so it's not a big deal, I'm just pointing it out.
I'd just eliminate the skill check equivalent option, as it seems redundant with the more detailed options (and you can always get a retinue to 'aid' you with a check if needed).
The extra time based on location is a cool idea, but it's unclear if you have to pay their upkeep for the entire multi-week time frame or not. It's also mostly impossible to do that for any level appropriate ability, which is problematic. It also seems like you should be able to have some small groups out on the planes by higher levels, so even if you couldn't mass your entire group out there you could get some smaller group to send something back quickly.
The rushing rules need a second look. Reducing time to 1/7th of original time for 150% cost is pretty amazing, but depends a lot on the final point and recharge structure.

deanrule87 - The writeup specifies that getting a second cohort instead grants you a new companion, so you can't actually take it twice to get +2 CR. You need to take it 3 times. While I agree that cohorts at CR-2 is too good for a lot of reasons, it's probably acquired sacred cow status in Tome. It would be better off slaughtered (merging cohort and companion groups into CR-3 or -4 I think), but people will throw a fit that may not be worth dealing with.
The character replacement thing is interesting, but also somewhat weird in a revolving door afterlife setup. It seems pretty unnecessary
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Dean
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Post by Dean » Tue Mar 11, 2014 1:07 am

I don't think people would throw a fit. People throw a fit about Leadership now, I've never actually played in any game where it was legal and I play a lot with many different people. Hell Leadership throws a fit at itself and tells you it's probably busted right in the description. Getting it's power level down to something that, if made legal, not literally everyone would take would be a huge boost to Leadership's popularity.
I thought the character replacement was a good idea because it would reduce the amount of times dead characters would have to be bullshitted back to life. If you had another character sheet handy then you wouldn't have to sit out of a game if your character died which would make people more honest about character death. I'm much less concerned with that part of Leadership than the tremendously out of line with any other feat in existence. At the moment it's like gaining the ability to persists a better version of the power Fission which is already established as a great power. So in the same way that creating a feat that allowed you to cast Limited Wish unlimitedly would not be allowed in games so to is Leadership not allowed.
I just feel like the first step to make Leadership better is to make it so that it gets into games in the first place.

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Seerow
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Post by Seerow » Tue Mar 11, 2014 3:18 am

I like it. I do agree with TarkisFlux that it would probably be better to untie the replenishing of the Leadership pool from Charisma. Possibly have the cap based off charisma in some way, and tie the leadership replenishing more to your home base and how you treat your followers. So the guy who treats his followers well and has an awesome home base can use his followers constantly for everything. The guy with high charisma can convince a whole bunch of people to do something for a short period of time before they all realize he's full of it and wander off, but more always come back... eventually.
Now, do Leadership scores come just from Leadership and Thrallherd and the like? Or does an Animal Companion grant you a leadership score? I'm asking because I'm wondering how things like the Animal Companion becoming a cohort works. If you have an animal companion, do you also have the ability to command hordes of animal followers, or just the cohort benefit? If you have an Animal Companion and take Leadership, do you gain a second cohort, or just gain the leadership score, since you already have the animal companion cohort? Or is Leadership now separated from gaining a cohort?
Also, what happens to low level druid companions? Since it's now a cohort, it's CR your level -2. That's -1 at level 1. You should include the "or 1/2, whichever is greater" like the companion line gets.
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Sigil
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Post by Sigil » Tue Mar 11, 2014 3:37 am

Alright, I'm glad there's some interest. First I'll clarify some of what I already wrote.

> deanruel87 wrote: The 2 problems I do have with leadership that this doesn't fix is that Cohorts are too powerful and that Cohorts can take Leadership.

I never intended for cohorts or companions to be able to take their own leadership feats. I forgot to note this explicitly as that's never once managed to get past a DM of mine. That shit would be crazy.

> deanruel87 wrote: 1: You can play them, not even direct them just literally put their character sheet in front of you and play them if it's useful.
> 2: If you die you can declare your character as refusing raising efforts and then your Cohort gains one level a week as he swears vengeance until he's equal to the level you were at when you died.

Aside from, CR fiddling, #1 is already how cohorts work per my first post, though the 'you have the character sheet in front of you' I'll have to make explicit. That's how every cohort I've ever seen actually get used has worked at a 3.x table in practice anyway.
#2 is pretty much intended use also, I will make it explicit. It is more interesting than Raise Dead and kin.

> RadiantPheonix wrote: "Skill Focus: Spot" is not something I would endorse as a good benchmark of what feats should be doing at levels.

Agreed, but I assume he meant the Tome "Sharp-Eyed" Spot feat instead of actual skill focus spot.

> TarkisFlux wrote: Companions going to your CR/2 makes them better than or equivalent to cohorts at low levels. Intentional?

Intentional, sort of. Traditionally you don't gain access to cohorts until 6th level minimum. A cohort for a 6th level character would be a CR 4, while a companion would be CR 3. The CR of your cohort and companion then diverges slightly at level 8, where your cohort is now CR 6 and a companion is CR 4; after which your companions continues to have a CR of your level - 4. This may be slightly complicated, but I wanted to level one companion abilities functional from level one, and modeled early levels on the Animal Companion ability (which keeps your companion at roughly level/2 CR). Level/2 CR seemed irrelevant at higher levels.

> TarkisFlux wrote: Personal retinue currently grants you a companion, or a bunch of other guys. If it's supposed to be an actual retinue instead of an extra companion, it needs a "max CR level -6" line, or something similar.

I listed a cap of Encounter Level (same as CR for an individual creature) equal to your level/2. This means at low levels it would be equivilant to a companion, and at levels 8+ be strictly worse. It also means that at level 4 the things you could expect to actually do with it would be to get a warhorse on loan (CR 2), call in a second hand favor to the lower planes and have an imp (CR 2) follow you for a week, or have 4 level 1 warriors carry your stuff for you for a week (EL 2).
This may legitimately be too good at low levels. Some of that could be alleviated by allowing only one personal retinue at a time. I also now think splitting it up into two separate uses of leadership would provide more variety. Bodyguard (what it is now) and retinue, where a group of abstract followers follow you around, and wherever you are currently counts as being 'local' for the purpose of time required to start tasks.

> TarkisFlux wrote: Provide service isn't detailed at all. You said not complete so it's not a big deal, I'm just pointing it out.

I forgot I even added that to the table. The intent was for things like "I need to borrow a [magic item] from the Cave of Wonders" or "I can't pay for passage, but I'm a Commander of the Holy Order of Writhing Agony and these notes are as good as money in Lankhmar or any province thereof" or "I need someone to cast a spell for me".

> TarkisFlux wrote: I'd just eliminate the skill check equivalent option, as it seems redundant with the more detailed options (and you can always get a retinue to 'aid' you with a check if needed).

Yeah, probably.

> TarkisFlux wrote: The extra time based on location is a cool idea, but it's unclear if you have to pay their upkeep for the entire multi-week time frame or not. It's also mostly impossible to do that for any level appropriate ability, which is problematic. It also seems like you should be able to have some small groups out on the planes by higher levels, so even if you couldn't mass your entire group out there you could get some smaller group to send something back quickly.
> The rushing rules need a second look. Reducing time to 1/7th of original time for 150% cost is pretty amazing, but depends a lot on the final point and recharge structure.

I felt that some sort of location rule was needed for verisimilitude. I did not intend for you to have to pay for the extra time required because of distance. I feel that this and the rushing rules could be made more sensible with a restructuring of how Leadership score works. Maybe someting more like:

1. Your leadership score is equal to 1/2 your level.
2. Every use of leadership scales by level somehow
3. Your leadership score refreshes completely on a periodic basis (period up for argument)
4. There are X (5 or so) different amounts of time a use of leadership can take. Negative circumstances can bump it up one category, spending a extra point bumps it down one (stackable).

Now, for the second part of my post, some musings on CR.
I'm not going to actually advocate for specific CR requirements here, but I do want to make an argument that a PC is typically of a CR 2-3 higher than ECL would indicate.

> The Monster Manual (3.5, Table: Improved Monster CR Increase) wrote: Monster’s ability scores based on elite array* -- +1 to CR
> Monster possesses special attacks or qualities that significantly improve combat effectiveness -- +2 to CR
> Monster possesses special attacks or qualities that improve combat effectiveness in a minor way -- +1 to CR
> * Do not apply this increase if you advance a monster by class levels.
> (Monsters advanced by class levels are assumed to use the elite array.)

That asterisk is important, as PCs are creatures that increase by class levels, but I'd say that doesn't actually apply to ECL +0 races. As support for this, note how the sample NPCs in the 3.5 DMG use the standard array and have a CR equivalent to their class level.
Also note that the NPCs have wealth by level according to NPC levels, while PCs get significantly more. I'd say that probably counts as a 'special quality' that improves combat effectiveness in a minor or major way, let's assume minor though. When building a cohort or companion, you get a creature of a specified CR, not level, so they should follow these rules too.
Assuming that these things are true, this means that a typical level 10 PC could be described as a CR 12 character. Anecdotally this feels true, as a PC (especially in a Tome game) is often able to well handle monsters of the same CR as their level.
Therefore, a level 10 PC (CR 12) can have a CR 8 cohort and CR 6 companions. If he has one of each, that's an EL 13 encounter (according to the d20srd CR calculator) and the companion doesn't actually boost the EL at all. In fact, you'd need four companions for the EL to go to 14. It is notable that this formula (1 cohort = EL +1, 4 companions = EL +1) works even for 3rd level characters.
It should also be taken into account that cohorts and companions are not free. You either get them as part of a class (where they are, presumably, a balanced class feature) or spend a feat (potential direct combat improvement) on them.
Regardless, it could still be argued that increasing your personal CR/EL by +2 is too much, and there are some changes you could make to alleviate this.

- Maybe you can only take one leadership feat, it's already that way in 3.5 as there IS only one leadership feat.
- Cohorts and companions are the same thing, but each time you gain another one it is at a lower CR (diminishing returns).
- Lower the CR of cohorts/companions
- Tome leadership feats do not scale, they grant you a cohort, a leadership score, and one flavorful benefit related to your cohort.
- More than one of these.

Thanks for the feedback so far.

Addendum: Seerow posted after I started writing this big ass post, but no, you only gain a leadership score when a feat or class feature explicitly. Also, see above, companions are already CR 1/2 or -4, whichever is greater.
Last edited by Sigil on Tue Mar 11, 2014 3:41 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by Seerow » Tue Mar 11, 2014 3:41 am

> Addendum: Seerow posted after I started writing this big ass post, but no, you only gain a leadership score when a feat or class feature explicitly. Also, see above, companions are already CR 1/2 or -4, whichever is greater.

Yes, I was saying give Cohorts that same wording. Because as it is now, Animal Companion is a Cohort. So when you get it at level 1, it goes to -1, and thus doesn't exist until you hit level 3.
If you apply that same wording to cohort, your level 1 Druid still gets a CR1/2 animal, and a CR1 at level 2.
Haven't read the rest of your post yet.
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Post by Seerow » Tue Mar 11, 2014 3:55 am

> I never intended for cohorts or companions to be able to take their own leadership feats. I forgot to note this explicitly as that's never once managed to get past a DM of mine. That shit would be crazy.

What about them gaining cohorts/companions? Does a cohort druid gain access to his animal companion, or is he disqualified because he is a cohort himself?

> Intentional, sort of. Traditionally you don't gain access to cohorts until 6th level minimum. A cohort for a 6th level character would be a CR 4, while a companion would be CR 3. The CR of your cohort and companion then diverges slightly at level 8, where your cohort is now CR 6 and a companion is CR 4; after which your companions continues to have a CR of your level - 4. This may be slightly complicated, but I wanted to level one companion abilities functional from level one, and modeled early levels on the Animal Companion ability (which keeps your companion at roughly level/2 CR). Level/2 CR seemed irrelevant at higher levels.

There's the confusion. In your initial post you wrote the Animal Companion as being a Cohort, not a Companion. Here you seem to be implying you intend it to be a companion.

> I listed a cap of Encounter Level (same as CR for an individual creature) equal to your level/2. This means at low levels it would be equivilant to a companion, and at levels 8+ be strictly worse. It also means that at level 4 the things you could expect to actually do with it would be to get a warhorse on loan (CR 2), call in a second hand favor to the lower planes and have an imp (CR 2) follow you for a week, or have 4 level 1 warriors carry your stuff for you for a week (EL 2).

I think what he was getting at is that the terminology implies your retinue is made up of multiple creatures, but you're encouraged to get one creature of your highest possible CR, and treat it as basically an extra companion. It would be more fitting if it was required to be something like a minimum of 4 creatures. (Which I think is what he was trying to accomplish with the max CR of your level-X)

> Yeah, probably.

I actually have no problem with leaving the skill check thing in place. At the very least replace it with a crafting tie-in. Being able to use your followers to craft yourself an epic sword, or outfit an army, or make your estate/castle beautiful beyond what a bunch of unskilled laborers can do should totally be something you do with Leadership.

> I felt that some sort of location rule was needed for verisimilitude. I did not intend for you to have to pay for the extra time required because of distance. I feel that this and the rushing rules could be made more sensible with a restructuring of how Leadership score works. Maybe someting more like:
> Your leadership score is equal to 1/2 your level.
> Every use of leadership scales by level somehow
> Your leadership score refreshes completely on a periodic basis (period up for argument)
> There are X (5 or so) different amounts of time a use of leadership can take. Negative circumstances can bump it up one category, spending a extra point bumps it down one (stackable).

Should also have positive circumstances to bump it up. For example if I take leadership and am playing a spymaster, and blow leadership points = however many I refresh each cycle, then I should only have to pay that increased time once to get my agents in place, and from then on I get information updates regularly as long as I keep paying that cost, regardless of how far away they are.

> That asterisk is important, as PCs are creatures that increase by class levels, but I'd say that doesn't actually apply to ECL +0 races. As support for this, note how the sample NPCs in the 3.5 DMG use the standard array and have a CR equivalent to their class level.

By this interpretation though, your recruited NPC will be using the standard array, and be really shitty. It discourages people from taking humanoid cohorts and encourages people taking monstrous ones. I'd personally avoid that interpretation; PCs having increased wealth is enough.
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Post by Sigil » Fri Mar 14, 2014 4:35 pm

> Seerow wrote:What about them gaining cohorts/companions? Does a cohort druid gain access to his animal companion, or is he disqualified because he is a cohort himself?

Eh, I could see having a single optional rule for people who really want to avoid the complications of companions having companions. You could just simply give them a bonus feat instead.

> Seerow wrote:There's the confusion. In your initial post you wrote the Animal Companion as being a Cohort, not a Companion. Here you seem to be implying you intend it to be a companion.

Ah, sorry. I didn't really intend for those abilities and feats to be final, just mock ups to show what the language would look like.

> Seerow wrote:By this interpretation though, your recruited NPC will be using the standard array, and be really shitty. It discourages people from taking humanoid cohorts and encourages people taking monstrous ones. I'd personally avoid that interpretation; PCs having increased wealth is enough.

I don't actually intend to force cohorts to be built using standard arrays, but I did want to point out that PCs are a bit more powerful on the CR chart than people realize (even Races of War says that taking a monster and rebuilding it like a PC makes it CR + 1 usually, and you're almost always going to choose one of the 'good' monsters that already has an elite array). I think I'm going to end up making it CR - 3 instead though.
I'm going to try to post a revision this weekend.
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Post by Sigil » Wed Apr 02, 2014 12:55 am

Well, I didn't post that weekend, I bought Dark Souls II instead. Now, though, I've updated the original post with a revised system.
A few of the things I'd like to point out specifically for feedback:

- I reduced cohorts to CR - 3 and turned companions into additional cohorts that have one less CR for each and companions is now just a term for a minion of some sort granted by a class that does not follow the standardized power schedule.
- I'm unsure if 1/2 level uses/week is appropriate.
- I like the uses of leadership, 'orders', better now, but I still think some of them could be fleshed out. Suggestions desired.
- The favorable and unfavorable circumstances
- General Readability

Last edited by Sigil on Wed Apr 02, 2014 1:00 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by AndreiChekov » Wed Apr 02, 2014 2:11 am

The body guard order seems pointless. Can't you already have a follower with this?
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Post by Sigil » Wed Apr 02, 2014 10:44 pm

Under this system, the bodyguard order is the only way to have a combat capable follower accompany you. The followers, mechanically speaking, don't exist unless you issue an order to bring them on scene. Narratively they're doing other important things.
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Post by AndreiChekov » Thu Apr 03, 2014 3:59 am

So, you can't just use leadership to have a humanoid pet?
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Post by Sigil » Thu Apr 03, 2014 4:12 am

You mean a cohort? Yeah, but usually when you get a cohort you're sort of locked in, changing cohorts takes time. The "orders" are meant to replace the sort of followers that are actually called 'followers' in the 3.5 srd.
For example, say you're Fafhrd (Barbarian 8) with your cohort The Gray Mouser (Rogue 5), and you want to go steal the Fire Emerald (or whatever) which is housed in some place where everything is on fire always. Since neither of you cast spells, you issue an order for a bodyguard and get a 4th level wizard, so he can hang out with you and cast Resist Energy on you before you go into the Fire Dungeon.
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Post by TarkisFlux » Thu Apr 10, 2014 5:32 am

Finally had some time to read and ponder the update.
New system seems to have done away with the point spending thing, as everything is just a 1 point order now. It's unclear what the actual leadership score (and thus number of orders per week) is though, because it's not written in. I think it's supposed to be half level (based on labor tweaks and inference), but I could be totally wrong there.
Assuming that it is half level, this is way past fixing the problems of the old setup. In the old version you had points that you spent to do stuff, but the recharge was weird so it worked out that you got to do full power stuff less often as you leveled up (even though that stuff was potentially more awesome). In this you get to do more full power stuff as you level up, or do it more quickly because you're spending points on making it happen now. Some of your orders could be eaten up by the distance from base stuff, but you can just be at your base to do the actually good stuff so that's not a reasonable countermeasure.
To pick a couple of particularly egregious examples, you could requisition 8 greater magic items at level 16 for the cost of all your orders forever. That basically covers you in greater gear for the cost of a feat, when greater items were only even showing up at level 14 (per Red Rob's current draft anyway). Alternatively, you could grab 8 sets of 50k workers, or 2 sets of 50k workers and hurry them both to 1 hour completion. There's other examples, but it basically boils down to scaling twice - once on the effect side and another time on the uses side. And that seems like a problem to me.
This could be resolved by decoupling orders from leadership score. If you have a flat 4 orders per week (or 8 or 50 or whatever) you get to hurry some things or do a few different things and the base things you do with each order scales with you, but you don't wind up doing more things that are also stronger as you level up. You might also want to let people establish additional bases / footholds in such a setup given sufficient time and energy, or even as part of the leadership feat.
I also miss the effectiveness slider, where you could spend more or less based on what you wanted. With a smaller number of points you want the basic effect to be decent, but there's no reason you couldn't work things out to allow people to spend up to a higher effect (since they're getting tha in lieu of a faster effect or other effects). 1 point for +1 level, 3 points for +2 levels, 7 points for +3 levels or whatever.
I have nothing but good things to say about setting the recharge rate to 1 week.
On to specific order actions

- Bodyguard
  Comments above indicate that the bodyguard is the only way to have combat capable followers. I assume that was missing the "in addition to the cohort" clause, unless cohorts and orders are being separated and I missed it.
  Otherwise, this seems like it scales poorly. Why not "EL equal to minimum cohort level -2" or something instead?
- Favor
  Favor is super vague, and potentially overlaps with lots of other orders. Is accompanying me through a dungeon (like bodyguard) a favor? How about casting a spell (service)? Needs moar description.
- Gather Intelligence
  Some of the uses of this rub me the wrong way. It's just as easy to determine the location or future location of a person as it is to determine if there's a plot against them? Really? It's hard to complain too much about it though, because it's likely straddling the line between useful and simple and overly complicated bullshit, and I'd rather it be useful and simple in general.
- Labor
  Seems fine, though this is definitely a case for separating lead time from active time. I don't want to spend 2 weeks worth of orders for just 1 week worth of labor, and then do that again when they're working on the same project.
- Requisition
  This just seems too open ended, as there's no chance that the thing you want won't be available. For this one I almost want a chart with random chances of various levels being available, so that you have to choose between maybe getting a specific greater item or almost certainly getting a specific moderate item. And again with the lead time, as this seems a case where you could justify not even knowing the result of your requisition until after the lead time was finished.
  Yeah, that opens this up to being an order sink without results, but these are direct personal power boosts and I'm hard pressed to care about shitting all over that in this context.
- Retinue
  I'm not actually sure how this differs from bodyguard or labor. Can you talk about expected uses of this one?
- Service
  The spellcasting service is basically shit compared to bodyguard, other than that it's 1 speed notch higher. Is there a reason you can't get people to cast spells that a character 2 levels lower than you can cast? Given the other things you can do with an order, 1 spell of near your level seems more reasonable.
  The transport part of that is harder to call, but seems similarly underpowered. Why would I not just put in a labor order, where the labor was to drag huge fucking stones across the desert (because I want pyramids damnit). If I'm going to arrange transport as a level 20 guy, I don't want to run around on a boat for 10 days. I want to arrange a fleet of boats to evac a continent or something.
- Skill Check
  Like the retinue, I'm not sure what you see this doing. Examples please?

The circumstances seem reasonable as well, though they don't do much to limit abuses in friendly territory. Limiting abuses means that some of those circumstances effectively block you from leadership favors, but that seems entirely reasonable to me. Particularly since you can get your favors and then go into those places and not care about the modifiers.
Last edited by TarkisFlux on Thu Apr 10, 2014 5:33 am, edited 1 time in total.
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