Leadership and its Followers

[Knight Otu]

In 3.5, the Leadership feat lost the text restricting followers to commoners, experts, and warriors. I seem to recall reading that this was a deliberate decision, but searching, I cannot find anything to back that up. Can anyone confirm or deny this?

 

[Mark CMG]

I seem to recall reading that this was a deliberate decision, but searching, I cannot find anything to back that up.

Where have you been searching, so far, and using what terms?

 

[Nyeshet]

I can't recall whether it was deliberate or not, but if it was I am not surprised.

After all, once you are at 10+ level, does it really matter if your 1st level followers are fighters or warriors, adepts or sorcerers, experts or rogues, commoners or clerics? (Okay, that last one probably does make a difference, but for the rest, it really doesn't matter all that much. The level difference is such that if you are foolish enough to take them with you into combat they will certainly die.)

 

[Rystil Arden]

I can't recall whether it was deliberate or not, but if it was I am not surprised.

After all, once you are at 10+ level, does it really matter if your 1st level followers are fighters or warriors, adepts or sorcerers, experts or rogues, commoners or clerics? (Okay, that last one probably does make a difference, but for the rest, it really doesn't matter all that much. The level difference is such that if you are foolish enough to take them with you into combat they will certainly die.)

At lower levels it does. For instance, a level 6 leader with the appropriate modifiers from the chart and 20 Charisma (say a Bard, Marshal, or other Charisma monkey) will have a 4th-level Follower--that's the same level as her cohort!

 

[Knight Otu]

Where have you been searching, so far, and using what terms?

On here and with Google, with combinations of 'Leadership', 'followers', 'revised', and 'revision'. On Google, I also tried adding 3.5. Also on Andy Collins' board, using only 'Leadership'.

 

[AFGNCAAP]

I think they left that open for DM discretion, really, esp. for the context in which followers are gained.

Generally, I think that most of the followers would be NPC-class characters, esp. if they're henchmen hired to lug stuff, or servants hired to maintain a household/stronghold. However, I could see a spellcaster with another spellcaster "apprentice" cohort and "student" followers, a bard with a "band," a fighter with a "lieutenant" cohort and "soldier" followers, a barbarian with a small tribe, a rogue with a "guild," etc.

However, considering that the followers would be of such a low level that they'd get hurt/slaughtered during the encounters thier leader would be challenged by, it'd be in the best interest of the leader to leave most of the followers at home/behind the lines, and maybe have only the cohort present to help.

 

[smootrk]

I have run a Paladin character with Leadership. To make things realistic, we (me & DM) decided to make 2/3 of the followers NPC class types (warriors, experts, etc.) and the other 1/3 standard classes. We also use a variety of other basic NPC classes (hunters, tribals, hedge-wizard/witch, squire, etc) that are basically lite versions of standard classes, and we have a kind of mechanism to 'graduate' individuals when we feel the need to make a certain personality become more vital to the game. Within these guidelines, the DM allows me to level-up which followers I a want to as my character gains levels and Leadership score increases.