DM nerfing leadership problems [Archive] - Wizards Community

DM nerfing leadership problems [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Lilt
11-12-04, 07:16 PM OK. I'm playing in the Evil component of a large 'living' campaign game right now and one of my characters just got to the point that he coudl take Leadership.

The character has been planning on taking leadership for a long time now, to the extent that he has been attempting to recruit followers since the start (even trying to recruit other PCs even though they'd be destined to say no).

The problem? The lead DM of the evil campaign has declared the leadership feat 'broken' and nerfed it by saying that any followers and cohorts taken must be of NPC classes or they must be effectively 2 levels lower than they'd otherwise be able to be.

He has done this even though he's not the head GM of the whole game, and the head GM of the whole game rules that it should work as written. The lead GM of the whole thing (or 'overlord' as he likes to call himself) says that if the feat is taken in the good side of the campaign, then it will work as written.

The problem is that the overlord can't really override the GM of the evil campaign without undermining the work that he puts in. I am thus stuck in the position of trying to persuade the head GM of the evil game that the leadership feat is not broken and in need of nerfing.

The head GM of the evil game's oppinion is that leadership essentially gives the player a secondary character that they can play beside their main character. Although secondary characters are allowed in the game, he argues that this feat allows both primary and secondary characters to gain experience at the same time so the player's characters get 66% more experience than they'd otherwise get. This is on top of the fact that he claims that the services of the secondary character are far better than could be granted by any other feat.

Anybody got any more arguments against this argument? I've pointed-out the weaknesses also inherrent in having a cohort, he's basically a character with poorer saves and less HPs that needs to travel around with the main character to advance. I've pointed-out to him the fact that a character with another good feat instead of leadership could quite possibly defeat both the leader version of himself and the cohort, and that leadership costs more than just a feat if you want to be any good at it. He still remains somewhat steadfast to his argument that it's a feat that gives free XP, which I consider to be the wrong way to look at it. Ideas Please?

I should probably mention that the DM is himself a card-gamer and is thus obsessed with balanced-ness and broken-ness. He is trying to 'balance' this 'broken' feat. He has attempted to define what he means by balanced and broken, saying that any feat which is so good that anybody would be better-off with it is broken. I have pointed-out to him that not all characters are better-off with leadership, it's virtually pointless for low-cha characters, and that as only 2 (there was going to be a 3rd, but he stopped the character after he learnt how badly leadership was being nerfed) out of 25+ level 6+ characters in the campaign have taken the leadership feat it's evidently not broken.
Magnus029
11-12-04, 08:30 PM Did you advise that as the "leader" it is your responsibility to outfit the cohort and followers? Whenever you find yourself with some cash you now need to decide do I really need this uber-sword (or whatever) or should I get Johny cohort some armor so he can take a hit? or damn I can finally get my followers some swords, yay!

Leadership broken? I think not your fair share of the treasure stays the same and then gets cut amonst your own little party. I think it is just fine the way it is.
DM Zoc
11-12-04, 08:49 PM Actually, the cohort would start with wealth appropriate to its level on the NPC wealth chart, even though that's not very much.

The sticking point you should use that balances the whole deal is that the DM makes and controls the character. You can say that you won't accept a cohort who isn't a blaster-sorc (for instance), but the exact class choices and spell selections are up to the DM, as are the decisions as to what it's spent its money on, and its turn-by-turn actions.

Most DMs don't bother with this, and just let the player control, because it's less work that way. Also remember that just because the cohort looks good on paper (a good resume), it might turn out to be a coward when the tough part comes. Roleplay the interview process.
Magnus029
11-12-04, 09:25 PM Another thing to mention, is that this is part of a larger game and it creates inconsistency in the game if it is run 1 way for some and this way for you guys. Frankly that bites hard!!!

Though Leadereship is in the DMG and not detailed in PH so it falls into their hands and there ruling stands.
TommyBlack
11-13-04, 02:20 AM Leadership is specifically intended to be directed closely by the DM; basically, it should be house-ruled. The game designers realized how possibly broken this feat is, and how difficult to manage. Therefore, just accept his ruling. You shouldn't have been planning for something like the leadership feat.
Nom
11-13-04, 07:01 AM Balance? Hmm.

The most important point is that the cohort is limited to an ECL (at most) two lower than your level. Extrapolating from the CR and XP progressions, he's worth basically half a character. This is comparable to the animal companion and paladin warhorse progressions.

While a cohort does gain 'free' XP, the leader is responsible for supplying equipment, upkeep and treasure (and healing costs). The party may be willing to work out a more favourable arrangement.

Being two levels lower, a cohort is relatively fragile. Further, there is less metagame stigma associated with the death of a cohort (vs that of a PC). PCs with low-hp cohorts may rethink the idea after they suffer a level-equivalent area attack. Note also that cohorts are NPCs, and thus should use "average" stat generation (3d6 - DMG pg 110 - or 13,12,11,10,9,8 - MM pg 7).

Although primarily controlled by a player, the cohort is still an NPC. He is assistant and helper to the leader. Unlike a summoned creature, he will (probably) not tolerate being used and abused in a cavalier manner. A leader who expects his cohort to take risks in the leader's place will soon find himself without a cohort (one way or another).

The real issue with cohorts is not game balance, but game dynamics. A player should check with his fellow players, both IC and OOC, before attempting to add a cohort. The other players may feel that the cohort steals face time, or their PCs may regard him as a follower of the leader and refuse to make special allowance.
Lilt
11-13-04, 07:07 AM Good point about the treasure, Magnus029, I'll bring that up next time we speak. Although they would start with equipment by the NPC character wealth by level table, the fact that you only get the normal amount of treasure to equip you, your cohort, and your followers should slow you down significantly. This is also a good point against his argument that people with secondary characters would be losing out to someone with a cohort.

As for the role-playing of the cohort: He has already declared that the campaign is supposed to be apout player interactions, and not supposed to be completely about the players bouncing everything off the GM. As such: it detracts from what the GM is looking for if the player dosen't also role-play the cohort, but adds to the player's role-play potential if he does get to play the character. He has no problems on this point.

Having the GMs always play the cohorts could also be somewhat strange. As there may be other GMs running the evil campaign soon (there have been 10 or more people running games in the good campaign, but the evil game is newer) that means that the personalities of the cohort/followers could shift massively from one adventure to the next. This has been found already where GMs have NPCed Familiars, Animal Companions, and Psicrystals.

The problem with house-ruling leadership is that virtually everything else in the campaign is done by the book. There are a number of other feats out there which are also particularily powerful, notably the reigonal feats and other feats which are 'balanced' by being 1st level only. The only other feat that has been altered at-all is the mercantile background feat, which now limits that the character can't use any extra gold they have above the character walth by level table. This isn't that much of a limit as many members of the party have less gold than they should by that table, bit i's a start.

Which is fair enough considering that the guy with the mercantile background feat has been the GM-endorsed only-person-who-trades-with-the-party since level 1, the guy playing him complained bitterly when someone else tried to start-up a trader character, people's secondary characters were effectively banned from using the feat, he buys for 60% off the party and sells at 75%, and now at 9th level has over 100 thousand gold. This is after after 6 months of trading the equipment from 4 or more adventures per week, which *must* be split evenly so big items that would have been given to one party member in a normal campaign (who would have just owed the rest of the group) must be sold to the trader, meaning even bigger profits for him.

I'm OK with house-ruled, but the way he's nerfing it kills it. As the cohort needs to travel with you if it's to go up levels, it needs to be surviveable. As the main difference between NPC and PC classes is their combat effectiveness, having your cohort be of an NPC class lowers their surviveability significantly. Having your cohort be a 2nd level member of a PC class trying to adventure allongside a powerful 6th level party just plain kills them.
Lilt
11-13-04, 07:25 AM Good points Nom, although some of them may not apply to the campaign setting we're in. Our characters (and practically all NPCs we meet) are generated using a powerul version of the point-buy system (36 points). In this higher-powered world Cohorts are to be generated somewhat more powerful than the average stats, but less than the full amount given to PCs and most NPCs, namely 28points.

I'll ask people what they think about adding cohorts next session, although I can hardly see it being as irritating to other characters/players as the 'vow of nonviolence/peace' incedent. (Character charges :fight!: , Character calmed by the other PCs aura :cloud9: , Character turns around and walks away, Character feels angry again :headexplo , Character charges again :fight!: , Character calmed again :cloud9: ... Player? Not happy :waits: )

I have no problem with the GM taking-over the cohort if he feels that the character is leading badly or he feels that the circumstances warrant it. For normal role-playing in this environment, however, see my previous post for reasons that the player shoudl have normal control over the cohort.
ShadowDragon8685
11-13-04, 07:29 AM Tell the Overlord that he needs to crack the whip at the Evil DM's backside. You can't run one group with one set of rules and run the other with another.

All issues of uncertain rulings, game rebalancings, etcetera, will have to be vetted by the Overlord, who has power of veto over all the other DMs. Plain and simple.
Lilt
11-13-04, 07:47 AM Tell the Overlord that he needs to crack the whip at the Evil DM's backside. You can't run one group with one set of rules and run the other with another.

All issues of uncertain rulings, game rebalancings, etcetera, will have to be vetted by the Overlord, who has power of veto over all the other DMs. Plain and simple.
Y'see that's the sortof political situation I'm trying to avoid by simply persuading the evil GM to allow the leadership feat as it is... It's also made slightly more tennuous by the fact that the good overlord is playing in the evil campaign. If he demands it work as it does in the book then he's kindof demanding power for his character who could theoreticallt take leadership at some point. (the GM for the evil game is also playing in the good campaign)
ShadowDragon8685
11-13-04, 08:02 AM Just hand it down.

You can not, CAN NOT have two seperate groups in the same campaign working under different rules.

Just hand down the way it is. The Overlord of the whole game should have rules veto. Even if he's playing in one of the camps.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Lilt 11-12-04, 07:16 PM	OK. I'm playing in the Evil component of a large 'living' campaign game right now and one of my characters just got to the point that he coudl take Leadership. The character has been planning on taking leadership for a long time now, to the extent that he has been attempting to recruit followers since the start (even trying to recruit other PCs even though they'd be destined to say no). The problem? The lead DM of the evil campaign has declared the leadership feat 'broken' and nerfed it by saying that any followers and cohorts taken must be of NPC classes or they must be effectively 2 levels lower than they'd otherwise be able to be. He has done this even though he's not the head GM of the whole game, and the head GM of the whole game rules that it should work as written. The lead GM of the whole thing (or 'overlord' as he likes to call himself) says that if the feat is taken in the good side of the campaign, then it will work as written. The problem is that the overlord can't really override the GM of the evil campaign without undermining the work that he puts in. I am thus stuck in the position of trying to persuade the head GM of the evil game that the leadership feat is not broken and in need of nerfing. The head GM of the evil game's oppinion is that leadership essentially gives the player a secondary character that they can play beside their main character. Although secondary characters are allowed in the game, he argues that this feat allows both primary and secondary characters to gain experience at the same time so the player's characters get 66% more experience than they'd otherwise get. This is on top of the fact that he claims that the services of the secondary character are far better than could be granted by any other feat. Anybody got any more arguments against this argument? I've pointed-out the weaknesses also inherrent in having a cohort, he's basically a character with poorer saves and less HPs that needs to travel around with the main character to advance. I've pointed-out to him the fact that a character with another good feat instead of leadership could quite possibly defeat both the leader version of himself and the cohort, and that leadership costs more than just a feat if you want to be any good at it. He still remains somewhat steadfast to his argument that it's a feat that gives free XP, which I consider to be the wrong way to look at it. Ideas Please? I should probably mention that the DM is himself a card-gamer and is thus obsessed with balanced-ness and broken-ness. He is trying to 'balance' this 'broken' feat. He has attempted to define what he means by balanced and broken, saying that any feat which is so good that anybody would be better-off with it is broken. I have pointed-out to him that not all characters are better-off with leadership, it's virtually pointless for low-cha characters, and that as only 2 (there was going to be a 3rd, but he stopped the character after he learnt how badly leadership was being nerfed) out of 25+ level 6+ characters in the campaign have taken the leadership feat it's evidently not broken.
Magnus029 11-12-04, 08:30 PM	Did you advise that as the "leader" it is your responsibility to outfit the cohort and followers? Whenever you find yourself with some cash you now need to decide do I really need this uber-sword (or whatever) or should I get Johny cohort some armor so he can take a hit? or damn I can finally get my followers some swords, yay! Leadership broken? I think not your fair share of the treasure stays the same and then gets cut amonst your own little party. I think it is just fine the way it is.
DM Zoc 11-12-04, 08:49 PM	Actually, the cohort would start with wealth appropriate to its level on the NPC wealth chart, even though that's not very much. The sticking point you should use that balances the whole deal is that the DM makes and controls the character. You can say that you won't accept a cohort who isn't a blaster-sorc (for instance), but the exact class choices and spell selections are up to the DM, as are the decisions as to what it's spent its money on, and its turn-by-turn actions. Most DMs don't bother with this, and just let the player control, because it's less work that way. Also remember that just because the cohort looks good on paper (a good resume), it might turn out to be a coward when the tough part comes. Roleplay the interview process.
Magnus029 11-12-04, 09:25 PM	Another thing to mention, is that this is part of a larger game and it creates inconsistency in the game if it is run 1 way for some and this way for you guys. Frankly that bites hard!!! Though Leadereship is in the DMG and not detailed in PH so it falls into their hands and there ruling stands.
TommyBlack 11-13-04, 02:20 AM	Leadership is specifically intended to be directed closely by the DM; basically, it should be house-ruled. The game designers realized how possibly broken this feat is, and how difficult to manage. Therefore, just accept his ruling. You shouldn't have been planning for something like the leadership feat.
Nom 11-13-04, 07:01 AM	Balance? Hmm. The most important point is that the cohort is limited to an ECL (at most) two lower than your level. Extrapolating from the CR and XP progressions, he's worth basically half a character. This is comparable to the animal companion and paladin warhorse progressions. While a cohort does gain 'free' XP, the leader is responsible for supplying equipment, upkeep and treasure (and healing costs). The party may be willing to work out a more favourable arrangement. Being two levels lower, a cohort is relatively fragile. Further, there is less metagame stigma associated with the death of a cohort (vs that of a PC). PCs with low-hp cohorts may rethink the idea after they suffer a level-equivalent area attack. Note also that cohorts are NPCs, and thus should use "average" stat generation (3d6 - DMG pg 110 - or 13,12,11,10,9,8 - MM pg 7). Although primarily controlled by a player, the cohort is still an NPC. He is assistant and helper to the leader. Unlike a summoned creature, he will (probably) not tolerate being used and abused in a cavalier manner. A leader who expects his cohort to take risks in the leader's place will soon find himself without a cohort (one way or another). The real issue with cohorts is not game balance, but game dynamics. A player should check with his fellow players, both IC and OOC, before attempting to add a cohort. The other players may feel that the cohort steals face time, or their PCs may regard him as a follower of the leader and refuse to make special allowance.
Lilt 11-13-04, 07:07 AM	Good point about the treasure, Magnus029, I'll bring that up next time we speak. Although they would start with equipment by the NPC character wealth by level table, the fact that you only get the normal amount of treasure to equip you, your cohort, and your followers should slow you down significantly. This is also a good point against his argument that people with secondary characters would be losing out to someone with a cohort. As for the role-playing of the cohort: He has already declared that the campaign is supposed to be apout player interactions, and not supposed to be completely about the players bouncing everything off the GM. As such: it detracts from what the GM is looking for if the player dosen't also role-play the cohort, but adds to the player's role-play potential if he does get to play the character. He has no problems on this point. Having the GMs always play the cohorts could also be somewhat strange. As there may be other GMs running the evil campaign soon (there have been 10 or more people running games in the good campaign, but the evil game is newer) that means that the personalities of the cohort/followers could shift massively from one adventure to the next. This has been found already where GMs have NPCed Familiars, Animal Companions, and Psicrystals. The problem with house-ruling leadership is that virtually everything else in the campaign is done by the book. There are a number of other feats out there which are also particularily powerful, notably the reigonal feats and other feats which are 'balanced' by being 1st level only. The only other feat that has been altered at-all is the mercantile background feat, which now limits that the character can't use any extra gold they have above the character walth by level table. This isn't that much of a limit as many members of the party have less gold than they should by that table, bit i's a start. Which is fair enough considering that the guy with the mercantile background feat has been the GM-endorsed only-person-who-trades-with-the-party since level 1, the guy playing him complained bitterly when someone else tried to start-up a trader character, people's secondary characters were effectively banned from using the feat, he buys for 60% off the party and sells at 75%, and now at 9th level has over 100 thousand gold. This is after after 6 months of trading the equipment from 4 or more adventures per week, which must be split evenly so big items that would have been given to one party member in a normal campaign (who would have just owed the rest of the group) must be sold to the trader, meaning even bigger profits for him. I'm OK with house-ruled, but the way he's nerfing it kills it. As the cohort needs to travel with you if it's to go up levels, it needs to be surviveable. As the main difference between NPC and PC classes is their combat effectiveness, having your cohort be of an NPC class lowers their surviveability significantly. Having your cohort be a 2nd level member of a PC class trying to adventure allongside a powerful 6th level party just plain kills them.
Lilt 11-13-04, 07:25 AM	Good points Nom, although some of them may not apply to the campaign setting we're in. Our characters (and practically all NPCs we meet) are generated using a powerul version of the point-buy system (36 points). In this higher-powered world Cohorts are to be generated somewhat more powerful than the average stats, but less than the full amount given to PCs and most NPCs, namely 28points. I'll ask people what they think about adding cohorts next session, although I can hardly see it being as irritating to other characters/players as the 'vow of nonviolence/peace' incedent. (Character charges :fight!: , Character calmed by the other PCs aura :cloud9: , Character turns around and walks away, Character feels angry again :headexplo , Character charges again :fight!: , Character calmed again :cloud9: ... Player? Not happy :waits: ) I have no problem with the GM taking-over the cohort if he feels that the character is leading badly or he feels that the circumstances warrant it. For normal role-playing in this environment, however, see my previous post for reasons that the player shoudl have normal control over the cohort.
ShadowDragon8685 11-13-04, 07:29 AM	Tell the Overlord that he needs to crack the whip at the Evil DM's backside. You can't run one group with one set of rules and run the other with another. All issues of uncertain rulings, game rebalancings, etcetera, will have to be vetted by the Overlord, who has power of veto over all the other DMs. Plain and simple.
Lilt 11-13-04, 07:47 AM	Tell the Overlord that he needs to crack the whip at the Evil DM's backside. You can't run one group with one set of rules and run the other with another. All issues of uncertain rulings, game rebalancings, etcetera, will have to be vetted by the Overlord, who has power of veto over all the other DMs. Plain and simple. Y'see that's the sortof political situation I'm trying to avoid by simply persuading the evil GM to allow the leadership feat as it is... It's also made slightly more tennuous by the fact that the good overlord is playing in the evil campaign. If he demands it work as it does in the book then he's kindof demanding power for his character who could theoreticallt take leadership at some point. (the GM for the evil game is also playing in the good campaign)
ShadowDragon8685 11-13-04, 08:02 AM	Just hand it down. You can not, CAN NOT have two seperate groups in the same campaign working under different rules. Just hand down the way it is. The Overlord of the whole game should have rules veto. Even if he's playing in one of the camps.