Author Topic: Leadership followers, Strongholds and payroll  (Read 11946 times)

Offline dkt0404

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Leadership followers, Strongholds and payroll
« on: January 08, 2020, 01:40:32 PM »
Most basic question; do followers get paid by the PC or are they 'free' and just so what the PC asks from basically hero worship?

Second part of this; if a character has a high leadership score, 24 in this case, and is building or has a stronghold, can those followers be used for the required staff and guards? Would they then have to be paid I'd they were free before?

Not having much luck looking in the books for this answer.

Third question is about income; the independent income from the SBG is a bit fuzzy on where the income takes effect.

It says there is a profit but I'm not sure if, how it's worded, that means all the pay roll is accounted for from that I come (effectively making them free) and you get that 1% on top of everything, or if you have to subtract payroll from that 1%
« Last Edit: January 08, 2020, 01:52:42 PM by dkt0404 »

Offline Keldar

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Re: Leadership followers, Strongholds and payroll
« Reply #1 on: January 08, 2020, 04:31:19 PM »
1) As far as I know, Leadership buys loyalty, you still need to pay em, but don't need to worry about the DM being a dick.

2) You can use them for whatever job you want.  You can put all the cobbler followers to work making shoes to help fund payroll.  Or you can put them to work guarding.

3)  Hmm.  It does say "above and beyond" but the book never actually talks about staffing cost as a whole.  Just half a page on what each position's relevant stats are and their monthly wage.  Its deep in DM decision territory.  If it pays wages, it can certainly be worth it on smaller, cheaper keeps.  If it doesn't its only worth while in very long term campaigns.

The rules in the Stronghold Builder's Guidebook stink to high heaven.  I've tried repeatedly since it came out to write a guide for it and there's nothing to be said except " Get a 20 caster level for wall of stone, and a Lyre of Building is always worth using."  Damn thing didn't even devote a single word to making skills relevant for construction.  Just 9 spells and a Lyre of Building that mostly just replaces the handwavium.

Offline Nanshork

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Re: Leadership followers, Strongholds and payroll
« Reply #2 on: January 08, 2020, 07:36:53 PM »
On Leadership specifically, there is nothing in the feat that says you need to pay your followers so unless your DM specifically rules otherwise it's all just glossed over.

Offline Power

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Re: Leadership followers, Strongholds and payroll
« Reply #3 on: January 09, 2020, 09:30:39 AM »
Honestly if you're going to acquire followers by paying them as hirelings, there is no need for Leadership in the first place. Whether you need to pay them at all is up to the DM and the circumstances of your followers, but usually you don't unless you're doing stronghold management type stuff. Even if you do you should not have to pay "competitive wages" because the entire point of Leadership is that they are working for you out of loyalty to you, not loyalty to your coinpurse. Hirelings can be obtained without any Leadership feat at all.
« Last Edit: January 09, 2020, 09:42:44 AM by Power »

Offline Samwise

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Re: Leadership followers, Strongholds and payroll
« Reply #4 on: January 09, 2020, 02:18:54 PM »
I've got about 50 pages of transcribed rules, notes, revisions, and such trying to correlate, reconcile, and simplify the various rules from WotC (Birthright, SBG, PHB II, DMG II) and Paizo (Ultimate Campaign) for kingdom building and downtime follower management. They ultimately led me to write my 1 page, thoroughly satirical, egregiously cynical, Appendix N Kingdom Building Rules to more accurately reflect the inspirational fiction behind D&D. While I did not do a version for followers, noting some basic rules can easily produce some similar conclusions.

1. The Leadership rules suck for followers. Unless you are Evil and use the PFRPG Vile Leadership variant. That almost works. They are generally worthless in combat, or even to leave watching your horses, which you should not need at that level anyway, and the more that you get killed the fewer you have. If you want to try and weasel the rules to make money or magic items from them, you will either incite DM rage or meet a PFRPG added subsystem that says "NO! Bad optimizer!"

2. You could dumpster dive into the SBG/DMG II/PBG II or UC and spend 3-10X the amount of time you spend going on an adventure doing bookkeeping to manage your sprawling estate/corporate empire/kingdom. You will not actually be playing D&D, but you will be able to spreadsheet your way to total WBL optimization and abuse.

3. Or you could got the annoying "historical realism" route and accept that functionally most followers and property should simply pay for itself. Period. Yeah, that's it. It should do nothing but let you write some funky backstory on how you spend your non-adventuring time. Maybe let you justify to the DM why you can leave some stuff "at home" and it is still there when you get back.
Seriously, just do that. It even sets you up to have a ready made backstory for your next PC.
Just do this and save yourself a great deal of angst at the economic absurdity inherent in D&D finances and the excessive hoops you have to jump through and feat and skill taxes you have to pay to use the official hacked on subsystems with their absurdly limited support, poor implementation, excessive time requirements, and the like.
D&D friends, or even just casual forum acquaintances, do not let each other use downtime rules.

4. If you are really determined to wallow in self-abuse let me know and I can send you some lists of the rules items I identified with my commentary and notes on using them together. But really, just use your cohort and leave the rest for backstory writing.

Offline Power

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Re: Leadership followers, Strongholds and payroll
« Reply #5 on: January 10, 2020, 10:39:19 AM »
Eh, PF's Ultimate Intrigue leadership rules are not meant to be applied to Leadership in general, and Ultimate Intrigue compensates for the shitty loyalties of an Intrigue campaign by giving everyone Leadership for free. And the leadership penalty for causing the death of followers does not stack, so it's no great concern. The penalty for dead cohorts does, but I figure you can remove that penalty by reviving a dead cohort and odds are your leadership score will exceed your cohort's minimum level to a sufficient degree that you can afford 2 or 3 dead cohorts without affecting the level of cohort you can recruit.

Also, there are a few stunts you can do to improve Leadership in PF. A Suzerain Scepter doubles and buffs your cohort, followers, summons, and animal companion. Imperial Army Greathelm raises leadership score by 3 and buffs your cohort and followers. Ethical Leader race trait, Natural-Born Leader (best pick) social trait, and Rebel Leader region trait all give +1 trait bonus to leadership score. Wicked Leader social trait lets you recruit cohorts who are just 1 level below yours, as long as your cohort is evil. Skalds can also do positively silly things giving their men bonuses with Raging Song, since they do not have the usual range limitation on their Inspired Rage performance. The Dynasty Founder story feat gives you +3 to leadership score for follower recruitment purposes and upon completion buffs all followers within line of sight with +1 morale to attack and saves (with a Suzerain Scepter this becomes +2). Noble Scion gives options to replace your Charisma modifier with Dexterity or Constitution for Leadership purposes. Instructor Wizard archetype uses Int modifier instead.
« Last Edit: February 18, 2020, 07:26:03 AM by Power »

Offline Samwise

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Re: Leadership followers, Strongholds and payroll
« Reply #6 on: January 10, 2020, 12:56:10 PM »
Ultimate Intrigue does indeed make things worse. Giving people followers for free is a neat bait and switch when you are setting those followers up to betray them.
Dead followers do stack because you do not get to replace them. They are single use.
Dead cohorts stack in the sense that you are constantly paying to raise them, or accepting that you will not get anymore followers because of the penalty to your leadership score.

As for those stunts, the thing to remember is that they all cost limited resources.
A trait spent on leadership is a trait not spent for some other minor bonus.
Feats spent on leadership are feats not spent on combat style building.
An archetype taken for leadership excludes other archetypes.
Spending 49K on magic items to boost your leadership score means not spending 49K on upgrading your armor or weapon, or picking up extra spell slots or metamagic uses.
Altogether they mean playing a game other than the standard D&D where characters optimize for combat and not downtime.
Which is fine if you want to play that other game, but less functional if you do not.

Offline Nanshork

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Re: Leadership followers, Strongholds and payroll
« Reply #7 on: January 10, 2020, 01:24:18 PM »
A character with a cohort is always better than a character without them because now you are two characters.

Offline Power

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Re: Leadership followers, Strongholds and payroll
« Reply #8 on: January 10, 2020, 01:39:29 PM »
Oh, I missed Ring of the Ecclesiarch, which also doubles the amount of followers you can have.

Ultimate Intrigue does indeed make things worse. Giving people followers for free is a neat bait and switch when you are setting those followers up to betray them.
Yes, but that is only if you are using Intrigue rules, which are optional rules for intrigue campaigns, where the entire point is politicking, backstabbing, spying, general skulduggery, and shifting allegiances.

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Dead followers do stack because you do not get to replace them. They are single use.
Expect GM variation on that one. Just as cohorts are replaceable, followers should be too. Leadership states: "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." Followers and cohorts are both explicitly recruitable, as the feat says "See Table: Leadership for what level of cohort and how many followers you can recruit." So followers are recruitable and treated similar to cohorts, which are replaceable. The only issue is that you still have to invest time and find a suitable population in order to recruit replacements. You won't get them instantly. If a GM chooses to handle it differently, they can do that, but it's not a part of the PF rules to dictate that any dead follower cannot be replaced.

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Dead cohorts stack in the sense that you are constantly paying to raise them, or accepting that you will not get anymore followers because of the penalty to your leadership score.
The dead cohort penalty only counts for the purposes of recruiting cohorts. If you're overmaxed, the penalty is meaningless until it stacks high enough that it will actually penalize your next cohort.

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As for those stunts, the thing to remember is that they all cost limited resources.
A trait spent on leadership is a trait not spent for some other minor bonus.
Feats spent on leadership are feats not spent on combat style building.
An archetype taken for leadership excludes other archetypes.
Certainly, but Leadership is one of the most powerful feats in the game. Investing into Leadership is typically not a loss. The trait that gives you +1 to your cohort's level is well worth it over what other traits can offer you. The ones that give you +1 to leadership score are skippable, though.

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Spending 49K on magic items to boost your leadership score means not spending 49K on upgrading your armor or weapon, or picking up extra spell slots or metamagic uses.
Altogether they mean playing a game other than the standard D&D where characters optimize for combat and not downtime.
Which is fine if you want to play that other game, but less functional if you do not.
Eh, there are ways to leverage even followers in combat if you feel like it. An instructor wizard can easily amass an army of wizard followers and have them all cast Magic Missile at something. An Orc could have a Skald cohort use Inspired Rage to amp a giant band of Orc Warriors/Fighters/Barbarians into death-dealing machines if he so pleases. But you generally wouldn't take those follower-boosting perks unless you actually intend to make use of large amounts of followers.
« Last Edit: January 10, 2020, 02:58:09 PM by Power »

Offline awaken_D_M_golem

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Re: Leadership followers, Strongholds and payroll
« Reply #9 on: January 10, 2020, 04:00:56 PM »
Dead Cohorts ... that's just dirty = I like  :)
I had pimped the DL Nightstalker as better than doing the Ghost Racial Prog, a few years back.
Dead Cohorts (and/or Dead Thralls) is better than either almost right away.


Instructor Wizard on Int and Noble Scion on Dex, saves that small pile of point buy value, reduces mad.
Not sure how much less useful Noble Scion on Con is ; maybe a build following strict phb2 gear schedule that already needs con and not dex.
Your codpiece is a mimic.

Offline Samwise

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Re: Leadership followers, Strongholds and payroll
« Reply #10 on: January 10, 2020, 06:18:17 PM »
Investing in Leadership for a cohort is worthwhile, but generally hits the limit on level rapidly and with little additional investment required.

Investing in Leadership for followers is not worthwhile as I see it, particularly with PF rules that rather overtly shut down downtime shenanigans with them. They provide marginal use in construction, they must be paid as managers, organizing them into teams is not that profitable AND you must pay to equip them, they cannot go on crafting sprees while you are away, and generally just gather dust unless you also invest play time to do more than burn off excess WBL.

Cohorts <-> Followers
Two different elements of Leadership.
One that was fully realized by game rules.
One that nobody ever seemed to be able to come up with relevant rules for but nobody wanted to drop.

Thus my advice to handwave any costs and just them for background flavor.

Offline Power

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Re: Leadership followers, Strongholds and payroll
« Reply #11 on: January 11, 2020, 10:24:57 AM »
Investing in Leadership for a cohort is worthwhile, but generally hits the limit on level rapidly and with little additional investment required.

Investing in Leadership for followers is not worthwhile as I see it, particularly with PF rules that rather overtly shut down downtime shenanigans with them. They provide marginal use in construction, they must be paid as managers, organizing them into teams is not that profitable AND you must pay to equip them, they cannot go on crafting sprees while you are away, and generally just gather dust unless you also invest play time to do more than burn off excess WBL.
What makes you say that followers cannot be used for crafting? That's one of the most standard uses of followers. Anyway, I feel like we should have another thread for PF Leadership, to be honest. This was a 3.5 thread until we got derailed here.

Offline Stratovarius

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Re: Leadership followers, Strongholds and payroll
« Reply #12 on: January 11, 2020, 11:59:58 AM »
I can always split the two if desired.

Offline Samwise

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Re: Leadership followers, Strongholds and payroll
« Reply #13 on: January 11, 2020, 03:40:14 PM »
What makes you say that followers cannot be used for crafting? That's one of the most standard uses of followers. Anyway, I feel like we should have another thread for PF Leadership, to be honest. This was a 3.5 thread until we got derailed here.

Have you read the downtime rules in Ultimate Campaign?
Not anything in Ultimate Intrigue, which is a much bigger diversion when it comes to discussing followers.
The downtime rules in Ultimate Campaign.
The closest you get is handwaved random item generation from the kingdom building rules. But for crafting items, especially magic items, the downtime rules rather casually push away from that. You are barely supposed to use your followers for anything but some bonus labor.

But let's say you do use them for crafting.
There is not that much to optimize with the default elite array, but you could manage it.
You still have to pay all the costs, both to set up a workplace and for the item.
And then . . .
You play another character and not your actual PC.
A low-level NPC at that. With no ability to advance, just there for one more random item creation feat that, after the first two or three such NPCs is a waste as there are only a handful that are worthwhile to begin with. With limited spellcasting ability unless you invest even more money in the NPC, reducing any effective savings. All so you can craft a couple of low-level items a bit faster.
Whee?

Now using a cohort, who is being built closer to a PC, who gains levels, and has their own WBL to spend on the support equipment, that works. That is pretty standard despite the lack of rules.
But for actual rules covering followers for such tasks?
They do not exist so anything for them is highly subjective and varies from game to game, with what is possible being pretty limited.

As for the differences between 3.5 and PF Leadership, supporting feats and items, and supporting rules add-ons, they are not that significantly different in potential to matter. The same applies if the FR labeled Powers of Faerun is brought into play with all the gratuitous bonuses to Leadership score it grants and waiving of the cap on Leadership Score and need for the Epic Leadership feat. All it adds is reams of tables and a need for a comprehensive, non-adventure based library of groups and organizations to interact with.

The only thing to really split is "Followers by RAW" versus "Homebrew For Followers" to distinguish between what the rules say you can do versus creating a system to get some use out of followers while still focusing on playing D&D and not a spin-off rules-set.

Offline Power

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Re: Leadership followers, Strongholds and payroll
« Reply #14 on: January 11, 2020, 05:52:55 PM »
Have you read the downtime rules in Ultimate Campaign?
Not anything in Ultimate Intrigue, which is a much bigger diversion when it comes to discussing followers.
The downtime rules in Ultimate Campaign.
The closest you get is handwaved random item generation from the kingdom building rules. But for crafting items, especially magic items, the downtime rules rather casually push away from that. You are barely supposed to use your followers for anything but some bonus labor.
Nowhere in the downtime rules does it prohibit you from using followers for ordinary crafting. They just provide an option to use them as Labor, assuming your GM is using the downtime rules, which are also optional. You can easily choose not to do that and use them as ordinary followers.

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But let's say you do use them for crafting.
There is not that much to optimize with the default elite array, but you could manage it.
You still have to pay all the costs, both to set up a workplace and for the item.
And then . . .
You play another character and not your actual PC.
A low-level NPC at that. With no ability to advance, just there for one more random item creation feat that, after the first two or three such NPCs is a waste as there are only a handful that are worthwhile to begin with. With limited spellcasting ability unless you invest even more money in the NPC, reducing any effective savings. All so you can craft a couple of low-level items a bit faster.
Whee?
First, Aid Another checks can be used to raise Craft results to extreme highs. Even without any skill at all, this allows you to craft all kinds of non-magical equipment. The end result being that you only pay ⅓rd the cost of materials (in case you felt like having gear made out of adamantine or mithril) Second, Wizards, especially Universalist Wizards (3rd and 5th level) can easily accumulate a large slew of Item Creation feats and Cooperative Crafting. Third, Pathfinder lets you craft items and skip prerequisites by paying an extra +4 DC cost for each prereq skipped this way (exception for spell trigger and spell completion items), so a level 3 wizard can craft a level 19 item provided he achieves the requisite spellcraft DC, which is doable with enough Aid Another and Cooperative Crafting, especially if your crafting Wizards use Valet archetype on their familiars and do shit like take Skill Focus (Spellcraft).

I did find something interesting about the Ultimate Campaign rules on cohorts:
Quote
Cohorts: Advancement choices for a cohort include feats, skills, ability score increases, and class levels.

A cohort is generally considered a player-controlled companion, and therefore you get to decide how the cohort advances. The GM might step in if you make choices that are inappropriate for the cohort, use the cohort as a mechanism for pushing the boundaries of the game rules, or treat the cohort unfairly. A cohort is a loyal companion and ally to you, and expects you to treat him fairly, generously, without aloofness or cruelty, and without devoting too much attention to other minions such as familiars or animal companions. The cohort's attitude toward you is generally helpful (as if using the Diplomacy skill); he complies with most of your requests without any sort of skill check, except for requests that are against his nature or put him in serious peril.

If you exploit your cohort, you'll quickly find your Leadership score shrinking away. Although this doesn't change the cohort's level, the cohort can't gain levels until your Leadership score allows for a level increase, so if you're a poor leader, you must wait longer for your cohort to level up. In extreme cases, the cohort might abandon you, and you'll have to recruit a new cohort.

Examples of inappropriate advancement choices are a good-aligned companion selecting morally questionable feats, a clumsy cohort suddenly putting many ranks in Disable Device (so he can take all the risks in searching for traps instead of you), a spellcaster cohort taking nothing but item creation feats (so you get access to plenty of cheap magic items at the cost of just one feat, Leadership), a fighter cohort taking a level in wizard when he had no previous interest in magic, or you not interacting with your cleric cohort other than to gain defensive spells from a different class or a flanking bonus.

When you select the Leadership feat, you and the GM should discuss the cohort's background, personality, interests, and role in the campaign and party. Not only does this give the GM the opportunity to reject a cohort concept that goes against the theme of the campaign, but the GM can plan adventure hooks involving the cohort for future quests. The random background generator in Chapter 1 can help greatly when filling in details about the cohort. Once the discussion is done, writing down a biography and personality profile of the cohort helps cement his role in the campaign and provides a strong reference point for later talks about what is or is not appropriate advancement for the cohort.
Pros: They make it explicit that the person taking the Leadership builds the cohort, not the GM, and that the player controls the cohort, not the GM, which is quite handy for settling that debate. Curiously, WBL is not listed, so it's still an open question whether or not the player decides starting items or has to pay out of own pocket for those.

Neutral: On inappropriate advancement choices, they list good-aligned companions taking morally questionable feats, which makes sense if you have a good wizard learning to be an undead master, I suppose.

Cons: And they list fighters taking levels of wizard as inappropriate, but I honestly don't see the problem with turning a Fighter into an Eldritch Knight, Arcane Archer, or Hellknight Signifier or something, and Fighter/Wizard is honestly a shitty multiclass combination (especially given that according to these rules you explicitly have the freedom to built the cohort as a full Wizard to begin with), so I frankly don't see the slightest problem with letting players do that and I don't imagine a GM will try to punish that. Now for the fun part: they explicitly list stacking item creation feats on a cohort as an inappropriate advancement choice. Ultimately the GM is the final authority here, not the downtime rules, and I don't see a major problem with a cohort who doesn't participate in combat and instead contributes to the party by providing cheap items to the party. If your wizarding cohort is an artificer rather than a battlemage that's still a realistic and reasonable character archetype in my view. Yes, it's true that the cohort is giving you the benefits of multiple feats for one, but that's what every cohort does. Investing a single feat into getting 5 extra attacks per round or casting twice per round (with an even bigger variety of spells) and breaking the action economy is also considered "too much return for a single feat," but you can easily build a cohort that deals that many attacks. It's what Leadership does. It's why it's so damn powerful. It gives you a full cohort with all class levels and a full allotment of feats (along with a lot of followers to use), and if you have a problem with that, your problem is sooner with Leadership as a whole. Now putting item creation feats on cohorts and followers depends on the campaign on the whole. If the GM is running a low magic campaign with the party operating as the exception and you just break the economy in half and magic mart whatever you want by using a cohort to craft everything, I could understand him wanting you to change your cohort and it's an open question whether you shouldn't just ban most item creation feats outright in that circumstance (although honestly doing low magic campaigns with a D&D system is a recipe for failure, considering how ridiculously high magic D&D is). Ultimately the real guideline for GM approval towards Leadership builds should be how well it interacts with the campaign in question imo.

Other con: Probably the most ridiculous bit of the guidelines is promoting cohorts acting like jealous lovers who get upset if you spend too much time with other people or animal companions instead of giving them attention. I mean seriously, no. If you are a GM, do not do this. This will detract from the game, not enhance it.

Anyway all this also reminds me that you can also just get an ape companion and deck that out with Master Craftsman, Craft Wondrous Item, and Craft Arms and Armor. Put ability score increases into int, give it Precocious Companion archetype, and it will have 6 int. Add 2 if you have the Eye for Talent human racial trait that gives your animal companion +2 to stat of choice and add another +6 if you are giving it a headband of vast intellect. Valet archetype familiars can also do your item crafting for you, but you still have to spend your own feats.
« Last Edit: January 11, 2020, 06:36:21 PM by Power »

Offline Samwise

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Re: Leadership followers, Strongholds and payroll
« Reply #15 on: January 11, 2020, 07:34:32 PM »
Nowhere in the downtime rules does it prohibit you from using followers for ordinary crafting. They just provide an option to use them as Labor, assuming your GM is using the downtime rules, which are also optional. You can easily choose not to do that and use them as ordinary followers.

Nowhere in the downtime rules does it say you can use them for ordinary crafting.
All of the references in the downtime activity of crafting are to the PCs doing any work, with no mention of followers doing so themselves.
The only thing it explicitly permits followers to "do" is be used for Labor.
And they, typically in the form of a follower you assign and pay as a manager or others you organize and equip as teams, can make standard rolls to generate income for the time you were away.

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First, Aid Another checks can be used to raise Craft results to extreme highs.

First, the end result is that you still have to follow WBL guidelines. While I do confuse where the references are constantly, I'm pretty sure that shows up in the PF stuff somewhere.
Second, yes, you get a bunch of feats. And you can aid another and cooperate. So after Craft Wondrous Items and Craft Magic Arms and Armor you take . . . Scribe Scroll? Brew Potion? Craft Wand? One other feat I am forgetting? Things like Rings, Rods, and Staves are only craftable at levels above those followers can be. Maybe Craft Construct and cheese in some Eberron homunculus cheddar and start your own von Neumann factory. Other than that, not much to write home about.
Oh, and Aid Another is subject to DM imposed limits on how many can help on a project, so once again table variation RAWed out of feasibility.

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Pros: They make it explicit that the person taking the Leadership builds the cohort, not the GM, and that the player controls the cohort, not the GM, which is quite handy for settling that debate. Curiously, WBL is not listed, so it's still an open question whether or not the player decides starting items or has to pay out of own pocket for those.

Yes they do. That also sort of makes it implied that the player does not build the followers. So much for the free craft academy there.

And I repeat yet again: my critiques are about Followers; not Cohorts, and to what is possible by RAW.
Pointing out all the things cohorts can explicitly do winds up reinforcing what I keep saying about the rules not letting followers do much of anything.

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Other con: Probably the most ridiculous bit of the guidelines is promoting cohorts acting like jealous lovers who get upset if you spend too much time with other people or animal companions instead of giving them attention. I mean seriously, no. If you are a GM, do not do this. This will detract from the game, not enhance it.

This is mostly a holdover from AD&D days, where PCs could get multiple cohorts (called "henchmen" back then), and their individual relationship to the PCs was intended to be more relevant, with a wonderfully complex loyalty table. Wizard henchmen would not even share spells from their spellbook freely with other PCs in the party, or with their patron.
That's another digression, though it once again highlights the issues with RAW.

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Anyway all this also reminds me that you can also just . . .

. . . do stuff with class ability and feat generated NPCs other than followers.
I know that too and I would not deny it. (Though I would question the rules legality of adding a stat boost to Int of an animal companion, but that is really a whole other topic.)
But you still have a rather stark lack of any direct evidence as to what followers can do.

Also, I see that I miswrote the stats for followers.
Technically they get the standard array:
13 12 11 10 9 8
Theoretically they should get the elite array if they have a PC class instead of an NPC class, but there is nothing that actually says that anyway. While not much:
15 14 13 12 10 8
It is still a significant boost of the standard array, producing a whole two +2 modifiers, with a potential for a +3 or a third +2 at 4th level - Leadership Score 17+.

So yet again, I know cohorts can do all these awesome things.
I am not addressing what cohorts can do but what followers can do, and how to handle them in regards to strongholds, and by extension any other properties and businesses a PC sets up, whether it be using full 3.5 or PF.
I refer to the OP:

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Most basic question; do followers get paid by the PC or are they 'free' and just so what the PC asks from basically hero worship?

Second part of this; if a character has a high leadership score, 24 in this case, and is building or has a stronghold, can those followers be used for the required staff and guards? Would they then have to be paid I'd they were free before?

Not having much luck looking in the books for this answer.

Third question is about income; the independent income from the SBG is a bit fuzzy on where the income takes effect.

It says there is a profit but I'm not sure if, how it's worded, that means all the pay roll is accounted for from that I come (effectively making them free) and you get that 1% on top of everything, or if you have to subtract payroll from that 1%

Those are the questions I am answering, with suggestions for resolution above and beyond the rules.

Offline Power

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Re: Leadership followers, Strongholds and payroll
« Reply #16 on: January 11, 2020, 09:54:10 PM »
Nowhere in the downtime rules does it prohibit you from using followers for ordinary crafting. They just provide an option to use them as Labor, assuming your GM is using the downtime rules, which are also optional. You can easily choose not to do that and use them as ordinary followers.

Nowhere in the downtime rules does it say you can use them for ordinary crafting.
All of the references in the downtime activity of crafting are to the PCs doing any work, with no mention of followers doing so themselves.
The only thing it explicitly permits followers to "do" is be used for Labor.
And they, typically in the form of a follower you assign and pay as a manager or others you organize and equip as teams, can make standard rolls to generate income for the time you were away.
The downtime rules are not a definition of what followers are. All it does is list downtime activities for the downtime system, and it mentions that Leadership followers can be used as labor points for downtime. Your strange interpretation of downtime rules as a restriction against follower activity is absurd. If they wanted to restrict what followers are capable of, they would have simply said so. Instead, it just lists how followers are factored into the downtime system, but at no point does the downtime system demand that everyone only do what is permitted inside the downtime system. By that logic you can't use craft rolls or item creation feats yourself either, since it's not part of the downtime rules. If you want to have your followers to pursue different activities instead of operate by the downtime system, nothing is stopping you from doing that.

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First, Aid Another checks can be used to raise Craft results to extreme highs.

First, the end result is that you still have to follow WBL guidelines. While I do confuse where the references are constantly, I'm pretty sure that shows up in the PF stuff somewhere.
WBL is not a hard and fast rule. It's a guideline, one that's often used for balancing, but it's common that in the course of campaigns depending on the amount of treasure and rewards PCs get, they will end up either above or below the projected WBL. And there are plenty of ways to exceed WBL if you try. Ultimate Campaign does present more guidelines on item creation WBL: "As a guideline, allowing a crafting PC to exceed the Character Wealth by Level guidelines by about 25% is fair, or even up to 50% if the PC has multiple crafting feats. If you are creating items for other characters in the party, the increased wealth for the other characters should come out of your increased allotment. Not only does this prevent you from skewing the wealth by level for everyone in the party, but it encourages other characters to learn item creation feats." But this is another guideline, a much weaker guideline than WBL itself, and one that I doubt any GM will seriously follow, considering how ridiculous it is. It means a Negotiator Bard using Fast Talk for discounts and sales is much, much better off than a Wizard who went full item crafter as far as WBL breaking is concerned.

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Second, yes, you get a bunch of feats. And you can aid another and cooperate. So after Craft Wondrous Items and Craft Magic Arms and Armor you take . . . Scribe Scroll? Brew Potion? Craft Wand? One other feat I am forgetting? Things like Rings, Rods, and Staves are only craftable at levels above those followers can be. Maybe Craft Construct and cheese in some Eberron homunculus cheddar and start your own von Neumann factory. Other than that, not much to write home about.
Here is the full list of PF magic item creation feats (there are also non-magic item creation feats). The only one that's really notable there is Craft Construct. A Wizard can use his bonus feat and 5th level feat to get it at level 5. Strictly speaking they can also make rings if they turn them into their Arcane Bond (which lets you craft an item as though you had the relevant feats), but having Wizards gift you their arcane bonds (or retrain their arcane bonds so they can craft items as their arcane bond and then reset the bond into a new item) is probably on the cheesy and dubious side of things.

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Oh, and Aid Another is subject to DM imposed limits on how many can help on a project, so once again table variation RAWed out of feasibility.
DM variation is not RAW. DM variation is DM variation.

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Pros: They make it explicit that the person taking the Leadership builds the cohort, not the GM, and that the player controls the cohort, not the GM, which is quite handy for settling that debate. Curiously, WBL is not listed, so it's still an open question whether or not the player decides starting items or has to pay out of own pocket for those.

Yes they do. That also sort of makes it implied that the player does not build the followers. So much for the free craft academy there.

And I repeat yet again: my critiques are about Followers; not Cohorts, and to what is possible by RAW.
Pointing out all the things cohorts can explicitly do winds up reinforcing what I keep saying about the rules not letting followers do much of anything.
How the fuck you managed to jump from "Players build their cohorts" to "That implies players don't get to build followers!" is beyond me. That is not how logic works. If you scroll down a bit I discuss some rules that strongly indicate you do get to build your followers the same way you build cohorts if their character sheet comes into play. And even if the GM were to instead decide you don't get to directly build them, if you are running a wizard crafting academy it would be daft for the GM to rule that you do not get wizards and do not get to dictate item creation feats anyway.

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Other con: Probably the most ridiculous bit of the guidelines is promoting cohorts acting like jealous lovers who get upset if you spend too much time with other people or animal companions instead of giving them attention. I mean seriously, no. If you are a GM, do not do this. This will detract from the game, not enhance it.

This is mostly a holdover from AD&D days, where PCs could get multiple cohorts (called "henchmen" back then), and their individual relationship to the PCs was intended to be more relevant, with a wonderfully complex loyalty table. Wizard henchmen would not even share spells from their spellbook freely with other PCs in the party, or with their patron.
That's another digression, though it once again highlights the issues with RAW.
This isn't an adequate system of cohort relationships though. As written it just encourages GMs bugging players about not spending enough time with their cohorts, which doesn't really do anything good or make sense given the wide array of personality types and circumstances in which this sort of behavior is profoundly nonsensical. Also, there are a few ways to get additional cohorts in PF, though they come with awkward limitations (the Daring General Cavalier gives you up to 3 cohorts which are only allowed to take full BAB classes, and Noble Scion prestige class gives you a second cohort with NPC class levels only that is only supposed to run errands, manage affairs, and perform non-combat tasks for you, which can make for an item creation Adept).

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Anyway all this also reminds me that you can also just . . .

. . . do stuff with class ability and feat generated NPCs other than followers.
I know that too and I would not deny it. (Though I would question the rules legality of adding a stat boost to Int of an animal companion, but that is really a whole other topic.)
PF has explicit rules for animal companions of 3 int or higher. It even has an animal companion archetype (precocious companion) which raises animal companion int by 2. There is no limitation against boosting animal companion int anywhere, except for the Awaken spell. So I wouldn't go about inventing a restriction against it. And apes are convenient in that they can use all the item slots regular humanoids can. If you raise an animal companion's int all the way to something like 12 it is very hard for anyone to argue that it is too dumb to craft magic items. And honestly you can have PCs with 5 int (racial penalty to int, some other casting stat) craft magic items fine, so raising your animal companion to 5 or 6 would be enough to put them in the same ballpark, although their modifier to (spell)craft skills is going to suck. Strictly speaking only 3 int is required to be an intelligent creature though.

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But you still have a rather stark lack of any direct evidence as to what followers can do.
What you can and cannot do with followers isn't very explicitly listed. Ultimate Campaign suggests that followers should not be directly controlled by players and you shouldn't invest too much effort into building them, but that is for convenience's sake and it doesn't state too much about the rules and limitations regarding followers.

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Also, I see that I miswrote the stats for followers.
Technically they get the standard array:
13 12 11 10 9 8
Theoretically they should get the elite array if they have a PC class instead of an NPC class, but there is nothing that actually says that anyway. While not much:
15 14 13 12 10 8
It is still a significant boost of the standard array, producing a whole two +2 modifiers, with a potential for a +3 or a third +2 at 4th level - Leadership Score 17+.
Well, Ultimate Campaign's Stronghold story feat requires you to staff a stronghold with 100 combat-capable followers "such as fighters or rangers," so we have a direct example that it is reasonable for your followers to all have PC class levels and for you to have a degree of selection over their capabilities. Ultimate Campaign also says the following on followers:
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Follower: Because a follower is much lower level than you, it's generally not worth determining a follower's exact feats and skill ranks, as he would be ineffective against opponents appropriate for your level. In most cases, knowing the follower's name, gender, race, class, level, and profession is sufficient, such as "Lars, male human expert 1, sailor." Since followers lack full stat blocks, the issue of advancing them is irrelevant. If your Leadership score improves, just add new followers rather than advancing existing ones. However, if events require advancing a follower (such as turning a follower into a cohort to replace a dead cohort), use the same guidelines as for cohorts.
So it is assumed that you are not going to be using your followers in any meaningful capacity, so you should generally avoid the labor of statting them all out for convenience's sake, but it also states that if you do use them in a meaningful capacity where their character sheet matters, you should be using the cohort guidelines. And according to the cohort guidelines, you build their class levels, feats, ability score increases, and skill ranks. So it seems you have full freedom to build followers the same way you build cohorts. You are just encouraged to largely keep it simpler than that since drafting and carrying a hundred character sheets gets rather onerous and ridiculous.

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So yet again, I know cohorts can do all these awesome things.
I am not addressing what cohorts can do but what followers can do, and how to handle them in regards to strongholds, and by extension any other properties and businesses a PC sets up, whether it be using full 3.5 or PF.
I refer to the OP:

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Most basic question; do followers get paid by the PC or are they 'free' and just so what the PC asks from basically hero worship?

Second part of this; if a character has a high leadership score, 24 in this case, and is building or has a stronghold, can those followers be used for the required staff and guards? Would they then have to be paid I'd they were free before?

Not having much luck looking in the books for this answer.

Third question is about income; the independent income from the SBG is a bit fuzzy on where the income takes effect.

It says there is a profit but I'm not sure if, how it's worded, that means all the pay roll is accounted for from that I come (effectively making them free) and you get that 1% on top of everything, or if you have to subtract payroll from that 1%

Those are the questions I am answering, with suggestions for resolution above and beyond the rules.
There is no real resolution to those questions. It depends entirely on the GM, the sort of campaign you are running, the circumstances of your leadership, and how involved you want to be with your followers' lives. The only brightline I can offer is that followers are not hirelings and players shouldn't be made to pay them like hirelings. Beyond that, PF's downtime rules on followers state this: "The Leadership feat can grant you followers—people loyal to you who assist you if they are able. In the downtime system, followers provide additional Influence or Labor to supplement your activities at no cost to you." And in another section of Ultimate Campaign: "Followers can be used like Labor, but aren’t expended like capital because they are loyal to you and don’t leave as soon as an activity is completed." This indicates that you are indeed not paying them under the downtime rules.
« Last Edit: February 18, 2020, 07:35:27 AM by Power »

Offline Samwise

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Re: Leadership followers, Strongholds and payroll
« Reply #17 on: January 12, 2020, 12:31:32 AM »
DM variation is not RAW. DM variation is DM variation.

Indeed. And pretty much everything you have listed for followers to do has been predicated purely on DM variation.

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How the fuck you managed to jump from "Players build their cohorts" to "That implies players don't get to build followers!" is beyond me. That is not how logic works.

That is precisely how logic works - in an exception based rules system.
Which is what this game is.

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What you can and cannot do with followers isn't very explicitly listed. Ultimate Campaign suggests that followers should not be directly controlled by players and you shouldn't invest too much effort into building them, but that is for convenience's sake and it doesn't state too much about the rules and limitations regarding followers.

 :banghead

That is what I keep saying!
And what you keep acknowledging, but then insisting that it does not matter because of possible DM variations, which you acknowledge is not RAW.

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Well, Ultimate Campaign's Stronghold story feat requires you to staff a stronghold with 100 combat-capable followers "such as fighters or rangers," so we have a direct example that it is reasonable for your followers to all have PC class levels and for you to have a degree of selection over their capabilities.


Only so far as requiring you to select specific classes. Full design is not stated as being required or necessary.

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However, if events require advancing a follower (such as turning a follower into a cohort to replace a dead cohort), use the same guidelines as for cohorts.

IF you turn a follower into a cohort, THEN design it like a cohort.
And if not . . .
Summarize it without a stat block, including a lack of skills.
Which are needed for crafting.
So it appears that the rules do in fact agree with me, both by logical deduction of an exception-based rules system, and by an overt statement to not build 500 different characters and run them.

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There is no real resolution to those questions. It depends entirely on the GM, the sort of campaign you are running, the circumstances of your leadership, and how involved you want to be with your followers' lives. The only brightline I can offer is that followers are not hirelings and players shouldn't be made to pay them like hirelings.

 :bigeyes
Which is what I just said.
That you just quoted.

Offline dkt0404

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Re: Leadership followers, Strongholds and payroll
« Reply #18 on: January 12, 2020, 05:29:28 AM »
Okay, so if I understand the debate;

Generally speaking, the followers work for free. Or effectively free in the sense that whatever they are doing is assumed to be paying for their living expenses.
Barring something unusual of course.

So for the SBG, using the followers I would think would qualify for the -30% cost since they are functionally free labor.
Now the actual staff I'm less sure on. Particularly the ones that have a 30gp monthly wage.
I could see it as either they work for free for you and if you run out of followers then you have to pay for the extra staff.
Or;
You have to pay everything.

Also; how do you folks interpret the part about independent income.

"Income Sources: ... Each income source provides 1% of the stronghold's final price annually as pure profit
--- above and beyond labor costs and other expenses...."

To me that sounds like it may pay for all your labor costs and then 1% on top of that.
Is that correct or am I reading it incorrectly?

Regarding the comment about this being a 3.5 topic and it going all pathfinder;
Given the very minimal conversion work between the two (mostly just condensing skills), I see them as mostly
interchangeable.

The post about the scepter above raised a question.

Heros of Battle, p97, has a feat that doubles the number of followers.
What would that scepter likely do in addition to that feat?

The purpose of these questions are two fold.

One is to be able to use it as a player.

The second is to apply it to a major villain as a DM and functionally build their organization as an expression of their followers and cohort (or cohorts).

Personally I'm inclined to think the combo of that scepter and the feat would equal 3x the followers since if you double a doubled number, it's quite a lot more than that.

Oh; and regarding the "Villan" leader, she has roughly 50/50 split on leadership and combat feats. The stronghold is functionally a hidden reinforced and built up ore mine that she uses as her main base and the overall organization uses as a major income source to keep functioning. She's functionally a general in said organization.  If the PCs take out the mine it would be a very signifigant blow to the entire organization given the huge reduction in manpower, materials and income.
Oh, and she does have a evil cohort.
« Last Edit: January 12, 2020, 05:36:25 AM by dkt0404 »

Offline Stratovarius

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Re: Leadership followers, Strongholds and payroll
« Reply #19 on: January 12, 2020, 07:25:43 AM »
As a side note, if stacks of followers are the goal, Orc Warlord doubles all follower counts.