So I decided I would try my hand at breaking the game through the Leadership feat. The intricacies of how rules interrelate with one another are not exactly a strength of mine, so anything I'm not sure of I will mention to be confirmed as plausible within the rules, or so I can be crucified for screwing it up.
So then, I present to you, Bulfin the Human, AKA Mr. Monopoly.
The only score of Bulfin's that is of any importance is Charisma, of course. So here he is with a beginning score of 18. He takes level 1 of Marshal, Fighter 2 and Human Paragon 3. This gives him many feats to work with, 2 of which are fighter bonus feats, and a +2 to Charisma from Human paragon, resulting in 20 charisma. Before we get into the feats, lets give Bulfin a Breastplate of Command because why not? Effective Charisma of 22, level 6.
Feats: One feat for 1st level, one for being a human, one for 3rd level, one for 6th level, one for human paragon and two from fighter levels. Total of seven feats, two of which are Fighter Bonus feats.
Next, the feat selection. Bulfin will be taking the Noble Born feat, Assemble the Horde, Extra Followers, and of course Leadership. That takes care of his plain old normal feats, except for one which will be discussed below. For Fighter bonuses lets go with Combat Expertise and Improved Trip, not that it really matters but hey, stay safe.
With these feats, items and stats, Bulfin will have a Leadership score of:
+6 for levels, +6 for Charisma, +2 for his breastplate, +2 for renown (of course, he is famous), +2 for Stronghold (inherited from his crazy old uncle), +2 for Noble Born and +1 for Assemble the Horde.
This totals up to 21. To make up the five points left, we have several options. Another 1 point could come from Special Power, whatever that really means. Lets assume being filthy rich and having a bunch of followers is a special power.
So leadership score of 22. This guy will not be getting any points for fairness and generosity, I assure you. 3 more points would be ideal in getting to the 25 pre-epic maximum. I have read online that the feat Might Makes Right is an Orc only one, but I own the Races of Faerun book and I can't find anywhere that it mentions this as a pre-requisite. I will assume I am correct for now, means that Bulfin can apply his Strength modifier to his Leadership score. I will assume a Strength of 16 because I am biased, which completely by coincidence gives Bulfin a leadership score of 25.
With this 25 score, Bulfin can have:
135 level one followers
13 level two followers
7 level three followers
4 level four followers
2 level five followers
2 level six followers
Leadership states that his cohort can only be of maximum level Bulfin's minus two, but nowhere does it say that Bulfin's followers have to be lower. In fact, it even says that followers are generally five levels behind the one they follow, but in this case Bulfin can have two followers of the same level as him. This, of course, can easily be abused by saying that each of his two level 6 followers have the same build as him, meaning each of their level 6 followers can have the same build, and so on and so on to infinity. That is one way to abuse these, but I'm not going that way because I'm not even done yet.
Apply Assemble the Horde to these values means Bulfin has (2+2+4+7+13+135)=163 followers of first level. Extra followers multiplies all of his followers by 2, meaning 326 1st level followers, 26 second level, 14 3rd level, 8 4th level, 4 5th level and 4 6th level. That is a lot of followers for anybody to have. But are we done yet? Heck no!
Bulfin is in command of a veritable army, and thats even assuming he doesn't get his 4 level six followers to take his own build in an infinite loop. Bulfin could probably use his force to stomp through any encounter he ever has to deal with, but why bother dealing with encounters? This is the reason why Bulfin will not be getting points for Fairness and Generosity, and will in fact probably be Lawful Evil. All he has to do is set each and everyone of his followers making Profession checks and sending him the profits.
Calculation time:
First level followers will have a profession check of +4 with ranks, assuming no Wisdom bonus. Second level will be +5, 3rd +6 etc.
For the purposes of these calculations, I'll be assuming an average roll of 10 on Profession checks.
(326*14)+(26*15)+(14*16)+(8*17)(4*18)+(4*19) = 5462 GP per week.
5462 GP = 54620 SP
According to Goods and Services in the SRD, a poor inn costs 2 SP a night and a poor meal per day is 1 SP. Living expenses will be 3 SP per follower.
Total number of followers is (326+26+14+8+4+4) = 382 followers
382 followers x3 SP per 1 follower = 1146 SP per day
1146 SP x7 days per week = 8022 SP
54620 SP - 8022 SP = 46598 SP per week in sheer profit, the equivalent of about 4660 gold pieces a week. Divide that by 7, and Bulfin is making 665 gold every day, by doing nothing himself. Bulfin can sit on his ass all day and just rake in the cash, hence why I call him Mr. Monopoly, and hence why he will not be getting any Leadership points for Fairness and Generosity.
So with this build, a sixth level Human character can have an army of several hundred, 665 gold per day by doing nothing, and if you take the Art of War Aura, have a cool +18 trip roll to make good use of, and also the possibility of an infinite Leadership chain reaction that could well result the entire world being part of your army.
Any errors I made, please feel free to point out. Other than that, let me know what you think.
