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Skarg · 08-15-2019, 12:37 PM

The old Followers talents might be house-rulable, if someone can figure out a way to refine them in a way they like.

The main problem, it seems to me, other than them standing out as "not really how it would really work" was that the mechanic was too simple in a way that looked massively abusable and so put a huge burden on the GM to figure out what the actual limits were and apply them in spite of what the rules said.

i.e. The rules say you can target pretty much whoever you want, and make a plain IQ roll to convert any NPC into an auxiliary character of yours.

So, y'know, "Hi guildmaster, want to follow this 32-point starting charcter?" [rolls dice] "Looks like you do!" ... "Hi, other super-powerful NPCs, want to be my follower..." ... and even if the GM decides there are limits to who can be made a follower, he then has to come up with what the limits are to that leadership. What can followers be made to do? How generous and suicidal and blindly obedient will they be? All up to the GM to add sensible limits that aren't in the rules.

And a good GM can do it, but the rules don't give any guidance, and it's not a simple subject. I'd be interested to see people try to suggest/describe how they'd handle these.

For our part, we ended up just roleplaying it. We had LOTS of NPC "followers" or more accurately, comrades, companions, allies, friends, patrons, apprentices and proteges, as well as hirelings and less reliable hangers-on. We just handled it all with roleplaying and practically no one had the New Followers let alone the Monster Followers talents.

08-15-2019, 12:37 PM	#6
Skarg Join Date: May 2015	Re: Leadership Talent The old Followers talents might be house-rulable, if someone can figure out a way to refine them in a way they like. The main problem, it seems to me, other than them standing out as "not really how it would really work" was that the mechanic was too simple in a way that looked massively abusable and so put a huge burden on the GM to figure out what the actual limits were and apply them in spite of what the rules said. i.e. The rules say you can target pretty much whoever you want, and make a plain IQ roll to convert any NPC into an auxiliary character of yours. So, y'know, "Hi guildmaster, want to follow this 32-point starting charcter?" [rolls dice] "Looks like you do!" ... "Hi, other super-powerful NPCs, want to be my follower..." ... and even if the GM decides there are limits to who can be made a follower, he then has to come up with what the limits are to that leadership. What can followers be made to do? How generous and suicidal and blindly obedient will they be? All up to the GM to add sensible limits that aren't in the rules. And a good GM can do it, but the rules don't give any guidance, and it's not a simple subject. I'd be interested to see people try to suggest/describe how they'd handle these. For our part, we ended up just roleplaying it. We had LOTS of NPC "followers" or more accurately, comrades, companions, allies, friends, patrons, apprentices and proteges, as well as hirelings and less reliable hangers-on. We just handled it all with roleplaying and practically no one had the New Followers let alone the Monster Followers talents.