Re: Follower abilities

From: t_m_ellis <tim_at_...>
Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002 12:02:35 -0000

wrote:
>Then we hit the snag described: If a player spends all his points
>on one skill he raises all the abilities encapsualted in his
>followers for free. If I have Speak With Authority 5W2, my bodyguard
>gives me all the abilites of Warrior 17W and Initiate of Orlanth
>13W. It costs 1HP for me to raise all of these abilities. As play
>progressed and HP were spent, followers were soon percieved to be
>unbalancing.
>

Some suggestions.
1) Base the Followers skills off the Relationship: (follower) rather than the best skill - If you want a good follower then you have to look after them. You'd probably not want to start at Relationship -8 and -12 though! The main problem with this is that the most competent followers will also be the most "blindly obedient".

2) Base the followers skills off the average of the PC's best 5 skills rather than the best skill - this will just slow down the followers improvement rate. It is also more maths, but at least its all done during "down time"

3) Require the spending of HP's to improve followers abilities - If the follower is using keywords then this is still quite cheap. You'd probably want to cap the follower at (best ability -8/-12) on the grounds that if the follower is getting more powerful than this then they shouldn't be a follower... GM's could give "directed HP's" to followers where (a) they have played an important part in the adventure or (b) to ensure that followers do actually improve!

>
> >You could also make use of the Relationship: (Follower) ability.<
> Which, by making supporting characters, who use their abilities as
> actors, allies we effectively do.
>

Sneaky Munchkin min-maxer solution to this one - make the followers secondary ability Relationship:(PC) - that way it rises with the PC's main ability, and from your above example, your Warrior follower has Warrior 17w and Relationship:PC 13w ...