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    Canonfire :: View topic - Followers 2
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    Followers 2
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    Journeyman Greytalker

    Joined: Aug 30, 2001
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    From: Niflheim, 9to5

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    Tue Jan 20, 2009 9:40 am  

    I always thought of these followers as something like an elite corps of bodyguards. They are willing to serve for nothing more than upkeep because of their fanatic loyalty. They aren't expected to comprise an army. An army that any city or kingdom might have would most likely expect a fair wage, and would be no more or less loyal than any other hirelings.

    Last edited by IronGolem on Wed Jan 21, 2009 12:01 pm; edited 1 time in total
    Journeyman Greytalker

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    Tue Jan 20, 2009 3:30 pm  

    IronGolem, that's exactly how they are described to work but only at inception. There isn't anything in 1st or 2nd Ed. that I am aware of that says that they automatically leave you just because they reach a certain level.

    Now, JHSII what you said about how followers works applies there as well. Eventually they would grow in level to attract their own followers however you would still need to maintain an actual army to field the number of troops that you are describing. Maintaining an army means having recruiters, and having recruiters means having to pay people. Running a group solely based on attraction of fame would more resemble a group like the rangers that patrol the Gnarley Forest called the Gnarleymen.
    Master Greytalker

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    Tue Jan 20, 2009 3:47 pm  

    The followers are personal retainers not an army. These retainers allow the PC to form a core of support. The PC can not form a full blown however the holding can evolve over time.

    The PC (followers) settle a lawless border region and subdue it. Sends out recruiters offering land and opportunity - some settlers follow.

    If the settlement prospers more specialized settlers appear and so on. Of course the subsequent settlers will not be as loyal to the PC as the original bunch. Also expect the surrounding lords to show an interest in the prosperous settlement once it has been carved out of the wilderness.

    Now that its safe and prosperous; it was originally part of my land grant or a visit from a nearby official; grant a title. Pay feality to our monarch and where are those back taxes owing to the crown.


    Last edited by Crag on Tue Jan 20, 2009 11:27 pm; edited 1 time in total
    Oerth Journal Staff

    Joined: Aug 16, 2001
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    Tue Jan 20, 2009 7:00 pm  

    Armies can be messy things for PC. First you have to pay wages, then equipment, then food, supplies and transportation. It gets really expensive very quickly. It's a great way to get rid of pc cash.... I've run a few campaigns with the PC's building a small keep in a lawless land. Most they could keep hired and maintained was about 100 troops. Plus you need a leader you can trust. One time the Captain they hired to lead the troops became the new baron once the pc's left for a few months..
    Black Hand of Oblivion

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    Tue Jan 20, 2009 8:01 pm  

    And of course you need a trustworthy paymaster and quartermaster for your army let alone other menials to aid them so that your PC can stay busy taking names and kicking butt. That's just scratching the surface of the red tape machine too.
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    Grandmaster Greytalker

    Joined: Nov 07, 2004
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    From: Mt. Smolderac

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    Wed Jan 21, 2009 9:24 am  
    Re: Followers 2

    JHSII wrote:
    If you flesh out the forces with mercenaries, the mercenaries are not going to be loyal to the crown - only to the money they're paid.


    That's why mercenaries were often the bodyguards of monarchs. If their loyalty is based solely on payment then you knew you can trust them as long as they get paid. Unlike your vassals they wouldn't screw you over because their uncle was the Duke of So-and-so who happens to have ambitions of being king.

    EDIT: Fallon's Captain example being the exception to the rule of course. Wink
    Apprentice Greytalker

    Joined: Feb 28, 2008
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    Fri Jan 23, 2009 2:47 pm  

    Allowing followers to gain followers would fit a feudal society perfectly, but it would become an administrative nightmare for the PCs and the DM! Confused
    Though this would give the PCs good reason to want to leave their relatively warm and safe castles to face new adventures.
    "Do I want to face my ministers or an ancient terror from beyond the nether regions? That's easy! See you later..." Laughing
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    Journeyman Greytalker

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    Fri Jan 23, 2009 4:06 pm  

    I'm not going to say that it isn't rough to handle as a DM, but it certainly is rewarding.

    One of my favorite games I've ever run involved the PC's building a castle. I did a lot of research on castle construction and coupling with what was in the 1st ed. DMG I had all the info I needed. Plus it made that dragon burning down villages in the area a major threat to my players.

    All this was only possible because of how they divided tasks that they could send their retainers to handle, namely patrolling the countryside for bandits and such while the PC's went after the big fish.

    The 3.5 system for handling NPCs allows me to not only handle it in the fashion I did before, but develop a rather detailed metric for determining the profitability of a certain region based on local businesses and therefore create a model to allow for economic factors to begin causing problems too. This is handled in the rules for running PC's businesses and with some slight modifications I think that I can turn it into a realistic tax collection system.

    This isn't going to happen for some time but I've been trying to figure it out for a while now because I want to take the game to a Nation States level eventually.
    Black Hand of Oblivion

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    Sat Jan 24, 2009 1:57 am  

    I guess I was pretty awful when I gave a 2e paladin PC a small border castle along the west coast of Whyestil Lake in the early 580's CY as a reward for services rendered to the crown of Furyondy. The paladin and his companions had rescued Prince Thrommel from the ToEE to boot and was from a minor Furyondian noble family in the north anyways, so the fit was a good one. The small castle worked out well as it was right on the edge of danger(Iuzian border) and also provided a place for the Paladin's followers to be stationed. I went so far as to map the place out and write up the garrison which is made up of the paladin's followers, plus one advisor and his honor guard who serve the King directly and are not under the absolute authority of the paladin.

    Then of course the Greyhawk Wars come along, and the paladin is for a time manacled on the Ghoul rowing away, and later taking out the Slavers; after which he helps a moon dog with a request made at an earlier date and winds up in Ravenloft and Ravenloft 2: The House on Gryphon Hill for months more. The border castle of course is cut off by massive Iuzian invading armies and eventually falls, but worse yet the paladin's ancestral homeland in northern Furyondy is also overrun and devastated and his family is presumed to have been killed, or worse yet were carted off to Dorakaa. Yes, the paladin has not lead a very charmed life since the ToEE. You'd almost think that a certain demon-god was holding a grudge or something, and is just managing to fit in a little extra fun into his plans of invading Furyondy... Laughing

    I do have plans for the paladin to revisit his border castle, but thee is a new owner now. In the meantime he has been rebuilding his follower base under the Leadership feat(we switched to 3.X rules). The only follower he has managed to retain is his trusty squire who has been with him for a long time, and who is nearing the point where he could very well have followers of his own.

    Rather than have the Squire go off on his own though, I will be using a more feudal system of servitude, where as the servants of a servant are beholden to their lord, but if their lord is beholden to yet another then they must be beholden to them too so as to be serving their lord. The paladin is the king's man, the squire and other followers are the paladin's men, and the squire’s servants are the squire's men, which by default makes them the paladin's men and further by default the king's men. When you have fealty so far removed you can have problems with loyalty of course, but in this case that shouldn't be a factor due to the leaders involved being very loyal types a well as lawful good aligned.

    The squire has no followers yet, but is getting up there in level, so he very well may be knighted soon enough(a battlefield knighting is in the making to be sure) as well. Rather than the paladin have a literal small army at his beck and call though, the king will certainly ask the paladin to volunteer a portion of the soldiers serving him to participate in various actions against Iuz during the reclamation period, whether that be as reinforcements sent to aid the Shield lands or to relieve other forces stationed at Furyondian border fort. The paladin will of course have other duties. As you can see, feudal ties are a great way to keep a character with a lot of resources under control.

    Also, no ruler in their right mind is going to simply let a character build up an army within their lands without an oath of fealty, and few lands are going to allow a character and their small army to carve out multiple hexes on the map and rule over them unless those hexes come from a neighboring enemy's territory. Simply put, a character that goes on a rampage to take over hexes worth of territory is going to have to fight a war, not a battle, and will likely have a price put on their head too. Depending on the hexes a character may be looking to take over, that may mean making enemies of a lot of different factions, both public and private, who have interests in the area. There are lots of things to consider before a character jumps into taking over lands by the use of the sword. The local peasants may be against them, and that means that food and other supplies will suddenly become scarce and the army will starve/run out of provisions, let alone have some of the peasants sabotage their current food/supplies. That will leave them ripe for being annihilated by a well provisioned enemy force.
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    Journeyman Greytalker

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    Mon Jan 26, 2009 9:54 am  

    I vaguely remember the process described by the 1st Ed. DM's Guide for clearing territory in order to claim lordship and collect taxes. Just a single 30-mile hex had to be broken down into little 1-mile hexes (consider just a 5-mile hex has something like 25 1-mile hexes within it), and each of those had to be rolled for random encounters (1in12 chance for a inhabited/patrolled region) which represented lairs of regional inhabitants (bandits, other high-level characters and their henchmen, humanoids, etc.) that might or might not have to be "cleared." A very long and demanding process, and even after a mile had been cleared, arrangements had to be made for patrolling that region afterwards, lest new elements creep in and settle while the lord is off clearing other hexes. All that just to rake in a few tens of silver pieces per month in taxes? Exploring and looting ruined temples always sounded much more fun and rewarding to me. :-)
    Master Greytalker

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    Wed Jan 28, 2009 3:17 pm  

    JHSII wrote:
    With all that in mind, I'm going with my original idea - there's no reason for the followers to depart, and they will gather followers of their own at higher levels. True, the paperwork might be more, but not that much more.


    Actually the initial rationale for name characters to recieve followers was to allow them to strike out on their own. The followers are suppose to allow the character to found his own domain within the unclaimed wilderness; stronghold, temple, tower or guild according to the PC class of course.
    Black Hand of Oblivion

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    Thu Jan 29, 2009 5:40 am  

    JHSII wrote:
    It occurs to me that a king might want another country next to his as a buffer between him and a major enemy. This actually relieves him of a lot of the burdens of having to protect the border himself - and it could allow him to cut taxes for his own people since he can use the PC kingdom as the buffer and reduce his own troop strength on the border.


    That depends on if the character is carving their new land out of the king's land or that of the opposing country(or both). Either way they are pissing off a nation. What a king or any ruler would want is a powerful, loyal, tax paying lord who is willing to use their own man power and resources to protect a portion of the nation, and perhaps even aid in expanding it. Any ruler is not going to want or allow an upstart to steal even a portion of his land to set up shop in. To allow such would set the worst kind of precedent. It says "Come help yourself to my kingdom!", and who says any power hungry border lords are not going to just simply follow suit and break away from the kingdom and declare themselves kings of their own border nations too? And why would the king need to reduce his own troop strength on a border when there is a new kingdom there that owes no fealty to him? I’m sure the French were totally not upset with their own lack of tactical foresight when the Germans rolled around the Maginot Line through friendly Belgium. Yep, don’t need to defend friendly borders at all.

    Are there really any weak lands in the Flanaess ripe for having a chunk of their land taken from them? Post- Greyhawk Wars there are few, and there are a few locations that might be more ripe than others for retaking portions of that land, but they can come with their own problems. Tehn for instance is very ripe for carving, its barbarian overseers not being very cohesive, but then any land retaken will have Duke Eyeh laying claim to it, and his claim will be backed up by other Tenhas and his host nation most likely. There is whole other can of worms involved in that one. The same could be said of Almor, though the situation there differs once again. The Shield Land would also be a good place to carve out a destiny, though not as a separate sovereign land. Any lost lands will not simply be thought of as being "up for grabs", but will be considered to have been stolen from them. Once recovered, whoever it is that recovers them, the ruler will want them back because those lands are veiwed as being theirs to begin with.

    The only reason kings give away land is in when they are forced to after having been thrashed in war; never any other time. Even then, that king will be scheming as to how to get that land back. He is not going to just say "Touché, good sir! You got me fair and square. The land is yours!" Happy A king may award land to loyal subjects such that they are custodians of it and assume the responsibility of running it(which takes a load off of the king), but a king will never just give it away or allow it to be taken.

    In the various campaigns I have played in, only two characters have ever carved out domains on the map; the largest comprising about 6 hexes or so. These lands became the dwarven Kingdom of Drachenheim, and are located in the Yatil Mountains opposite the Clatspur range and bordering the Vesve Forest near where the Velverdyva pours froth from Lake Quag. The dwarven king was in good with the king of Furyondy before he established his claim to these lands, and not only does he not disrupt trade from Perrenland to the south(or tax it), he actually makes a point of protecting it. The dwarves also aid the Furyondian(and others) war effort in the form of arms and armor from their own forges, which they gain much of their income from. The dwarves have their own merchants who travel the Veleverdyva and its tributaries all the way from the cities along Lake Quag to those on the Nyr Dyv. They also make a point of keeping good relations with Highfolk and the elves of the Vesve forest, and will occasionally join them in raiding bases of Iuzian troops within the northern Vesve. With all of that, this new land has somewhat cool relations with Perrenland, even though attacks on Perrenlander merchants have dropped of significantly, as the Perrenlanders see this new kingdom as being a bit too ideally located to control trade to the south, and they are bit paranoid about that.

    The point here is that nobody had a strong and enforceable claim on the lands which were claimed, and the lands were not able to be disputed strongly by any one nation as the lands are located in a rugged and inhospitable place to begin with. Plus, while remaining sovereign, the new king of this land makes it a point to maintain good relations with his neighbors, such that their presence is seen as being mutually beneficial. The other option, and the best option in my opinion, is to offer fealty to a king or other powerful leader, with the goal of claiming rugged or dangerous territory and ruling it in their name. Kings and other rulers are usually all for that.
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    Master Greytalker

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    Thu Jan 29, 2009 3:05 pm  

    Other then squatting someplace as a robber lord or claiming some barren peak or worthless waste; within the Flanaess it is exceeding difficult to remain independent.

    A PC that is granted a royal patron; to tame an area of land for fealty. Love the idea; it allows the DM a chance to think out the domain; plan problems, fealty and tax obligations.
    Apprentice Greytalker

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    Fri Jan 30, 2009 11:31 am  

    One of my PC's has his heart set on the lands between the Sepia Uplands and the headwaters of the Deepstil.
    Apprentice Greytalker

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    Thu Feb 05, 2009 10:45 am  

    My players have claimed a keep/ mine in the Cairns north of Greyhawk. They have decided to keep it as a base camp and re-open the mine. Is there somewhere I can look to find monthly yield for a mine in the cairns? Any idea what the taxes would be that Greyhawk would claim? Thanks
    Master Greytalker

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    Thu Feb 05, 2009 3:35 pm  

    I don't think an actual table exists as each game is different. However several fief models have been published such as Harn Manor and a Magical Medieval Society but the complexity can be daunting.

    Some articles have been on Canonfire; GVDammerung wrote an simple but effective piece; IIRC.

    In RL; feudal taxes were not just money but composed goods and obligations as well. Some souces I have found range from 10%-65%; one source estimated a poor manor paid 73% to his liege.

    Feudal tax rates were dependent on several factors; location, fealty oaths, military troops, goods, resources. Athough a general acceptable figure of 33% seems a reasonable standard.

    In short; Greyhawk would get as much as it can during negotiations; all overlords did and these are thieves to boot. Don't forget to demand a hefty portion of the ore produced. Do not ask so much that the PCs walk; remember half a loaf is better then no loaf at all.

    Of course; if you really want to be devious have Greyhawk offer what appears to be a generous offer to the PC heroes. Once the PCs have finished chuckling; have Greyhawk approach to renegotiate the terms. Better yet have Greyhawk find a dubious reason to seize the now profitable mine.

    Greyhawk Representive: According to the terms of feality; Greyhawk is owed 1000 gp in ore, higher impuritites in the last shipment places the value of the shipment at 986 gp.
    PCs: Here is the difference; fumbles for a purse.
    Greyhawk Representive: You are in breach of your oath; no further payment will be accepted, we are claiming our liege rights to the mine.
    PCs: That is not fair; you let us make up shortfalls before?
    Greyhawk Representive: Tell it to the 100 men-at-arms behind me.

    Sometimes life is cruel even in a fantasy world Laughing
    Apprentice Greytalker

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    Fri Feb 06, 2009 5:52 am  

    Thanks for the info. Sorry about the high-jack.

    I believe that followers would attract followers. But, I would also take into consideration the initial individual.
    A king can have loyal generals and loyal generals can have loyal officers. Those same loyal officers can have loyal NCOs and so on.

    But you must also consider the level and type of initial individual. An adventurer at say 12 level with say a 9th level follower will be less likely to attract followers. Most people do not like to wander around constantly. With a king, he rules a land and if he is a good king, ie protects his people and doesn't tax too heavy, people will live in his land and be loyal. The king would generate more followers based on the stability of the king and kingdom.

    Just my opinion.
    Black Hand of Oblivion

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    Fri Feb 06, 2009 9:26 pm  

    That is of course the intent of things as it regards followers to begin with.
    This goes back to at least 1e where a name level fighter(9th level) may build a stronghold, upon the completion of which two things will happen- they will "attract a body of men-at-arms led by an above average level fighter" and they will "collect a monthly income of 7 silver pieces from each an every inhabitant of the freehold due to trade, tariffs, and taxes." Clerics gain followers in similar manner at 8th level so long as they have established a place of worship(which may end up being as difficult as what the fighter has to go through to get their "freehold").

    The fighter doesn't just plant his flag and claim any old piece of land unles it in some gods forsaken palce that no nation lays claim to to begin with. Once a freehold is established though, everything will fall into place. A DM can make this process as simple or complicated as they wish.
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