The Leader

[Tricky]

Sigh.. I always get 3.5 fits after playing Baldur's Gate for awhile. Err *cough* yes, though my intentions are directed to Neverwinter Nights 2, I wanted to toss some general thoughts on a character I have in mind into the D&D crowd.

'Leadership' in roleplay seems primarily reflected by certain feats and magics you might get with some of the classes. These effectively simulate leadership by positively affecting the party rather than the individual. You know, 'I'm a mighty Paladin, charge under my deities' baanneeeer!!' (ok, my reenactments that officially sad).
Or the 'here, have a stronghold!' feat in Neverwinter Nights, and for that matter Baldur's Gate. Those are pretty good examples of 'cheating' your way into leadership.

But if I stop and think for a moment what a really makes a good leader.. I just don't feel that's something that should work that conveniently. If I picture a great warrior who leads his men into battle with a sharp mind, one who really knows his Sun Tzu, I don't necessarily picture a great fighter with lots of special abilities. He won't necessarily have skills that will aid him or his troops in combat, he should have 'already won the battle before landing the first blow', you know? A great strategist.

Under the 3.5 ruleset and starting out as a humble fighter, how would one best portrait such a character? For one, I wouldn't really know whether it would be intelligent or wise. Or how he could take advantage of either attribute score, without it conveniently helping him out in combat too directly (not to say that there could be some modest benefits). If he really has read the Art of War and knows how to apply it, I suppose he could have both.

I could definitely use some broader thoughts on how to create this leader character. Siberys, if you'd prefer to see this thread in NWN2, feel free to move it. I just assumed it's kind of a general D&D question.

[Uller]

Interesting question. I would probably look to a Leader as someone that has Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma really. Intelligence for the strategist and planning aspect, Wisdom for the knowledge of the situation and of battle in general and Charisma as an attribute for which his men or people around him will be drawn to him and follow him.

Thats just my 10c worth anyways.

[Tricky]

Heh, well maybe I'm just trying to play chess with checker pieces or something. Perhaps 'leaders' don't fight at the frontline to begin with. I bet there would be fewer wars if they had to. Or maybe then we would simply choose otherwise capable leaders. Hmm. Wait, how would that work out? Then it would be the people that would choose to go to war. Ok, now I'm just not making any sense.

[GawainBS]

In our group, we depict Leadership as a combination of mental stats, skills, level and roleplaying. Do not underestimate the importance of Knowledge (fill in area of expertise) for a good leader. The PHB suggest (history) as the means to represent the knowledge of war.
That said, I don't think that a pure Fighter is a good choice to represent a good leader. (Nor anything else, for that matter.)
If you have the Mini Handbook, toss in some levels of Marshall. The Aura's do a nice enough job of representing leadership on a battlefield.
Personally, I think the Book of Nine Swords (Tome of Battle) has the best way to represent leadership via the White Raven Discipline. The book adds a ton of options to melee combat, which makes it intresting, and it isn't overpowered at all. (Remember, wizard 20 is pure core.) I wholeheartidly recommend this book to you.

If you really, really want to stick to Fighter, grab some Marshall levels, some Bard levels (roleplay this as the ability to rally your troops via Perform (oratory), to avoid the classical image of a bard) and spend skill points on Knowledges...

Edit: This combines the Marshal with Tome of Battle: Sublime Way variant Marshal - Wizards Community