Hey folks, I am trying to think of creative or effective ways of utilizing the leadership skill. My character wants to be a pirate king.

Anyway, reading over the skill in the core book says one can use successes to increase the efficiency or effectiveness of the target during the ordered actions.

My question is could you use this on a PC to upgrade or at least give boost die to their next check? If so I believe you could effect more folks by using advantages but it says nothing about triumphs that would apply to a PC.

Otherwise, what other uses could you use it for inside and outside of combat?

I just had the thought that the difficulty for such an action would depend on the discipline for the target as in the higher it was the easier it would be to order them about if they a PC. So if I wanted to order around someone with no discipline for the purpose of adding bonuses it would be a 5 purple dice check. Then for each rank of discipline the difficulty would lower by one.

The check would,be upgraded for contrary or dangerous actions.

you should listen to the Order 66 episodes on social encounters.

Take a look at the Mercenary spec, some good leadership talents, and ideas, in there.

There's a bunch of nice talents that utilise Leadership:

Inspiring Rhetoric (AoR Diplomat: Ambassador / EotE Colonist: Politico)

Field Commander (AoR Commander: Squadron Leader, Tactician / EotE Hired Gun: Mercenary Soldier)

Form On Me (AoR Commander: Squadron Leader)

Coordinated Assault (AoR Commander: Tactician)

I can see minor advantages to be gained from raw skill use, but be careful not to make these obsolete with your rewards.

Thank you all for the words of wisdom. I guess I just have trouble seeing how leadership mechanically fits in between the other social skills.

I listened to that podcast as well and social combat is certainly an interesting facet of this System but not quite what I was looking for. I guess I will just have to try to convince the GM to let me try kooky stuff that isn't already covered by a talent.

Thank you all again.

Leadership is often used to encompass a longer span of time. The soldier in my game used Leadership to organize the group, and his successes granted boost dice to the Scout who rolls Survival to cross a section of jungle. Had he failed, the group might have experience setbacks. You can use Leadership for any planning phase of a caper...all it means is you're helping organize people to be their most efficient. Any time people need to work in a group to do something, Leadership is of value, though it seems to be most valuable in conjunction with certain talents, so you might consider picking up a spec that has a few of those.

As I just finished posting in another post, for my games I try to give even average, no-skilled NPCs some personality, and that means they'll have a different reaction to different social skills. Let's say you're trying to get cooperation from a street rat kid, you might say to the GM, "this kid looks like he needs a father figure", and try to use Leadership on him instead of Charm (for which the kid is too cynical) or Coercion (which will just make him stubborn and uncooperative). You'd need your GM's approval of course, but they should be open to that kind of thing.

If you pick up the Age of rebellion gm kit there are squad rules in it and they also use leadership. If you pick up onslaught at Arda 1 is has some mass combat rules and those also use leadership.

I've got some house created squad rules (the GM screen ones were nice, but not exactly what I wanted). Leadership can be made very important for leading troops in battle. Make sure to read up on Discipline and Fear checks. RAW can be used to mimic a morale system easily and realistically with leaders rallying troops, convincing them to charge the enemy across an open field, etc.

Edit: I have a PDF of notes if anyone is interested I could post them here?

Thank you all for the words of wisdom. I guess I just have trouble seeing how leadership mechanically fits in between the other social skills.

I listened to that podcast as well and social combat is certainly an interesting facet of this System but not quite what I was looking for. I guess I will just have to try to convince the GM to let me try kooky stuff that isn't already covered by a talent.

Thank you all again.

Reofec, the best thing to do in these instances is to look at the talent, and then make your skill use "not quite as good" as the talent.

For example:

The Command talent, among other things, gives your "inspired" allies a Boost die to Discipline checks for 24 hours. Without this talent, perhaps, for a particularly successful Leadership check, a number of allies determined by your Success & Advantage combo could add Boost dice to Discipline checks for the next encounter .

Field Commander allows you to make an Average Leadership check for a number of allies to be able to suffer 1 strain and perform a maneuver. Without this talent, maybe increase that difficulty and cut the number of allies affected in half for similar effects.

Inspiring Rhetoric allows you to reduce an allies' strain at the rate of 1 Success per 1 Strain, and the ally has to be within short range. Without the talent, maybe scale back the range to Engaged on this, and/or increase the difficulty of the check to Hard?

EotE table 7-7 calls out a Hard Leadership check to allow crewmembers to add Boost dice to their gunnery checks, PLUS allows them to spend 3 Advantage to allow every hits from their weapons to inflict 1 system strain in addition to regular damage. So kinda gives them a temporary, more-expensive Stun quality. So that's an idea. Give your allies some sort of benefit to their attacks but have it cost 3 Advantage instead of 2: Knockdown, Stun, Concussive, Linked, Disorient, etc. or add Pierce or just straight damage (a point or two).

You could also look to the Battle Meditation power for inspiration: perhaps for a highly successful or Triumphant roll, you could grant a certain number of your allies an automatic Advantage on their checks for a certain amount of time...until the end of your next turn, maybe.

The times leadership came into play - one was our team shepherding a herd of kidnapped people through a dangerous area, when A Giant Monster attacked. The leadership allowed me to herd the cats in an effective manner, away from harm and out of the other PC's way so they could fight effectively. More recently, there was a mining accident and she was able to orchestrate rescue crews and coordinate efforts - again, herding cats.

And then, she's about to run for city council on said planet - so I suspect that charm and leadership rolls will come into play as she woos the crowd and debate her opponents.

I had my ambassador (dressed as an Imperial officer) walk into an area and, using Leadership, order some Imperial Army soldiers to follow her into the bunk house for a surprise inspection (letting the rest of my team into the now unguarded area).

(It turned out they did have contraband. (So much alien porn...))

Thanks again fellows. I have some good ideas now. My character wants to one day be a pirate king and he will need strong leadership. Thanks for the ideas.

I had my ambassador (dressed as an Imperial officer) walk into an area and, using Leadership, order some Imperial Army soldiers to follow her into the bunk house for a surprise inspection (letting the rest of my team into the now unguarded area).

(It turned out they did have contraband. (So much alien porn...))

Seems like that should have been Deception or Skullduggery, but I guess we can let it slide this time. I will need to collect those porn holos though....for evidence....

OT:

Buy into Merc Soldier. Do it! You will become a Leadership GOD. Not only will you pick up Command (add a Boost die per rank to Leadership checks and add the same Boosts to allies' Discipline for 24 hours), you will also pick up mother ******* Field Commander. The Field Commander action is probably the most badass talent in the CRB. Through raw Leadership you give allies immediate manuevers and with the Improved version can give immediate actions.

It also is a really fitting tree for a pirate king; you know, the penultimate piracy privateer. A freelancer with the moral code of "**** you, pay me". You could be the goram Al Capone of SPACE! Knocking over frieghters full of space whiskey and space gold. But you damned well better be swashbuckling around the 'verse with a Corellian Cutlass on one hip and a Dueling Pistol on the other.

Here's the catch, a raw skill check shouldn't take the place of talents that use the skill. So a basic Leadership check (without any talents) shouldn't give your allies a Boost die on all their Discipline checks for the next 24 hours, but it might be able to give them a Boost on their next Discipline check.

Reofec, the best thing to do in these instances is to look at the talent, and then make your skill use "not quite as good" as the talent.

For example:

The Command talent, among other things, gives your "inspired" allies a Boost die to Discipline checks for 24 hours. Without this talent, perhaps, for a particularly successful Leadership check, a number of allies determined by your Success & Advantage combo could add Boost dice to Discipline checks for the next encounter .

Field Commander allows you to make an Average Leadership check for a number of allies to be able to suffer 1 strain and perform a maneuver. Without this talent, maybe increase that difficulty and cut the number of allies affected in half for similar effects.

Inspiring Rhetoric allows you to reduce an allies' strain at the rate of 1 Success per 1 Strain, and the ally has to be within short range. Without the talent, maybe scale back the range to Engaged on this, and/or increase the difficulty of the check to Hard?

EotE table 7-7 calls out a Hard Leadership check to allow crewmembers to add Boost dice to their gunnery checks, PLUS allows them to spend 3 Advantage to allow every hits from their weapons to inflict 1 system strain in addition to regular damage. So kinda gives them a temporary, more-expensive Stun quality. So that's an idea. Give your allies some sort of benefit to their attacks but have it cost 3 Advantage instead of 2: Knockdown, Stun, Concussive, Linked, Disorient, etc. or add Pierce or just straight damage (a point or two).

Some of these are along the lines of what I was doing. Not exact of course, just in the ball park. I'll try to upload my rough draft of Leadership notes when I get a chance.

Thanks for the Table 7-7 note, I hadn't notice that in my Leadership research. I did have a "Direct Fire" action that is similar (bonus to attack), but I will adjust it to be similar to what is already in RAW.