Clarification of "Follower" rules

[Polaris]

Greetings,

One of the players in our group wants to make a follower (the player plays a Paladin, and wants to make a squire, basically). To do this, we make the squire like a PC, and then the Paladin pays 1/5 of the total character cost.. right? When calculating the cost of the follower to the Paladin, do we do the 1/5 of the cost before or after complications? Would "Duty to Paladin--Total" be a complication that the squire should have (it would seem to be a help to the Paladin, AND reduces the cost to the Paladin)?

Thanks!
Polaris

[Monolith]

Followers are based off the Base Cost of the character. So if the follower is a 50 point base with 50 points of Disadvantages (100 total points for the character) then the cost of the character is 10 points (50/5=10).

I probably would have no real issue with the Psychological Limitation, other than the fact it is one-sided and makes for uninteresting role-playing.

[Polaris]

Thanks for the clarification, Monolith.

Do you (or anyone) have any suggestions on how the limitation might be improved to make it not one sided? Perhaps if the squire were to have a sense of duty that could be worked to sometimes "get in the way"? Any suggestions on what you mean or how it could be improved would be most welcome...:)

Polaris

[Monolith]

I have no problem with Duty To Paladin, I might just not make it Total. I do not like the concept of the character being Totally devoted to the Paladin. It might even be more interesting to have the character devoted to the ideals of the paladin. That way if the paladin strays it could create some conflict between the character and his follower.

I am not a huge fantasy fan, and so I am not that familiar with the relationship you are trying to create, but I always like to leave room for individuality in Followers. It just makes for more interesting role-playing, IMO.

[Trebuchet]

Remind the player with the paladin that as his sworn man, he also has feudal obligations to the squire. A squire is not a slave or a gofer, but a knight-in-training or even a potential paladin. If the paladin abuses that trust, he may anger his diety. That shouuld prevent the player from feeling this is so one-sided, when in fact it's a serious responsibility.

For a great take on paladins, I highly recommend Elizabeth Moon's The Deed of Paksenarion. One of the best fantasy series I've read in the best several years.

[Fireg0lem]

FREd says that you can give followers disadvantages that help the PC with the follower, but the disadvantage is worth 0 points thereby. Thus, the squire can have "Loyal to Paladin," but it is a 0-point disadvantage.

[Captain Obvious]

If you want to make the squire so loyal that he's a hindrance, then that's good too. If Sir Strong the Mighty takes part in secret talks to end the ages-long war between Empireland and Kingdomonia, and his squire is caught skulking around to make sure his liege isn't betrayed in some way (you can't trust a Kingdomonian), what will this little spy do to the peace process?