On Followers (June 2023)

At this point, I'm cribbing my home game rules directly from the 1e DMG. However, this is what CROWN & VALOR has to say on the subject. 

Here is the .docx sheet.

Hirelings, Henchmen, Specialists and Retainers

Henchmen of various types will make the PCs lives easier (and longer!) D&D is a wargame at its core, and wargames presume an entourage of troops and support figures.

The best times to look for henchmen are at Festivals, because everybody is off work and mostly feeling pretty good. Henchmen in numbers equal to 10% of the number of families (2% of total population) will be available to woo during festivals. More than this will be present, but taking a larger chunk of the workforce away is at the least poor manners and at the worst, high treason for building your own army to kill the king. 

Henchmen are paid up front, and then retained for the quarter (one season or 12 weeks) or cross-quarter (a half-season or six weeks.) This oathbound contract serves as a basis for servitude, something like a feudal oath made miniature. Your part of the bargain is not to throw them in front of a fearsome monster, and to present their remains plus 25GP to their family in the likely event of their passing on the job. 

This sort of oathbound henchman will require his pay for each delve or each week served. Retaining one without requiring service during a particular week costs you as much as if you took them into the dungeon with you. 

Some henchmen will work per diem, but anyone with a good reputation will want a six-week or twelve-week contract. 

Good pay and other rewards will ensure higher morale; poor pay will result in low morale or even refusal to continue employment by that PC. 

 

Base pay unit, either per week of idleness or per dungeon trip:

·         Linkboys, lackeys, and valets: 5 GP

·         Porters: 10 GP

·         Shieldmaidens or squires: 20 GP

·         Men-at-arms, mercenary types: 50 GP

·         Henchmen with class levels: 100 GP per level

Linkboys are lantern and torch bearers. They can be as young as 7. 

Lackeys are unskilled servants. It’s unlikely you would bring one into the dungeon. 

Valets carry personal belongings, deliver messages and run errands. 

 

Each of these is retained for 5GP per week or per dungeon trip, whichever is more favorable to the henchman. 

 

Porters and Stevedores bear heavy non-combat gear such as treasure and adventuring supplies. They are retained for 10GP per trip. There are often per diem porters available since it’s pretty good money on a day off. 

 

Shieldmaidens and squires are very brave and loyal but will not fight. They are 0-level men or their master’s racial type. A character can only have one at a time. This follower will be the first to ask to be promoted to Retainer. When this promotion occurs, they become Level 1 and will do all the things a normal adventurer would do.

 

Mercenaries are 0-level Men who otherwise function as Fighting-Men.

 

Getting a leveled character to hench for you is very difficult. Elves won’t work for dwarf characters and vice versa, and neither of them will work for a hobbit. Clerics are already henched to God, so unless you’re a cleric, it’s unlikely you can snag one. Obviously fighting men are available to hire, and every so often you get a wizard down on his luck who will cast spells for you when things get hinky. 

With good treatment, any of these types can convert to Retainers, so keep your eyes peeled for a long-term commitment. 

 

Henchmen, Hirelings, Specialists and Retainers 

 

We toss these words around as if they are interchangeable, but they’re not. Henchmen and hirelings are indeed interchangeable - they are the NPCs who work for pay and fight on the PC’s behalf. Specialists are those with skills other than fighting and dying; anyone from a seamstress to a swordsmith to a solicitor. 

None of these types ever gains XP, even if they have a class and level. 

Retainers come in three flavors:

·         Special trusted assistants to the PC with class and level who take up a Retainer slot,

·         Charmed creatures (who also take up Retainer slots) and

·         Special animal companions such as a Paladin’s war horse or wizard’s familiar. 

Retainers must be of a lower experience level or hit die than the character himself. Indeed, why would an NPC pledge his service to a lord who is as inexperienced as himself? The purpose of becoming a retainer, or follower, is to gain protection, knowledge, and reputation from the greater lord. 

 

On Retainers’ Experience Levels

 

No matter what level the PC is, the vast majority of those who will offer service will be of first level. PCs of level 4 or higher will attract 2nd or 3rd level retainers 20% of the time. (81-90 2nd, 91-00 3rd.)

PCs of level 8 or higher will attract followers up to 6th level. (01-25 1st level, 26-70 2nd level, 71-80 3rd level, 81-90 4th level, 91-97 5th level, 98-00 6th level.) 

 

Raising Up A Retainer

 

If a PC has at least one henchman of level 1 or better, and they have henched for the PC for at least one season, one henchman of the Referee’s choice may ask to become a retainer. At which point the PC may accept, converting that paid hireling into a trusted Retainer, or the PC may decline. If he declines, the henchman will make a morale check. If failed, he will leave the PC’s company immediately in shame, anger or disgust. 

Exceptions:

·         PCs with their maximum retinue will not receive such offers of servitude. 

·         Dwarfs will not pledge service to elves or hobbits. Elves will not pledge service to dwarfs or hobbits. Men may pledge service to hobbits, but it is unusual to see. Of course, each race strongly favors its own as master. 

·         A magic-user will not pledge his service to a cleric.

·         A cleric will not pledge his service to anyone except a cleric or a lawful fighting-man, dwarf or hobbit. 

·         An anticleric may pledge service to anyone, but it is usually for ulterior motives. 

·         A low-level wizard may be able to collect a minion of greater level, such as a first-level wizard with an ogre in a retainer slot. If he has a familiar at Level 1, that familiar will have more Hit Dice than the wizard (1+1 versus 1.)

Henchmen Gaining Levels

Henchmen of the normal sort never gain XP.

 

Retainers’ Compensation and XP

 

A Retainer works for a half-share of treasure. That is, each PC takes 2 shares of whatever treasure they find, and the Retainer takes 1.

 

A Retainer levels up normally just like any character. However, the Retainer will level slower because he is receiving much less XP. In the unlikely event one attains the same level as his master, he will then immediately leave to seek his own fortune; perhaps and a friend and perhaps not. 

 

Hench for No Man

 

When your PC is unable to join in the adventure, send his henchmen instead. Make one the captain of the troupe and play that one as if he was a PC proper. Allow him to earn XP at the PC rate rather than at the henchman’s customary half-rate. The other henchmen gain XP as normal, and each of them gain treasure at the henchman rate, captain included. 

This option should not be available for any hirelings your character may employ, no matter how skilled; only Retainers can be used in this way. 

Shield Shenanigans

Shields Shall Be Splintered! is a combat maneuver available to figures who wield a shield as a class feature and are actually wielding one at that moment. 

Rather than permit a particular successful melee or missile attack, the player may choose to give up the figure’s shield - to allow it to be destroyed in exchange for not taking that instance of damage and effect. 

The player may choose this action after damage is rolled. 

He may not use this action against a spell, spell-like ability or an attack that deals no damage. 

In the case of a magic shield, using this action reduces the magical plus of the shield by one for 24 hours. A magical shield stripped of its pluses will splinter normally. 

nb: A canny player may have his main figure hire a shield bearer who can hold an additional shield or two for him in order to Splinter more often. 

Shieldmate

Two and only two figures with shields can stand abreast and Mate their shields, granting each other an additional +1 AC. 

BONUS: Henchmen Shall Be Splintered!

A PC figure which is adjacent to one of his followers (such as a porter, link-boy, or mercenary,) the player may sacrifice that NPC just like the figure’s own shield. 

Generic Henchman Cards

New! From Nonsense Games. Fund out Kickstarter
and I will personally hguydn your tuunch!

I want to encourage the several players to bring henchmen. To that end, I am devising cardstock character sheets for generic henchman types. 

The Porter card will look something like this. It will be large so that the players may have room to write down what they carry.

There will be mercenary cards and torchbearer cards as well, but they will be somewhat smaller: 

These are not at actual size. Each will be bigger. The Porter card is 8" long and the other cards are each that wide, making them easy to paper clip to the character sheet when not in play.

Henchmen and the Graveyard

Henchmen cards. When a player would hire a henchman, I would hand him the henchman’s character sheet printed on an index card. 

When the henchman survived an adventure, he would get a star. 

When he died, we would write the cause of death and put the card in a folder marked “graveyard”

Same for PC character sheets.

Cedric Strongpants was a Retainer. Little Liam Linkboy held a lantern. 

Poor guy. I think we’ve all had that recurring  nightmare about being killed by topiary. 

Employing Free Lancers

At some point you’re gonna want to hire lots and lots of men. Especially in the case of Fighting-Men, the topic and procedures inspext to commanding units of soldiers will come up sooner or later. To a more limited degree, this is true for the other classes as well. 

Perhaps the several PCs will want to clear out an area of the wilderlands in preparation for a new settlement. A 6-mile hex is gymungous: 32 square miles! For this or other reasons, they will want to hire mercenaries to make such a campaign feasible in a realistic amount of time. 

Mercenaries will generally have three functions. One is as a garrison to man keeps and forts. Two is to form the bulk of armies or navies. Three is to go into a dungeon as henchmen. 

In Garrison 

In the first case, garrison, each man will cost 20gp per month. This figure pays for their horse, meals, and board, and averages in the cost of their sergeants and lieutenants and so forth. For instance, a unit of ten figures will have eight 0-level men, two 0-level squad leaders, and a 1st-level sergeant. (Yes I know that’s 11 guys. It counts as a unit of ten.)

Such a unit will cost 200gp per month. During a month they are not paid, 25% of men will desert and all morale will lower by 1. More generous pay and better treatment will raise morale, but no higher than 9. 

As garrison costs are between 2 and 4 GP per family per month, a garrison of ten soldiers will satisfy 50-100 families. 

On Campaign

When on campaign, which broadly speaking means a formal military action, fielding troops costs an additional 25% to account for extended supply lines. In the example of the previous ten-man unit, that means 250gp per month.

Additionally, the army in total requires 50% of all plunder taken during the campaign. Waging war is expensive! 

On its face, this means a unit will have to net 250 GP of takings per month in order for the PC to break even. Over long campaigns with hundreds of troops, this is likely to be impossible. But in the short term (a month or two) as a fixed expense in the low thousands of GP, mid level PCs should be able to put together a force capable of clearing a six-mile hex. 

Units which do not receive this base pay plus combat pay plus spoils will check morale at the start of that month. Those which do not pass will desert; any critical failure results in the unit deserting and turning on the PCs. 

Rather than checking for the whole army or for the individual, check for approximately 20% of units at a time or a similar break point as the Referee determines. 

In The Dungeon

In the case of a dungeon, it is unlikely that you would hire ten men at a time; the space is too limited. It will usually be better to hire men for specific purposes, as detailed in this post. That can be significantly more expensive, but also much more lucrative. And lucrative is the name of the game. 

Better Retainers

In my player’s rule book, I counsel the players to convert their henchmen to retainers asap but don’t say how that works. 

This is how. 

Henchmen, Hirelings, Specialists and Retainers 

We toss these words around as if they are interchangeable, but they’re not. 

Henchmen and hirelings are indeed interchangeable - they are the NPCs who work for pay and fight on the PC’s behalf. 

Specialists are those with skills other than fighting and dying; anyone from a seamstress to a swordsmith to a solicitor. 

None of these types ever gains XP, even if they have a class and level. 

Retainers come in three flavors: special trusted assistants to the PC with class and level who take up a Retainer slot, charmed creatures (who also take up Retainer slots) and special animal companions such as a Paladin’s war horse or wizard’s familiar. 

Retainers must be of a lower experience level or hit die than the character himself. Indeed, why would an NPC pledge his service to a lord who is as inexperienced as himself? The purpose of becoming a retainer, or follower, is to gain protection, knowledge, and reputation from the greater lord. 

On retainers’ experience levels

No matter what level the PC is, the vast majority of those who will offer service will be of first level. PCs of level 4 or higher will attract 2nd or 3rd level retainers 20% of the time. (81-90 2nd, 91-00 3rd.)

PCs of level 8 or higher will attract followers up to 6th level. (61-70 2nd level, 71-80 3rd level, 81-90 4th level, 91-97 5th level, 98-00 6th level.) 

If a PC has at least one henchman of level 1 or better, and they have henched for the PC for at least one season, one henchman of the Referee’s choice may ask to become a retainer. At which point the PC may accept, converting that paid hireling into a trusted Retainer, or the PC may decline. If he declines, the henchman will make a morale check. If failed, he will leave the PC’s company immediately in shame, anger or disgust. 

Exceptions 

PCs with their maximum retinue will not receive such offers of servitude. 

Dwarfs will not pledge service to elves or hobbits. Elves will not pledge service to dwarfs or hobbits. Men may pledge service to hobbits but it is unusual to see. Of course each race strongly favors its own as master. 

A magic-user will not pledge his service to a cleric.

A cleric will not pledge his service to anyone except a cleric or a lawful fighting-man, dwarf or hobbit. 

An anticleric may pledge service to anyone, but it is usually for ulterior motives. 

Another exception is in the case of a wizard with Charmed minions. A low-level wizard may be able to collect a minion of greater level, such as a first-level wizard with an ogre in a retainer slot 

Henchmen gaining levels

A Retainer levels up normally just like any character. In the unlikely event one attains the same level as his master, he will then immediately leave to seek his own fortune, perhaps and a friend and perhaps not.