The difference between henchmen, hirelings, and NPC party members?

mAcular Chaotic · September 25, 2017, 01:01:56 AM

I am playing D&D 5e, and I've started fleshing out a more complete system for hiring help since one of the PCs has like 1500 gp and wants to use it to hire guides and guards.

I've often seen distinctions made for previous editions of D&D about the different types PCs could hire, like "henchmen," "hirelings," and other NPC adventurers, but I was never quite clear on what the differences were.

Could you guys who are familiar with older D&D games explain how it all works? As far as I can gather, one group are like expendable mooks, and the other are actual player classes like Fighters or Wizards who you hired.

And what kind of systems do you use for this or do you think is best, if a game already handles it well?

Christopher Brady · September 25, 2017, 01:30:50 AM

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;995610I am playing D&D 5e, and I've started fleshing out a more complete system for hiring help since one of the PCs has like 1500 gp and wants to use it to hire guides and guards.

I've often seen distinctions made for previous editions of D&D about the different types PCs could hire, like "henchmen," "hirelings," and other NPC adventurers, but I was never quite clear on what the differences were.

Could you guys who are familiar with older D&D games explain how it all works? As far as I can gather, one group are like expendable mooks, and the other are actual player classes like Fighters or Wizards who you hired.

And what kind of systems do you use for this or do you think is best, if a game already handles it well?

Alright, from what I remember, henchmen were best thought of as lieutenants. These were trusted individuals with a modicum of skill and loyalty that served you. They were highly trained and motivated, often having player classes a few levels under the Player. A Hireling, is more 'cannon fodder' although they may not be, typically used as soldiers or porters depending on their limited skill set. Often, Hirelings had no real class nor levels.

I don't know of any other classification.

Mind you, this is me pulling this from my memory of AD&D 1 and 2e, I could be wrongly remembering or mistaken on some details. Someone please correct me (and I mean that, in case the tone doesn't carry.)

mAcular Chaotic · September 25, 2017, 03:30:08 AM

That sounds like what I was thinking of. Did they have different costs to hire?

I tweaked my own system for 5e, which I'll post here. This is for hirelings:

I'm happy with this but then I realized hiring a "henchmen" might be hard to tell apart with this. A knight might as well be as strong as a PC after all.

Omega · September 25, 2017, 04:02:39 AM

Chris has it pretty right.
Hirelings are mostly support. Mostly noncoms like porters, camp watch, handlers, etc and some guards. Often in the background until needed
Henchemen are NPCs with personality usually. Often with levels. But could also be monsters the PCs have one over. These also served as backup characters in case a PC went down. Usually fairly loyal to their respective PC. Sometimes handled by the player, sometimes not.
NPCs in the group are exactly that. They are there. They have their agendas and might at some point depart. Most often DM handled.

BX also had Mercenaries, who were hired armies, often to guard a PCs castle. but could be militia and such or specialists like sages and spies.

mAcular Chaotic · September 25, 2017, 04:05:42 AM

Can you take a look at the rules I posted? What do you think of those for 5e?

Omega · September 25, 2017, 05:52:55 AM

It reads like too much to get a simple thing done and also the idea of using CHA to determine the level/CR of the hireling sounds like an all around bad idea.

mAcular Chaotic · September 25, 2017, 11:52:30 AM

How come? I thought CHA determined how many you could have normally so it seemed like it would make sense. Though it doesn't mean they're always available, just that it's the highest you could go.

Dumarest · September 25, 2017, 01:28:18 PM

Get Gronan on here; he will give a good answer.

Ratman_tf · September 25, 2017, 01:59:14 PM

Quote from: Dumarest;995721Get Gronan on here; he will give a good answer.

Or tell everyone to stop taking D&D so seriously, and tongue his pee hole.

Christopher Brady · September 25, 2017, 02:04:35 PM

Quote from: Ratman_tf;995729Or tell everyone to stop taking D&D so seriously, and tongue his pee hole.

Off Topic: Am I the ONLY one who's tired of that shit?

Gronan of Simmerya · September 25, 2017, 02:09:05 PM

Originally, henchmen could go up levels, hirelings were just ordinary blokes with useful abilities, and NPCs were those who didn't stay with you.

The bartender is an NPC. The ordinary human mercenaries and the alchemist you recruited at the bar are hirelings. The second level magic user you recruited is a henchman.

Now, no idea.

jeff37923 · September 25, 2017, 02:12:40 PM

Quote from: Christopher Brady;995732Off Topic: Am I the ONLY one who's tired of that shit?

Nope.

Christopher Brady · September 25, 2017, 02:23:06 PM

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;995734Originally, henchmen could go up levels, hirelings were just ordinary blokes with useful abilities, and NPCs were those who didn't stay with you.

The bartender is an NPC. The ordinary human mercenaries and the alchemist you recruited at the bar are hirelings. The second level magic user you recruited is a henchman.

Now, no idea.

From what I'm gathering, if you DO use Henchmen rules, it's pretty much the same in 5e. Now, Hirelings in 5e have 'unique' classes (like guard, scout, knight, commoner) but they're useful as both hirelings and enemies, but they don't level up. Now, if you have the resources, and decide to drive a caravan (I had no idea just how many adventures I could make up by making my PC's actual merchants...) and hire Guards, they can handle a fair bit of combat, but are still nothing compared to PCs.

Gronan of Simmerya · September 25, 2017, 02:54:18 PM

Quote from: Christopher Brady;995732Off Topic: Am I the ONLY one who's tired of that shit?

Quote from: jeff37923;995737Nope.

And when is the last time I actually said it?

mAcular Chaotic · September 25, 2017, 03:03:29 PM

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;995734Originally, henchmen could go up levels, hirelings were just ordinary blokes with useful abilities, and NPCs were those who didn't stay with you.

The bartender is an NPC. The ordinary human mercenaries and the alchemist you recruited at the bar are hirelings. The second level magic user you recruited is a henchman.

Now, no idea.

It's basically the same. However, if I let PCs hire stronger and stronger hirelings then I realized that some of them are just stronger than the "henchmen," ie., the low level magic user you might hire.

At which point I'm wondering what the difference is really.

And the reason I linked it to Charisma is because I remembered people talking about how Charisma was actually useful in the old days beyond a dump stat because it let you hire people, and also that it was one of the things the Fighter would have over the wizard.

Was there anything that limited how many people you could hire? Or could anyone hire 1000 men if they had the gold for it?