Halivar
First Post
I have an idea for my next game, but I don't know if it's feasible. Looking for suggestions; how to run it, how to balance it, or how to fix it if there are glaring holes.
I plan to run it in a sandbox, and I'm looking for the sort of party dynamics found in Glen Cook's The Black Company. The PC's would be the leaders of a mercenary company in the sandbox world, and chooses jobs, adventures, raids, "operations", or even campaigns based on their personal whim, and the company of NPC's follows their lead.
My current idea is to have players use the OSRIC Charisma table and pick up henchmen Like thus. In the followers table, though, level 1 henchmen are treated as minions. Followers listed as being "level 2" henchmen have 2 hp per level, "level 3" have 3 hp per level, and so on. The actual level of these henchmen depends on their experience, which they accrue in a manner yet to be determined.
Henchmen are a resource to be spent. But if the party has a habit of sending level 1 minions in first as monster fodder, fewer level 1 minions will be signing up. Henchmen are also in different roles. Each role has a different statblock. Largely, they will follow the model set forth in a military organization. A cook, for instance, will be needed to provide food for the company. Starving henchmen will desert the band. A quartermaster will be needed to PAY the henchmen (unless someone in the party wants to handle that kind of minutae, which is possible). OR the henchmen can be combat henchmen, who can travel into danger with the party, gain levels, and increase in usefulness (and difficulty to replace). Henchmen come in the same basic roles all non-leader monsters come in (soldiers, brutes, and lurkers), plus sages, medics, hostlers, and other non-combat roles necessary to keep a medival war band up to fighting shape.
Players have to recruit all henchmen as level 1 minions. Since the party needs these guys to be tough and up to their speed, they will need to occasionally hit up "lower level" areas of the sandbox world to build team skills and whatnot.
How would you suggest I balance this? Tougher fights? More monsters? If so, how do I speed up combat? Is it just a flat-out bad idea? What about payouts? In the sandbox world, how much should the company recieve from a patron for a level 1 "job" that would be the equiavlent of giving the core party a parcel package?
I plan to run it in a sandbox, and I'm looking for the sort of party dynamics found in Glen Cook's The Black Company. The PC's would be the leaders of a mercenary company in the sandbox world, and chooses jobs, adventures, raids, "operations", or even campaigns based on their personal whim, and the company of NPC's follows their lead.
My current idea is to have players use the OSRIC Charisma table and pick up henchmen Like thus. In the followers table, though, level 1 henchmen are treated as minions. Followers listed as being "level 2" henchmen have 2 hp per level, "level 3" have 3 hp per level, and so on. The actual level of these henchmen depends on their experience, which they accrue in a manner yet to be determined.
Henchmen are a resource to be spent. But if the party has a habit of sending level 1 minions in first as monster fodder, fewer level 1 minions will be signing up. Henchmen are also in different roles. Each role has a different statblock. Largely, they will follow the model set forth in a military organization. A cook, for instance, will be needed to provide food for the company. Starving henchmen will desert the band. A quartermaster will be needed to PAY the henchmen (unless someone in the party wants to handle that kind of minutae, which is possible). OR the henchmen can be combat henchmen, who can travel into danger with the party, gain levels, and increase in usefulness (and difficulty to replace). Henchmen come in the same basic roles all non-leader monsters come in (soldiers, brutes, and lurkers), plus sages, medics, hostlers, and other non-combat roles necessary to keep a medival war band up to fighting shape.
Players have to recruit all henchmen as level 1 minions. Since the party needs these guys to be tough and up to their speed, they will need to occasionally hit up "lower level" areas of the sandbox world to build team skills and whatnot.
How would you suggest I balance this? Tougher fights? More monsters? If so, how do I speed up combat? Is it just a flat-out bad idea? What about payouts? In the sandbox world, how much should the company recieve from a patron for a level 1 "job" that would be the equiavlent of giving the core party a parcel package?
