D&D 4E Hirelings in 4e

[s0lman1978]

Has anyone seen rules for hirelings in 4e? And where are they?

 

[Obryn]

Not as of yet. I think there are a few good ways to do them, though.

(1) Make them minions. Really, it should work fine.

(2) Use the NPC creation rules and go from there.

-O

 

[DanmarLOK]

Define hireling as you're using it? I.e. someone you hire to build your castle or people you hire to travel through your adventures with you and help you kill monsters or something in between?

 

[Cyronax]

Its a lot more freeform than in past editions. I'd say a series of skill challenges could be devised that would scrounge up a host of needed hirelings for say - construction of castle.

Along with the successes of the challenge, serious coin would need to be laid down as well.

 

[Jack Colby]

Not as of yet. I think there are a few good ways to do them, though.

(1) Make them minions. Really, it should work fine.

(2) Use the NPC creation rules and go from there.

-O

I had considered giving a lone PC some hireling/henchman style minions to try and increase survivability. Anyone have experience using this method? I agree, it seems like it should work fine, but...

 

[Siberys]

Well, just make 'em work like monsters. Then, add in XP to each combat equal to the XP of the hirelings, and don't award it to the single PC.

For example, you have 1 1st level PC with 2 1st level hirelings. An average combat would have an XP budget of 300 XP, but you'd only award the PC 100.

Alternately (and sorry for getting a bit OT here), you could run just one PC, no hirelings, but survivability may be a problem (especially if the player is a striker or controller). Leaders and defenders would be reasonably survivable, but a leader wouldn't be able to lead himself, so a defender would probably be best; I'd suggest a paladin due to it's healing abilities. Going by the above example, an average encounter for a lone level 1 would have an XP budget of 100, all of which would be awarded to the PC.

 

[Hambot]

Make it a monster, add an at-will power and make sure it has a recharge power.

give it experience and level it up like a PC if it lives that long.

Worked in my game - but its not getting dailys, it gets lower level encounter powers with a recharge on it instead.

 

[Klaus]

You might want to include the henchmen in the XP division, so they level up. I'm thinking of using this even for combat-oriented mounts like warhorses and hippogriffs.

 

[DanmarLOK]

Given what you're wanting, I'd just do the time honored tradition for a small group of a DMNPC, a DM controlled character that follows the group around or simply have the player(s) run more than one character (not suitable for every player).

There's also perhaps an expanded 'pet' system where the player has two standard, one move, one minor action and gets to control a henchman/hireling with the stipulation one of the standard actions can only be used by the henchman. This would simulate the player's character spending time ordering the henchman around and thus the pair of them wouldn't get two full sets of actions.

D

 

[ricardo440]

There are rules for having powerful mounts in the DMG. (you just add their XP cost to the enemies budget each time).
You could use the same thing.