Retainers, henchmen, hirelings and redshirts?

[Wolfwood2]

I am kind of glad that henchmen and hirelings have been returned to the level of pure roleplaying. You want your PC to have a sidekick? Cultivate one in-character.

There was a time when I liked 3E's Leadership feat, but I've grown really disenchanted with it. Every time I saw it used, it was essentially, "Okay, I took my feat. Now give me a secondary character to play during combats." And worse, it meant that if somebody else developed a relationship with a NPC naturally, that NPC couldn't be expected to hang around unless they paid a feat for the privilege.

 

[Mort_Q]

The Economy of Actions

Found the BlogPost!

The Economy of Actions

It's not directly related to the 4e plans, but it is related to what the issues are... at least as far as I recall.

Worth a read either way.

 

[frankthedm]

For a start on house-ruling it, look at the rules on mounts. Basically, mounts are an extra creature, so the DM should add extra baddies to each combat without giving extra experience. If you've got a warhorse (175XP, I believe), the DM should add 175 XP worth of bonus creatures on top of the combat to even it out, or subtract 175 from the experience reward.

That’s only fair if the PCs are callously letting their weaker allies die. Eight Redshirts sent to fight 8 Orc Minions is
”numerically” fair and pretty much a death sentence for 75% of those involved.

In my experience with players who are not sacrificing redshirts, the PCs make it a point to soak the brunt of their foes aggression, having their allies acting as backup. With that DMG suggestion, the party faces a notably stronger opposing force only counterable by sending in lesser allies into the meat grinder.

 

[Bison]

I believe the martial power sourcebook is giving Rangers their pets back.

but as I understand it, the pets wont have their own actions, you will just have feats and exploits that will assume your pet did something neat to aid your attack

 

[Daniel D. Fox]

RE: Economy of Actions

I personally never saw an issue with economy of actions in any iteration of Dungeons and Dragons. The DM manages his foes' actions, the players manage their allies' actions.

Don't quite understand the idea behind fixing something that wasn't broken in the first place, but I can identify with eliminating Leadership as a feat and working hirlings/henchman/NPCs as roleplaying devices.

 

[Byronic]

but as I understand it, the pets wont have their own actions, you will just have feats and exploits that will assume your pet did something neat to aid your attack

Do you have a source for that? I'd love to read more about it.

 

[Bison]

Do you have a source for that? I'd love to read more about it.

No, sorry, nothing concrete, just bits from conversations on threads long forgotten.

just speculation really, didn't mean to get your hopes up

 

[Blackbrrd]

RE: Economy of Actions

I personally never saw an issue with economy of actions in any iteration of Dungeons and Dragons. The DM manages his foes' actions, the players manage their allies' actions.

Don't quite understand the idea behind fixing something that wasn't broken in the first place, but I can identify with eliminating Leadership as a feat and working hirlings/henchman/NPCs as roleplaying devices.

Let us take 3.5 as an example:
You take the leadership feat at level 10. You get a second character at level 8. Now you have the actions of a 10th level character and an 8th level character.

You can then compare it to taking.. Lightning reflexes which gives +2 reflex saves.

If you are just going for pure min/max aspect, what would be the best feat? The leadership feat? Yeah.. Just make the cohort a cleric at let him buff you, heal you, help you flank, etc, etc...

Let us say you are playing with 4 other players. All the other players have had their characters take the leadership feat and gotten an extra character to play. You have only got one...

 

[Victoly]

From a purely "game aesthetic/attitude" point of view, I doubt the designers wanted to encourage the characters to have a group of people they knew were going to die follow them around. Keeping your own group of cannon fodder isn't really heroic.

 

[robertliguori]

From a purely "game aesthetic/attitude" point of view, I doubt the designers wanted to encourage the characters to have a group of people they knew were going to die follow them around. Keeping your own group of cannon fodder isn't really heroic.

Is this more or less heroic than killing enemies and gaining a boon from nameless entities from beyond the stars?

For better or worse, there is no assumption of good and morally-upright PC behavior in 4E.