embee
Lawyer by day. Rules lawyer by night.
That only works once. After that, you get a reputation for using hirelings as cannon fodder and no one wants to work for you. As Mal Reynolds said, "What good's a reward, kid, if you're ain't around to use it?"We just took a boatload of henchmen and hirelings everywhere and used them mercilessly as meat shields until the PCs levelled up enough to be survivable. In the early days, the way we played if you actually took damage at any point you were doing it wrong.
Even a blue dragon in 1st edition didn't last long against a 100 man group with longbows.