D&D 5E Adventurer's Guild

[KarinsDad]

I will be taking over as DM later this year when our current DM leaves town.

I will retire my PC to create an Adventurer's Guild. As DM, I will then create (typically first level) NPCs to join the guild. The 5 PCs will be able to add these NPCs to the party (run by the players). The PCs will be about level 8, so the NPCs will need to be able to acquire XP to survive. I don't want these guys to be hirelings, rather I want them to be considered "party members" by the PCs.

But I'm not sure how to hand out XP. I was thinking of making encounters a hair tougher and handing out normal XP. Alternatively, do that and do some type of ratio of XP based on level. Any ideals?

I do not want the players to not take these guys along because they do not want to lose PC XP. Rather, I want the players to embrace these NPCs as fellow PCs and be able to experience others races/classes of 5E by playing these weaker characters (while still playing their main PC). Any given player can play one of these NPCs or not. I'm not going to force them on the players, but I do want to give the players the option of having these NPCs in the group. Almost like 1E followers, but a bit more.

Thoughts on how to handle XP?

 

[trentonjoe]

I would just give them 1/2 share of XP. The NPC's will go from 1-5 in the time it takes the 8's to get to 9.

 

[Hereticus]

We usually encourage the players to design guilds and organizations.

In HotDQ my dwarf fighter is an armor smith and stone mason from Silverymoon. The stone masons guild was to be called the Icewind Dale Independent Order of Terraformers, but the DM said that name was idiotic.

 

[Rune]

Presumably these NPCs will be adventuring in the absence of the PCs, yes?

Assume that any NPCs that aren't adventuring with the PCs are going on one or more of the other posted adventures. Assign an XP total to those adventures (on par with what the PCs would have earned had they done them) and reward the NPCs appropriately.

 

[Saeviomagy]

If you have to use conventional xp, give them a full share. Personally I'm a fan of just avoiding xp calculations entirely, and awarding arbitrary amounts when I feel like it.

I.e. the pc's are a third of the way through the module, and thus should be a third of the way to level X.