Henchmen, Followers, Cohorts and Companions

[WhimsyTheFae]

As the GM, I don't mind having NPCs in the group. Whether or not I run them largely depends on the players in question. I've had players that only want to worry about one character, players that are unable to play more than one character and players that do a fine job playing multiple characters.

 

[TerraDave]

Leadership has brought henchmen, er I mean cohorts, back to the table. The fact that one is clearly in charge and that the other is supposed to only play a secondary role seems to make one-PC-two-charecters work a lot better then the few cases I know of where somene just tried to play two charecters.

 

[howandwhy99]

Henchpersons / Cohorts are played in combat by the Players.

Followers and friends, family, or anyone called companion is played by the DM.

 

[Thurbane]

It really depends on the size of the group - if we have a small number of players, I'm always happy to see the party bulked-out with NPCs of one sort or another.

It also depends on my character concept - if I'm playing a Marshal/Legendary Leader, then I defnitely want as many bodies following me around as possible. If I'm playing an eccentric, hermit-like Sorcerer, then all I need is probably a familiar...

 

[Stormborn]

Due to number of players we have started playing 2 PCs each. I enjoy it but generally prefer playing a single PC with the occasional familiar/animal companion/cohort - especially given that I tend to play the spellcasters. Right now at 9th level a Battle Sorcerer with air elemental familiar and a cleric can sometimes get a little hard to keep on track. The Sorc is the "main" character and the cleric tends to stay in the background in RP situations - unless I want to do something "good" or make a selfless suggestion, something the CN Battle Sorcerer played as Wild West gunfighter would (almost) never do.

 

[Hussar]

Depends on the task really. I'm not adverse to hiring some spear carriers once in a while, but, we've never been big on carting around small armies with us.

 

[painandgreed]

How many henchmen and the like that showed up in my pre 3.5 games varied greatly between games. Some we had none, while others our "party" was very close to 50 people. Typically we always tried for around 8 PCs, with the DM playing one or people running multiples if needed. Even when just NPCs, it seemed there was enough people and most roles were duplicated with two fighters, two spell casters, two theives, etc.

With 3.5, the NPCs disappeared and party size shrank to 4 or 5. That just really doesn't make sence, especially at lower levels. One person goes down and you're out a role most likely. eg Cleric goes down and no more healing. Too many times I've said to myself, why are just the four of us cleaning out this dungeon in several trips, when with just a few hirelings we could probably clean it out easier in a night?

 

[Doug McCrae]

Do you prefer, when playing D&D (any edition), to be controlling just the one character?

I've pretty much always played 1:1, which is what I prefer, not just in D&D but all rpging. I started in 1982.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

Back in the Auld Dayes before D&D actually had the A tacked on in front of it everyone I gamed with almost always ran 2 characters. There was no particular reason to do so. I never knew or heard of anywhere that it was stated we should. We just did. Oh and we had LOTS of players. We would routinely have 6 or 8 players, and a few times we had 10 or 12. With AT LEAST 2 characters each that meant 12-24 PC's on some adventures. Yeah some players even had more, but it was an unspoken understanding that more than 2 was excessive. After all, it would just cut that much deeper into the shares.

We maintained that habit of keeping 2 or more characters until somewhere around the time that 2nd Edition came along. By then we had noticed some undesireable tendencies when one player was running two PC's. Things like loaning or giving equipment and money. And one PC would always become the dominant one, the other losing a great deal of any personality or active input. One character was clearly enough except for those somewhat rare occasions when we'd be taking on really heavy arch-villains or a really big adventure that you just couldn't bear to think that your 2nd PC wouldn't be in on it.

By the time 3E came along it was a fairly hard rule - 1 PC per player. Additional PC's would only be introduced if your regular PC became involved in something that would sideline him for a large amount of game time. Rather than actually let time pass (heaven forbid!) waiting for them, a new PC would be allowed - but then would have to be set aside if the original PC was to resume play.

With 3E of course NOTHING in the game actually took up a significant amount of time anymore. Not spell research, item creation, training for advancing levels, etc. PC's never have reason to need to take large chunks of time to do anything. We had far fewer players so 4 or 5 PC's in the party was it and they did EVERYTHING together. I've only seen 1 player since then stumble into having more than one PC and that came about quite by accident of game events, good roleplaying, and a changing player roster.

 

[Irda Ranger]

Always 1 PC, but sometimes henchmen and hirelings made sense at lower levels for certain types of adventures. We noticed the problems that the Man in the Funny Hat did when people tried playing 2 PC's, so we just said you couldn't do that.

Nothing wrong with torch-bearers and wagon-drivers though when going into the wild. You also need a crew, if you're going adventuring at sea. Certain types of adventures are like Frodo and Sam going to Mordor alone, while others are more like being the leader of an expedition on Safari, or to the hidden Kingdom of Tibet. Got sherpas?