Henchmen, Hirelings, Faith, and Heresy

[Klaus]

If you don't want to have a boatload of people following you into the dungeon, you might consider giving more than one trait to a single hireling. As per Schwalb's suggestion over on Facebook, it wouldn't be worth the full price for the additional traits, since death is 1 hp away. But If you can grant temp hp to the hireling at the start of combat, you increase the durability of your investment. This might be a good middle ground between a hireling and a full-blown henchman.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

The main thing I didn't like was the sidebar saying that DMs shouldn't take away divine class powers because it would be unfair. I agree that it would be unfair and that is the "real," behind-the-scenes reason, but IMO the stated reason should because that's not how divine magic works in the D&D world. I'm totally fine with rules being based on good gameplay first, but as much as possible they should be given strong, in-setting explanations.

That was one of the things I didn't like about the article as well. I understand why doing that to a PC could be considered "offside" but if someone was being truly problematic by misrepresenting their deity, then I could see it happening.

I think it would have been better if they'd provided a ritual to cut off a cleric from his/her power. It might require them to be willing or helpless, but that's not as hard to achieve as it sounds. It could work like "stilling" an Aes Sedai in the Wheel of Time. Heck, you could even have it apply to any class to cut them off from their Power Source. Interesting.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

If you don't want to have a boatload of people following you into the dungeon, you might consider giving more than one trait to a single hireling. As per Schwalb's suggestion over on Facebook, it wouldn't be worth the full price for the additional traits, since death is 1 hp away. But If you can grant temp hp to the hireling at the start of combat, you increase the durability of your investment. This might be a good middle ground between a hireling and a full-blown henchman.

It just occurred to me: if they die, you get your gold back. That is, unless they left it topside with a family member. There's even a chance you could negotiate to pay them from the spoils. Your DM may not agree, but it's one way to ensure value for your gold piece.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

@ Not taking away divine powers:

It could be interesting that you later find out that it was not bahamut who answered your prayers and fueled your divine powers, but tiamat...

 

[Zaran]

It just occurred to me: if they die, you get your gold back. That is, unless they left it topside with a family member. There's even a chance you could negotiate to pay them from the spoils. Your DM may not agree, but it's one way to ensure value for your gold piece.

Of course, you would run out of willing hirelings after your rep for not compensating their families spreads around.

 

[Badwe]

A few people mentioned the odd-ness of a levl 30 linkboy. Do keep in mind that the article mentioned specifically that paragon and epic are extremely rare people. Imagine wise hermits or ancient martial arts masters secluded high in the mountain tops. The pay is likely only a small part of equation, maybe you're not even paying them directly but that's what it costs to hire a team to guide you to their remote mountain bungalow so that you can use diplomacy to convince them of the value of your journey and why they should join.

Similarly, for the prices, don't always assume you're directly putting the gold pieces into the hirelings hand. Perhaps your stable-hand works for a ranch, and the adventurers paid a hefty sum up-front to them for his services. Afterwards, a partial refund would be issued depending on how many days the stablehand was missing. In turn, the hireling will get only a portion of the money as a wage, while the ranch would use the rest for something like insurance or a fund for his family should he disappear. The end result is that the PCs removed 60gp for being on a 4 day adventure, but the actual money that was exchanged was much more complex behind the game-based abstraction.

 

[IanB]

Sure, the mountaintop hermit super rarity thing works fine for a lot of them.

Not so much for the linkboy. He's spent years perfecting his torch holding just so. (But it still only goes 5 squares, so much for meditation.)

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

I think the idea is that a Paragon Linkboy is maybe a magical construct that holds a lamp or a Will-o-wisp that you summoned or charmed into tagging along, and perhaps an Epic one would be a Lantern Archon or something like that.

That's how I would suggest fluffing it, anyway.

 

[Klaus]

I think the idea is that a Paragon Linkboy is maybe a magical construct that holds a lamp or a Will-o-wisp that you summoned or charmed into tagging along, and perhaps an Epic one would be a Lantern Archon or something like that.

That's how I would suggest fluffing it, anyway.

I was just going to type that!

So here's a fun exercise: let's come up with paragon and epic hirelings!

 

[jimmifett]

You need a Level 30 Linkboy? You're on your way to slay a rather naughty evil god? For a 125k per day in gold, the Church of Pelor will supply you with Pelor's Light, an artifact given to us by Pelor himself in ages past. This sphere that pulses light and whispy tendrils of flame dance upon it's surface looks very much like a model of the sun itself. It sheds beautiful daylight 25 feet in every carindal direction, and miraculously, 35.355 feet along the bisecting lines of symmetry between any two adjancent perpindicular cardinal points.

Of course, this holy gift from Pelor, with it's miraculous cube shaped daylight, can only be used by a member of the Dable family, who's ancester, Expen, was first given the artifact by Pelor. Should this scion of the Expen Dable family perish on your journey, you would not be able to use this artifiact yourself, and we would have to mount an expidition to retrieve Pelor's Light. As you are well aware, adventurers willing to go into a mad god's lair to retrieve anything costs money, and so we need to make sure we can afford any recovery costs...