Hireling, henchmen, extras and redshirts.

[DragonShadow]

In the campaign I'm running now, the party has several NPC allies that accompany them on several missions.

Once in the past, they had to hire extra muscle to assault a fortress. For whatever reason, they felt that 50 men would be enough to take out a fortress rumored to hold 150 hobgoblins. (Hobgoblins that were rumored to be battle hardened, aka - with class levels.)

The initial battle went about as well as you would expect...about half of the men died horribly before ever breaching the gate. Showing STALWART resolve (I must have been crazy to allow it) the remaining men entered the fortress when the gate was breached (thanks Stone Shape). Half the remaining men died in an ambush at the inner gate. Too late to turn back now (it shouldn't have been...the poor bastards) the party (who sustained no wounds up to this point, mind you) continue forward with the rest of the men.

They meet a spellcaster who readied Fireball that day.

The two surviving men turn tail and book it all the way back to the nearest town (4 days travel down the mountains).

Strangely, nobody would work for them after that.

 

[Tuzenbach]

....extras and redshirts....

Personally, I'm stuck on Bobby "The Brain" Heenan's term: ham and eggers

 

[VirgilCaine]

The initial battle went about as well as you would expect...about half of the men died horribly before ever breaching the gate.

WTF? Breach the gate?

How tall were the walls?

Hmmmmm.
50 men...

Invisibility Sphere+Sculpt Sound would let you get close to the wall without taking fire, Spider Climb Potions to climb the wall easily, use Tanglefoot bags to keep say, five guys in position on the wall while others lower the chains tied elaborately around their bodies (ends of the chain are "glued" together with Stone Shape's clay-like stone molded around the ends of the chain--high DR and HP should keep the chain or stone from being easily sundered, barring a Stone Dragon enthusiast) while the rest climb the chains attached to the men.

You could also easily have one guy down Invisibility+Gaseous Form potions and do this while still invisible on top of the wall after dismissing the Gaseous Form spell. Dwarven Defender would be choice here.

 

[haakon1]

WTF? Breach the gate?

How tall were the walls?

Hmmmmm.
50 men...

Invisibility Sphere+Sculpt Sound would let you get close to the wall without taking fire, Spider Climb Potions to climb the wall easily, use Tanglefoot bags to keep say, five guys in position on the wall while others lower the chains tied elaborately around their bodies (ends of the chain are "glued" together with Stone Shape's clay-like stone molded around the ends of the chain--high DR and HP should keep the chain or stone from being easily sundered, barring a Stone Dragon enthusiast) while the rest climb the chain attached to the men.

You could easily have one guy down Invisibility+Gaseous Form potions and do this while still invisible on top of the wall after dismissing the Gaseous Form spell. Dwarven Defender would be choice here.

Wow . . . your campaign must be very different from mine.

I'm trying to explain the difference here . . . breach the wall and use an army seems normal to me. Medieval plus a little magic and dragons = normal to me.

What you said seems totally alien.

Having every convenient spell, magic item, and prestige class to choose from seems odd to me. Of the 3 games I run and 1 I play in, nobody currently has a prestige class or any of the items you mention -- except maybe one or two of the potions -- and there's little prospect of buying them. The one magic shop available has a very limited and specific inventory, that goes down if somebody buys it.

Maybe we're just used to very different levels, plus my folks don't play as often so they don't get as into the rules? To us, 1st-10th is fun, and after about 13th it gets a bit silly and so bogged down in rules it's like doing a tax return.

And for us medieval interaction with a medieval world is more fun than searching rule books.

 

[VirgilCaine]

Wow . . . your campaign must be very different from mine.

Yes our campaigns are very different.
I was speaking of a D&D campaign world as presented by the Core Rules. What most people think of as an "average" campaign world.

The fact that your world was not "average" should have been mentioned in your post. Why? Because your game is different and there are different standards to think under.

Had I known of the low-magic nature of your campaign, in your PCs case, instead of breaking in, I would have suggested that they should have done their best to keep anyone from going in or out of the fortress, especially with food supplies, and propagated as much disease as possible inside the enemy fortress.
That should have softened up the 150 hobgoblins considerably after two or three weeks, and the PCs might have a chance against them with 50 men.

They'd probably take some sallies from the fortress, further reducing the enemies numbers.

Unless, of course, the enemy simply ordered 2/3s (100) of the hobgoblins to immediately move outside the fortress and attack the PC force...unless the PCs concentrated on area spells, they probably would lose.

Having every convenient spell, magic item, and prestige class to choose from seems odd to me.

Don't exaggerate. Don't do that. Lots of people who prefer low-magic games do that when they're talking about things, and it's very tiring.

What I stated takes nothing more than three or four 3rd level or lower spells from the PHB (Which, except for Sculpt Sound, should be easily available at any town given a few days to request a scroll to be made [town used as a technical term, viz. the DMG community guidelines] or from PC spellcasters) and a single 50 gp alchemical item.
Dwarven Defender was a suggestion, not integral to the plan.

That is a far cry from what you said about having every available magic item, spell or PrC to choose from. That would seem ridiculous to me.

Of the 3 games I run and 1 I play in, nobody currently has a prestige class or any of the items you mention -- except maybe one or two of the potions -- and there's little prospect of buying them. The one magic shop available has a very limited and specific inventory, that goes down if somebody buys it.

Like I said, your game is not the average D&D game.

Maybe we're just used to very different levels, plus my folks don't play as often so they don't get as into the rules? To us, 1st-10th is fun, and after about 13th it gets a bit silly and so bogged down in rules it's like doing a tax return.

I would expect a 5th level party, maybe a little higher, 7th or so, to use that plan. Maybe even 3rd level, if they had NPC allies to cast the spells/have the spells on scrolls or some cash to spare. Or a mercenary company with classed leaders of 5th level or higher.

And for us medieval interaction with a medieval world is more fun than searching rule books.

I didn't "search rule books" to do that. That was off the top of my head. That's not very high-magic at all and not really different from real life techniques--climbing stuff to get up a wall.

You could have even had an invisible Rogue or three do that and it might work, if there were three or four of them and they carried the chain in Hewards Handy Haversacks. See, that's even simpler.

If you want a medieval world, perhaps another system would be a better and easier fit than D&D.

 

[Imperialus]

ooo good fun bad fun argument, these are always fun.

My 2 cents before the thread gets shut.

My group tends to talk a lot of smack around their torchboys. We use them, underpay them and generally make them the butt of jokes. That said though we'll also go to considerable lengths to keep them alive including paying to bring them back to life. Of course according to their life insurance contract that means we own them until they pay us back but hey.

 

[VirgilCaine]

ooo good fun bad fun argument, these are always fun.

My 2 cents before the thread gets shut.

Hey, that's not what I'm saying at all. I said nothing about badwrongfun.

 

[Hussar]

In the games I play in (rarely as it is), most DM's seem pretty reticent about letting players hire mooks. As a DM, I welcome it.

 

[airwalkrr]

I would like to note that this thread has inspired me to get some hirelings in the Savage Tides adventure. Thanks!

 

[Shemeska]

Bags of holding crashed the market for redshirt labor, so to speak. Never in my campaign have any of my players used hirelings, henchmen, redshirts, etc. Dunno, it seems goofy to me and breaks the tone of the games I tend to run.

We have one PC with an NPC cohort, and the cohort is just as developed a characters as most of the PCs. The cohort is LG in the middle of a decidedly not exactly good party, and he gets some abuse, but it's amusing and he rolls with the punches. They've never used him as monster fodder.