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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 9346430" data-attributes="member: 29398">In the games I DM: henches have been (IMO surprisingly) rare, mostly because the players, thinking in-character, don't want to have to worry about keeping them upright, keeping them paid, seeing to their training, and so forth.Of late, however, there's been a trend toward hiring captives or surrenderees on as henches; and a PC just recently took on a hench in the more usual manner.Hirelings - as in porters, torchbearers, guards-of-mounts, etc. - are nearly unheard-of.In prior campaigns I've run, parties have had bases of operations or strongholds.  In one campaign, a reigning-monarch PC married another PC, and their palace became a base for a while.  In another, they were rewarded a small castle by a grateful King and by the time the PCs got done with it (close to 100,000 g.p. and several years later) the place was immense.  But in my current campaign the closest there's been to a base of operations was that a PC built a pub, which became a meeting point for adventurers for years.As a player: I probably use henches as much or more than anyone else.And in the game I play in, our several-dozen-strong collection of adventurers took over a cleared-out dungeon and made a great big secret base out of it.  We've got a few dozen hirelings there as guards, and a few dozen more as assorted help because they're completely alien to this world (we rescued them from off-plane dangers and brought them home) and would probably get slaughtered if they went anywhere else.This base provides a convenient place to park our currently-inactive characters and yet keep them in the loop as to what's going on.</blockquote>

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