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<blockquote data-quote="Aenghus" data-source="post: 6298971" data-attributes="member: 2656">Well, unless the demon is weakened to be an appropriate challenge for the hireling he most likely gets killed. There may be black humour depending on how obvious this is to the players (redshirt jokes are common).Generally, in most editions, henchpeople are weaker than heroes and hirelings are weaker than henchpeople. They have lower saves, lower hit points, lower stats, lower AC and lesser equipment, all of which will result in lowered survival chances (unless the game is being fudged). The extreme swinginess and random factors of earlier editions of D&amp;D may lead to a hireling surviving when the heroes die (this isn't a plus for me as it's telling me &quot;your decisions don't matter, only dumb luck matters&quot;)Lots of games have promoted unusually lucky hirelings and henchmen to PCs, but it's at much because of emotional attachments formed during play as them being outliers that beat the odds.As hero levels rise the disparity between PCs and ordinary NPCs continues to widen, such that it becomes hard to ignore for those that dislike it. It's possible to fight this by reducing the initial disparity and only playing at low levels, but I think this is a less common game style.These are issues revolving around the &quot;PCs are special/ PCs are ordinary&quot; dichotomy, which is a matter of taste with no single objective answer. Most campaigns I've seen are middle-of-the-road on this issue, treating PCs closer to ordinary at low level, and closer to special at high level, but factors such as quiet fudging to keep PCs alive moves them toward special IMO.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Aenghus, post: 6298971, member: 2656"] Well, unless the demon is weakened to be an appropriate challenge for the hireling he most likely gets killed. There may be black humour depending on how obvious this is to the players (redshirt jokes are common). Generally, in most editions, henchpeople are weaker than heroes and hirelings are weaker than henchpeople. They have lower saves, lower hit points, lower stats, lower AC and lesser equipment, all of which will result in lowered survival chances (unless the game is being fudged). The extreme swinginess and random factors of earlier editions of D&D may lead to a hireling surviving when the heroes die (this isn't a plus for me as it's telling me "your decisions don't matter, only dumb luck matters") Lots of games have promoted unusually lucky hirelings and henchmen to PCs, but it's at much because of emotional attachments formed during play as them being outliers that beat the odds. As hero levels rise the disparity between PCs and ordinary NPCs continues to widen, such that it becomes hard to ignore for those that dislike it. It's possible to fight this by reducing the initial disparity and only playing at low levels, but I think this is a less common game style. These are issues revolving around the "PCs are special/ PCs are ordinary" dichotomy, which is a matter of taste with no single objective answer. Most campaigns I've seen are middle-of-the-road on this issue, treating PCs closer to ordinary at low level, and closer to special at high level, but factors such as quiet fudging to keep PCs alive moves them toward special IMO. [/QUOTE]

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