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<blockquote data-quote="Saeviomagy" data-source="post: 6663879" data-attributes="member: 5890">There is a reason why most players don't hire henchmen. I think you'll find that the few exceptions to that don't care if they die OR spend an inordinate amount of time babying them so that they remain safe. With the way AOEs and damage work, any creature that is in combats (ie - present, not necessarily contributing or being a threat) that has low hitpoints for the challenge level will not survive, and there is almost nothing that the average PC can do about that without a huge expenditure of resources.In short - if you're going to give out companions for PCs as class abilities, you need to do one of three things:1. Give them defenses appropriate to the AOE damage that they will face.2. Allow them to be ressed very cheaply and expect them to die every other combat, which tends to cheapen the concept of death.3. Give them a mechanic to avoid damage from AOEs (which may include having them cease to exist during a fight)Otherwise you're just giving the PC a liability, even if you don't intend the companion to contribute to combat.Personally I don't see a reason not to do 1) for hunter companions. It's by far the most sensible option. If it's not game-breaking for a druid to have a giant pool of expendable hitpoints, I'm not quite sure why it's game-breaking for a ranger to have one. Especially if it's one that foes can choose to ignore for the most part.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Saeviomagy, post: 6663879, member: 5890"] There is a reason why most players don't hire henchmen. I think you'll find that the few exceptions to that don't care if they die OR spend an inordinate amount of time babying them so that they remain safe. With the way AOEs and damage work, any creature that is in combats (ie - present, not necessarily contributing or being a threat) that has low hitpoints for the challenge level will not survive, and there is almost nothing that the average PC can do about that without a huge expenditure of resources. In short - if you're going to give out companions for PCs as class abilities, you need to do one of three things: 1. Give them defenses appropriate to the AOE damage that they will face. 2. Allow them to be ressed very cheaply and expect them to die every other combat, which tends to cheapen the concept of death. 3. Give them a mechanic to avoid damage from AOEs (which may include having them cease to exist during a fight) Otherwise you're just giving the PC a liability, even if you don't intend the companion to contribute to combat. Personally I don't see a reason not to do 1) for hunter companions. It's by far the most sensible option. If it's not game-breaking for a druid to have a giant pool of expendable hitpoints, I'm not quite sure why it's game-breaking for a ranger to have one. Especially if it's one that foes can choose to ignore for the most part. [/QUOTE]

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