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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Elder-Basilisk" data-source="post: 1073169" data-attributes="member: 3146">It's an assertion rather than an assumption.Note that I specified a "combat ineffective" merchant type rogue. The role you're suggesting is appropriate to a PC who can handle himself. If he can't handle himself, that will either place him in the role of the PCs' employer or the meat-sack they have to guard--both of which are (IMO) not very good party dynamics. (It's also, I would imagine, quite boring for the player of the merchant if there's any significant amount of combat in the game). In either event, unless the entire campaign revolves around merchantry (note that I also specified a "typical" D&D campaign) there seems little reason for said flunkie to accompany the party when, upon arriving at their destination, they decide to explore the catacombs of the old city. That's not the merchant's line of work.If the merchant in question is the kind that doesn't mind getting his hands dirty, is competent with his rapier/dagger/crossbow, and/or is an expert trap and secret door finder, it's another matter entirely. Then, he's not ineffectual in the environment of the ordinary adventure. The difference is between being a rogue modelled off the merchant framework and being a merchant who, for some inexplicable reason, has levels of rogue instead of expert (and/or commoner).BTW, "harem girl" or "dirt-farmer" are inappropriate character concepts for most D&D games as well. . . unless the concepts are modified to enable the character to function effectively (and thereby justify their participation in) the majority of an adventure. A Harem girl who plotted her own escape, stole the Vizier's scepter, smashed a vase over the back of her eunuch guard's head, picked the lock to escape the womens' quarters, climbed down the walls of the palace with a rope fashioned from silk sheets, and impersonated a noble-woman to escape from the capitol of the Calormen empire would work as a PC if she had the appropriate skills. A "harem girl" who was helpless simpering eye-candy wouldn't be--no matter how many ranks in dubious perform skills she had. The dirt farmer who learned how to wield a spear in the militia and fought the orcs off when they came to destroy his family is a good PC concept. The cowardly dirt farmer who cowers in the corner and says "not in the face" every time he's threatened isn't.</blockquote>

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