Because adventuring is hard work, often PCs will hire the brave, strong, and foolhardy to help them on their endeavors. These followers fall into two categories, Retainers and Henchmen.

All followers act on the initiative order of their patron PC.

Retainers are NPCs with stats like monsters who work for coin. PCs may give orders to their retainers in battle. Giving orders counts as a Quick Action if it’s less than a few words. Alternately, a PC commander can spend an Active Action on their turn to roll a Tactics check to have them perform special or more complex maneuvers that round. Retainers behave as the GM sees fit if they are given no orders by their PC commander.

Henchmen on the other hand are NPCs with stats like that of a real PC, and they work to further the mission of the PC. They serve the goals and interests of their patron, and do not require payment. However, they must be recruited to serve the PC and their beliefs and goals must closely match that of the PC. Furthermore, it is expected that any riches from an expedition that goes to the PC's share should be shared equitably with the PC's henchmen.

PCs are powerful leaders, and as such will acquire NPCs in their service. Retainers are controlled by the GM, but given orders by their PC commander. Retainers generally demand 10gp per HD per day in service under dangerous conditions and a fraction of that if serving in a less stressful capacity.

A PC can’t command more than their CHA retainers.

Retainers are all created from one of the retainer classes and are hired from the retainer deck.

Retainers only advance in skill and power under certain circumstances.

A PC may recruit a number of elite followers known as henchmen or “hench.” Hench work for free and have superior morale and check modifiers. Hench are all created from one of the regular PC character classes. If henchman abandoned, abused or mistreated, they immediately leave the service of the PC at the GM's discretion.

Henchmen advance in skill and power just like PCs, except they may only do so by spending the gold given from their patron PC's share of any adventure.

Henchmen may be recruited from the hench deck, in which case they usually start around 3rd level or so. Alternatively, they may be rolled by the player just like a new 1st level PC. Henchmen may be recruited by taking a week of downtime and spending 100gp per attempt. It requires a CHA check to draw 1D6 potential henchmen, and a second successful check to convince one or more of them to join as henchmen.

PCs can garner renown, a rating of their infamy. The higher their renown, the more likely an NPC knows of a PC’s exploits.

Renown = PC’s highest ability mod + level.

The GM can choose to roll for an NPC’s familiarity, judging off of the PC’s renown. If rolling, the GM rolls 1D20; the NPC knows the PC if equal or under their renown. If the GM thinks it likely or unlikely that an NPC would know the PC but still wishes to roll, they may do so at advantage (the NPC is more likely to know the PC, take the lower result) or disadvantage (the NPC is unlikely to know the PC).

Hench may be dismissed from service, or they may decide that their patron's treatment is poor or they decide that they have their own agendas so they strike out on their own. In these cases, the Henchmen leaves the PCs service and returns to the hench deck.

Question 1: does anyone except for PC's use classes? It seems to me that the text as written sees every single NPC created using the Monster system, rather than the classes. Is that how we are going to run with it?

I believe that is the way I want to run it. Only PCs should be able to access the class features. At the very least, NPCs shouldn't be able to get the specialty archetype class features.

Question 2: Retainer “classes” the retainers are classified as “Laborers”, “Experts”, “Militia” and “Adepts” with the sole example being “a 4 HD Laborer has +6 hauling load”. Weak sauce for running a game. We're going to need a bunch of guidelines to actually use these in play, aren't we?

Let's be honest here. Will anyone other than the two of us ever make retainer cards? I say we make them like we make monsters. We can certainly make hard and fast rules for this, but we could probably also get away with you and I making retainers to hire on an ad hoc basis. Let's put this on the to do list and come back later.

Question 3: How do we handle maintenance? It doesn't say anything about PC upkeep, Retainers expect 10gp per day of service per HD, and henchmen aren't paid at all. I've taken these facts and did a quick and dirty version of upkeep: : each month each player must pay 1gp per level/HD per day for himself, each of the retainers he keeps with him and each of his henchmen and each of his horses to cover food, equipment upkeep, lodging and incidentals. Retainers get 10gp per day per HD for each day they are on an active adventure. This rule keeps the text as written in the book, but interprets the 10gp/day for retainers and “no pay” for henchmen as the payment for active dungeon service, the boss still has to make sure they are fed and clothed in down-time.

Okay. My only suggestion would be to abstract time. I hope to use the concept of a “downtime” as a unit of time measurement. PCs get one “downtime” between each game session/adventure that is about a fortnight. Could we continue to use that abstract unit of time for everything including upkeep?

Gary told me 40 years ago that time must be kept track of. I really want time to be important in a campaign, if money is important. It's a source of meaningful choice, especially since we plan a Western Marches thing, it's an important weighing factor

I 100% agree. Money and time are two of the biggest resources our heroes have! Perhaps “abstract” was the wrong word. I suppose I meant “quantify” it. Do we keep track of time in days? Weeks? Months? What is the average “downtime?” It seems to me from the crafting rules that we've settled on a week as that unit of time. –AHS

• Does spending on upkeep give XP?
  • The whole XP things is a separate can of worms that we haven't crossed that bridge or put our eggs in the basket yet. Are we doing spending? Are we doing getting treasure home? Are we awarding XP for anything other than treasure?
  • Okay. We can come back to this. My call is that we give XP for spending on just about anything that alters the game world. Build a winery? Put up a statue? Go drinking with your buddies? Pay alms to the church to attract more people to the city?

Question 4: tie together the first 3 questions gives us: “Do henchmen and retainers advance in levels/HD?” There are a lot of possible answers to this question, like “henchmen have PC classes and advance based on treasure you give them, while retainers don't advance” or “none of them advance at all” to “all of them use the PC XP chart, with HD corresponding to levels”. Things to think about.

• I say we add a reputation system so that a PC has to have certain credentials to draw from a pile of higher-rank retainers.

They have that Renown thing, and the Henchmen are based on level and CHA, we just have to clarify how it is applied.

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Question 5: So where did we end up on hirelings and retainers?

• Dave and Andrew create three hireling decks, each requiring a certain amount of reknown to draw from.
• Hirelings are categorized as Laborers, Experts, Milita, or Adepts.
• The hirelings in each deck are hand crafted rather than generated procedurally.
  • Although, we should agree on a format between the two of us that we like.
• Hirelings don't advance, but their equipment may be repaired or improved.