Henchmen:
After a while the creatures can be boring, one way to make the game more interesting is to create new creatures. Another way is to make the creatures stronger. But the creatures can become to strong to early. Then the heroes can defeat them alone anymore, they have to get an army to finish the quest. That what these rules are about, hiring henchmen.
Henchmen can be used as cannon fodder to fight the most of the creatures and let themselves killed. This way the heroes can get the gold without being hurt. But this way the game wouldn’t be much fun, nor realistic! If you would do that in real life then nobody would work for you. And because I want these rules to be realistic I’ve created these rules.
Paying for
henchmen:
Anytime
a hero hires a henchman he has to pay before the week begins. This way the
henchman is certain that he doesn’t fight for nothing. When you are in a town
you have to pay living cost and the normal fee for the mercenary. The
mercenaries can be hired in the tavern.
Dead
henchmen:
But
what happens when the henchman dies? The armor, etc just lay on the ground as
normal, but the hero also gets a +1 morale (the lower the better, different then
in the real world, but what the heck ). This morale is important for when the
hero wants to hire new henchmen. The henchmen who are still alive and following
the hero continue to fight, except when the hero let the henchmen die without
helping him, for example the hero walks with all his henchmen to the east while
he lets one of them go to the west to investigate it alone. Then every henchmen
throws 1d6, on a roll of 6 the henchman has lost his faith in the hero and walks
away to the exit.
Hiring henchmen:
When
the hero wants to hire a henchmen he goes to the tavern. There he declares what
kind of henchmen he wises the hire (from the available mercenaries). Then he
roles 1d6 for a village, 2d6 for a town and 3d6 for a city, he has to roll
higher or equal to his morale, when he rolls higher the henchmen don’t whish
to follow him and he may not try to hire more of this kind henchmen. The hero
has to roll for every henchmen.
Playing
with henchmen:
Henchmen
will never look for treasures or for traps/secret doors. The will only do that
if they have the appropriate skill. Also henchmen will always do what the hero
who hired them says, the will not follow another hero, except when the hero who
hired them dies, then they will follow any hero who wises the hire them. If
nobody wants to hire them then they walk away. To hire them the hero needs a
line-of-sight with them. When they are in battle then the first try to kill all
the creatures before running away or considering to join another hero.