D&D 5E: Henchmen (Part 1)

I've only had a chance to play a little bit of 5th edition, but I enjoyed what I played so far. This looks like the edition that will allow me to run the kind of game I've wanted to play with D&D for a while: the sandbox. I cut my teeth on 1E sandbox adventures back in the day, but with the ever-increasing shift toward balanced encounters, expected wealth, etc., it has been difficult to just let the PCs go where they may without resulting in either an early TPK or grossly overpowered characters for their level. Without the assumption of wealth or magic items, and with the flat math of bounded accuracy, it looks to me like some of that old-school adventuring may be doable.

I've been playing some OSR games lately (ACKS in particular), and I think some of the lessons learned there will work well in 5E. Something in particular I'm interested in porting over to 5E is the use of henchmen. For 1E games, henchmen became part pack-mule, part meat-shield, and part replacement-PC. Early modules (B2-Keep on the Borderlands springs to mind) assumed the use of henchmen; my early memories of just how lethal that adventure was are probably skewed because we never really used henchmen in any games until recently. While henchmen rules may be one of the promised rules modules put out by WotC over the next few years, I thought I would take a crack at it.

General Guidelines
In order to compare different options, I should be clear about my own rules and expectations of how henchmen should be used in play:

1. Henchmen should not take the spotlight away from the PCs. The players should always take center stage, the henchmen should be minor characters at best.
2. Henchmen should not significantly slow down play. If every player at the table is waiting a hour or more for their turn while you run through your platoon's actions or decide which of the 157 maneuvers your one really cool henchman can do, then it's not worth the trouble.
3. Adding henchmen to the game should involve a cost/reward balance. More henchmen means the party can take on tougher challenges, with greater safety, for (possibly) more reward. There should be a cost, both in money (share of treasure) and experience (share of XP). Thus, the PCs would be incentivized to take henchmen along for tough or unknown threats, but leave them behind when facing challenges where they're not needed.

With these rules in mind, I'll explore a few options.

Option 1: Henchmen are built like PCs
This option would have henchmen built using the same rules as PCs. Each one would get their own character sheet (or perhaps a less detailed sheet) and have all the options available to any PC.

Pros:  This is good for games where there aren't enough players to really fill out all the roles in the party. It also works well if you're using henchmen as a stable of backup PCs, since the character is ready to go instantly if a PC gets killed - just hand the sheet over, and the player loses no game time rolling up a replacement.

Cons:  This probably fails rule #2, and will get worse as the party gains experience. Even the martial classes have a lot more options during combat than their classic 1E counterparts, so this has the potential to really slow down play. Also, in the hands of a power-gamer (or min-maxer, or optimizer, or whatever you call them), this has the potential to fail rule #1 as well. A player who is really good at the character creation mini-game can create henchmen more powerful than the PC of a player who isn't striving for maximum mathematical optimization in their build. Also, lends itself to the creation of unbalanced one-trick ponies that may not work well as a developed character for roleplaying, but grant a significant advantage in combat.

Recommendation:  This is not really different than having each player running multiple characters. Useful for a smaller game (not enough players) or for teaching new players (NPC party members run by the GM, for the benefit of the new players).

Option 2: Henchmen are "Monsters"
This option is probably the easiest. Pick something from the Monster Manual, hand the PC a card with the relevant stats, and you're done. There are several NPCs in the book that would work well for this, including Commoner, Guard, and Thug. It could also cover "animals as henchmen" if you wanted to include a more traditional animal companion, so long as you don't go overboard (a dog or wolf is probably ok, but a pet Tarrasque is obviously just as bad as an Archmage henchman).

Pros:  This option serves rules #1 and 2 very well. So long as you don't choose any options that are too powerful (keeping it below CR 1 helps), there's little chance that any henchman will overshadow the PCs. Also, monster design in 5E (especially at the lower CRs) is intended to make monsters fast and easy to run, so it shouldn't bog down play too much as long as you're not bringing too many henchmen along for the ride.

Cons:  Depending on how you run it, this may fail #3. Monsters aren't designed to be advanced like PCs are (or monsters in 3E), so you're left with 2 options: A) henchmen never get any better, or B) do a lot of work to "level up" henchmen within the monster rules. "A" creates a problem that if henchmen get a share of XP, but never get better, then rule #3 fails after 1st or 2nd level. "B" creates a separate problem that may fail rule #1, in that improving henchmen may take more time/effort than leveling up the PCs.

Recommendation:  This probably works best for games where you need henchmen/support characters quickly, but they're not intended to be a long-term asset for the party. Scenes like the siege of Brindol from the Red Hand of Doom are a good example: standard troops = Guards, Lions of Brindol = Knights, all NPCs/henchmen are essentially disposable and tracking gained XP doesn't really matter. For games where you want to develop the henchmen over time, this probably won't be enough.

Option 3: Henchmen are built using an "NPC class"
This stems from what 3E did with the NPC classes - classes that were clearly less powerful (and less detailed) than the PC classes, and were never intended for a player to use themselves. This would require the creation of a new class (or multiple classes) to allow henchmen advancement like PCs, but with limited options and power levels (like monsters). It would take some extra work up front to develop the class, but it might work well once play starts.

Pros:  Satisfies rule #1 because the class is weaker than PC classes by design. Satisfies rule #2 because options in play and during level-up will be limited. Satisfies rule #3 because taking henchmen means giving them a share of XP (which means less XP for the PCs), but those henchmen get better over time (and thus more useful), possibly making the investment worthwhile over the long run.

Cons:  You have to build an NPC classes (or multiple classes) from scratch. This is no small task, as you have to be careful to strike a balance between power level/utility and cost to the PCs. Too powerful without enough cost, every group will load up. Not powerful enough to be useful and/or too expensive for their utility, and no one will use them (and you did all that work for nothing).

Recommendation:  This is my favorite option for long-term play. The only real downside is that there isn't an official class for this, so there's a high buy-in for DMs, and it's even worse for new DMs. In my next post I'll try my hand at creating something useful.

Other Considerations
Besides the power level and complexity of the individual henchmen, there are a few other issues that should be addressed:

1. How many henchmen are allowed?
2. What should the cost be?
3. How do I acquire a henchman?

How Many Henchmen?

In 1E and 2E, the number of henchmen you could have was based on your Charisma score. Of course, in those editions Charisma was sort of a dump stat unless you were playing a Paladin or Bard, and even then you only needed it to qualify for the class. The Charisma score didn't actually make those classes more powerful, so having more (and more loyal) henchmen was a decent trade-off for having to put a good ability score in Charisma.

In 3E onward, Charisma isn't a dump stat for everyone. In 5E, the Bard, Paladin, and Warlock all base their spellcasting on Charisma, directly increasing their power level. Basing number of henchmen on Charisma would grant an extra boost to those classes who already want a high Charisma, while increasing the MAD (Mutual Ability Dependence) of non-Charisma classes who want to use henchmen. The existing classes have already been balanced against each other (whether you agree that this was done successfully isn't the point), so suddenly making Charisma worth more to everyone will upset this balance. Thus, lets cut Charisma out as the thing that sets how many henchmen you get.

In ACKS, number of henchmen is 4 + your Charisma modifier. Even removing Charisma, 4 henchmen seems like a lot for this game. In ACKS it works out ok (although none of my players has ever felt the need to hire more than 2 henchmen at a time, each), in part because the ACKS classes are simpler than the 5E classes, and combat plays a lot more quickly. Also, too many henchmen will fail rules #2 (takes too long for all of their turns) and 3 (even the scariest threats can be brought low by a small army). So how many is too many? 

Personally, I like the idea of having 1 henchmen per PC as the standard. I think it works well to keep things from getting out of hand (for both party power level and slowing down play). It gives everyone a chance to participate equally (you don't need a high Charisma to get a henchman). And it works well within certain literary tropes: the squire/page, the sidekick, the bodyguard. This also allows the players an opportunity to develop their henchmens' personalities as well, since they only have to worry about one.

What is the Cost?

This is a significant factor to whether your players will be interested in this or not. Set the cost too low, and the PCs will abuse it. Set the cost too high, it'll never see play. Any time one choice is obviously optimal or obviously sub-optimal, then it's not really a choice. So, there must be a balance where the PCs have to decide on a case-by-case basis whether it's worth it to bring some henchmen along.

Cost in Treasure:  As far as salary goes, 5E already has a system in place for hiring skilled & unskilled hirelings. No need to reinvent the wheel there; the real monetary cost to consider is treasure. In 5E, where there is no expected wealth per level, and no assumption of magic items in the system math, this is less of a problem. By sacrificing currency, the PCs are not sacrificing their character's advancement they way they would be in 3E or 4E. Thus, the Cost in Treasure is mostly to help balance out the option of whether or not to use henchmen. ACKS sets this value at a 15% share of treasure (that's 15% of what an individual PC gets, not 15% of the total haul; a party with 4 PCs and 2 henchmen have 4 + 0.15 + 0.15 = 4.3 shares total by which to divide treasure). I'm comfortable with that, but anything less than 50% is probably ok. Over 50%, not only is it not worth it, but we risk violating rule #1 (the henchman's reward is nearly equal to his boss's reward).

Cost in XP:  This is the trickier part, since XP translates directly into personal power for the PCs (and possibly the NPCs, if you're using options #1 or #3, above). This is the real sacrifice a player makes when choosing to bring a henchman along; it should be low enough to not make it a non-option, but high enough to be non-trivial. ACKS sets this figure at a 50% share of combat XP (50% of what an individual PC gets, not 50% of the total encounter XP). However, ACKS uses XP for treasure and the main source of PC (and henchmen) XP rather than combat (similar to 1E), so the loss of combat XP is barely noticeable compared to a potential loss of treasure (and the XP that comes with it). In 5E, the dynamic runs the opposite way, so all XP is derived from combat, none from treasure. I don't have an easy answer here, but I feel like 50% is too much, and no one will consider henchmen to be worth the trouble. Maybe a 25% share of combat XP? A 10% share seems like it would be too low to be an issue, and players would always take the henchman. I'll probably try 25% to test it out with my players. If anyone playtests this, please post your thoughts.

Welcome to Human* Resources

*In this case, "human" refers to all employed, enslaved, or mentally controlled beings, sentient or not, including but not limited to: humans, elves, dwarves, halflings, horses, wolves, demons, house cats, fey creatures, plants, lycanthropes, etc. who agree to undertake unspecified (and possibly dangerous) activities on behalf of their employer.

This can be as easy as handwaving (DM: "you find a henchman"). If you regularly find yourself doing downtime activities as quickly as possible so you can get back to gaming, you can just do that - it's not really a balance issue.

The introduction of downtime activities in 5E lends itself to making this process just a little more complex (but not a lot, see rule #2). You could create a new downtime activity: Hire Henchman. For each day spent looking, make a Charisma check (possibly modified by Deception, Intimidate, or Diplomacy depending on the community), with a DC set by the size of the community you're in (it should be easier to find willing henchmen in large cities than in small rural villages). This is a place where having a high Charisma is useful, but not unbalancing; those with good Charisma will find willing henchmen quickly and easily (lowering the buy-in cost in time & money), while those with low Charisma will have to take longer or convince their friend to do it (making a group "face" character more of a worthwhile role in the group). Cost should be reasonable, perhaps 1gp per day buying drinks, posting signs, or hiring criers to announce the position. This shouldn't be a real barrier to getting a henchman, just an opportunity for something interesting to do during downtime (and the possibility for creating roleplaying scenarios).