NPC Henchmen Design

[Nevereatcars]

My players contrived their way into the leadership of a gang of low-level thugs (actually statted as Guards) and I decided that, as an interesting direction that the campaign could go, I'm not going to hit them with AoE spells until its just the PCs remaining, and instead allow them to do their bests to mold this guild into their own image. So I've been coming up with a foundation of what can be done with their new henchmen, and this is what I have so far.

The PCs can train their minions in their own skills, and outfit them in better gear. Training minions takes both time and gold, and if they keep at it with one or more minions lonng enough, about a month for basic skills and longer for more complicated stuff (spellcasting), I'll change stat blocks to represent those new skills. A month is about enough to take a Guard and turn him into either a Thug or a Scout, for example.

The cost of running a gang is 10 gp per week per underling, before other expenses, and will go up if more are drafted into the guild or as they increase in power.

The NPCs are not under the players' control. I will control them like all others.

Henchmen are not mindlessly obedient slaves, and will use their increased skill to revolt if they are treated poorly.

How does that work? Does it seem broken to you?

[Arzanyos]

That sounds awesome. I don't see anything wrong with it. Also, you can pit them against rival gangs!

[MaxWilson]

That sounds awesome to me. 10gp per week actually sounds really expensive, but I assume it's scaled based on the amount of gold you hand out, so okay.

[Nevereatcars]

2 gp per day for a skilled hireling, reduced because, as far as far goes, they aren't VERY skilled. My PCs currently have enough money to pay salaries for five weeks, if they don't spend money anywhere else. I wanted it to be costly enough to notice.

Also, our table dropped copper and silver entirely as currency, since the value is so low that its basically only there for more book-keeping. So gold is a worth a little less than standard to compensate.

On rival gangs: since their appearance, this gang has failed entirely to fight anybody other than each other T_T they won't obey me OR the PCs when they were designed to be stirring for a fight.