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LoyalPaladin
2016-08-24, 03:23 PM
Explanation
Why do we need a hireling system?
Maybe you don't! I do. This hireling system was designed to balance out a campaign designed for four adventurers, even though I only had three players. With this, I can provide multiple options to a party in need of some extra muscle, without spending too much time building an NPC.

What is the purpose of the system?
The purpose of this system is to provide semi-unique NPC adventurers to a (low to medium optimized) party that is too small, without falling into the age old predicament of the DMPC.

LP, your charts are filled with classes I don't use and races I don't recognize!
That's okay! This chart was originally designed to function in a homebrew setting, so the races are unique to my setting and the classes were the available classes for this game. Just replace them with your own choices! Don't have enough races? Repeat them until you run out of space. Have too many classes? You can either hand pick some specific classes or mess with the d% and results column to wedge in more choices.

LP, this is bad and you should feel bad.
Thanks, I really needed that. :smallfrown:

LoyalPaladin's Hireling System
Instructions
1. Determine Your Party's ECL: My party's ECL is 5, so I need to make an ECL 5 hireling.

2. Roll a Race: I rolled a 93, so the hireling's race will be Wilder.

3. Roll an NPC Class: I rolled a 74, so the hireling's NPC class will be Expert. At 1st, 5th, 10th, 15th, and 20th level, a hireling takes another level in its respective NPC class.

4. Roll a PC Class: Amazingly, I rolled a 96! So I need to roll two classes. I rolled an 89 and a 29, so the hireling's class levels will be split between Fighter and Wizard.

6. Imagine the Hireling: To cement the idea that this is a random hireling, I use a character generator (https://donjon.bin.sh/d20/random/#type=npc) to get a description and name. (I use this one (http://fantasynamegenerators.com/fantasy-surnames.php#.V73-jFQrKUk) to get a surname.) Sometimes I take the first result and sometimes I use a d6 to choose from the first 6 results. From this process, I've gotten the following: "Lochi Singlesky (LN): Lochi has gray hair and sharp blue eyes. She wears leather armor and wields a longsword and shortbow. Lochi is a terrible liar." Now I've got a personality and general equipment, of course this might need to be fiddled with a little to be appropriate for your randomly rolled classes.

7. Assign Ability Scores: I use the elite array (15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8) for my hirelings, but I'd recommend either doing the same or using a smaller point buy than your players, in order to make them feel awesome.

8. Pick Feats & Skills: This is fairly self-explanatory, but pick feats and skills like you would normally.

9. Celebrate: You're done! You now have a functional hireling (If an Expert 1/Fighter 2/Wizard 2 can be called functional :smallwink:) that your players can "hire" into their party! You can either have them pay a flat rate, or have the price be a cut of whatever reward they are seeking.

10. Bonus Step: If you're feeling exceptionally creative, you can roll a d% on the level randomizer table. It's unlikely all hirelings magically end up being the same ECL as your party, so roll the dice and add or subtract the result! It could be fun!

Tables
Race


d%
Result

1-15Dunefolk
16-30Imperial
31-45Islander
46-60Northerner
61-75Shunned
76-95Wilder
76-95Roll Again!


NPC Class Levels


d%
Result

1-20Adept
21-40Aristocrat
41-60Commoner
61-80Expert
81-100Warrior


PC Class Levels


d%
Result

1-10Barbarian
11-20Cleric
21-30Fighter
31-40Paladin
41-50Ranger
51-60Rogue
61-70Sorcerer
71-80Spellthief
81-90Wizard
91-100Roll twice!*

*Roll your d% two more times and multi-class your two results evenly. If there are not an even amount of class levels to be split, your first result gets the leftover level. Reroll any rolls of 91-100 after the first.

Level Randomizer


d%
Result

1-20-2
21-40-1
41-600
61-80+1
81-100+2