making teamwork feats work

[Efrate]

My current group of 3rd lvl pcs have a pair of hirelings which just hit lvl 2 and have been with them since day one. just basic npc warriors but the party is pretty attached. short of having them all take the same teamwork feats, is there anyway to kind of help these poor souls function as a decent team?

One is more defensive since he gets hit a lot, one more offensive since he tends to get lucky crits when chips are down. I don't want them overshadowing the party, but having them have benefits that assist one another other than using aid another action.

Inquisitor seems nice but doesn't fit, warlord might work but I'm worried about pow overshadowing most my characters, they both don't fit paladin.

Party is verminous hunter, ronin, summoner, rogue, and takes place in the desert.

[heavyfuel]

I've been thinking about grating extra teamwork feats for characters at levels 4 and every 4 levels because they suck too hard to spend 2 regular feats for whatever benefit they provide.

So, your 3rd level PCs should get one such feat next level, and the hirelings should catch up soon enough

[ExLibrisMortis]

Heroes of Battle has some teamwork benefits that depend on skill ranks and time. You could use those, or convert some teamwork feats to the same format. The nice thing about teamwork benefits is that the requirements are almost all on the team leader's side, and very low for the non-leaders. For example:


Task Leader Prerequisite: Spellcraft 4 ranks, evasion ability.
Team Member Prerequisite: Base Reflex save +2, Spellcraft 1 rank.
Benefit: You gain the evasion ability, but only concerning spells cast by your team members.


Task Leader Prerequisite: Sneak attack +4d6.
Team Member Prerequisite: Base attack bonus +3.
Benefit: Whenever two members of your team flank the same enemy, all members of the team can make melee attacks against that enemy as if they also flanked her.

If you have a rogue, it's very easy to gain these benefits, even for low-level NPCs that you might have around. There can be up to eight people within a team. The team must train together for at least two weeks to get the benefit.

[martixy]

You could take a look at this thread, where we're talking about how to make mooks useful:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?569991-Making-mooks-a-threat-(3-P)

Other than that - in my game I do something similar to what heavyfuel suggested, I have a feat called Army Tactics / Teamwork specialist (depending on who takes it) with the following benefit:
At level 1 and every 3 levels thereafter you may choose one teamwork benefit or Pathfinder teamwork feat.

[Thurbane]

Heroes of Battle has some teamwork benefits that depend on skill ranks and time.

DMG2 also has some teamwork benefits that work this way as well (some are repeats of those in HoB): Door Procedures, Field Medic Training, Friendly Fire Evasion, Gaze Aversion, Infiltration, Invisibility Sweep, Joint Grapple Escape, Ranged Precision, Snap Out of It, Spell Barrage, Spellcaster Guardian & Superior Flank.