Quote Originally Posted by Witty Username View Post
Adding to this, if this is a local lord like the prompt suggests, the regular forces might be as many as 20. Usually enough to loosely police ones holdings and keep your tax collectors safe. A proper warband would nessitate outside help, either from neighboring lords, mercenaries, or pesant conscripts. All assuming the local lord hasn't been called to respond to a war of some sort (send all your knights 6 to 8 months away for a few years, and get back maybe half of them).
In the mind of the lord, hiring adventurers could be a matter of buying time for their allies to muster, to their only viable option depending on their surrounding circumstances and obligations.
Adding to this, most people in feudal societies spent most of their time making food. If you have already lost some villages, and since agriculture is so manpower intensive, how many more people can you afford to lose? Whereas adventurers are a compact powerhouse. 5 or 6 people who can punch way above their apparent weight class. (Compared to non-leveled folk)

Also your ready troops are constables and your personal guard--not likely to be useful here.

Finally if the threat already took out standard troops (villages), why would sending more of the same help? Youd be better off sending 1-2 scouts, or adventurers, to find out more info before doing anything more.