Why Hire Adventurers?

[SteveLightblade]

Let me start with a story.

You are baron/ess [Your Name] of Genericfantasyshire. While you believe in your family's glorious lineage, you also know that House [Your Name] is in power in your fief for solely two reasons: to enforce the laws of the king, and to provide tribute in military service, but most importantly in this situation, taxes, to your liege. For the past few years, Genericfantasyshire has been relatively stable. Your knights have been able to keep the law, you are in good relations with the surrounding nobles as well as your liege, the changing of tax resources have allowed you to keep your position as well as live comfortably, and you are far enough from the king's wars that you and your forces have not been called upon. However, all of that changed in the last few weeks.

It feels like almost every day that messengers comes to you and reports of villages being sacked by what are reported to be goblins. You've never seen a goblin before, and doubt their existence, but that doesn't really matter. Villages are being stolen from and burned, people are dying, and the count is demanding tribute soon that you may not be able to supply. While you don't know the exact location of the threat, the reports of attacks leave a simple pattern that allow a small area to investigate. Not only do you have your own knights, as well as a potential militia of vengeful villages, but can call on your neighbors for help as well and reasonably convince them to help you.

But your most trusted advisor has a different idea.

Some strangers wandered into your capital last night. If they aren't armed to the teeth, they are carrying spellcasting equipment. They went into the market to buy combat equipment before going to the alehouse where they are now.

Instead of calling on your military resources, why not outsource it to these rowdy and dangerous looking strangers you have no reason to trust, and give them authority to kill things in your land?

[Draconi Redfir]

Some possibilities:

- Hiring them as mercenaries could be cheaper then paying a small army
- If multiple villages are / have been attacked, you could hire them to bolster your forces. They investigate one village, while your military forces investigate others.
- Alternatively, you could hire them to investigate the village(s) that have already been sacked, while using your more trusted military forces to reinforce the villages that have not yet been sacked but might still be targeted. This way even if they do turn on you and loot the village, there will be less to be lost in both property and lives.
- If some rowdy and dangerous strangers die to goblins or other monsters, then no big deal. Your military forces are the husbands, wives, brothers, and sisters of your people. If any of them die, your people might loose faith in you as a leader.
- Strangers trained in combat are probably more effective then farmers who picked up a pitchfork.
- If you don't trust them, you can always send them to do a more dangerous task that you wouldn't want your own military to undertake. Such as delving deep into a monster-infested cave. Sending 3-4 of your soldiers to keep an eye on them from a distance is less risky and less costly then sending 10 soldiers into the cave.
- Historically, mercenaries have been very loyal to whoever paid them. Everyone has their price and all.

[Anonymouswizard]

The way standard D&D players act is likely not the way most mercenaries act in-setting. That is to say that unless the PCs are in town you're probably dealing with a small band of maybe 10 mercenaries who only gear up when expecting combat.

Moving along from my complaints about D&D players.

Generally your knights and militia are of more use to you administrating or producing respectively. Adventurers don't have any other jobs, which means hiring them is likely less costly than disturbing the smooth running of your land.

It also likely means faster results. You don't have to go through all the hassle of getting the Knights or militia in order to start fighting back.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Generally your knights and militia are of more use to you administrating or producing respectively. Adventurers don't have any other jobs, which means hiring them is likely less costly than disturbing the smooth running of your land.

It also likely means faster results. You don't have to go through all the hassle of getting the Knights or militia in order to start fighting back.

This.

Less paperwork, less expense, fewer people pulled off the land. And if it's a deathtrap, adventurers are expendable in the way your own vassals aren't. And way faster. You can have boots on the ground in the time it takes the party to get there, instead of a season or more later (especially if you have to call in other allies).

Plus, adventurers specialize in handling the sorts of things that can be dealt with by a special-forces group. Because that's what they really are, in D&D terms. Especially at the levels where you're going to actually hire them off the street and aren't already famous. And if they fail, you still have your other forces.

Get in, investigate, murder some people (who may or may not deserve it, but were in the way anyway, which is cause enough), get out. That's an adventurer's stock in trade. Knights or militia, not so much.

[Lord Raziere]

in short, your knights and soldiers are for when an actual war is going to happen, and your peasants are for tilling the fields. hire the adventurers and you make sure you don't waste your loyal forces that can guard you against the lord scheming against you next door.

[Saintheart]

Because it's a win/win.

If the adventurers succeed, you eliminate a potentially dangerous threat to your people for a lot less money and lives than it would've cost you to send the town guard.

If the adventurers TPK, you eliminate a potentially dangerous threat to your people for a lot less money and lives than it would've cost you to send the town guard.

[Mechalich]

In general, if the nobles of a generic feudal holding are responsible and have well-equipped forces of their own capable of meeting their military obligations to their superiors and those forces are not currently on campaign, then adventurers are indeed superfluous. Also, the forces of the state should be easily capable of overwhelming bandits/foreign tribes from the marginal wilderness beyond the borders and crushing them thoroughly in a punitive campaign through superior numbers, equipment, and training. Strong, stable, states that are currently at peace do not need adventurers (though of course there's nothing to stop the PCs from serving as official state special forces).

However, the calculation changes if the state is weak - and therefore unable to properly support its required military forces - unstable - and therefore cannot dispatch troops because they may rise in rebellion - or at war - and therefore all its troops are far away and unavailable. It's also possible that the current threat, whatever it is, is sufficiently dangerous that it seriously damaged the local military and therefore outside assistance is required (though this works better for higher level adventurers). Additionally, it could be that the state's forces got crushed on campaign last year and there aren't enough soldiers available. This is particularly useful in terms of giving the authorities the money to pay adventurers along with the need to hire them.

[Saintheart]

In general, if the nobles of a generic feudal holding are responsible and have well-equipped forces of their own capable of meeting their military obligations to their superiors and those forces are not currently on campaign, then adventurers are indeed superfluous. Also, the forces of the state should be easily capable of overwhelming bandits/foreign tribes from the marginal wilderness beyond the borders and crushing them thoroughly in a punitive campaign through superior numbers, equipment, and training. Strong, stable, states that are currently at peace do not need adventurers (though of course there's nothing to stop the PCs from serving as official state special forces).

However, the calculation changes if the state is weak - and therefore unable to properly support its required military forces - unstable - and therefore cannot dispatch troops because they may rise in rebellion - or at war - and therefore all its troops are far away and unavailable. It's also possible that the current threat, whatever it is, is sufficiently dangerous that it seriously damaged the local military and therefore outside assistance is required (though this works better for higher level adventurers). Additionally, it could be that the state's forces got crushed on campaign last year and there aren't enough soldiers available. This is particularly useful in terms of giving the authorities the money to pay adventurers along with the need to hire them.

Or it's just poor timing for the local state. Can't muster the peasantry for a serious fight because it's right in the middle of harvest season, pull six hundred peasants or even minor nobility off the land and there'll be famine next year. Indeed the time taken for the archetypical feudal overlord to call on his vassals' resources might mean it's more convenient or necessary to send in adventurers now.

[Mechalich]

Or it's just poor timing for the local state. Can't muster the peasantry for a serious fight because it's right in the middle of harvest season, pull six hundred peasants or even minor nobility off the land and there'll be famine next year. Indeed the time taken for the archetypical feudal overlord to call on his vassals' resources might mean it's more convenient or necessary to send in adventurers now.

If the resources of a party of 5-10 adventurers are capable of representing the output of a peasant army of hundreds, that's a world-building problem right there, because it means that in this fantasy world armies are irrelevant. A group of adventurers is intended to represent the equivalent of a party of elite warriors, whether that be knights, ninja, or whatever other resource represents the equivalent of special forces at the tech level, not an army.

[Pauly]

In rough order of importance, although circumstances may push things up or down the list.

1) They are expendable.

2) It’s a non-critical mission. If they screw up you can send your big boys to clean uo after them.

3) they are cheap. You’re not paying them a wage, not paying for their equipment, you have no obligation to support any widows or orphans, and most of their remuneration will be loot taken from the bad guys.

4) They’re ready right now. You don’t need to reassign duties or leave yourself shorthanded.

5) it takes them off your streets where they can cause trouble with the town guard and other locals. They are a hammer looking for a nail, so give them a nail that’s over there.

6) Plausible deniability. Nope, those adventurers that stormed and robbed your outpost - never seen ‘em before. They must be from somewhere else.

[Squire Doodad]

If the resources of a party of 5-10 adventurers are capable of representing the output of a peasant army of hundreds, that's a world-building problem right there, because it means that in this fantasy world armies are irrelevant. A group of adventurers is intended to represent the equivalent of a party of elite warriors, whether that be knights, ninja, or whatever other resource represents the equivalent of special forces at the tech level, not an army.

I mean, it's DnD. Maybe not 600 peasants, but while a mid-level Fighter alone is a force on the battlefield, a mage with plenty of fireballs gets crowd control (something that no medieval peasant without class levels can offer) and together a team of 4 can do a full dungeon over a week or so. How many peasants do you need to fight off 20 goblins and 5 orcs? How easily can an adventuring party handle this across 3 encounters?

I would certainly say that hiring, hm, three parties of adventurers can be worth not having to send out scores of peasants to match their might.

6) Plausible deniability. Nope, those adventurers that stormed and robbed your outpost - never seen ‘em before. They must be from somewhere else.

This works even better when you're hiring people to start a war and pin it on someone else, and then the assertion that you hired them is just another part of the evil scheme to start a war by the real masterminds.

[Anonymouswizard]

If the resources of a party of 5-10 adventurers are capable of representing the output of a peasant army of hundreds, that's a world-building problem right there, because it means that in this fantasy world armies are irrelevant. A group of adventurers is intended to represent the equivalent of a party of elite warriors, whether that be knights, ninja, or whatever other resource represents the equivalent of special forces at the tech level, not an army.

In Berserk Guts is roughly equivalent to a couple of hundred peasants during the Golden Age arc, taking out 100 properly trained and equipped soldiers. He doesn't invalidate armies because armies are significantly bigger than that, at even that point Guts is top tier (there's what, maybe a dozen as strong as him in two countries). After the Eclipse he's even stronger, but no longer doing the kind of work that impacts on armies.

But seriously, if we're talking Goblin Warcamp we're looking at what, a couple of dozen warriors? Ten well equipped Knights or a few dozen shoddily equipped peasants could manage that. If we're talking Goblin settlement then any party that could take it on is likely outside of most noble's price rangesm

6) Plausible deniability. Nope, those adventurers that stormed and robbed your outpost - never seen ‘em before. They must be from somewhere else.

You know, it never occurred to me before that PCs generally don't insist on a written contract.

I'm definitely using that as an excuse for a quest giver to rip them off next game I run. It should lead to a fun prison break scenario once they murder them.

[Saintheart]

Let's bear in mind that, according to the OP, the threat is said to look like goblins, but that you, lord of the state, have never seen a goblin before and even doubt they exist. For that you presumably have the reports of a frightened pack of villagers. And whatever the number, it's enough to "sack" and "burn" villages (plural), it's not just raiding the odd outlying homestead, it's taking on whole hamlets or settlements. It's also apparent a concentration of what, several dozen people (some of whom might be armed themselves) can't fight them off, because said villages (plural) are getting burned. It "seems every other day" that a village is being sacked, so the force is highly mobile. Its area of raiding can be identified but they strike without warning, so it's a force that's good at guerrilla warfare. You apparently don't have any spellcasters, and the force of mobile hobos that's just walked into town does. Presumably as a setting-savvy person, you know magic's a much better force multiplier than packs of peasants, and peasants killed means less of a workforce to bring in the foundations of your revenue base. There is, after all, that risk; you're raising a militia from a bunch of farmers, it's not exactly the Spartiates you're drawing the force from, casualty odds are probable if the "goblins" are strong enough to burn villages and kill people.

Sure you could send your knights out, or raise a militia, but that means said knights aren't keeping your peace, and the militia aren't ploughing fields and supplying grain for the mills you own or charge royalties on. What's more economical, risking your workforce to take weeks off chasing something that might not even exist (and which you might have to pay to keep out there in the field), or paying a small sum of money to the murderhobos and promising them they can keep all the WBL plunder they'll find out there among these monsters?

[Satinavian]

The most important reason would be "They are ready to go now", when assembling your army would take time.

Another reason could be that your personal force is not very suited for the task. Maybe you have a lack of scouts, maybe the enemy hides in difficult terrain or something else.

Or your troops ar busy/dead. Maybe you have another war or you recently lost one. Maybe the "goblins" attack now precicely because you are weakened and can't repell them on your own.

I disagree with all those "They are cheap" answers. Adventurer pay tends to be quite high in most settings as it has to be relevant in sight of treasure and magic items. Adventurers are certainly not cheap. But then again, they are basically mercenaries and mercenaries are not cheap either. Both make it up by you not having to pay them when you don't need them.


Generally what you would want to do if such attacks occured is both mobilizing your army and sending a scout force at the same time so when you are ready to go, you have proper intelligence for the real battle. It would be not too farfetched for some of the scouts to be well armed experienced travellers from some tavern, if you don't have enough on your own.




On the whole I don't go out of my way to to make RPG adventurer class tropes a thing in my games. It would be more likely on such a scenario for the PCs to be part of the nobles forces or allies in the first place, so by sending them, the noble is dispatching their own forces.

Knights and other proper forces a noble has cost money all the time (or need land) to sustain them. It is an investment that you really should use when you have the need instead of paying even more money for mercenaries.

[Anonymouswizard]

Adventures are likely cheap compared to the costs associated with raising an army. But honestly in the presented example you're likely using the adventurers mostly for reconnaissance: they're to find a goblin camp, go full murderhobo, and then drag back the map/handy rock/whatever has the location of the other maps on it.

If they're raiding homesteads outside the city it's probably one or two camps, just enough for a bunch of heavily armed lunatics to deal with. In that case it's probably just easier to use whatever mercenaries are to hand than to deal with the paperwork involved in activating the Knights or militia. If you have recurring goblin problems and they're good at dealing with it you might as well pay them to hang around and deal with goblin threats quickly.

If we continue along these lines we end up with some kind of centralised government service or mercenary company spending a lot of time making sure the country has the right density of 'adventurers' in the right place. Which honestly, is one of the more popular models after 'wandering randos' and which some settings explicitly use (such as Blue Rose, which I'm currently reading).

[Eldan]

Part of that can also be solved by backstory.

I've played more than one campaign where the player group were "trusted agents of the king" or "local noble and his three advisors", or "temple soldiers", things like that. Your party doesn't have to be hobos with no local connections.

If we're playing the typical campaign of "four random dudes who met in a tavern and go adventuring together", I set it in a location where such makes sense. A border outpost in the steppes. A pirate haven. A new colony on a dangerous continent.

If they are in a more settled region, I try to think of a reason why it's adventurers instead of professional soldiers (if the players aren't professional soldiers.) They could be hired for an assassination, or a scouting mission, or a false flag operation, or smuggling. Something you don't want to have your name stamped on officially. Shadowrunning, to borrow a term from another game.

Or to sum up, I try to avoid the situation laid out in the OP.

[DigoDragon]

6) Plausible deniability. Nope, those adventurers that stormed and robbed your outpost - never seen ‘em before. They must be from somewhere else.

I do love a good fantasy "Shadowrun".

Adventurers are really useful when you need something done that falls outside the normal jurisdiction of your own knights. If they get captured, you can deny any involvement. If they succeed, you have a useful group for performing shadow operations. :3

[Eldan]

Or it's just something your knights don't want to do.

"Otyughs? In the sewers. In the middle of summer, when we haven't had rain to flush the sewers for three weeks. I am sorry, my liege, but I need to, uh, polish my maille. Thursday? No, I need to take my valets to the tailor on Thursday. You should hire those heavily armed vagrants who showed up at the port yesterday instead."

[StragaSevera]

Or it's just something your knights don't want to do.

Yes, by the way. If we are talking about medieval times, there are vassal contracts with obligations about what this noble knight will do and what he will not do. Paying a full-time soldier squad is expensive, that's why medieval lords preferred to outsource - give some land and some serfs to a guy, and getting resources from those lands and those serfs is his problem.
Each time you use your vassals in not-so-profitable expedition, or an expedition that has problems with being dishonorable or politically dangerous, you risk their trust. That's why, in history, most kingdoms gradually switched from vassal armies to hired armies (mercenaries), and then to standing, full-time armies.

[Pauly]

I disagree with all those "They are cheap" answers. Adventurer pay tends to be quite high in most settings as it has to be relevant in sight of treasure and magic items. Adventurers are certainly not cheap. But then again, they are basically mercenaries and mercenaries are not cheap either. Both make it up by you not having to pay them when you don't need them.
.

Cheap is a relative term. Given a standard fantasy setting where the lord has a standing guard that functions as a combined modern military and police force they have to:
- pay a per diem salary
- pay for training
- provide food and lodging
- buy arms, armor, equipment and consumables
- is liable for the upkeep of any widows and orphans

Adventurers are hired on a piece rate to do a job.

In a more historically based setting with citizen soldiers/trained militias where the lord’s fighters are providing for their skills and equipment from their own pockets then ‘cheap’ won’t apply.

[elros]

in short, your knights and soldiers are for when an actual war is going to happen, and your peasants are for tilling the fields. hire the adventurers and you make sure you don't waste your loyal forces that can guard you against the lord scheming against you next door.

I agree. Feudal lords typically did not have large standing military forces, and called on other people (e.g. peasants, posse, brute squad), etc) when more force was needed.
I also used guilds and other patrons to sponsor adventures, since it would more sense for an organization like that to outsource those activities to adventures.

[awa]

note dealing with goblins often involves some degree of night fighting or spelunking. While it is plausible for a handful of murder hobos to catch them off guard a typical gang of goblins will detect and flee a peasant army long before it can bring those numbers to bear, armies are neither fast or quite. Getting the goblins to run just moves the problem some where else, a small group of raiders is much more mobile than your army.

The pcs with their implied experience at dark caves full of traps are simply the correct tool for the job.

[KorvinStarmast]

- Alternatively, you could hire them to investigate the village(s) that have already been sacked, while using your more trusted military forces to reinforce the villages that have not yet been sacked but might still be targeted. This way even if they do turn on you and loot the village, there will be less to be lost in both property and lives.
- If some rowdy and dangerous strangers die to goblins or other monsters, then no big deal. Your military forces are the husbands, wives, brothers, and sisters of your people. If any of them die, your people might loose faith in you as a leader.
- Strangers trained in combat are probably more effective then farmers who picked up a pitchfork.
- Historically, mercenaries have been very loyal to whoever paid them. Everyone has their price and all.

These are good approaches.

Generally your knights and militia are of more use to you administrating or producing respectively. Adventurers don't have any other jobs, which means hiring them is likely less costly than disturbing the smooth running of your land.

It also likely means faster results. You don't have to go through all the hassle of getting the Knights or militia in order to start fighting back.

Just finished a biography of Edward I (Longshanks) and that was a key issue for him, year after year, in raising troops to deal with Wales, France, and Scotland.

Less paperwork, less expense, fewer people pulled off the land. And if it's a deathtrap, adventurers are expendable in the way your own vassals aren't. And way faster. You can have boots on the ground in the time it takes the party to get there, instead of a season or more later (especially if you have to call in other allies).

This too.

Plus, adventurers specialize in handling the sorts of things that can be dealt with by a special-forces group. Because that's what they really are, in D&D terms. Especially at the levels where you're going to actually hire them off the street and aren't already famous. And if they fail, you still have your other forces.

Get in, investigate, murder some people (who may or may not deserve it, but were in the way anyway, which is cause enough), get out. That's an adventurer's stock in trade. Knights or militia, not so much.

Although sometimes the adventurers make friends with whomever they encounter, or adopt one of them. Their loyalty is a moving target.

in short, your knights and soldiers are for when an actual war is going to happen, and your peasants are for tilling the fields. hire the adventurers and you make sure you don't waste your loyal forces that can guard you against the lord scheming against you next door.

+1.

Can't muster the peasantry for a serious fight because it's right in the middle of harvest season, pull six hundred peasants or even minor nobility off the land and there'll be famine next year. Indeed the time taken for the archetypical feudal overlord to call on his vassals' resources might mean it's more convenient or necessary to send in adventurers now.

+1.

Let's bear in mind that, according to the OP, the threat is said to look like goblins, but that you, lord of the state, have never seen a goblin before and even doubt they exist.
Sure you could send your knights out, or raise a militia, but that means said knights aren't keeping your peace, and the militia aren't ploughing fields and supplying grain for the mills you own or charge royalties on. What's more economical, risking your workforce to take weeks off chasing something that might not even exist (and which you might have to pay to keep out there in the field), or paying a small sum of money to the murderhobos and promising them they can keep all the WBL plunder they'll find out there among these monsters?

The murderhobos adventurers are a form of armed reconnaissance. And expendable.

[Sapphire Guard]

Easy enough. The local forces can beat raiders in a fight. The raiders know that too, that's why they're raiders and not holding land. If the militia or knights come, they will likely run or hide until the local forces go away (you can't sustain a large force in the field for long, and you can't put a garrison in every homestead.)

If they do end up fighting, the militia or knights will likely win... but winning sides still take casualties. If your peasant militia loses six or seven people to death or even long term injury, those people can't work the land.

If you lose a knight, then she takes a long time to replace (or an expensive resurrection. A good warhorse and full plate are expensive to replace, and training takes a long time.

If the adventurers die or get hurt, you don't have to care.

[MoiMagnus]

Med Fan universes are universes in which some rare individual can become one-men-armies with enough determination/skill/talent/luck/fate, the main NPCs are probably aware of it.

And that can be factored in the "why hire adventurers?".

• Maybe the nobles in this universe like nobles in JRPGs where they're either heroes or retired heroes, and have ideological or emotional attachment to giving to a new generation of adventurer an occasion to shine and rise to the top.
• Maybe it's a question of survival of kingdom to make sure that the adventurers are invested in protecting the kingdom, as (1) there are some problems only them can solve and (2) you have to keep them busy or they might start to cause some problems.
• Maybe it's part of a process to eventually recruit them. They'll eventually retire from their life of adventure and they might be able to be very competent recruits. Or danger to the society, in which case the earlier you notice it the easier it is to exile them.
• Maybe the society is dependent on having adventurers helping the kingdom on a regular basis, and simply do not have the means to deal with monsters & co without calling for them. [Can be combine with "the troups are busy at war"]

[Easy e]

For the best reason of all! They are expendable and deniable.

[Luccan]

+1 to the points about expendability and speed as a factor, not to mention keeping the armed and dangerous folks away from all the stuff you don't want broken or stolen. In terms of cost, each individual is likely making more than if you sent your army, but it should cost you less in the long run. Especially if you're paying the standard adventuring rate of "you get paid when you come back successful", so if they fail it's free (and maybe they still provide some value softening up the enemy force) and otherwise you're probably paying them less than half what you'd spend on arming and keeping on its feet a full militia and several knights+retinue.


Idk why the lord doesn't believe in goblins in this example, they're not exactly uncommon in most fantasy settings that have them. Mostly seems like that's in there as a reason not to hire mercenaries, as if just being human raiders would somehow make that ridiculous.

[Slipjig]

If it's a bunch of random strangers in town (as opposed to well-known local badasses) the OP has a fair point. The Baron probably won't send his seneschal down to the local pub to hire random dangerous looking people. It's a lot more plausible that he'll post a general bounty (and even then that's probably only if his knights can't handle it or are needed elsewhere).

It's a lot more likely that the person willing to hire a bunch of complete strangers will be people who don't have troops of their own: village headman, crime bosses, or wizards/priests who don't want to get their hands dirty.

Regarding the "adventurers are cheap/well-compensated" discussion up-thread, both can be true: adventurers are gig workers, you hire them when you need them, and have no obligation to them once the job is done. When adventurers are performing level-appropriate work, they make good money (assuming they survive). However, once the job is done, they either have to move on looking for a new gig, or else take low-paying work while they wait for the next time somebody in the area needs hired muscle.

[Dimers]

I came here to say "expendable" and "get the dangerous people out of your town", but I'll emphasize the combination of "expendable" and "cheap". That is to say, if you don't give them payment up front, it's entirely reasonable to believe that the adventurers won't have a chance to collect. (Including if you have them jailed or killed when they come back reporting success. Not that THAT ever comes up in Shadowrun games.) They might blunt the enemy forces and then conveniently die, costing you and your troops nothing, while at the same time keeping the adventurers from causing trouble in your barony.

Even supposing the adventurers succeed and you end up paying them as agreed, you're only out the cash (no contract), and you've earned accolades as a leader who deals with problems swiftly and well.

[Tanarii]

There's always a motive:
https://critical-hits.com/blog/2015/...stment-bubble/

Of course it might not be all that easy:
https://critical-hits.com/blog/2016/...ss-of-plunder/

And of course, sometimes it's something more serious like a dragon:
https://critical-hits.com/blog/2015/...rider-problem/