Are hirelings over-powered?
Are hirelings and retainers OP in OSR D&D TTRPGs? Here's my take!
Transcript
Hirelings and retainers—I saw a question come up on Reddit: are hirelings OP? This made me think of other questions I've seen recently on Reddit, all asking essentially the same thing: are hirelings worth it, are they too strong, are they too powerful, what to do with them, etc. I’ve done videos on hirelings in the past, but I'm going to keep this brief and just cover the main points of this topic.
Hireling Cost-Benefit Analysis
Whether hirelings are overpowered or not really comes down to the cost versus the benefits they provide. Traditionally, hirelings don’t go into dangerous places—retainers do. But not everyone makes that distinction.
Not everyone puts limits on the number of retainers, as systems like BX do—usually basing it on your charisma, maybe your level or class. I think those are some natural limitations, but not everyone uses them. I often make a general ruling that, sure, a hireling (and by hireling, I mean a laborer who doesn’t have and probably never will get class levels—this also includes mercenaries) can be part of the group. Sometimes people try to use a loophole, like bringing an army into a dungeon, and at Gygax’s table, it’s rumored someone used orc after orc after orc to clear out the Tomb of Horrors. That’s fine—I don’t think that was about loot, but survival. I have no idea what rules Gygax used about treasure shares, but in any case, as soon as you ask a hireling to go somewhere dangerous, like a dungeon, suddenly they want shares of the treasure. For me, that’s a hard rule—no way around it; that’s the asking price.
Hazard Pay for Hirelings
If you want a hireling to hang out at camp and take care of animals, you can pay them by the day, give them food, shelter, and some semblance of safety, and they'll do the work. But as soon as you ask them to go into a dungeon, now you’re talking shares.
In games like BX, this is a big deal because that’s how players get experience. It’s not just that you’re losing some loot; you’re also losing the XP that comes with that loot. This usually acts as a pretty good control on how many hirelings people want to bring, because they want to level up and get that loot. Once they start dividing it and realize how much they’re losing—not just gold, but experience—into the hireling “hole” (and remember, hirelings either level up themselves or not at all), then they start questioning if it’s really worth it.
If the hirelings level up themselves, the party might look at that as an investment—unless the hireling leaves. But if the hireling is, say, a torchbearer who isn’t likely to level up, then that XP is just going down the drain. You’re spending XP for an extra set of hands and then start wondering if you need or want that, especially if you could have used that XP to level up yourself. So, there’s a control there.
Hireling Loyalty & Morale
Another control is loyalty and morale. These are a big deal, but they require you as the GM to keep up with the accounting and make the rolls as needed. Loyalty is how fondly these NPCs view their employers—are they likely to betray them, make side deals, or act in their own interest? Morale is whether they’ll break and run or do something panicky in a tough situation. These both come up when these characters are under duress, which happens often in a dungeon. If you have a retainer who’s a level one fighter, maybe they’re hardened veterans, but your torchbearer isn’t. You should be rolling morale for those non-professional adventurers.
When you roll morale and someone’s about to break, then you can roll loyalty to determine how they act—a happy hireling might just run and hide, an angry one might try to steal something on the way out. Great morale means they’ll stick it out, poor morale means you look to loyalty for their next move.
Hireling Risks, Costs, and Emergent Storytelling
All these factors—XP cost, unpredictability—should usually give parties pause before going wild with hirelings. If you have a whole army of hirelings with you in the dungeon, you’re giving up lots of XP and loot, and you never know what those characters might do when things get rough. You also lose some options: stealth is out if you have a big group, and you have to think about where everyone is and what they’re doing if combat splits up. Maybe something else comes along and finds your group waiting in the hallway, splitting your party and the action.
That leads to emergent storytelling—maybe a hireling runs off with a valuable gem needed to stop the necromancer, and now the party needs to find them before it’s too late.
Hiring for an Expedition
If your party is able to bring in lots of hirelings with all the benefits and none of the costs—in loot, experience, or how the dungeon responds—then the costs aren’t high enough and you’ll want to adjust the hireling economics.
I really like the expeditionary feel where it’s worthwhile to bring people with you, maybe not into the dungeon, but certainly to the campsite—to drive the wagon, watch the horses, cook, or guard the camp, with maybe some little bonuses for doing so. For example, if you have a cook, maybe you gain an extra hit point or two when resting. If you have camp defenders, maybe there’s a lower chance of a wandering creature. But as soon as you go into the dungeon, the hirelings’ price should go way up.
Fitting Hirelings into the Game
I like the XP-for-gold rule because it affects the party’s pocketbook and advancement—one of those will usually make them reconsider bringing so many hirelings along. If it’s too easy to bring in as many as you want, then it’s time to tweak the economics.
Ultimately, it's about making bringing hirelings a real choice. If it's just a no-brainer to hire all the hirelings possible, then the system needs adjusting.
I hope that helps! Game on, everybody!
