Friends, Hirelings, and Side-Kicks

[restlessgriffin]

Originally Posted by mburr0003

DFRPG might not be the best choice as it strongly downplays social skills and abilities (except in Bards that over dominate the field). It's doable, but I tend to give a few more discretionary points so Players can build for social skills being not just 'useful' but necessary.

And then I make social skills broadly necessary.

You do realize Leadership is a REQUIRED skill for Knight and Holy Warrior! So I want the PCs to be able to use the skill they are required to take. I also want them to find it useful. Leadership is of fairly limited use when there are only PCs. It really shines when there are NPCs around to follow orders and benefit from good leadership. Hirelings and soldiers under your command are best, but even a group of townsfolk being attacked by monsters can rally behind a knight that comes in to fight against attacking monsters.

Probably be expecting them to be one-shotting the mooks while the Barbarian laid heavy damage on the main 'tankish' foe? I doubt their play-style changes based on who is in what role (fellow PC or Ally/Hireling).

It comes down to free-will. If it's PCs they can do whatever they want. If you convince them to carryout an attack in a specific fashion fine. But the Leadership skill will have no part to play in that. For NPCs it certainly will UNLESS you just let the players also handle the NPC hirelings, in which case the hirelings are just bit part PCs. In that case, the Leadership skill doesn't matter, the player in control doesn't even need to give commands, orders, or say anything. The NPCs are just automatons who are in perfect lock step with whatever the player wants them to do. That's not the way I want hirelings handled! Hirelings and side-kicks are NPCs with a CAPITAL "N"!

Oh, you mean "how would you convince them"? You ask, or bark orders, whatever works. What Dammann is aiming at is making sure teh Ally/Henchmen/Hirelings feel like they are worth their resources and optionally ensure they don't outshine a PC by letting the Players control them.

Secondary advantage is that if the hireling fails to do their task, no blame can fall on a GM for it, even if it ends in TPK.

I don't worry about blame falling on the GM. I also don't want the NPCs to be mere extensions of the players or tools. I'm already firmly convinced on this area. I don't want or need advice on how to handle control of the NPCs/hirelings, that's a GM job! I'm looking for advice on useful skills, advantages, etc. for the PLAYERs and PCs.

If players have control of NPCs/hirelings, why would they EVER increase Leadership. I want the players to find Leadership to be a useful skill. If they directly have control of hirelings/sidekicks, the usefulness of Leadership is dramatically reduced.